What I’m reading:
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
By Peter Frankopan, 2015
Current page number: 304 of 505
Insights:
The origin of Yale’s name.
Trade was king in the 17th century and there were vast fortunes to be made by those willing to seize it. The British East India Company – an extremely powerful group that operated in some ways as a pseudo branch of the government – was growing in scale in the later 17th century, competing at last with the Dutch. One man drawn to all that potential for power was Elihu Yale, born 1649 in Massachusetts. He traveled back to England as a boy and later joined the East India Company, working his way from a lowly writer to the full blown governor of Madras (an important trade city in the south-east subcontinent of India). He was removed 5 years later and was followed home by rampant rumours that he used his office for personal financial gain, made all the more obvious by the boat he took home which was filled with diamonds, spices, and other valuables. Further evidence, if you are looking for an admission of guilt, might be found on his the epitaph of his grave, which read: “Born in America, in Europe bred, in Africa travell’d and in Asia wed… much good, some ill, he did; so hope all’s even and that his soul throu’ mercy’s gone to Heaven.” Before he died, though, he gave a generous sum to a college in the country of his birth – the Collegiate School of Connecticut – and they renamed the school after him: Yale.
On 15th century Christianity:
“Tolerance was the staple feature of a society that was self-assured and confident of its own identity – which was more than could be said for the Christian world where bigotry and religious fundamentalism were rapidly becoming defining features.”
Other thoughts:
The idea of the book is to adjust the view of history to more accurately reflect the importance of the East. It shows how major decisions, power, and wealth were all intertwined with the places of modern day India, China, Turkey, and Indonisia, etc. It shows how changes in political power, crop success or failure, war and the like in the East could have massive ramifications throughout the West. It shows how Christianity as we know it could have been quite different, and a lot more Eastern, if a few key things (Constantine) had not pivoted it Westward. It has been incredibly fascinating and humbling to my geography abilities and my capacity to remember place names.
An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification
By Maria Edgeworth, 1795
Finished
Insights:
This satirical take on marital relations is baffling and funny. It’s written like an advice column, with the target audience being young or soon-to-be brides. It is chalk full of warnings, tips, and tricks to rule the marriage. It is based on a simple principle: “A lady can do no wrong.”
Accomplishing this is easier than you might think, Edgeworth advises that you simply bend the definitions of morality:
“Right and wrong… are really words of very dubious signification, perpetually varying with customs and fashion, and to be adjusted ultimately by no other standards but opinion and force.”
With this in mind, her advice is simple: “Obtain power, then, by all means.”
Newlyweds or those engaged might still be enjoying that brief window of time when husbands believe their spouses to be perfect, but that moment, Edgeworth warns, will fade quickly:
“Timid brides, you have, probably, hitherto been addressed as angels. Prepare for the time when you shall again become mortal.”
When that day comes, the mortal will need the tools Edgeworth is about to teach the reader.
She goes on, with humour and sharp writing, to describe various tactics to get your husband to submit to your will. Some of the advice is to argue incessantly about trifles, “he will acknowledge the force of your arguments merely from a dread of their length.” Another piece of advice is to admit to a few faults, but never the fault at hand, and actually never any specifically. Just the vague idea that, yes, of course you are fallible, but never arrive on what exactly one of those faults might be. More sage advice comes in the form of delegation. When there is an unavoidable fault that your husband attempts to place on you, spread it as evenly as possible on all within eyesight – maids, housekeepers, children, family, etc. Diffuse the accusation to a thinness so extreme that none come out stained, especially yourself.
My favorite piece of advice she gives to the reader is as follows:
“Regularly appeal to the decision of reason at the beginning of every contest, and deny its jurisdiction at the conclusion.”
As may already be obvious, this satirical advice giver is describing a lot of behavior that is extremely popular right now (which I guess is a dumb distinciton to make if Edgeworth was writing about it in 1795. Instead I’ll say, I was struck by the timelessness of the techniques prescribed here).
I’ll highlight a few even more on-the-nose examples that will likely remind you of many a modern public figure:
“Begin by preventing, if possible, the specific statement of any position, or if reduced to it, use the most general terms, and take advantage of the ambiguity which all languages… allow. Above all things, shun definitions; they will prove fatal to you; for two persons of sense and candor, who define their terms, cannot argue for long without either convincing, or being convinced, or parting in equal good-humour; to prevent which, go over and over the same ground, wander as wide as possible from the point, but always with a view to return at last precisely to the same spot from which you set out.”
Here’s another:
“Depend upon the sympathy of the spectators, for to one who can understand reason, you will find ten who admire wit.”
To take it even further, Edgeworth admits that being right is actually secondary:
“The pleasure of proving that you are right is surely incomplete till you have proved that your adversary is wrong.”
Whether she is talking about a persistent avoidance of definitions, a reliance on flashiness over substance, or an ironclad conviction of your own beliefs, I was blown away by how little people change over history. Imagine all the ways life in the late 18th century was different to the way life is now. You could spend months listing them out and never reach the end, and yet humans, indomitable creatures, continue the same stupid behaviour through it all.
The final blow comes at the end of her essay. She hopes that young wives will use the clever tools she has provided to rule over their husbands in every meaningful way and maintain their status of being “always right.” But after all that is over, she says that there is a lucky, prestigious bunch of people who don’t have to worry about any of those fancy tricks because they have the easiest path forward of all:
“Fair idiots! Let women of sense, wit, feeling, triumph in their various arts: yours are superior. Their empire, absolute as it sometimes may be, is perpetually subject to sudden revolutions. With them, a man has some chance of equal sway: with a fool there is none. Have they hearts and understanding? Then the one may be touched, or the other in some unlucky moment convinced… not so with you.”
The lucky idiots. The powerful fools. When you are too dull to understand reason, you have no motivation to intentionally smother it or distract from it, because it would never cross your mind to call on reason in the first place! The fortunate moron can say simply, as Edgeworth advises:
“Yes; I do not doubt but what you say may be very true, but I cannot tell; I do not think myself capable of judging on these subjects; I am sure you must know much better than I do. I do not pretend to stay but that your opinion is very just; but I own I am of a contrary way of thinking; I always thought so, and I always shall.”
This person is impenetrable.
The only thing Edgeworth doesn’t mention is the fool who believes themselves the expert: the person who has as much capacity for critical thinking as the above “fair idiots” and yet argues with absolute conviction.
All of this was amusing and a little upsetting to read about, and made me think a lot about how people today gain influence, but I am still a little unclear on why Edgeworth wrote it. Who was the target of the satire?
Edgeworth never married, so was she making fun of the brides? Was she mocking their means of gaining power? Was she mocking husbands for thinking so little of their wives? Was she critiquing a society that established a system in which these games were the only way to gain influence? Was she shining a light on the infantilization of women? Was she lamenting that because society did not see a marriage as the partnership of “two persons of sense and candor,” there was nothing for the women to do but manipulate their partners, using the husband’s underestimation against them?
I don’t know, I need to think on it a little longer, but it was some incredibly deft writing.
What I’m thinking about:
Poetry
I’m considering memorizing a few poems, but am intimidated by the prospect – it’s been a while since I’ve memorized anything. Any poem suggestions are welcome. I like the idea of having beautiful language readily at hand, without needing a book or anything to pull it from. I read somewhere about someone who was a POW and was glad that he had spent time memorizing poems because now he had them with him, even in his cell far from home or any poetry book. That is strikingly beautiful. I want to carry poetry with me that way. It feels a little silly considering that at any time I could look up any poem I can think of and read it verbatim, but that just feels less romantic, so I’m gonna try to memorize something.
Re-Reads
Where do I stand on re-reads? I could create a list, within an hour, of books I want to read that would be too long for me to feasibly accomplish before I die, and yet there are books that are practically begging for me to reread them: Crime and Punishment, East of Eden, Plato’s Republic, Paradise Lost, just to name a few. I don’t know what to do about this and I feel a little sick if I think about it too long.
Until next time.
