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Moral Purity and Persecution in History
The intellectual scope and courage to contend with the largest puzzles of human existence and organization distinguish great social thinkers. Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy was a foundational work of historical sociology that influenced a generation of social scientists and, decades later, continues to be widely read and taught. Here, Moore takes up the same tools of historical comparison to investigate why groups of people kill and torture each other. His answer is arrestingly simple: people persecute those whom they perceive as polluting due to their "impure" religious, political, or economic ideas.
Moore's search begins with the Old Testament's restrictions on sexual behavior, idolatry, diet, and handling unclean objects. He argues that religious authorities seeking to distinguish the ancient Hebrews from competing groups invented, along with monotheism, the association of impure things with moral failure and the violation of God's will. This allowed people to view those holding competing ideas as contaminated and, more important, contaminating. Moore moves next to the French Wars of Religion, in which Protestants and Catholics massacred each other over the control of purity, and the French Revolution, which perfected terror and secularized purity. He then combs the major Asian religions and finds--to his surprise--that violent efforts to eradicate the "impure" were largely absent before substantial Western influence.
Moore's provocative conclusion is that monotheism--with its monopoly on virtue and failure to provide supernatural scapegoats--is responsible for some of the most virulent forms of intolerance and is a major cause of human nastiness and suffering. Moore does not say that the monotheist tradition was the primary source of Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism, violent Hindu fundamentalism, or ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, but he does identify it as an indispensable cause because it justified, encouraged, and spread vindictive persecution throughout the world.
Once again, Moore has drawn on his comprehensive understanding of history and talent for speaking directly to readers to address one of the most crucial questions about human past and future. This book is for anyone who has ever heard the word genocide and asked why.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published February 28, 2000
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About the author
Barrington Moore Jr.
13 books43 followersBarrington Moore Jr. (12 May 1913 – 16 October 2005) was an American political sociologist, and the son of forester Barrington Moore. He is famous for his ''Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World'' (1966), a comparative study of [[modernization]] in Britain, France, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India. His many other works include ''Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery'' (1972) and an analysis of rebellion, ''Injustice: the Social Basis of Obedience and Revolt'' (1978).
He graduated from Williams College, Massachusetts, where he received a thorough education in Latin and Greek and in history. He also became interested in political science, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1941, Moore obtained his Ph.D. in sociology from Υale University. He worked as a policy analyst for the government, in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and at the Department of Justice. He met Herbert Marcuse, a lifelong friend, and also his future wife, Elizabeth Ito, at the OSS. His wife died in 1992. They had no children.
His academic career began in 1945 at the University of Chicago, in 1948 he went to Harvard University, joining the ''Russian Research Center'' in 1951. He was emerited in 1979. Moore published his first book, ''Soviet Politics'' in 1950 and ''Terror and Progress, USSR'' in 1954. In 1958 his book of six essays on methodology and theory, ''Political Power and Social Theory'', attacked the methodological outlook of 1950s social science. His students at Harvard included comparative social scientists Theda Skocpol, and Charles Tilly.
He graduated from Williams College, Massachusetts, where he received a thorough education in Latin and Greek and in history. He also became interested in political science, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1941, Moore obtained his Ph.D. in sociology from Υale University. He worked as a policy analyst for the government, in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and at the Department of Justice. He met Herbert Marcuse, a lifelong friend, and also his future wife, Elizabeth Ito, at the OSS. His wife died in 1992. They had no children.
His academic career began in 1945 at the University of Chicago, in 1948 he went to Harvard University, joining the ''Russian Research Center'' in 1951. He was emerited in 1979. Moore published his first book, ''Soviet Politics'' in 1950 and ''Terror and Progress, USSR'' in 1954. In 1958 his book of six essays on methodology and theory, ''Political Power and Social Theory'', attacked the methodological outlook of 1950s social science. His students at Harvard included comparative social scientists Theda Skocpol, and Charles Tilly.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 18, 2010
In this book, Moore’s stated purpose is to delineate some historical connections between ideas of moral purity and persecution or ostracization. After a few moments of reflection, however, it strikes me as difficult to think of many instances in which persecution that didn’t have their roots in some notion of purity, moral or otherwise. It especially won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the wide swath of anthropological literature on the subject, like Mary Douglas’ “Purity and Danger.” I thought this book might have something new or interesting to say about it, but I was wrong.
This book has at least two problems that should be considered egregious shortcomings in a book of such sweeping history. Firstly, the paucity of examples from which he chooses to draw is problematic. He considers only, in chronological order: the literature of the Old Testament, the religion wars of sixteenth-century France, the French Revolution, and “Asiatic civilizations.” Secondly, one walks away from the book with the idea that the topologies of persecution – how they shame, in what circumstances they occur, their sociological functions, et cetera – are never explored. There is nothing for the almost two millennia between the Old Testament and the France of the 1500s. And then there’s the fact that “Asiatic civilizations” is so anachronistic as to be risible. But then again, so is the picture in the back of the book, showing him with a gigantic corncob pipe hanging out of his mouth.
The thesis of the book is that, in the first three historical instances, persecution and concepts of moral purity were closely tied together, while in “Asiatic civilizations” (he considers Confucian and Buddhist religious thought here mostly), the connection is much more tenuous, and perhaps even nonexistent. We are simply told, in instance after instance, that people were persecuted or driven out of different movements or societies (the radicals in the Revolution, Jewish society of the Old Testament, et cetera) because they broke some sort of ethical-moral stricture. This almost reduces the entire book to a set of linear, historical treatments whereas I thought that it would bring in something more integrative and interdisciplinary.
This book has at least two problems that should be considered egregious shortcomings in a book of such sweeping history. Firstly, the paucity of examples from which he chooses to draw is problematic. He considers only, in chronological order: the literature of the Old Testament, the religion wars of sixteenth-century France, the French Revolution, and “Asiatic civilizations.” Secondly, one walks away from the book with the idea that the topologies of persecution – how they shame, in what circumstances they occur, their sociological functions, et cetera – are never explored. There is nothing for the almost two millennia between the Old Testament and the France of the 1500s. And then there’s the fact that “Asiatic civilizations” is so anachronistic as to be risible. But then again, so is the picture in the back of the book, showing him with a gigantic corncob pipe hanging out of his mouth.
The thesis of the book is that, in the first three historical instances, persecution and concepts of moral purity were closely tied together, while in “Asiatic civilizations” (he considers Confucian and Buddhist religious thought here mostly), the connection is much more tenuous, and perhaps even nonexistent. We are simply told, in instance after instance, that people were persecuted or driven out of different movements or societies (the radicals in the Revolution, Jewish society of the Old Testament, et cetera) because they broke some sort of ethical-moral stricture. This almost reduces the entire book to a set of linear, historical treatments whereas I thought that it would bring in something more integrative and interdisciplinary.
March 7, 2019
Ben scritto, ben documentato, ben pensato.
Ma troppo corto. Troppo corto per la materia che vorrebbe trattare, che meriterebbe ben altro spazio per risultare convincente. Così sembra che l'autore abbia selezionato unicamente casi a suo favore, ignorandone altri.
Più in generale trovo poco convincente la spiegazione causale. L'autore sostiene che la ricerca della purezza morale nei monoteismi sia la causa delle persecuzioni con tendenze allo sterminio nella Storia. A me sembra che la prima sia piuttosto un linguaggio in cui la seconda tendenza si esprime e che le cause, ancora tutte da indagare, risiedano nella concreta biologia dell'umano: i comportamenti emergono dalla meccanica del cervello e da come questo si interfaccia con altri cervelli umani.
Diversi dubbî sul fatto che l'Asia non abbia conosciuto persecuzioni tendenti allo sterminio: per la storia pre-moderna i dati, si sa, potrebbero mancare (anche per uno studioso del calibro dell'autore, che sembra assai preparato); ma per quella moderna, oltre alla Rivoluzione Culturale in Cina, non si può non pensare alla Cambogia sotto i Khmer rossi. Liquidare tutto, come l'autore sembra fare, come un "influsso dell'Occidente" mi sembra semplificatorio. Anche il fatto che buddhismo o confucianesimo non possano partorire sistemi intolleranti, lo contraddicono il sorgere del buddhismo di Nichiren in Giappone e, sempre nello stesso paese, la persecuzione dei cristiani nel XVII secolo.
Manca inoltre qualunque cenno allo sterminio degli Armeni o al genocidio in Rwanda, altri due massacri che sfuggono all'influsso del monoteismo, secolarizzato o meno, così come lo concepisce l'autore...
Insomma, la storia, locale o globale che sia, è sempre meno lineare di quanto si creda, e sfugge alle grandi catalogazioni. E la tendenza della specie umana a distruggere gli estranei da cui si sente fallacemente minacciata richiede ancora una spiegazione seria.
Ma troppo corto. Troppo corto per la materia che vorrebbe trattare, che meriterebbe ben altro spazio per risultare convincente. Così sembra che l'autore abbia selezionato unicamente casi a suo favore, ignorandone altri.
Più in generale trovo poco convincente la spiegazione causale. L'autore sostiene che la ricerca della purezza morale nei monoteismi sia la causa delle persecuzioni con tendenze allo sterminio nella Storia. A me sembra che la prima sia piuttosto un linguaggio in cui la seconda tendenza si esprime e che le cause, ancora tutte da indagare, risiedano nella concreta biologia dell'umano: i comportamenti emergono dalla meccanica del cervello e da come questo si interfaccia con altri cervelli umani.
Diversi dubbî sul fatto che l'Asia non abbia conosciuto persecuzioni tendenti allo sterminio: per la storia pre-moderna i dati, si sa, potrebbero mancare (anche per uno studioso del calibro dell'autore, che sembra assai preparato); ma per quella moderna, oltre alla Rivoluzione Culturale in Cina, non si può non pensare alla Cambogia sotto i Khmer rossi. Liquidare tutto, come l'autore sembra fare, come un "influsso dell'Occidente" mi sembra semplificatorio. Anche il fatto che buddhismo o confucianesimo non possano partorire sistemi intolleranti, lo contraddicono il sorgere del buddhismo di Nichiren in Giappone e, sempre nello stesso paese, la persecuzione dei cristiani nel XVII secolo.
Manca inoltre qualunque cenno allo sterminio degli Armeni o al genocidio in Rwanda, altri due massacri che sfuggono all'influsso del monoteismo, secolarizzato o meno, così come lo concepisce l'autore...
Insomma, la storia, locale o globale che sia, è sempre meno lineare di quanto si creda, e sfugge alle grandi catalogazioni. E la tendenza della specie umana a distruggere gli estranei da cui si sente fallacemente minacciata richiede ancora una spiegazione seria.
June 18, 2018
Very disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews