Gabriele Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780198235804
- eISBN:
- 9780191604058
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198235801.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This book focuses on the vices, which in Christian theology were most commonly selected as bringing death to the soul. These are sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. The ...
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This book focuses on the vices, which in Christian theology were most commonly selected as bringing death to the soul. These are sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. The discussions concentrate on the essence of each vice, and treat their possessors as personifications. They will show a structural resemblance to each other, but there is no suggestion that all vices are of that type. It is shown that vices are harmful to their possessor, and negative support is given for some central claims of an Aristotelean-type virtue-theory.Less
This book focuses on the vices, which in Christian theology were most commonly selected as bringing death to the soul. These are sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. The discussions concentrate on the essence of each vice, and treat their possessors as personifications. They will show a structural resemblance to each other, but there is no suggestion that all vices are of that type. It is shown that vices are harmful to their possessor, and negative support is given for some central claims of an Aristotelean-type virtue-theory.
John Godwin
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622171
- eISBN:
- 9781800851030
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622171.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Juvenal’s fifth and last book of Satires consists of three complete poems and one fragment. The poems offer a scandalised exposure of human folly and vice, but the poet also appears to be promoting ...
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Juvenal’s fifth and last book of Satires consists of three complete poems and one fragment. The poems offer a scandalised exposure of human folly and vice, but the poet also appears to be promoting the value of human life and the need to accept our lives without worshipping the false gods of money, power or superstition—and this is delivered in the hugely entertaining tones of a great master of the Latin language. Satires 13 and 14 both deal with the need to use money without being enslaved by avarice, Satire 15 is an astonishing description of the cannibalism perpetrated in a vicious war in Egypt, while the final unfinished poem in the collection looks from a worm’s-eye view at the advantages enjoyed by men enlisted in the Praetorian guard. The Introduction sets Juvenal in the history of Roman Satire, explores the style of the poems and also asks how far they can be read as in any sense serious, given the ironic pose adopted by the satirist. The text is accompanied by a literal English translation and the commentary (which is keyed to important words in the translation and aims to be accessible to readers with little or no Latin) seeks to explain both the factual background to the poems and also the literary qualities which make this poetry exciting and moving to a modern audience.Less
Juvenal’s fifth and last book of Satires consists of three complete poems and one fragment. The poems offer a scandalised exposure of human folly and vice, but the poet also appears to be promoting the value of human life and the need to accept our lives without worshipping the false gods of money, power or superstition—and this is delivered in the hugely entertaining tones of a great master of the Latin language. Satires 13 and 14 both deal with the need to use money without being enslaved by avarice, Satire 15 is an astonishing description of the cannibalism perpetrated in a vicious war in Egypt, while the final unfinished poem in the collection looks from a worm’s-eye view at the advantages enjoyed by men enlisted in the Praetorian guard. The Introduction sets Juvenal in the history of Roman Satire, explores the style of the poems and also asks how far they can be read as in any sense serious, given the ironic pose adopted by the satirist. The text is accompanied by a literal English translation and the commentary (which is keyed to important words in the translation and aims to be accessible to readers with little or no Latin) seeks to explain both the factual background to the poems and also the literary qualities which make this poetry exciting and moving to a modern audience.
Dennis L. Krebs
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199778232
- eISBN:
- 9780199897261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199778232.003.0018
- Subject:
- Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter offers an account of the evolution of self-control. The capacity for self-control tends to increase as people grow older. Individual differences in self-control have been found to be ...
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This chapter offers an account of the evolution of self-control. The capacity for self-control tends to increase as people grow older. Individual differences in self-control have been found to be stable over time, and to be correlated with measures of success and social adjustment. Research on self-control conducted by developmental psychologists can be integrated in an evolutionary framework. The ability to exert self-control pays off biologically by enabling animals to delay gratification and to constrain selfish urges such as those that define the Seven Deadly Sins (gluttony, avarice, sloth, pride, wrath, envy, and lust).Less
This chapter offers an account of the evolution of self-control. The capacity for self-control tends to increase as people grow older. Individual differences in self-control have been found to be stable over time, and to be correlated with measures of success and social adjustment. Research on self-control conducted by developmental psychologists can be integrated in an evolutionary framework. The ability to exert self-control pays off biologically by enabling animals to delay gratification and to constrain selfish urges such as those that define the Seven Deadly Sins (gluttony, avarice, sloth, pride, wrath, envy, and lust).
Andrew S. Finstuen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833360
- eISBN:
- 9781469604572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807898536_finstuen.11
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This book concludes by arguing that, without question, Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich drove the theological renascence discussed here. In addition to their talent, energy, and ...
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This book concludes by arguing that, without question, Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich drove the theological renascence discussed here. In addition to their talent, energy, and charisma, the likes of which have yet to be seen again in a public religious figure, all three brought the explanatory power and commonsense appeal of the doctrine of original sin to bear on the Age of Anxiety. They believed that the doctrine of original sin was the most accurate description of the human experience. The long record of destruction, avarice, violence, licentiousness, and animus in human history made arguments for the goodness of humanity seem empirically questionable, even unsustainable. This reality of human corruption was as undeniable as the sordidness of history—and was, in fact, the reason for it—and it was confirmed for them by the readily observable manifestation of unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence in all people.Less
This book concludes by arguing that, without question, Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich drove the theological renascence discussed here. In addition to their talent, energy, and charisma, the likes of which have yet to be seen again in a public religious figure, all three brought the explanatory power and commonsense appeal of the doctrine of original sin to bear on the Age of Anxiety. They believed that the doctrine of original sin was the most accurate description of the human experience. The long record of destruction, avarice, violence, licentiousness, and animus in human history made arguments for the goodness of humanity seem empirically questionable, even unsustainable. This reality of human corruption was as undeniable as the sordidness of history—and was, in fact, the reason for it—and it was confirmed for them by the readily observable manifestation of unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence in all people.
Teodolinda Barolini
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227037
- eISBN:
- 9780823241019
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823227037.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Dante's representation of hell is unique in its rich and uninhibited blending of these remarkably heterogeneous constituents into a personal—multicultural—vision; while, for instance, scholastic ...
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Dante's representation of hell is unique in its rich and uninhibited blending of these remarkably heterogeneous constituents into a personal—multicultural—vision; while, for instance, scholastic philosophy was rooted in Aristotle, so that Aquinas cities the Nichomachean Ethics in his discussion of sin, and the vision authors knew the Bible. In a move that allows his syncretic perchant greater latitude, Dante resists providing a uniform template for sin; by offering one taxonomy for hell and another for purgatory he is able to widen the cultural resources available to the Commedia. The sins of inconsistence are sins of impulse, brought about by immoderate passion uncontrolled by reason; they are lust, gluttony, avarice/prodigality, and anger.Less
Dante's representation of hell is unique in its rich and uninhibited blending of these remarkably heterogeneous constituents into a personal—multicultural—vision; while, for instance, scholastic philosophy was rooted in Aristotle, so that Aquinas cities the Nichomachean Ethics in his discussion of sin, and the vision authors knew the Bible. In a move that allows his syncretic perchant greater latitude, Dante resists providing a uniform template for sin; by offering one taxonomy for hell and another for purgatory he is able to widen the cultural resources available to the Commedia. The sins of inconsistence are sins of impulse, brought about by immoderate passion uncontrolled by reason; they are lust, gluttony, avarice/prodigality, and anger.
Teodolinda Barolini
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227037
- eISBN:
- 9780823241019
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823227037.003.0016
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Dante's poetic apprenticeship, both formal and ideological, occurred while he was a writer of lyric poems. The ninety or so lyrics that Dante wrote harbor the wellsprings of his ideological ...
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Dante's poetic apprenticeship, both formal and ideological, occurred while he was a writer of lyric poems. The ninety or so lyrics that Dante wrote harbor the wellsprings of his ideological convictions with the result that we must turn to these poems to analyze the paths that Dante took to becoming the poet of the Commedia. The lyrics contain implicit and at times explicit debates on cultural and societal issues of great immediacy for Dante's mercantile audience: issues such as the nature of chivalry and nobility, the desire for wealth and its relationship to avarice, the limits and constraints of political loyalty, and—intertwined with everything else—the role of women and implicitly the construction of gender.Less
Dante's poetic apprenticeship, both formal and ideological, occurred while he was a writer of lyric poems. The ninety or so lyrics that Dante wrote harbor the wellsprings of his ideological convictions with the result that we must turn to these poems to analyze the paths that Dante took to becoming the poet of the Commedia. The lyrics contain implicit and at times explicit debates on cultural and societal issues of great immediacy for Dante's mercantile audience: issues such as the nature of chivalry and nobility, the desire for wealth and its relationship to avarice, the limits and constraints of political loyalty, and—intertwined with everything else—the role of women and implicitly the construction of gender.
Christopher Pierson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199673285
- eISBN:
- 9780191756184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673285.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter traces the development of ideas about property throughout the Hellenistic period, most crucially in Stoic and Roman thought. Romans developed ideas about the centrality of private ...
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This chapter traces the development of ideas about property throughout the Hellenistic period, most crucially in Stoic and Roman thought. Romans developed ideas about the centrality of private property that are quite different from those of their Greek predecessors. This is clear above all in the work of Cicero and Seneca. In Cicero, we find the idea that the state exists in order to protect the private property of its citizens. In Seneca, we find the belief that it is avarice rather than the existence of private property itself that may be sinful. In Seneca, we also find the idea that while the common possession may once have been the more perfect way, given the fallen nature of humankind the public peace is better preserved by private ownership. These ideas were to have a profound on the early Christian tradition that followed quite directly from them.Less
This chapter traces the development of ideas about property throughout the Hellenistic period, most crucially in Stoic and Roman thought. Romans developed ideas about the centrality of private property that are quite different from those of their Greek predecessors. This is clear above all in the work of Cicero and Seneca. In Cicero, we find the idea that the state exists in order to protect the private property of its citizens. In Seneca, we find the belief that it is avarice rather than the existence of private property itself that may be sinful. In Seneca, we also find the idea that while the common possession may once have been the more perfect way, given the fallen nature of humankind the public peace is better preserved by private ownership. These ideas were to have a profound on the early Christian tradition that followed quite directly from them.
Christopher Pierson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199673285
- eISBN:
- 9780191756184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673285.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter surveys views of private property in the official teaching of the Christian Church in the five centuries following Jesus’s life and death. The New Testament left a deeply ambiguous ...
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This chapter surveys views of private property in the official teaching of the Christian Church in the five centuries following Jesus’s life and death. The New Testament left a deeply ambiguous account of the morality of private property, both in the explicit teachings of Jesus and in the ‘communal’ life of the early church. This critical approach was reflected in a number of authorised and unauthorised Christian sources. But the alternative view—that private property was needed to preserve the peace amongst a sinful humanity and that it was avarice and not wealth that was sinful—came to predominate, definitively in the teaching of Augustine.Less
This chapter surveys views of private property in the official teaching of the Christian Church in the five centuries following Jesus’s life and death. The New Testament left a deeply ambiguous account of the morality of private property, both in the explicit teachings of Jesus and in the ‘communal’ life of the early church. This critical approach was reflected in a number of authorised and unauthorised Christian sources. But the alternative view—that private property was needed to preserve the peace amongst a sinful humanity and that it was avarice and not wealth that was sinful—came to predominate, definitively in the teaching of Augustine.
Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781501715259
- eISBN:
- 9781501715273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501715259.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
What explains the anti-Jewish pogroms of summer 1941 that broke out in the eastern borderlands of Soviet-occupied Poland in the wake of the Nazi invasion? This chapter introduces the competing ...
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What explains the anti-Jewish pogroms of summer 1941 that broke out in the eastern borderlands of Soviet-occupied Poland in the wake of the Nazi invasion? This chapter introduces the competing theories and approaches to the problem. Most scholars highlight either revenge for the Soviet occupation, antisemitic hatred, avarice, or the German extermination effort itself. The authors offer an alternative hypothesis rooted primarily in the logic of competing nationalisms. Where Jews sought national equality with their Polish and Ukrainian neighbors, they were more likely to fall victim to pogrom violence.Less
What explains the anti-Jewish pogroms of summer 1941 that broke out in the eastern borderlands of Soviet-occupied Poland in the wake of the Nazi invasion? This chapter introduces the competing theories and approaches to the problem. Most scholars highlight either revenge for the Soviet occupation, antisemitic hatred, avarice, or the German extermination effort itself. The authors offer an alternative hypothesis rooted primarily in the logic of competing nationalisms. Where Jews sought national equality with their Polish and Ukrainian neighbors, they were more likely to fall victim to pogrom violence.
Jonathan Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716518
- eISBN:
- 9780191787225
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716518.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance France, nearly a century before Molière’s famous comedy, L’Avare? As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of ...
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Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance France, nearly a century before Molière’s famous comedy, L’Avare? As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of modernity, avarice was said to be flourishing as never before. Yet by the late sixteenth century, a number of French writers would argue that in some contexts, avaricious behaviour was not straightforwardly sinful or harmful. Considerations of social rank, gender, object pursued, time, and circumstance led some to question age-old beliefs. Traditionally reviled groups (rapacious usurers, greedy lawyers, miserly fathers, covetous women) might still exhibit unmistakable signs of avarice-but perhaps not invariably, in an age of shifting social, economic and intellectual values. Across a large, diverse corpus of French texts, this book shows how a range of flexible genres nourished by humanism tended to offset traditional condemnation of avarice and avares with innovative, mitigating perspectives, arising from subjective experience. In such writings, an avaricious disposition could be re-described as something less vicious, excusable, or even expedient. In this word history of avarice, close readings of well-known authors (Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard, Montaigne), and of their lesser-known contemporaries are connected to broader socio-economic developments of the late French Renaissance (c.1540-1615). The final chapter situates key themes in relation to Molière’s L’Avare. As such, this book newly illuminates debates about avarice within broader cultural preoccupations surrounding gender, enrichment and status in early modern France.Less
Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance France, nearly a century before Molière’s famous comedy, L’Avare? As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of modernity, avarice was said to be flourishing as never before. Yet by the late sixteenth century, a number of French writers would argue that in some contexts, avaricious behaviour was not straightforwardly sinful or harmful. Considerations of social rank, gender, object pursued, time, and circumstance led some to question age-old beliefs. Traditionally reviled groups (rapacious usurers, greedy lawyers, miserly fathers, covetous women) might still exhibit unmistakable signs of avarice-but perhaps not invariably, in an age of shifting social, economic and intellectual values. Across a large, diverse corpus of French texts, this book shows how a range of flexible genres nourished by humanism tended to offset traditional condemnation of avarice and avares with innovative, mitigating perspectives, arising from subjective experience. In such writings, an avaricious disposition could be re-described as something less vicious, excusable, or even expedient. In this word history of avarice, close readings of well-known authors (Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard, Montaigne), and of their lesser-known contemporaries are connected to broader socio-economic developments of the late French Renaissance (c.1540-1615). The final chapter situates key themes in relation to Molière’s L’Avare. As such, this book newly illuminates debates about avarice within broader cultural preoccupations surrounding gender, enrichment and status in early modern France.
Jonathan Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716518
- eISBN:
- 9780191787225
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716518.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
The Introduction sets out the rationale of this book. It presents the present study as a ‘backstory’ to Molière’s L’Avare, or, more accurately, as a pre-history to that work: an account of ‘what ...
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The Introduction sets out the rationale of this book. It presents the present study as a ‘backstory’ to Molière’s L’Avare, or, more accurately, as a pre-history to that work: an account of ‘what precedes a given threshold’ (Terence Cave). The Introduction traces the origins of the French term avarice, from the Old Testament to the French Renaissance. Augustinian understanding of avaritia is given prominence, as are the seven deadly sins, medieval venality satire, and the passage of avaritia to avarice in the French vernacular. A particular focus is Poggio Bracciolini’s De avaritia (1428), a treatise which shows the first signs of mobile thinking about avarice. The final section of the Introduction sketches out major lines of enquiry vis-à-vis avarice in late Renaissance France. A brief overview of each chapter is provided.Less
The Introduction sets out the rationale of this book. It presents the present study as a ‘backstory’ to Molière’s L’Avare, or, more accurately, as a pre-history to that work: an account of ‘what precedes a given threshold’ (Terence Cave). The Introduction traces the origins of the French term avarice, from the Old Testament to the French Renaissance. Augustinian understanding of avaritia is given prominence, as are the seven deadly sins, medieval venality satire, and the passage of avaritia to avarice in the French vernacular. A particular focus is Poggio Bracciolini’s De avaritia (1428), a treatise which shows the first signs of mobile thinking about avarice. The final section of the Introduction sketches out major lines of enquiry vis-à-vis avarice in late Renaissance France. A brief overview of each chapter is provided.
Jonathan Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716518
- eISBN:
- 9780191787225
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716518.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
This chapter introduces basic Renaissance definitions of avarice. It provides a study of the French terms avarice and avare across a broad range of genres. An initial survey of ancient sources is ...
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This chapter introduces basic Renaissance definitions of avarice. It provides a study of the French terms avarice and avare across a broad range of genres. An initial survey of ancient sources is followed by a detailed examination of avarice in three basic modes: passion, vice, and sin. The middle section of the chapter investigates social gradation of the concept of avarice, in other words, how people of different social ranks might be described as avaricious. Efforts to define what avarice was and who were the avares were fundamental responses to traumatic moral and socio-economic upheavals of the late French Renaissance. The particular shape of avarice depended significantly on the social standing of the avare; yet such thinking was not unproblematic. This is shown in a case study of Guillaume Bouchet’s Les Serées-a text which struggles to reconcile clashing views as to whether usurers are necessarily avaricious.Less
This chapter introduces basic Renaissance definitions of avarice. It provides a study of the French terms avarice and avare across a broad range of genres. An initial survey of ancient sources is followed by a detailed examination of avarice in three basic modes: passion, vice, and sin. The middle section of the chapter investigates social gradation of the concept of avarice, in other words, how people of different social ranks might be described as avaricious. Efforts to define what avarice was and who were the avares were fundamental responses to traumatic moral and socio-economic upheavals of the late French Renaissance. The particular shape of avarice depended significantly on the social standing of the avare; yet such thinking was not unproblematic. This is shown in a case study of Guillaume Bouchet’s Les Serées-a text which struggles to reconcile clashing views as to whether usurers are necessarily avaricious.
Jonathan Morton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198816669
- eISBN:
- 9780191858314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198816669.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Money goes to the heart of the Rose’s central problematic—the relationship between art and nature. This chapter engages closely with thirteenth-century Parisian philosophy and theology in its ...
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Money goes to the heart of the Rose’s central problematic—the relationship between art and nature. This chapter engages closely with thirteenth-century Parisian philosophy and theology in its analysis of money, usury, and avarice. In considering the reception of Aristotle’s Politics by Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Giles of Rome, it shows how the Rose engages with the idea of an Aristotelian teleology of money, using it to put the principle of infinity that categorizes the avaricious acquisition of wealth in tension with the end-directed principles of nature that inform the whole poem. The twinned ideas of infinity and of natural acts as teleological are shown to link the two practices condemned most severely in the poem: sodomy and usury.Less
Money goes to the heart of the Rose’s central problematic—the relationship between art and nature. This chapter engages closely with thirteenth-century Parisian philosophy and theology in its analysis of money, usury, and avarice. In considering the reception of Aristotle’s Politics by Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Giles of Rome, it shows how the Rose engages with the idea of an Aristotelian teleology of money, using it to put the principle of infinity that categorizes the avaricious acquisition of wealth in tension with the end-directed principles of nature that inform the whole poem. The twinned ideas of infinity and of natural acts as teleological are shown to link the two practices condemned most severely in the poem: sodomy and usury.
John M. Najemy (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780199580927
- eISBN:
- 9780191948602
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199580927.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, Cultural History
After reviewing Machiavelli’s inconsistent application of tyranny to princes, Chapter 10 theorizes his association of tyranny with corruption and contends that the kind of tyranny that particularly ...
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After reviewing Machiavelli’s inconsistent application of tyranny to princes, Chapter 10 theorizes his association of tyranny with corruption and contends that the kind of tyranny that particularly interested him is the collective tyranny of wealthy elites. In Discourses 1.16–18 he says that cities that gain their freedom have a better chance of maintaining it if corruption has not affected the entire body politic; if it has, there is no hope of preserving liberty. Even if corruption extends only to those who profited from their privileged status in the defunct regime (“feeding off the riches of the prince”), these partigiani will be enemies of the newly free state and seek to restore the former regime (as the sons of Brutus did). Machiavelli considers several theoretical possibilities for how a totally corrupt city might regain liberty, ultimately considering them all unrealistic or impossible. The origin of tyranny in Rome was the office of the Decemviri (451 BCE). In Discourses 1.40 he shows how antagonisms between patricians and plebs, manipulated by the ambitious Appius Claudius, nearly destroyed the young republic. Tyranny happens, Machiavelli says, when either the plebs or the nobles—but more often the nobles—look to a strongman to subdue the rival class. But tyranny needs no strongman. His culminating example of the privatization of power by elites is Genoa’s association of wealthy communal creditors, called [the Banco of] San Giorgio, which over time appropriated the republic’s finances and even much of its territorial dominion as collateral for loans (Histories 8.29).Less
After reviewing Machiavelli’s inconsistent application of tyranny to princes, Chapter 10 theorizes his association of tyranny with corruption and contends that the kind of tyranny that particularly interested him is the collective tyranny of wealthy elites. In Discourses 1.16–18 he says that cities that gain their freedom have a better chance of maintaining it if corruption has not affected the entire body politic; if it has, there is no hope of preserving liberty. Even if corruption extends only to those who profited from their privileged status in the defunct regime (“feeding off the riches of the prince”), these partigiani will be enemies of the newly free state and seek to restore the former regime (as the sons of Brutus did). Machiavelli considers several theoretical possibilities for how a totally corrupt city might regain liberty, ultimately considering them all unrealistic or impossible. The origin of tyranny in Rome was the office of the Decemviri (451 BCE). In Discourses 1.40 he shows how antagonisms between patricians and plebs, manipulated by the ambitious Appius Claudius, nearly destroyed the young republic. Tyranny happens, Machiavelli says, when either the plebs or the nobles—but more often the nobles—look to a strongman to subdue the rival class. But tyranny needs no strongman. His culminating example of the privatization of power by elites is Genoa’s association of wealthy communal creditors, called [the Banco of] San Giorgio, which over time appropriated the republic’s finances and even much of its territorial dominion as collateral for loans (Histories 8.29).
Timothy Alborn
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190603519
- eISBN:
- 9780190603540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190603519.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, British and Irish Early Modern History
Especially after the British Parliament formally adopted the gold standard in 1821, economists reinforced its legitimacy by building on Adam Smith’s account of value in The Wealth of Nations, which ...
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Especially after the British Parliament formally adopted the gold standard in 1821, economists reinforced its legitimacy by building on Adam Smith’s account of value in The Wealth of Nations, which followed gold from its decorative uses to its use as a basis of credit. They also sharpened his distinction between gold’s minimal use-value and its exchange-value; and, under newfound conditions of scarcity, they focused attention on the diversion of gold away from ornamental purposes. In laying out this multipronged elaboration of gold’s value, political economy shared space with numerous other discourses—evident in novels, poems, essays, and sermons—that used gold as a metaphor for Christian virtue, artistic genius, and class; or that emphasized gold’s poisonous potential, building on a long history of the metal as an object of monstrous desire.Less
Especially after the British Parliament formally adopted the gold standard in 1821, economists reinforced its legitimacy by building on Adam Smith’s account of value in The Wealth of Nations, which followed gold from its decorative uses to its use as a basis of credit. They also sharpened his distinction between gold’s minimal use-value and its exchange-value; and, under newfound conditions of scarcity, they focused attention on the diversion of gold away from ornamental purposes. In laying out this multipronged elaboration of gold’s value, political economy shared space with numerous other discourses—evident in novels, poems, essays, and sermons—that used gold as a metaphor for Christian virtue, artistic genius, and class; or that emphasized gold’s poisonous potential, building on a long history of the metal as an object of monstrous desire.
Paul Oldfield
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198717737
- eISBN:
- 9780191787232
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198717737.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History, Cultural History
This chapter juxtaposes praise of the city against critiques of it, and in doing so acknowledges the vast spectrum of urban experiences available. It demonstrates how counter-claims to the Good or ...
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This chapter juxtaposes praise of the city against critiques of it, and in doing so acknowledges the vast spectrum of urban experiences available. It demonstrates how counter-claims to the Good or Holy City were abundant. Fundamental criticism of urban living coexisted with endorsement of it, and understanding this divergence produces a more comprehensive perspective of urban praise. This chapter therefore offers a consideration of some of the more prominent critiques of the city, focused, for example, on ideas about the link between the city and avarice, deviancy, disorder, and violence. It also delves into some particular works of urban panegyric to identify elements of lamentation and critique, and what objectives these served, and concludes that, by the thirteenth century, those critiques were being absorbed into (and indeed were contributing to) an ideological framework which conversely valorized cities.Less
This chapter juxtaposes praise of the city against critiques of it, and in doing so acknowledges the vast spectrum of urban experiences available. It demonstrates how counter-claims to the Good or Holy City were abundant. Fundamental criticism of urban living coexisted with endorsement of it, and understanding this divergence produces a more comprehensive perspective of urban praise. This chapter therefore offers a consideration of some of the more prominent critiques of the city, focused, for example, on ideas about the link between the city and avarice, deviancy, disorder, and violence. It also delves into some particular works of urban panegyric to identify elements of lamentation and critique, and what objectives these served, and concludes that, by the thirteenth century, those critiques were being absorbed into (and indeed were contributing to) an ideological framework which conversely valorized cities.
Andrew Pinsent
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199645541
- eISBN:
- 9780191744549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199645541.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Theology
Although avarice is associated with many notorious evils, there is a peculiar ambiguity about its matter, specification and even aspects of its moral status. Assuming that the essential mark of ...
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Although avarice is associated with many notorious evils, there is a peculiar ambiguity about its matter, specification and even aspects of its moral status. Assuming that the essential mark of avarice is an excessive desire for money or monetary value, its virtuous counterpart might appear to consist in a straightforward path of moderation. This chapter argues that attempts to define this moderation as a rational mean cannot succeed, however, not only because of the complexities of monetary flow, accumulation and dissipation, but because the true root of what makes avarice a vice is its moral prosopagnosia, the way it disposes someone to inhibit, crush or betray second-person relatedness. The antidote is the liberality by which one gains freedom by subsuming one’s stance towards money into a broader framework of second-person relatedness, the flourishing of which is incommensurate with financial value and which promotes light-heartedness, generosity and even humor about possessions.Less
Although avarice is associated with many notorious evils, there is a peculiar ambiguity about its matter, specification and even aspects of its moral status. Assuming that the essential mark of avarice is an excessive desire for money or monetary value, its virtuous counterpart might appear to consist in a straightforward path of moderation. This chapter argues that attempts to define this moderation as a rational mean cannot succeed, however, not only because of the complexities of monetary flow, accumulation and dissipation, but because the true root of what makes avarice a vice is its moral prosopagnosia, the way it disposes someone to inhibit, crush or betray second-person relatedness. The antidote is the liberality by which one gains freedom by subsuming one’s stance towards money into a broader framework of second-person relatedness, the flourishing of which is incommensurate with financial value and which promotes light-heartedness, generosity and even humor about possessions.