Uncivil Mirth (eBook)

Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain

Ross Carroll (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2021
280 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-22053-6 (ISBN)

Infos

How the philosophers and polemicists of eighteenth-century Britain used ridicule in the service of religious toleration, abolition, and political justiceThe relaxing of censorship in Britain at the turn of the eighteenth century led to an explosion of satires, caricatures, and comic hoaxes. This new vogue for ridicule unleashed moral panic and prompted warnings that it would corrupt public debate. But ridicule also had vocal defenders who saw it as a means to expose hypocrisy, unsettle the arrogant, and deflate the powerful. Uncivil Mirth examines how leading thinkers of the period searched for a humane form of ridicule, one that served the causes of religious toleration, the abolition of the slave trade, and the dismantling of patriarchal power.Ross Carroll brings to life a tumultuous age in which the place of ridicule in public life was subjected to unparalleled scrutiny. He shows how the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, far from accepting ridicule as an unfortunate byproduct of free public debate, refashioned it into a check on pretension and authority. Drawing on philosophical treatises, political pamphlets, and conduct manuals of the time, Carroll examines how David Hume, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others who came after Shaftesbury debated the value of ridicule in the fight against intolerance, fanaticism, and hubris.Casting Enlightenment Britain in an entirely new light, Uncivil Mirth demonstrates how the Age of Reason was also an Age of Ridicule, and speaks to our current anxieties about the lack of civility in public debate.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.4.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: abolitionism • Absalom and Achitophel • absurdity • ad hominem • Amartya Sen • Ambivalence • Amusement • Annette Baier • apocolocyntosis • apothecary • Aristotle • Atheism • A Treatise of Human Nature • A Vindication of the Rights of Men • Bibliography • Biography • black people • Burke • Cambridge University Press • Caricature • Cato's Letters • Censorship • Censure • Civility • civil liberties • clericalism • colony • Comedy • Comfort • Controversy • Convention (norm) • Conversation • cowardice • Criticism • critique • cruelty • Cultural History • Culture of England • Cynicism (philosophy) • David Fordyce • David Hume • David Runciman • Deism • Desperation (novel) • despotism • Determination • Dictionnaire historique et critique • Discourses (Meher Baba) • dissolute mirth • Dogma • double entendre • Edinburgh Review • Edinburgh University Press • Edmund Burke • Embarrassment • english enlightenment • enthusiasm • Epicureanism • Essays (Montaigne) • Explanation • fallacy • False Prophet • Farce • Feminism • Forgery • Francis Hutcheson • Francis Hutcheson (philosopher) • freedom of speech • Free negro • Free Speech • friar • George Turnbull (theologian) • Government • greeting • Harvard University Press • hatred • Henri Bergson • Henry Sacheverell • hereditary monarchy • High Culture • Hobbes • Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes) • Humean skepticism • humiliation • Humor • Humour • hypocrisy • Ideology • impiety • indictment • Intellectual history • Irony • James Beattie (poet) • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Jeremy Waldron • Jermyn • jester • John Lacy (playwright) • John Millar (philosopher) • laughter • Lawrence Klein • Lecture • Leviathan • liberty fund • Likelihood Function • Literature • Majesty • manumission • Mark Akenside • martyr • Mary Wollstonecraft • meanness • Metaphysics • misanthropy • mockery • Montesquieu • Moral absolutism • Morality • moral psychology • Moses Mendelssohn • No Sex (In the Champagne Room) • Objection (argument) • offense • On Religion • Oppression • Oxford University Press • Pamphlet • Parody • Patriotism • Perils of False Brethren • Persian Letters • Persuasion (novel) • pessimism • phenomenon • Philip Francis (politician) • Philosopher • Philosophy • piety • pity • plantocracy • Poetry • Polemic • Politeness • Political Philosophy • Politics • Politics of toleration • Popish Plot • Precedent • precognition • Prejudice • Princeton University Press • Principle • Privilege (social inequality) • Protestantism • Public speaking • Public sphere • public square • reason • Reductio ad absurdum • Religion • religious fanaticism • Religious uniformity • resentment • rhetoric • rhetorical question • ridicule • Rights of Man • Salutation • Sarcasm • Satire • SCHOLASTICISM • Scottish abolitionists • Scottish Enlightenment • self-love • seriousness • Sermon • Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness • skepticism • Slavery • solicitation • soliloquy • stanza • State University of New York Press • Stoicism • Suffering • Suggestion • suicide attempt • Superiority (short story) • Sympathy • The Deniers • The Harm in Hate Speech • The History of England (Hume) • theory • The Philosopher • The Realist • Thermidorian Reaction • The Theory of Moral Sentiments • Thomas Hobbes • Thomas Rowlandson • Thought • Toleration • Torture • treatise • University of Toronto Press • William Wilberforce • Writing • Yale University Press • Young Women (organization)
• ISBN-10: 0-691-22053-0 / 0691220530
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-22053-6 / 9780691220536