8 ms·

The Wrongs of Thomas More

128 points by robinhouston 2y ago

codeulike 2y ago
Thats fascinating. Wolf Hall has a lot about Thomas Moore in it ... I should note Wolf Hall is essentially fiction but largely based on things that did happen - I guess you can view it as "lets imagine how the story of Henry VIII would work if much maligned Thomas Cromwell was actually the good guy" ... anyway in Wolf Hall, the character of Thomas Moore as written is largely consistent with what the OP is finding in that old manuscript - someone quite keen on their own cleverness and relatively comfortable with interrogations and burning people at the stake. In Wolf Hall his death is stubborn and needless, and in defiance of the wishes of his wife and daughter. At first I took those parts of Wolf Hall as an exercise in "lets see if its possible to invert the plot of A Man For All Seasons". But then this document "A dialoge concerning heresyes" seems to actually back up the Wolf Hall picture of Moore.
- throw4847285 2y ago
  As an aside, the "inversion of A Man For All Seasons" aspect is brilliant. The scene of More and Cromwell together in the Tower of London has this incredible exchange where Cromwell predicts that their dispute will be replayed throughout time and he fears he is being already typecast as the villain. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm likely misremembering it. But the way that it tips its hat to the play was really moving to me. I'm obviously preaching to the choir, but damn, Hilary Mantel was brilliant.
- tptacek 2y ago
  The burning of Thomas Hitton plays a role in Mantel's book, too.
gwd 2y ago
Interesting deep-dive; but I'm afraid the diagnosis for authoritarianism at the end doesn't really ring true to me. He sees More defending things he must know deep down can't be true; but he doesn't actually see why, he's only making conjectures. So I don't think his model will be very useful in helping inoculate people against authoritarianism, or cure them once they've been infected.
Joker_vD 2y ago
> He could have simply agreed with them. Ha. That's the most brilliant joke in this whole write-up. Of course he could not agree with them. Just as Luther simply could not stop himself from raising his 95 questions. > No reasonable human, then or now, believes that there's any institution, made up of fallible humans, that's never wrong. One of the basic tenets of (both Orthodox and Catholic) Christian theology is that the Church, as the whole, can't be wrong because it is explicitly guided by the Christ himself through the Holy Ghost. That's why ecumenical councils were (and are, in the Orthodox branch) considered so important: if the brightest and most pious would come together and, while praying for the divine guidance, try to resolve a theological matter, then they will come to the correct answer. The Catholic church, as I understand it, has largely decided that this approach is overly cautious and expensive since a decision of a single person (by the virtue of being the pope of Rome) is already guaranteed to be correct.
- bombcar 2y ago
  That was basically my reaction to the whole thing - I was expecting some amazing exposé of More but it was ... More being More. And 1+ billion Catholics believe that the specific institution of The Church, which is made up of fallible humans, is never wrong on matters of doctrine and morals - because it is the Body of Christ and cannot be wrong. They may get into major arguments and quibbles about exactly what that means but the concept of infallibility is pretty well cemented. Wait until the author digs deeper and learns that many, many intelligent people of the time and before thought burning at the stake was the best option for the burned - and really, truly believed that, and had deep arguments for why. Also I have to love the recency bias, clearly Henry VIII can only be understood through the lens of a recent and current president! To further confuse our friend, he can visit the Church of England's website: https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-t... and search "Thomas More" finding July 6th.
  - Juliate 2y ago
    > And 1+ billion Catholics believe that [...] The Church [...] is never wrong on matters of doctrine and morals It's a bit exaggerated to say that. Not all Catholics believe in the infallibility, neither in every single dogma, which are not articles of faith (and not believing in them, discussing them doesn't make one less Catholic than an other). Even wondering what proportion of Catholics know about all of them.
rossdavidh 2y ago
Interesting, but I believe Stephenson is completely wrong about the motivation. Thomas More, as his writings in Utopia make clear, was most worried about the all-against-all that comes from anarchy. Moreover, in some sense, he and his fellow anti-Reformation thinkers were correct; the Reformation did lead to enormous trouble. The Wars of Religion, from Luther's 95 Theses to the Treaty of Westphalia, lasted for 100 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion). The anti-Reformation thinkers could see perfectly well that they would be the near-inevitable result of letting just anybody set forth their own interpretation of Scripture. From our own vantage point, the Reformation was undoubtedly a good thing, even if you are Catholic, because it established freedom of thought (relatively speaking), but it was several generations of conflict that was often vicious even by the standards of war. If More had had perfect knowledge of the future, looking at the Wars of Religion that the Reformation would lead to, he would not have been at all surprised. If he thought that burning half a dozen heretics was preferable to several generations of civil war, well, he might have been incorrect, but it doesn't make him a monster. It makes him a man afraid of the storm that's coming, and desperate to avoid it by any means possible.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  It's widely forgotten that burning heretics was widely accepted in Christian theology, especially at the time. The rationale is quite simple: They believed in an eternal Hell. Unrepentant heresy places you in eternal Hell. Hell also has levels and is not the same for everyone; not necessarily Dante's circles, but not far off. This is easily proven, just look at Saint Thomas Aquinas, who warned that sins against the deliberate intellect (heresy, blasphemy, schism) are much more inexcusable than sins of the passions and nature (lust, sloth); even if both are damnable. Vice versa, Heaven also has levels, and it was (and is) a pious opinion that no two people are ever at exactly the same level. If Hell is eternal, and it is possible for you to make your own Hell worse, killing you if you refuse to repent directly prevents you from making your eternal punishment worse. It also prevents bringing other people with you, and the guilt you would bear for influencing other people. In a way, it is an act of charity to other people and yourself; causing some Saints and scholars to comment at the time to do otherwise would actually be hateful. There's also the issue of, if someone was going to repent, the logical assumption that going to the noose or stake is a much stronger motivator than dying in your sleep at 73. In line with the above, the very act of burning itself was seen as somewhat of a charity. A public spectacle to warn against following them (charity to the viewers); but also a constant suggestion, even to the end, to the burned of what is waiting for them eternally, giving them one last chance to repent. For what it's worth though, Historians tell us that most of the burned died by suffocation and not by the actual burning, which would have been probably also been known at the time. (Worth remembering, both the Reformers and the original Catholics burned at the stake for similar rationales.)
tptacek 2y ago
Despite the obscurity of the book, GPT 4o easily "translates" the archaic blackletter and attributes it to More; presumably, it's been trained on this text.
csours 2y ago
Heresy isn't a sin against a man like a pope or a president. Heresy is a sin against the moral convictions of the in-group. > They're making a public gesture of submissiveness. Submissiveness, as seen from the outside. Loyalty, as seen from the inside. The head of the group is the standard bearer of the group, not just the person in charge. The concept of loyalty signaling makes a lot of nonsense more understandable to me. --- On the whole, I think labor unions are net positive benefit - so it's hard to point out any problems with them. It feels disloyal. But one problem is that union representatives have to fight on behalf of the worst dues-paying members. If you don't fight for them, you get voted out next election. You can't have a disloyal rep! You signal loyalty by pushing boundaries, especially when it's time to fight. I'm loyal to you, I'm fighting for you - so you should be loyal to me. --- I'm living through my 3rd personal heresy. The first was against the church I was raised in, but more importantly against the church my family still attends. It's the 2nd heresy that's notable to this discussion - Heresy against the rational skeptics. Debunking was never enough. Being right was never enough. There is no such thing as irrational thought - all thoughts are reasonable inside a person's head. There might be such a thing as rational communication - the ability to build a common picture in a group of people. You're wrong - we are both communicating in the same (or proximate) framework or context, but you have incorrect observations or conclusions. I don't understand what you mean - you need to do more work if you want me to understand. You're being irrational - we have a severe context mismatch and you need to take my context. But what we have right now is loyalty signaling in public speech It is disloyal to even try to understand the context mismatch. People not in our context are dangerous enemies. The problem with rationality is that we use leaky meat to think with, but we pretend like we don't.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  > Heresy is a sin against the moral convictions of the in-group. Honestly I’m perplexed. Consider the heresy of Arianism. In what way was this heresy morally different from the orthodoxy position? I just don’t see how the nature of Christ affects any possible moral or practical, or even ritual position.
  - csours 2y ago
sudobash1 2y ago
> I was not able to find an electronic copy on the Internet, which is surprising given the author's prominence. I'm not sure if Stephenson is specifically looking for a PDF scan, but I found an online copy reasonably easily: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A07698.0001.001 https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A07698.0001.001
mr_toad 2y ago
> More has to stake out a position, and he has to do so “publicly” where the “public” in this case is a few thousand literate Englishmen who actually care about such things. I guess he’s saying that only a few thousand people cared about More’s position. But as an outsider what has always puzzled me is how strongly common people care about what seem to me to be hair-splitting religious arguments. Henry’s split with the catholic church touched off numerous rebellions. And ironically when some later Kings tried to become catholic again, there was even more violence. To be it’s unfathomable that people who struggle to put food on the table will take up arms in the name of quite abstruse arguments.
- trhway 2y ago
  > how strongly common people care about what seem to me to be hair-splitting religious arguments it wasn't hair splitting. The Reformation coincides with nation-forming (and is driven by it). So instead of loyalty to the remote Pope, you get loyalty to your nation. The Bible and service. etc in your language and so forth. Classic tribalism of "us" vs "them" which kings and others at the top happily exploited. The Reformation v0.1 - Jan Huss - was kicking out Germans and others out of Prague University on the basis of it being Bohemian (i.e. Czech) institution. >To be it’s unfathomable that people who struggle to put food on the table will take up arms in the name of quite abstruse arguments. It has been shown many times that those people are the easiest to be fired up for some ideological cause. As the bolshevicks were saying "proletariat has nothing to lose, but their chains"
- xyzzyz 2y ago
  Reformation was an extremely important historical event, with very high spiritual, practical and political stakes. This might seem strange to people living in today’s post-religious world, but back then, things were much different.
MiiMe19 2y ago
I doubt that this person has a comprehensive understanding of Catholic theology. When one of the primary beliefs of Catholicism is in an infallible Church, of course the Catholic theologian believes the Church is infallible. Then Neal just goes into the usual Catholic bad, Trump == Hitler talk. I was hoping for a more interesting read.
bashmelek 2y ago
I wish in matters of religion that HN could have discussion with less polemics or axe grinding.
nocoiner 2y ago
When Neal Stephenson himself characterizes something as a lengthy digression, I wonder how it compares to the three-page description of the milk-sodden texture of Captain Crunch.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
westurner 2y ago
Hey, Thomas More! "The Saint" (1997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(1997_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(1997_film) : > Using the alias "Thomas More", Simon poses as
sorokod 2y ago
When otherwise well-informed and intelligent persons come out in favor of a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Trump, or any other authoritarian figure, they're not really claiming that they believe everything the boss says. No one could believe that. They're making a public gesture of submissiveness. And the more outrageous the leader's lies, the greater the humiliation, the more profound the submission. If you are psychologically predisposed to be submissive, then there is pleasure in the submitting; and once it's done, it gives you license to burn your enemies with a clear conscience. Nicely put.

128 points by robinhouston 2y ago

Thats fascinating. Wolf Hall has a lot about Thomas Moore in it ... I should note Wolf Hall is essentially fiction but largely based on things that did happen - I guess you can view it as "lets imagine how the story of Henry VIII would work if much maligned Thomas Cromwell was actually the good guy" ... anyway in Wolf Hall, the character of Thomas Moore as written is largely consistent with what the OP is finding in that old manuscript - someone quite keen on their own cleverness and relatively comfortable with interrogations and burning people at the stake. In Wolf Hall his death is stubborn and needless, and in defiance of the wishes of his wife and daughter. At first I took those parts of Wolf Hall as an exercise in "lets see if its possible to invert the plot of A Man For All Seasons". But then this document "A dialoge concerning heresyes" seems to actually back up the Wolf Hall picture of Moore.

throw4847285 2y ago
As an aside, the "inversion of A Man For All Seasons" aspect is brilliant. The scene of More and Cromwell together in the Tower of London has this incredible exchange where Cromwell predicts that their dispute will be replayed throughout time and he fears he is being already typecast as the villain. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm likely misremembering it. But the way that it tips its hat to the play was really moving to me. I'm obviously preaching to the choir, but damn, Hilary Mantel was brilliant.
tptacek 2y ago
The burning of Thomas Hitton plays a role in Mantel's book, too.

gwd 2y ago

Interesting deep-dive; but I'm afraid the diagnosis for authoritarianism at the end doesn't really ring true to me. He sees More defending things he must know deep down can't be true; but he doesn't actually see why, he's only making conjectures. So I don't think his model will be very useful in helping inoculate people against authoritarianism, or cure them once they've been infected.

Joker_vD 2y ago

> He could have simply agreed with them. Ha. That's the most brilliant joke in this whole write-up. Of course he could not agree with them. Just as Luther simply could not stop himself from raising his 95 questions. > No reasonable human, then or now, believes that there's any institution, made up of fallible humans, that's never wrong. One of the basic tenets of (both Orthodox and Catholic) Christian theology is that the Church, as the whole, can't be wrong because it is explicitly guided by the Christ himself through the Holy Ghost. That's why ecumenical councils were (and are, in the Orthodox branch) considered so important: if the brightest and most pious would come together and, while praying for the divine guidance, try to resolve a theological matter, then they will come to the correct answer. The Catholic church, as I understand it, has largely decided that this approach is overly cautious and expensive since a decision of a single person (by the virtue of being the pope of Rome) is already guaranteed to be correct.

bombcar 2y ago
That was basically my reaction to the whole thing - I was expecting some amazing exposé of More but it was ... More being More. And 1+ billion Catholics believe that the specific institution of The Church, which is made up of fallible humans, is never wrong on matters of doctrine and morals - because it is the Body of Christ and cannot be wrong. They may get into major arguments and quibbles about exactly what that means but the concept of infallibility is pretty well cemented. Wait until the author digs deeper and learns that many, many intelligent people of the time and before thought burning at the stake was the best option for the burned - and really, truly believed that, and had deep arguments for why. Also I have to love the recency bias, clearly Henry VIII can only be understood through the lens of a recent and current president! To further confuse our friend, he can visit the Church of England's website: https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-t... and search "Thomas More" finding July 6th.
- Juliate 2y ago
  > And 1+ billion Catholics believe that [...] The Church [...] is never wrong on matters of doctrine and morals It's a bit exaggerated to say that. Not all Catholics believe in the infallibility, neither in every single dogma, which are not articles of faith (and not believing in them, discussing them doesn't make one less Catholic than an other). Even wondering what proportion of Catholics know about all of them.

rossdavidh 2y ago

Interesting, but I believe Stephenson is completely wrong about the motivation. Thomas More, as his writings in Utopia make clear, was most worried about the all-against-all that comes from anarchy. Moreover, in some sense, he and his fellow anti-Reformation thinkers were correct; the Reformation did lead to enormous trouble. The Wars of Religion, from Luther's 95 Theses to the Treaty of Westphalia, lasted for 100 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion). The anti-Reformation thinkers could see perfectly well that they would be the near-inevitable result of letting just anybody set forth their own interpretation of Scripture. From our own vantage point, the Reformation was undoubtedly a good thing, even if you are Catholic, because it established freedom of thought (relatively speaking), but it was several generations of conflict that was often vicious even by the standards of war. If More had had perfect knowledge of the future, looking at the Wars of Religion that the Reformation would lead to, he would not have been at all surprised. If he thought that burning half a dozen heretics was preferable to several generations of civil war, well, he might have been incorrect, but it doesn't make him a monster. It makes him a man afraid of the storm that's coming, and desperate to avoid it by any means possible.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
It's widely forgotten that burning heretics was widely accepted in Christian theology, especially at the time. The rationale is quite simple: They believed in an eternal Hell. Unrepentant heresy places you in eternal Hell. Hell also has levels and is not the same for everyone; not necessarily Dante's circles, but not far off. This is easily proven, just look at Saint Thomas Aquinas, who warned that sins against the deliberate intellect (heresy, blasphemy, schism) are much more inexcusable than sins of the passions and nature (lust, sloth); even if both are damnable. Vice versa, Heaven also has levels, and it was (and is) a pious opinion that no two people are ever at exactly the same level. If Hell is eternal, and it is possible for you to make your own Hell worse, killing you if you refuse to repent directly prevents you from making your eternal punishment worse. It also prevents bringing other people with you, and the guilt you would bear for influencing other people. In a way, it is an act of charity to other people and yourself; causing some Saints and scholars to comment at the time to do otherwise would actually be hateful. There's also the issue of, if someone was going to repent, the logical assumption that going to the noose or stake is a much stronger motivator than dying in your sleep at 73. In line with the above, the very act of burning itself was seen as somewhat of a charity. A public spectacle to warn against following them (charity to the viewers); but also a constant suggestion, even to the end, to the burned of what is waiting for them eternally, giving them one last chance to repent. For what it's worth though, Historians tell us that most of the burned died by suffocation and not by the actual burning, which would have been probably also been known at the time. (Worth remembering, both the Reformers and the original Catholics burned at the stake for similar rationales.)

tptacek 2y ago

Despite the obscurity of the book, GPT 4o easily "translates" the archaic blackletter and attributes it to More; presumably, it's been trained on this text.

csours 2y ago

Heresy isn't a sin against a man like a pope or a president. Heresy is a sin against the moral convictions of the in-group. > They're making a public gesture of submissiveness. Submissiveness, as seen from the outside. Loyalty, as seen from the inside. The head of the group is the standard bearer of the group, not just the person in charge. The concept of loyalty signaling makes a lot of nonsense more understandable to me. --- On the whole, I think labor unions are net positive benefit - so it's hard to point out any problems with them. It feels disloyal. But one problem is that union representatives have to fight on behalf of the worst dues-paying members. If you don't fight for them, you get voted out next election. You can't have a disloyal rep! You signal loyalty by pushing boundaries, especially when it's time to fight. I'm loyal to you, I'm fighting for you - so you should be loyal to me. --- I'm living through my 3rd personal heresy. The first was against the church I was raised in, but more importantly against the church my family still attends. It's the 2nd heresy that's notable to this discussion - Heresy against the rational skeptics. Debunking was never enough. Being right was never enough. There is no such thing as irrational thought - all thoughts are reasonable inside a person's head. There might be such a thing as rational communication - the ability to build a common picture in a group of people. You're wrong - we are both communicating in the same (or proximate) framework or context, but you have incorrect observations or conclusions. I don't understand what you mean - you need to do more work if you want me to understand. You're being irrational - we have a severe context mismatch and you need to take my context. But what we have right now is loyalty signaling in public speech It is disloyal to even try to understand the context mismatch. People not in our context are dangerous enemies. The problem with rationality is that we use leaky meat to think with, but we pretend like we don't.

mr_toad 2y ago
> Heresy is a sin against the moral convictions of the in-group. Honestly I’m perplexed. Consider the heresy of Arianism. In what way was this heresy morally different from the orthodoxy position? I just don’t see how the nature of Christ affects any possible moral or practical, or even ritual position.
- csours 2y ago

sudobash1 2y ago

> I was not able to find an electronic copy on the Internet, which is surprising given the author's prominence. I'm not sure if Stephenson is specifically looking for a PDF scan, but I found an online copy reasonably easily: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A07698.0001.001 https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A07698.0001.001

mr_toad 2y ago

> More has to stake out a position, and he has to do so “publicly” where the “public” in this case is a few thousand literate Englishmen who actually care about such things. I guess he’s saying that only a few thousand people cared about More’s position. But as an outsider what has always puzzled me is how strongly common people care about what seem to me to be hair-splitting religious arguments. Henry’s split with the catholic church touched off numerous rebellions. And ironically when some later Kings tried to become catholic again, there was even more violence. To be it’s unfathomable that people who struggle to put food on the table will take up arms in the name of quite abstruse arguments.

trhway 2y ago
> how strongly common people care about what seem to me to be hair-splitting religious arguments it wasn't hair splitting. The Reformation coincides with nation-forming (and is driven by it). So instead of loyalty to the remote Pope, you get loyalty to your nation. The Bible and service. etc in your language and so forth. Classic tribalism of "us" vs "them" which kings and others at the top happily exploited. The Reformation v0.1 - Jan Huss - was kicking out Germans and others out of Prague University on the basis of it being Bohemian (i.e. Czech) institution. >To be it’s unfathomable that people who struggle to put food on the table will take up arms in the name of quite abstruse arguments. It has been shown many times that those people are the easiest to be fired up for some ideological cause. As the bolshevicks were saying "proletariat has nothing to lose, but their chains"
xyzzyz 2y ago
Reformation was an extremely important historical event, with very high spiritual, practical and political stakes. This might seem strange to people living in today’s post-religious world, but back then, things were much different.

MiiMe19 2y ago

I doubt that this person has a comprehensive understanding of Catholic theology. When one of the primary beliefs of Catholicism is in an infallible Church, of course the Catholic theologian believes the Church is infallible. Then Neal just goes into the usual Catholic bad, Trump == Hitler talk. I was hoping for a more interesting read.

bashmelek 2y ago

I wish in matters of religion that HN could have discussion with less polemics or axe grinding.

nocoiner 2y ago

When Neal Stephenson himself characterizes something as a lengthy digression, I wonder how it compares to the three-page description of the milk-sodden texture of Captain Crunch.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

westurner 2y ago

Hey, Thomas More! "The Saint" (1997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(1997_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saint_(1997_film) : > Using the alias "Thomas More", Simon poses as

sorokod 2y ago

When otherwise well-informed and intelligent persons come out in favor of a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Trump, or any other authoritarian figure, they're not really claiming that they believe everything the boss says. No one could believe that. They're making a public gesture of submissiveness. And the more outrageous the leader's lies, the greater the humiliation, the more profound the submission. If you are psychologically predisposed to be submissive, then there is pleasure in the submitting; and once it's done, it gives you license to burn your enemies with a clear conscience. Nicely put.