Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Tracing Anarchism

47 Pages·2014·0.14 MB·English

Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Ludvík Pouzar
Tracing Anarchism in A New View of
Society
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.
2014
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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
……………………………………………..
Author’s signature
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor, Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D.
for his kind help and my family for their support.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................5
2. Historical Background................................................................................8
2.1 A Brief Biography of William Godwin.....................................................8
2.2 A Brief Biography of Robert Owen.......................................................11
2.3 Roots of Philosophical Discontent........................................................16
3. Godwin and Owen as Anarchists...............................................................21
3.1 Defining Godwinian Anarchism............................................................21
3.2 On the Formation of Character............................................................23
3.3 On the Importance of Reason.............................................................25
3.4 Disposing of Punishment....................................................................28
3.5 The Issue of Institutional Authority.....................................................30
4. Anarchist Principles in Practice at New Lanark...........................................33
4.1 Education at New Lanark....................................................................33
4.2 Equal Opportunity..............................................................................37
4.3 Religion at New Lanark.......................................................................38
5. Conclusion..............................................................................................41
6. List of Works Cited...................................................................................43
7. Abstract in English...................................................................................46
8. Abstract in Czech.....................................................................................47
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1. Introduction
Towards the end of the 18th century, Britain began experiencing a
historical process unlike any before. The Industrial Revolution, as it later
became known, brought with it schools of thought completely new to the
contemporary establishment. A whole new breed of social thinkers and idealists
began articulating their ideas concerning what they believed was the only
sensible way of progress in a fundamentally changed society. Of these new
thinkers, none were more alien to the rigid social system than those who are
known today as anarchists. Anarchism tends to bear a stigma of senseless
radicalism and its idealistic but sober roots are often forgotten. It is the aim of
this thesis to explore the ideas of two of the most prominent social philosophers
of the period: William Godwin and Robert Owen.
Selection of these two prominent thinkers of the break of the century is
not coincidental. Godwin and Owen were not the only social philosophers of
their time and they were not the first ones to start commenting on the issue of
social divide. Of all the great minds of the Enlightenment, however, they were
among those exhibiting a profound similarity in their philosophies. They both
focused greatly on crafting a complex system of education, sharing the belief
that the character of man can only be influenced from the outside, making
proper education their most important focus, as through it they would be able
to produce the ideal state of society.
This thesis aims to explore the influence of Godwin's thoughts on Owen's
ideals and determine, whether Owen's literary manifesto and his well-known
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utopian endeavours can be considered a realisation of the principles laid out by
Godwin in his principal work. It is also my aim to provide information on these
earliest of modern anarchists and give an account of their philosophy. Because
the thesis deals mainly with the roots and beginnings of anarchism, it will
naturally focus more on the initial years of the literary production of both
thinkers, considering how Godwin's opinions gradually turned towards
utilitarianism with age and worsening social conditions. Owen himself in his
later years devoted more time and effort to establishing worker unions.
Furthermore, this thesis aims to establish a connection between Godwin's
and Owen's respective philosophical manifestos, An Enquiry Concerning Political
Justice and “A New View of Society”. These two works, each considered the
best-known piece of writing of these two thinkers, will therefore serve as
primary sources. And an effort will be made to establish intersections in the
respective philosophies of Godwin and Owen through close reading of selected
excerpts.
The first chapter of the thesis focuses on biographical information about
the two thinkers, trying to point out familiar elements and themes in their lives,
which would hint at their shared opinions on the cultivation of mankind. Focus
is then given to historical situation of the break of 19th century in order to show
how the emergence of British social thinking did not happen randomly, but was
rather a part of a much bigger trend, accelerated greatly by the French
Revolution. For biographical information, A.L. Morton's book The Life and Ideas
of Robert Owen not only provides Owen's bioghraphy, but also contains a large
number of his less widely-known writings. It thus provides a valuable insight
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into Owen's more private opinions, not as much weighed down by the pathos of
the “New View of Society”, conceived as an official proclamation of Owen's plan
to British authorities and public.
The second chapter will then look closely at both Political Justice and
“New View of Society” and compare the two manifestos to establish their
primary intersections. The aim of the chapter is twofold. First, to establish a
clear definition of what anarchism stands for and second, to provide clear
examples of shared beliefs of the two thinkers. While this particular chapter will
mostly cite the two primary sources, in order to effectively explain anarchist
thinking, books and essays of prominent scholarly specialists on anarchism will
be consulted. The thoughts of Paul McLaughlin, George Ritter, William Reichert
or George Crowder will help understand anarchist elements in Godwin's work.
When comparing and contrasting Godwin and Owen, the essays of Atsushi
Shirai in particular, have proven very helpful and shed light on the similarities of
their philosophies.
In the last chapter, focus will be given to the issues of the formation of
human character and education, the principal point of interest in literary work
of the two men. This will be achieved by providing an account of Owen's New
Lanark project, which can be seen as a culmination of the efforts of the early
anarchists, putting Godwin's thoughts in practice.
The thesis should provide a wholesome account of the reasons to read
“A New View of Society” not only as a socialist manifesto, but also as a
declaration of anarchist principles as they were laid out by Godwin.
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2. Chapter One: Historical Background
2.1 A Brief Biography of William Godwin
Born in 1756 to a large family of a dissenting minister in the town of
Wisbeach, Godwin spent his initial years migrating with his family through
various cities, finally settling in a village of Guestwick in Norfolk in 1760. From
the earliest age, Godwin took to religion, frequently preached to other children
and imagined himself as a minister one day. Godwin was also drawn to
intellectual endeavours because of his frail physique. His religious convictions,
so far idealistically developed, waned when he entered Samuel Newton's
congregation in Norwich and after experiencing his extreme calvinist views,
Godwin no longer wished to pursue a clerical career, wanting instead to become
a bookseller (“William Godwin”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
At the age of seventeen, Godwin was admitted to the Hoxton Academy.
In 1778, he went to Ware and later London in search of employment and after
failing to secure a position there, he stayed in Suffolk till 1782. There he came
into contact with the writings of Rousseau, Holbach and Helvetius. Such literary
revelations caused him to grow distant from his former faith and embrace
deism (Shirai, “On William Godwin” 60).
Since the year 1795, Godwin maintained contact with Mary
Wollstonecraft, the chief advocate of the rights of women. In 1798 the pair got
together and married, but only briefly, as Wollstonecraft died during childbirth.
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This great personal tragedy was at least somewhat mitigated by the fact that
she managed to give birth to a healthy daughter named Mary, who would later
become known as Mary Shelley, a writer of great renown and the wife to Percy
Bysshe Shelley.
Godwin grew to be a vocal participant in political affairs. Like many other
emerging social thinkers, he too was influenced by the French Revolution,
especially by the thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the conservative, Tory-
dominated British society of the time, this led to branding of these philosophers
with the term “Jacobins”, despite not having much in common with their French
raical revolutionary equivalents. These so-called Jacobins would then go ahead
and form their intellectual circles, in which they engaged in philosophical
discourse. In 1792, Godwin became a member of one such circle, the London
Corresponding Society, a group of like-minded Jacobin thinkers, led by Thomas
Hardy, professing hope that the French Revolution might bring with itself a shift
in British society towards reason and a decline of state authority (Kelly 2).
Among the rising fears of the government, that British society might slip
into similar chaos as that in France, the year 1794 brought with itself an
important incident. Several major British leftist thinkers were taken into custody
on charges of treason and conspiring against royal authority. These personages
included among others Thomas Paine, Edmund Burke and Thomas Hardy, the
aforementioned leader of the London Corresponding Society. Godwin could not
stand idly by and drafted a pamphlet, which would become known as the
Cursory Strictures on the Charge Delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the
Grand Jury, 2 October 1794, in this work Godwin appeals to the sense of justice
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and expresses concern about the possibility of fabrication of charges to fit
political agenda. ("William Godwin", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) This
sense of justice being among the most important aspects of society was at this
point already clearly articulated by Godwin in his Political Justice, published a
year before.
Morality is the source from which its fundamental axioms must be
drawn, and they will be made somewhat clearer in the present
instance, if we assume the term justice as a general apellation for all
moral duty. (Political Justice 80)
Surprisingly, publishing his numerous literary works did not give Godwin
any sort of economic stability. After 1800 he fell out of grace with the public
and directed his efforts towards running the Juvenile Library, publishing books
for children with his second wife, Mary Jane Clairmont, to make ends meet.
Joachim Grande attributes his financial difficulties to the shifting political
climate, which looked unfavourably upon Godwin's early writings (203). His
publishing of the Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1798, a book controversial
for its improper handling of Wollstonecraft's private matters, only deepened his
social ostracisation (Allen 229, 230).
When contrasted with his literary beginnings, it becomes all the more
interesting, that he lived his final years mostly forgotten by the public. Such
was his later extrication from public affairs, that Shirai provides us with an
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