The essays collected in Persecution and the Art of Writing all deal with one problem--the relation between philosophy and politics. Here, Strauss sets forth the thesis that many philosophers, especially political philosophers, have reacted to the threat of persecution by disguising their most controversial and heterodox ideas.

The modern use of the word ‘persecution’ in both speeches and books shows a phenomenon that is almost wholly associated with religion. However, persecution is a threat to the peace of religious institutions as well as various societies all over the world; thus, this makes it a phenomenon beyond the scope of religion. However, this research focuses on religious persecution. It studies an aspect of persecution which is called intra muros persecution. This means ‘internal’ (...) class='Hi'>persecution. ‘Internal’ in this context describes the kind that existed in the Jewish religious settings, amongst professing Jews, strictly between Rabbinic Jews and Messianic Jews as predicted in Matthew 10:16–23 and is reflected in today’s Christianity in the form of various intra-denominational attacks in Nigeria. The study delves into the history of events which took place between Rabbinic Jews and Messianic Jews and how it relates to the Christian faith, coming out with the discovery that division which it called sectarianism was the brain behind this brand of persecution. The application of the study to the Nigerian situation necessitates the call for tolerance amongst various denominational sects in Nigeria. (shrink)

본 논문은 조선후기의 천주교 유입과정을 주제로 관용의 원리를 규명한다. 종교와 정치의 극단적 대립과 그 해소 과정을 보여준 조선후기의 천주교 박해 및 정착과정을 정치철학적으로 조명한다는 점에서 본 논문은 역사 ․ 종교 ․ 철학을 접목시키는 관점에 서있다. 구체적으로 스피노자의 정치철학을 매개로 종교와 사상에 대한 관용은 지배체제의 유지에 유용하다는 점을 이론화함으로써 사회균형 방안을 논구한다. 정치권력은 사상 및 신앙의 외적 표현에는 개입할 수 있어도 그 내적 원리 자체를 통제할 수는 없다는 스피노자의 관점을 토대로 조선 후기의 천주교 수용과정과 관련 역사를 논의하고 그로부터 종교와 정치의 명확한 (...) 관계 규정과 관용의 원리를 통한 사회 운영 방안을 모색한다. 논의는 세 부분으로 나누어 진행된다. 첫째, 조선후기 천주교 박해에 대한 해석의 틀을 제시한다. 둘째, 종교박해의 의미를 주권론과 호교론의 관계를 통해 규명한다. 셋째, 관용의 원리를 통해 주권론과 호교론의 절충을 꾀함으로써 조선후기 천주교 수용과정이 사회 균형과 관련하여 내포한 의미를 고찰한다. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Persecution of Writing: Revisiting Strauss and CensorshipGeorges Van Den Abbeele (bio)In the 1542 edition of Pantagruel, Rabelais’s narrator terminates a long tirade extolling the Gargantuan Chronicles’ extraordinary virtues (curing toothaches, relieving the pain of treatments for syphilis, and so on) with the proviso that he will maintain the absurd truth of these claims “jusques au feu exclusive (to any point short of the stake)” [215]. This clause, (...) absent from earlier editions, while implicating the comic cowardice of the narrator also adumbrates a tragic sense of prudence. In the early years of the sixteenth century, not just Rabelais but the rest of his Renaissance world had come increasingly to know the heavy hand of censorship and persecution. Bookburning, of course, had lost its traditional source of terror with the invention of the printing press: no longer could a single bonfire extinguish all versions of a single manuscript. Instead, Church and State authorities had in the course of the Renaissance to invent new practices for controlling and regulating the circulation of dangerous words: bans on publication, excision of offensive passages prior to printing, indices of prohibited books, and so on. When left with no other alternative, however, one could still burn not just sample copies of the book but the offending author too, such as in the case of Giordano Bruno, whose auto-da-fé menacingly lit up the skies in the very first year of the seventeenth century. 1Today, with the advent of electronic media and the virtual extirpation of texts from the materiality of print and paper, it is even more difficult to abolish or even regulate the spread of refractory discourses. In the last decade, though, we have seen renewed attempts at censorship, not just of modern visual, aural, and electronic modes of representation (as is commonly recognized and debated), but also of that reputed cornerstone of liberal democratic rights, the printed text. And while in the contemporary American context it may seem that the debate over censorship has “become an argument almost exclusively about pornography and obscenity” [McGrail 51], there is also a critical need for reflection on the renewed onslaught today in virtually every part of the planet against the freedom of writers and that of the press per se. The gravity of the situation best emblematized by the case of Salman Rushdie should not blind us to the parallel stories of Taslima Nasrin, Wole Soyinka, Farag Fuda, Nawal el Saadawi, and others sadly too numerous to list. 2 [End Page 3]In this context, Leo Strauss’s 1941 essay “Persecution and the Art of Writing” retains a remarkable currency on the subject and remains a crucial point of departure from which to reflect on the contemporary crisis of censorship and the writer. Written at a time, over half a century ago, when another wave of explicit attacks on writers shocked the intellectual world, Strauss’s essay, on the one hand, struck a hopeful chord by evoking the kinds of techniques available to writers in their efforts to evade or foil censorship, that is, by demonstrating that no censorship can fully succeed in terroristically bringing about an end to heterodox forms of expression. On the other hand, he posits at least the possibility for every text that it has an inexorable core that is esoteric. No censorship can be total, but there is also no such thing as a pristine state of letters prior to censorship. As Michael Holquist has written in a more recent venue, “censorship is” [16], and all discussion must begin from that understanding if we are ever to approach the magnitude of the contemporary debacle.It is perhaps no small irony, too, that a certain Straussianism begs the question of censorship, complaining about the strictures of “political correctness” while seeking to restore a canon that not only would deny many forms of alternative discourse but also the very historicity of such constructs as canons and approved reading lists as well as indices of “forbidden books.” A useful approach might be to consider whether more recent forms of censorship have historically exceeded the terms of Strauss’s argument or whether the Straussian version of history is not itself an... (shrink)

Crises of forced migration are, unfortunately, nothing new. At the time of the writing of this paper, at least two such crises were in full swing – mass movements from the Middle East and parts of Africa to the E.U., and major movements from Central America to the Southern U.S. border, including movements by large numbers of families and unaccompanied minors. These movements are complex, with multiple causes, and it is always risky to attempt to craft either general policy or (...) philosophical positions in response to salient crises. However, both of these instances do bring to the foreground important questions about the proper purpose and extent of refugee protection as a means of dealing with crises of forced migration. In particular, both of these instances force us to consider what role persecution on the basis of a protected ground – race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion – ought to play in granting refugee protection, and whether our response to those in danger should change if the agents of persecution are non-state actors. This paper is not primarily about the problems arising from Syria or Central America. In a way similar to how hard cases make bad law, I contend that a too central focus on salient crises tends to lead to bad theory and often to bad general policy. However, if I am successful in my goal of clarifying the place of persecution and non-state action in refugee protection, then we may in turn be better able to think clearly about our current crisis situations. -/- In this paper I will first draw on my previous work on the normative logic of the refugee convention to argue that, while persecution should play an important, and even central, role in our thinking about refugees, this importance is shallow and pragmatic rather than deep and fundamental. Next, I will show how this conclusion supports the claim that harms amounting to persecution by non-state actors may ground an asylum claim, at least in some cases, both when the state is unwilling and when it is unable to protect its members. I consider two cases: first, instances where the authority and power of the state has been usurped by another power, and second, when the state has (implicitly or explicitly) delegated its power or authority to non-state actors. I will show how this leads to extending asylum to a broader range of people than traditional accounts would. -/- (To download this paper, please use the link from SSRN below.). (shrink)

Emmanuel Lévinas interprète une page talmudique en affirmant que la persécution ne peut être traduite dans une autre langue que celle de la victime. Si l’éthique lévinassienne laisse comprendre pourquoi la traduction de la parole douloureuse des persécutés redoublerait la dévalorisation de la parole singulière de ces victimes déjà induite par la persécution, elle semble aussi se fonder, en l’occurrence, sur une conception de la traduction qui mériterait peut-être d’être élargie à partir des réflexions de Walter Benjamin ; prise en (...) compte qui permettrait alors de penser une traduction de la persécution qui ne dévalorise pas la parole singulière des victimes et qui ne les enferme pas dans une douleur intransmissible. (shrink)

According to Tocqueville, the freedom of the press, which he treats as an extension of the freedom of speech, is a primary constituent element of liberty. Tocqueville treats the freedom of the press in relation to and as an extension of the right to assemble and govern one’s own affairs, both of which he argues are essential to preserving liberty in a free society. Although scholars acknowledge the importance of civil associations to liberty in Tocqueville’s political thought, they routinely ignore (...) the importance he places on the freedom of the press and speech. His reflections on the importance of the free press and speech may help to shed light on the dangers of recent attempts to censor the press and speech. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Unter der Herrschaft des Römischen Reiches lebten religiöse Gruppen und verschiedene Traditionen neben- und miteinander, ohne dass ein theoretischer Diskurs über Religionsfreiheit geführt werden musste: Religiöse Pluralität gehört zur Normalität der antiken Mittelmeerwelt. Die religiöse Nachbarschaft verändert sich dramatisch mit der Ausbreitung des Christentums. Die neue Religion als eine monotheistische und exklusivistische Religion mit universalem Anspruch vertrug sich nicht mit den traditionellen Praktiken der griechisch- römischen Welt und stand im Konflikt mit den religiösen Erfordernissen des Römischen Staates. Die Verfolgungen (...) verlangten umfassend apologetische Texte zur Verteidigung gegen die pagane Kritik. Sie forderten für ihre Legitimität die allgemeine Religionsfreiheit. Tertullian verlangt sie um 200 n. Chr. als natürliches Recht jedes Individuums. In seiner Argumentationslinie entwickelten die lateinischen Apologeten das Argument weiter gegen religiösen Zwang und für die Überzeugung. Das sog. Mailänder Edikt Konstantins und andere Toleranzedikte am Ende der Tetrarchie stehen in dieser Linie des Diskurses. Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die Entstehung und frühe Entwicklung des christlichen Diskurses über Toleranz und seinen apologetischen und polemischen Kontext sowie seine Auswirkung auf die Rhetorik der Gesetzestexte, die das Ende der Verfolgungen begründen. (shrink)

The respective philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor Adorno share a concern with articulating a critique of Husserlian phenomenology which would do justice to the materiality of the subject. With this commonality in mind, it is argued that Levinas reifies this materiality by endowing it with a metaphysical priority expressive of ethical universality. In contrast, Adorno eschews the philosophical obsession with the assertion of metaphysical priority, insisting on the complexly historical nature of material life. In place of the Levinasian concern (...) with the subject’s forgetting of her or his ethical responsibilities to ‘the Other’, Adorno’s notion of the primacy of the object helps to articulate the ways in which the subject is always already materially bound by singular social histories which are essentially exclusionary. Amelioration of our suffering would thus depend on a concrete break in material social life, rather than on an abstractly conceived revelation of transcendence. (shrink)

In order to be eligible for refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention, an individual must have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. A major problem with this condition for refugee status is that it leaves significant protection gaps, for it is generally agreed that individuals fleeing indiscriminate violence or generalized harm do not satisfy this requirement. In this paper, I evaluate existing arguments both defending (...) and critiquing the persecution condition, and then outline my own account of the criteria that should replace it. I argue that my view is preferable to alternatives suggested in the literature because it satisfies three key desiderata: 1) it eliminates protection gaps; 2) it is feasible to implement in a world like ours; and 3) it preserves the importantly political nature of the institution of refugeehood. (shrink)

When reviewed against the background of Byzantine diplomatic correspondence, Aksum’s religious policy on the Arabian Peninsula is perceivable within a Constantinian religio-political matrix. Imperial letters from Byzantine to Aksum and Persia denote the Byzantine role of arbiter of early Christianity. Byzantine Rome’s role in Christianity when reviewed from diplomatic correspondence with allies and antagonists recounts narratives of orthodoxy and persecution. Parallel review of letters from Constantine and Constantius decodes the Christian kingdom of Aksum as a participant of 4th-century CE (...) Constantinian dynamics. This review was enabled through document analysis. (shrink)

When reviewed against the background of Byzantine diplomatic correspondence, Aksum’s religious policy on the Arabian Peninsula is perceivable within a Constantinian religio-political matrix. Imperial letters from Byzantine to Aksum and Persia denote the Byzantine role of arbiter of early Christianity. Byzantine Rome’s role in Christianity when reviewed from diplomatic correspondence with allies and antagonists recounts narratives of orthodoxy and persecution. Parallel review of letters from Constantine and Constantius decodes the Christian kingdom of Aksum as a participant of 4th-century CE (...) Constantinian dynamics. This review was enabled through document analysis. (shrink)

This note analyses a recent case of the English Court of Appeal in which the applicant, R.G., a gay, H.I.V. positive Colombian claimed asylum on grounds of persecution due to his sexuality. Both the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and the Court of Appeal rejected R.G.’s claim for asylum. The Court of Appeal’s first and most significant reason was that the alleged persecution was not sufficiently serious or life threatening, since R.G. had not suffered actual physical violence throughout the (...) 13 years that he had lived as a closeted gay man in Colombia. Secondly, the court considered the real reason for R.G.’s seeking asylum was his desire to access free health care in order to manage his H.I.V. His allegations of persecution on the grounds of sexuality were viewed as a sham. This note is critical of the approach taken by the Court, which, it is argued, displays an insensitivity to the complexity of sexual identity and its performance and has the effect of perpetuating and legitimating discrimination against lesbians and gay men. (shrink)

Qutayba ibn Muslim al-Bāhilī is one of the leading soldier-bureaucrats of the Umayyads period. During the time he served as the governor of Khurāsān, he consolidated the Umayyad’s rule in Tokharistan and Transoxiana provinces, and expanded the borders of the state to China by conquering the Kashgar region. His activities for conversion of the people of the conquered regions have great importance in the history of Islam since the intense relations of the Turkish people with Islam fell upon the time (...) of his governorship. It is possible to argue that by introducing the religion to these people Qutayba had played an important role in their conversion to Islam. It is also known that he had sent a delegation to the emperor of China for the same purpose. However, despite all his achievements, it is seen that the academic studies about Qutayba in our country are very rare. Besides, some of the recent studies about him claim that he was a fraud, a trickster, and an untrustworthy person in his military activities; and had committed mass murders and massacres, persecuted innocent people, destroyed and burned the cities of conquered lands. In this article, it is examined that whether these claims and accusations have their justifications or not by consulting the main sources. In fact, what is expected from constructive criticism in this subject and every other area is to clarify the matter and make it more comprehensible of its context. However, it should not be forgotten that some conclusions over Qutayba in these studies might have been drawn to quickly in order to manipulate the conquest movements of the Umayyad period.Summary: The religious interaction and change taken place in the Arabian Peninsula with the emergence of Islam and with the political, military and cultural activities of the Muslims performed during the periods of Prophet Muhammad and the Rāshidūn (rightly guided) Caliphs had significant effects upon the lands of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Khurāsān where the ancient civilizations located.The success made by the Muslim-Arabs in such a short time is accepted of course as one of the important events of world history. The message of Islam spread rapidly with their extraordinary efforts, and reached quickly in the early days of Islam to the Amu Darya/Oxus River, which is considered to be the natural border between the Iranians and the Turks (Iran and Turan).Although the Turks who had been struggling to dominate the region for centuries gained an opportunity with the disappearance of the Sasanian Empire from history, they could not take advantage of this new situation because of their lack of political unity and a strong state, and the power held by the regional Turkish Sultans were not enough to make their dominance happen. In this conjuncture, the Muslim-Arabs who appeared in the stage of history in a relatively late period but had the ideal of being a regional and a global power had rapidly realised their political and military activities called “conquest” in the Islamic historical sources. When it comes to the period of Caliph ʿUthmān, it is seen that the conditions were very suitable for passing to the east of the Oxus River where the Turkish elements lived intensively. At the time, the absence of a strong Turkish state in the region, and China’s occupation with its own internal problems made an important contribution for the Muslim-Arab capture of the region. In this region, which is called as “Transoxiana” in the Arabic sources, it is seen that the Turks organized their political structures as city-states and regional sultanates. In the north-eastern parts of this region, there was a strong Turkish State called the Turgish State and it provided political and military support to the people of the region who rebelled occasionally the Umayyads.After solving the internal problems of the state largely and suppressing some dangerous revolts, the Umayyad Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān became capable of initiating military activities beyond the borders of the state. Nevertheless, the period when the actual conquests were made was the period of his son Walīd (86/705-96/715). It is seen that the conquests made in his time were permanent, and the people who lived in the conquered lands accepted Islam to a large extent. The conquest made during Walīd’s time which extended from Kashgar to the Pyrenees, realised at an unprecedented pace. The most important name for the eastern side of the conquests is undoubtedly Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf. Ḥajjāj (75/694-95/714) who acted as the supreme governor of Iraq for nearly twenty years, had achieved important successes in the regions of Transoxiana and Sindh located in the eastern part of the country by the hands of his appointed governors. However, many governors appointed by him to Khurāsān from 75/694 to 86/705 with the hope of reaching his goals in the east could not meet his expectations because of the political, social and economic problems that existed throughout the country, and because of the resulting rebellions in the regions that these problems caused.These unwanted conditions continued to be seen in the region until he appointed Qutayba ibn Muslim as the governor of Khurāsān (86 / 705-96 / 715) who was one of the young commanders and administrators educated by Ḥajjāj personally. Qutayba known as having a close relationship with Ḥajjāj and consulting him when taking important decisions acted in this direction throughout the time he stayed in this position.It is known that the internal conflicts in the region continued during the time when Qutayba was appointed as the governor of Khurāsān. However, he had brought together northern and southern Arabian tribes living in the region with religious, political and economical suggestions and had succeeded in persuading them for military activities that he decided to operate beyond the Oxus. For the Umayyads, these military operations were justified, because the regional sultans who ruled in the western and eastern sides of the Oxus repeatedly violated the agreements they had made before. The tendency of the people of Turkic, Iranian, and Tajik origin who were the real owner of these lands and lived in both sides of the rich Oxus basin for many centuries to violate these agreements was in fact result of a great concern. They now realized that the Muslim-Arabs who followed a systematic settlement policy in the region came to their lands this time without any intention of going back. Even though Qutayba followed a fair and reasonable policy towards them, they violated their agreements with him, formed alliances among themselves and waged military campaigns against Qutayba not to be the subjects of any change in their religion, worldview, and perception of existence.Qutayba, who is believed to have spent his its utmost efforts to make the religion of Islam and the Umayyad political cause permanent in the region under these unfavourable conditions, has been recently criticized by some researchers. The criticisms intensify around the claims that he persecuted people, committed massacres, and behaved unfaithfully by breaking his promises that he made with people. From the perspective of our own times, it is possible to think that sometimes he had taken extreme measures in punishing the sultans and the persons who raised armed struggles against him and caused riots by violating the agreements. However, when the period is compared with the others, it can be easily said that the Umayyads showed in these and other remote areas a considerable amount of tolerance that they had never shown it in their internal conflicts. It is a known fact that he generally clashed with the ones who disrupted agreements, sought help from external forces, established alliances against them, and refused to pay taxes. Based on historical sources, it does not seem to be possible to say that while doing these activities in the region, Qutabya did not behave entirely in a way that his behaviour could be classified as massacres committed against innocent civilians. On the contrary, it is known that Qutayba had given many chances to the people of the region in administrative and military affairs. As a matter of fact, he ruled the city of Bukhara for 20 years with a Turkish ruler whom he appointed and supported, and he included in his army a union of twenty thousand cosmopolitan soldiers assembled from the people of Bukhara, Baykend, Chach and Samarkand and paid a regular salary to them.The fact that his grave known as the “Imam Shaykh Qutayba Tomb” was turned later into a shrine and visited by the people even today despite the passage of long centuries after his death shows that he has been loved by the people of the region and that they have always considered him as a conqueror-bureaucrat who spent his life for the ideals of his religion. (shrink)

"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.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

I. Logic, rationality and ideology Herbert Marcuse once claimed that the ‘“rational” is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.’ He echoed a widespread folk belief that a world in which people were rational would be a better world. This could be taken as an optimistic empirical conjecture: if people were more rational then probably the world would be a better place (a trust that ‘virtue will be rewarded’, so to speak). (...) However, it is also worth considering a stronger hypothesis: that if something did not reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression then it would not constitute rationality. On this view there is no mere correlation between rationality and a propensity toward reduction in ignorance and the rest, it is the propensity to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality and oppression which in part constitutes rationality. Call this a broad conception of rationality, because it expands beyond the epistemic goal of reducing ignorance, and reaches out to moral concerns like oppression. (shrink)

The article focuses on examining the distinct nature of persecution. In the article I argue that on the grounds of common historical cases of persecution an account of the core components of the concept may be established. The core comprises three central elements: asymmetrical and systemic threat, severe and sustained harm, and unjust discriminatory targeting. I will conclude the paper by suggesting that none of the components alone make persecution anything distinct. However, the simultaneous occurrence of the (...) components may be argued to amount to a separable class of harms that are among the worst-case scenarios for those having to endure them. (shrink)