Political Engagement: Utopias and Political Texts

In the last few weeks I have engaged in two public-facing events in which I have shared my research with non-academic audiences. Participants at both raised interesting questions and comments prompting me to think more deeply about the topics I am currently researching. In this blog I reflect on what I have learned from this engagement.

The first event was 'The Quest for Utopia', organised by the Liverpool Salon and held at the wonderful Athenaeum in Liverpool's City Centre. The Salon has been hosting public conversations on philosophical, political, and cultural topics on Merseyside for more than seven years, providing valuable opportunities for 'critical discussion'. The event in which I participated (a recording of which can be accessed here) was the first of a series exploring the theme of utopia. In his opening talk Ronnie Hughes, who presents himself as 'an occasional and formerly enthusiastic utopian practitioner', raised the provocation that the term 'utopia' has been misunderstood ever since it was first coined by Thomas More in 1516. More's aim, Ronnie insisted, had not been to create a 'perfect' society, but merely a 'better' one. I developed this point in my own introduction on James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana, emphasising that when thinking about improving society we need to follow Harrington in taking human beings as they are rather than proposing plans that require super-human virtue or self-sacrifice. Moreover, given the constant dynamism of human life, deliberately leaving some things for future generations to work on (as Ronnie and his team did with the Granby Four Streets project) provides hope and opportunity for the future.

The Reading Room at the Liverpool Athenaeum. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

The emphasis on perfectionism may be one reason why, as participants lamented, utopianism is in short supply today. In our discussion we spent some time thinking about how to rekindle utopianism in the present and future. One obstacle is undoubtedly a pessimistic tendency - 'doom and gloom' as one person put it. It is easy to get so caught up in complaining about how bad things are, that we talk ourselves out of being able to do anything about it. Here too Ronnie had some wise words for us, identifying as a 'utopian moment' the point in his discussions with the Granby Four Streets residents when he told them they could have five more minutes of moaning, but then had to start talking positively about what they wanted. That shift is crucial if we are to have any hope of making things better. I was not the only participant reminded of Gerrard Winstanley and his comment that 'action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing' (Gerrard Winstanley, A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Armie, London, 1649). The first key to moving forward, then, is to turn from the negative to the positive; and to take action to move from how things have been, to how they could be.

Another important point that arose from our discussions was that scale is crucial. Grand visions can be impressive and inspiring, but they are also difficult to implement, and it can be hard to know where to start. Perhaps, then, instead of thinking big we need to take smaller steps initially to bring about concrete change. This might mean working locally rather than nationally or internationally. The Granby Four Streets project was local, as were the town projects arising out of the Garden City movement of the twentieth century. Such projects might not change the world fundamentally or bring about perfection, but they can and do make a difference to people's lives. Growing up in Milton Keynes, I was conscious that despite it often being the butt of jokes, there were many positive features of my home town (such as an extensive and well-lit cycle network) which I have missed in other places I have lived. Moreover, even small projects can have a big impact. After all, the Granby Four Streets project won the Turner Prize in 2015.

The Liverpool Athenaeum’s copy of Thomas More’s Utopia. Image by Rachel Hammersley and courtesy of the Library of the Liverpool Athenaeum - with particular thanks to Robert Huxley.

This leads to my third point: the importance of utopian thinking being grounded in place. The etymology of utopia means 'no place' and, as Robert Huxley demonstrated in his talk, a lot of utopian thinking of the Renaissance and early modern period was inspired by voyages of exploration that brought Europeans into contact with previously unknown places. But Vanessa Pupavac emphasised in her introduction that utopias work best when they are 'some place' connected to an actual location and its history. Believing, as some early explorers did, that we can impose our utopia or 'civilisation' on others - or, conversely, that we can import the Tahitian dream back to Europe - is a misconception that has repeatedly resulted in misery and disaster. We cannot remake the world divorced from the realities of climate, geography, culture, or human nature. Our utopias, then, must not only be positive and realistic, but also grounded in a particular time and place.

These ideas about how to build a better future remained in my mind as I approached the first meeting of our Experiencing Political Texts reading group, which took place at another wonderful city institution, Newcastle's Literary and Philosophical Society. The aim of this group is to explore the dissemination of political information both today and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thinking in particular about how the medium through which political ideas are conveyed can frame, influence - and even distort - the message.

Infographic advertising the Experiencing Political Texts reading group. With thanks to Nifty Fox Creative for the design.

At our initial meeting we talked about where each of us gets our knowledge about politics and current affairs from. There were various responses ranging from traditional media such as print newspapers and journals through to social media such as Twitter. It was also clear that while some of us favour text-based material, others prefer aural forms such as radio and podcasts. Fewer of us seemed to prioritise visual media, but that is also a format that is increasing in popularity - especially among the young.

Participants also commented on the limitations of some of these formats. In social media, headlines are accentuated, yet these do not always provide an accurate indication of the content of the article. Even longer articles may not provide as much depth - particularly on the history behind events - as might be necessary to properly understand them. Social media have been criticised for creating echo chambers, but participants also questioned the extent to which individuals reading conventional media seek out views and opinions different from their own.

This image and the one below are infographics produced by Nifty Fox Creative during the live scribing of our first reading group meeting.

More broadly, participants identified two pressing issues. First, the increasingly blurred line between truth and fiction - which becomes especially worrying when it is applied to the outcome of elections, as has been the case in several countries recently. Secondly, the fact that in many quarters the presentation of the news seems to be aimed primarily at entertaining the audience rather than informing or educating them. I share these concerns, but it also struck me that some of the early modern figures I have been studying actively deployed such tactics in order to engage readers. For example, Henry Neville deliberately presented his political views in entertaining genres such as a travel narrative and dialogue, and he used satire to draw in his audience. He also deliberately blurred the line between truth and fiction in order to prompt his readers into thinking more deeply about the truth of the information being presented to them. There is clearly a complexity here that requires careful unpicking.

Finally, we looked at some examples of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century political texts and compared them with the sources of political information available to us today. The group discussed what sort of people would have been able to read these works, thinking about access, class, and literacy. We acknowledged that the sharing of texts - for example by reading them aloud, passing them on to friends, and using the circulating and subscription libraries that emerged in the eighteenth century - will have increased the number of people who could engage with them. The presentation of works will also have been affected by the authors' sense of their target audiences - including the fact that some works will have been designed to be read aloud in coffee houses. The group also raised the thought-provoking question of whether authors thought only about contemporary audiences or whether they also had future readers in mind. If not, what does that mean for reading groups like ours addressing these texts today? I look forward to exploring these issues further in later sessions.

'Ut Spargam' and other Hollis Marginalia

An example of the smoke printed symbol of the pilius or liberty cap taken from Henry Neville, Plato Redivivus, or a dialogue concerning government (London, 1763). This copy, which was donated by Hollis to the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, is now held at the National Library of Scotland: ([Ad]. 7/1.8). It is reproduced here under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.

In last month's blogpost I noted that social media platforms have now taken over as the dominant source of news and political information for younger citizens in the UK. One of the main concerns about this shift in news consumption habits is the notion that such platforms tend to generate echo chambers. This results in individuals rarely being confronted by - and therefore required to engage with - views that differ significantly from their own. It can produce a polarisation of positions and a tendency to demonise - rather than seeking to understand - alternative viewpoints. The political dissemination campaigns of the late eighteenth century that were the focus of my last blogpost could be seen as leading to a similar outcome, with campaigners voicing particular viewpoints (such as the benefits of political reform), and dismissing alternative views. Yet in the case of Thomas Hollis, the picture is more complex.

I have touched on Hollis and his campaign several times in previous blogposts, so will not go into great detail here. Suffice to say that he sent a huge number of books to university and public libraries in Britain, continental Europe, and North America. Harvard College in Massachusetts was the recipient of the largest collection of donations, with around 3,000 volumes being sent over several years. Part of Hollis's aim in sending works to university libraries was to influence the education of the rising generation.

An example of the embossed symbol of the wise owl again taken from the National Library of Scotland’s copy of Neville’s Plato Redivivus: ([Ad].7/1.8). Reproduced under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.

As well as sending the works free of charge, Hollis also manipulated the physical appearance of the volumes he sent in order to shape how they were read and understood. One technique he deployed was to add symbols or emblematic tools to the works (either smoke printed into the text or embossed onto the binding) which served as a shorthand for the content. A pilius or liberty bonnet indicated that the work advocated liberty, a sword was associated with the right to overthrow tyrants, the cock symbolised alertness or vigilance, and an owl showed that the work was wise (unless it appeared upside down in which case it had the opposite meaning). More details on the emblematic tools Hollis used are provided in William Bond's lecture, 'Thomas Hollis: His Bookbinders and Book binding', which can be accessed here.

Another method Hollis used was to add handwritten comments to the texts expressing his views on them or pointing readers towards related works in the collection. Most of these comments were specific to the text itself (and I discussed some of these in a previous blogpost) but there were at least three phrases that can be found repeatedly in works that form part of the Harvard collection.

An example of Hollis’s handwritten marginalia. This comes from an edition of John Milton’s Works, ed. Richard Baron (London, 1753). Reproduced with permission from the Harvard Library copy.

One of these is the phrase 'Ut Spargam', which translates roughly as 'that we may scatter them', 'spargo' being the Latin verb meaning to scatter, strew, or sprinkle. Hollis added this phrase by hand to more than twenty of the volumes he sent to Harvard College. For the most part these are works that set out and celebrate the rights and liberties of the people in politics and religion. They include: several works from the French monarchomach tradition, written by Huguenots in the late sixteenth century, opposing absolute monarchy and justifying tyrannicide; several collections of speeches, acts, or declarations by the English parliament of the 1640s during its confrontation with Charles I; English republican texts such as James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana and Catharine Macaulay's History of England; and several works that deal explicitly with the rights of the people, including Benjamin Hoadly's The common rights of subjects, defended, William Petyt's, The antient right of the Commons of England, and a 1658 work called simply The rights of the people. The point of the Latin phrase was presumably to indicate that these works should be disseminated so that people around the world would come to know their rights.

A box commemorating the repeal of the Stamp Act. From the National Museum of American History. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License.

There were, of course, particular reasons why this message was pertinent to the American colonists in the 1760s (when Hollis sent most of these works to Harvard). This was a period during which the conflict between the colonists and the British government was escalating. The imposition of the Sugar Act in April 1764 and of the Stamp Act in March 1765 had led the colonists to fear that the British were seeking to exploit and oppress them - imposing taxes without according them representation, thereby infringing their rights as British subjects. The second of these acts provoked the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 - an early example of co-ordinated action on the part of the colonists. Yet despite securing the repeal of the Stamp Act the following year, the exercise of British control continued. The repeal was deliberately accompanied by the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament's right to control the colonies. In June 1767 further customs duties were imposed, and the following year British troops moved into Massachusetts, which had been the focus of the colonial protests. It is not difficult to read off from Hollis's gifts to Harvard his attitude towards the crisis and the fact that he saw it as crucial in this context to remind young American citizens of their rights and the threats posed by overbearing power.

The second phrase Hollis adds to multiple volumes is 'Felicity is Freedom and Freedom is Magnanimity'. It appears in seven works, most of which are recognisably republican texts and two of which also bear the 'Ut Spargam' tag (Harrington's Oceana and Macaulay's History). Interestingly it also appears in A short narrative of the horrid massacre, which described the Boston Massacre of 1770 when British troops fired on protestors. A direct connection is, therefore, drawn between the events of mid-seventeenth-century England and recent colonial affairs. In fact there is a third strand to the parallel, since Hollis attributes the phrase 'Felicity is Freedom and Freedom is Magnanimity' to Thucydides. In Book 2 of The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides praises the bravery of the Athenians who died in that war, sacrificing themselves for their country, and he urges their successors to follow their example:

For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own,

where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a

record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as

your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of

valour, never decline the dangers of war.

(http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.2.second.html)

Like the ancient Athenians and the republicans of seventeenth-century England, the American colonists were displaying a spirit of patriotism that led them to put the good of their country ahead of their own personal interests. The 'Felicity is Freedom' tag endorsed their willingness to fight - even to the death - to defend their rights.

Yet Hollis's strategy was not simply to present his readers with one side of the story. One of the works to which he added the phrase 'Ut Spargam' was Henry Sacheverell's account of his trial. Sacheverell was an Anglican clergyman and popular preacher. In a sermon delivered in November 1709, which he subsequently printed illegally, he attacked Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, comparing the Gunpowder Plot to the execution of Charles I. At his trial, which opened in February 1710 and was accompanied by rioting, Sacheverell was found guilty. As a strong advocate of the Dissenting cause, Hollis will not have shared Sacheverell's views and the parallel drawn between Catholics and Dissenters will have been an affront to Hollis's staunch anti-Catholicism. Yet he still believed that Sacheverell's own account of his trial should be widely disseminated.

Moreover, the plot thickens further if we draw into the discussion Hollis's third repeatedly used inscription: 'Floreat Libertas, Pereat Tyrannis'. The words themselves celebrate the triumph of liberty over tyranny. Yet the works to which Hollis added these words were produced not by advocates of liberty, but by their tyrannical opponents. They include: the collected works of Charles I and his account of his trial; the Letters and dispatches of Charles's close advisor the Earl of Strafford who was executed by Parliament in 1641; and The free-holders grand inquest by the divine right theorist Robert Filmer. It is no doubt significant that while he strongly opposed the arguments reflected in these works, Hollis did not hide them from the Harvard students, but deliberately sent them copies, alerting them by his handwritten inscription that these works contained the arguments of tyrants. Hollis's position seems to have been that it was not sufficient for the colonists to be educated on their rights, they also needed to have a clear picture of what tyranny looked like so that they could recognise it and act quickly when it was imposed against them.

Underlying these decisions by Hollis we can perhaps glimpse the hand of the man he described as 'the divine Milton' (Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, Esq., ed. Francis Blackburne. London, 1780, pp. 60 and 93). In Areopagitica (1644) John Milton argued against the censorship of books, drawing a contrast between the food of the body and that of the mind:

Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in

John Milton in the ‘Temple of British Worthies’ at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. Image by Rachel Hammersley

the healthiest concoction; but herein the

difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet

and judicious Reader serve in many respects to

discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate (John

Milton, Areopagitica. London, 1644, p. 11).

Hollis, following Milton, believed that the American colonists needed to engage with and understand tyranny in order to be able to defend their rights and liberties. The same argument holds today. We cannot understand, let alone defend, what is right, if we are not prepared to listen to, and engage with, alternative viewpoints - even those we might find distasteful.

Launching Experiencing Political Texts

The way we consume news and political information is changing. A survey of 50,000 people in 2016 concluded that social media had taken over from television as the main source of news for people aged 18-24 and another published just a couple of weeks ago came to the same conclusion regarding 11-16 year olds. Similarly, research conducted in 2019 found that under 35s tend to use their smartphone (rather than print media, radio, television, or computer) to access the news, and that those in the 18-24 category rely on social media rather than news apps for their political information. While the majority of those asked in all age groups still tend to consume news in the form of written text, there is a growing appetite (especially among younger groups) for visual content including video and graphic storytelling.

This is thought to be an image of Major John Cartwright by Henry Fuseli, c. 1779. National Portrait Gallery NPG 4538. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence. Cartwright was a founder member of the Society for Constitutional Information and a driving force behind its establishment.

Innovation in the formats in which political information is presented to - and consumed by the public - is not a new phenomenon. Early modern Britain was a period of experimentation in this regard. The Society for Constitutional Information, established in April 1780, was concerned precisely with making political information accessible to new audiences. The organisation sought to diffuse knowledge of the British constitution 'throughout the realm', 'through every village and hamlet' even 'into the humble dwelling of the cottager' (An Address to the Public, from the Society for Constitutional Information. London 1780, p. 1). To this end they printed and disseminated for free a variety of works on British institutions and politics. Moreover, from the outset the members paid particular attention to the format in which their works were printed, declaring explicitly:

That Small Pica be the Type to be used in the Pamphlets and Tracts to be printed by

the Society; that Duodecimo be the Size of the Page; and that Demy Paper not

exceeding Thirteen Shillings and Six Pence a Ream, be employed in the several

Works to be printed. (The National Archives: TS 11/1133).

The title page and frontispiece image of Eikon Basilike (1649). Reproduced, with permission, from the copy held in Special Collections at the Robinson Library, Newcastle. Kieper (K942.062 CHA). This is a good example of an early modern text that used literary techniques and the materiality of the text (including the interaction of text and image) to convey its message.

Like tech companies today, members of the Society knew that making key political information easily accessible was key and that the medium in which it was delivered was as important as the message itself. This was true of early modern authors more generally. They used an array of literary strategies to entice readers in, exploited the material form of the works they produced, and paid attention to their circulation. One reason they did so was that they were concerned not merely to inform their readers but to encourage them to think about and engage with the issues under discussion - and even to stimulate them into action. The Society for Constitutional Information disseminated political texts in order to increase the number of people campaigning for the reform of political institutions. By educating British people on the constitution they hoped to stimulate them to take political action; to demand their rights and bring about a transformation of what they saw as an outdated and corrupt political system.

The 'Experiencing Political Texts' project that launches on 3 July seeks to explore this crucial relationship between medium and message in greater depth. By examining the methods used by early modern political authors to engage their audiences, and analysing how effective they were at achieving their ends, we hope to draw various conclusions. In the first place we will have a better understanding of how to read those texts - and how best to present them to modern audiences - whether via library catalogues or in modern editions. In addition, we will also advance our thinking on how best to disseminate political information and to stimulate calls to action in the twenty-first century - and even how to generate an engaged and active citizenry.

At the heart of the project will be a network comprising various groups. In the first place there will be humanities scholars from a range of disciplines with expertise in complementary approaches and skills. We will also involve library and archive professionals with experience of presenting early modern political texts to wider audiences, and digital humanities experts and software developers with the technical skills to think about digital representations. Finally we hope to recruit citizens of Newcastle and the surrounding area with a particular interest in the dissemination of political ideas and information.

Members of these different constituencies will gather together for three workshops. The first, to be held in Newcastle on 7th and 8th September 2022, will focus on the use of genre and form in early modern political texts and the ways in which authors sought to stimulate active political engagement by sparking their readers' imagination or provoking debate. The second, which will take place in York in early 2023, will explore the materiality of early modern texts, the other material objects associated with them, and the connections between these and the practical culture of political clubs. The final workshop, scheduled for September 2023 in Newcastle, will explore how the literary and material dimensions of early modern political texts can be effectively presented to audiences via library catalogues, exhibitions, and editions, as well as the issues raised by digital presentation.

Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society where the Reading Group will meet. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Also central to the project will be a monthly reading group that will meet at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society on the second Tuesday of each month from October 2022 through to June 2023. Members of the group will read and discuss short extracts from key early modern political texts, as well as being encouraged to reflect on their own engagement with and consumption of political information. Discussions will be recorded through visual live scribing providing the opportunity to track changes in thought among the group and a means by which the ideas they explore can feed directly into other elements of the project - including the workshops and exhibitions.

The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, where one of the exhibitions relating to the project will be held. Image Rachel Hammersley.

The project will culminate with two public exhibitions, one at Newcastle University's Robinson Library and the other at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, at which our key findings will be presented and explored. The exhibitions will focus on comparing original print editions of early modern political texts with modern print and digital versions to encourage thinking around the relative merits of different forms and how the manner in which we receive our political information impacts on our understanding and interpretation of that information. Workshops accompanying the exhibition at the National Library of Scotland will explore the implications of our findings for different groups such as activists or school children.

Of course it is not simply a case of disseminating political information in ways that are appealing and accessible to audiences. The medium also shapes the content. The report on the 2016 study cited above notes the ways in which social media can manipulate the news offering. Stories may be one-sided, biased, or even fake, and targeted to individual readers' existing interests and opinions. Despite this, in the most recent survey, 47% of the 11-16 year olds asked, said that they trust the news they see on social media and that they have more faith in social influencers than politicians to tell them the truth about the news. Moreover, today on social media political information is generally consumed in paragraph-sized chunks or even just headlines - with most readers not digging more deeply to understand the full story. There is, perhaps, a danger that our modern methods of political communication far from generating engaged and active citizens produce passive news consumers instead.