Shelley and his Contemporaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 128-145
Author(s):  
Kelvin Everest
Keyword(s):  

This chapter surveys the extent of Shelley’s fame and notoriety while he was alive. The period before his move to Italy in early 1818 was mainly isolated, but he was nevertheless known about in the privileged circles into which he was born—a landed aristocratic family, Eton, and Oxford. His eccentricity and strong views set him apart from his own class, but the extremity and free expression of his radicalism also alienated fellow radicals. In poetic terms he was astute in recognizing those contemporaries of lasting value. Specific attention is given to Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Thomas Moore. The years in Italy were also isolated except for the period of the ‘Pisan Circle’. Keats and Byron are an important presence in Shelley’s later work, rather than overt influences.

Author(s):  
Evan Osborne

Does humanity progress primarily through leaders organizing and directing followers, or through trial and error by individuals free to chart their own path? For most of human history ruling classes had the capacity and the desire to tightly regiment society, to the general detriment of progress. But beginning in the 1500s, Europeans developed a series of arguments for simply leaving well enough alone. First in the form of the scientific method, then in the form of free expression, and finally in the form of the continuously, spontaneously reordered free market, people began to accept that progress is hard, and requires that an immense number of mistakes be tolerated so that we may learn from them. This book tells the story of the development of these three ideas, and for the first time tells of the mutual influence among them. It outlines the rise, and dramatic triumph, of each of these self-regulating systems, followed by a surprising rise in skepticism, especially in the economic context. Such skepticism in the 20th century was frequently costly and sometimes catastrophic. Under the right conditions, which are more frequent than generally believed, self-regulating systems in which participants organize themselves are superior. We should accept their turbulence in exchange for the immense progress they generate.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-169
Author(s):  
Teresa M. Bejan

AbstractThe classical liberal doctrine of free expression asserts the priority of speech as an extension of the freedom of thought. Yet its critics argue that freedom of expression, itself, demands the suppression of the so-called “silencing speech” of racists, sexists, and so on, as a threat to the equal expressive rights of others. This essay argues that the claim to free expression must be distinguished from claims to equal speech. The former asserts an equal right to express one’s thoughts without interference; the latter the right to address others, and to receive a hearing and consideration from them, in turn. I explore the theory of equal speech in light of the ancient Athenian practice of isegoria and argue that the equality demanded is not distributive but relational: an equal speaker’s voice should be counted as “on a par” with others. This ideal better captures critics’ concerns about silencing speech than do their appeals to free expression. Insofar as epistemic and status-harms provide grounds for the suppression and exclusion of some speech and speakers, the ideal of equal speech is more closely connected with the freedom of association than of thought. Noticing this draws attention to the continuing—and potentially problematic—importance of exclusion in constituting effective sites of equal speech today.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhinav Dubey ◽  
Nikolay Stoyanov ◽  
Thibault Viennet ◽  
Sandeep Chhabra ◽  
Shantha Elter ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Sandra Botero ◽  
Rachel Ellett ◽  
Thomas M. Keck ◽  
Stephan Stohler

Abstract The growth of judicial power globally has renewed scholarly debates about who benefits from increased judicial authority. Using original data, we examine the full universe of constitutional free expression decisions issued by three apex courts—in Colombia, India, and South Africa—across three categories of disputes that feature a diverse array of rights claimants. By so doing, we shed light on the limits of elite-driven accounts of judicial empowerment. We find that even where constitutional courts are empowered by elites seeking to advance their own interests, activist courts can develop a practice of rights-protection that benefits a diverse range of less powerful actors. Moreover, regardless of whether the speech claimants are elite or non-elite actors, these three apex courts regularly rule in favor of free expression for dissenting or unorthodox speech acts. In sum, where issues are peripheral to the governing regime’s core interests, relatively powerless actors are sometimes able to use legal processes to advance their rights and interests.


ChemBioChem ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 908-912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mantas Liutkus ◽  
Samuel A. Fraser ◽  
Karine Caron ◽  
Dannon J. Stigers ◽  
Christopher J. Easton

2002 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Gilmartin

Conservative movements have generally played a negative role in accounts of the history of political expression in Britain during the period of the French Revolution. Where E. P. Thompson and others on the Left tended to identify radicalism with the disenfranchised and with a struggle for the rights of free expression and public assembly, conservative activists have been associated with state campaigns of political repression and legal interference. Indeed, conservatism in this period is typically conceived in negative terms, as antiradicalism or counterrevolution. If this has been the view of hostile commentators, it is consistent with a more sympathetic mythology that sees nothing novel about the conservative principles that emerged in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. They represent an establishment response to alien challenges. Even where conservatives set about mobilizing the resources of print, opinion, and assembly in a constructive fashion, the reputation for interference has endured. John Reeves's Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers is a useful case in point, since it managed in its brief but enterprising history to combine fierce anti-Jacobinism with the later eighteenth century's rising tide of voluntary civic activism. The association came together at the Crown and Anchor Tavern when a group of self-professed “private men” decided “to form ourselves into an Association” and announced their intentions through the major London newspapers in November and December of 1792. The original committee then called on others “to make similar exertions in their respective neighbourhoods,” forming energetic local associations that would be linked by regular correspondence with the central London committee. In this way, the loyalist movement grew with astonishing speed.


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