Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness 9 - The critique of the Court
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2010
Summary
“Dazzle”
In November 1706, Shaftesbury wrote a letter to Pierre Coste, examining the psychological impact of the Court:
Where a Court absolutely governs, it is too dazzling a thing to suffer its Vices and Corruption to be understood or thought as it deserves. To tell a royall bred Gentleman, the Pupill of a Court, or any one who … has look'd with admiration on the great doings there – to tell such a one (I say), an adorer of Court-greatness and Politeness; that there is a Politeness far beyond, that there is hardly any thing there, that can possibly be of a true Relish and simplicity in Things or Manners, this would be astonishing, and have little Effect more than to raise Disdain perhaps or Contempt.
The “dazzle” of the Court – its brilliance, grandeur, and magnificence – was an instrument by which admiration was encouraged. But since “dazzle” impeded vision and grandeur flattened perspective, the Court distorted perception and misdirected cognition in moral matters. Like the “Awefulness” of the Church, the “dazzle” of the Court pacified, enervated, and rendered the subject uncritical. The Court, thus, had the effect of making its beholders complacent and passive. By this psychological means, it diminished liberty.
In addition, these reflections on the Court brought to the fore the status of politeness, conceived broadly as a moral and cultural condition. The “politeness” of courts was summed up in “dazzle” itself. However, Shaftesbury insisted there was an alternative politeness, a true politeness, here identified with “a true Relish and simplicity in Things or Manners.”
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- Shaftesbury and the Culture of PolitenessMoral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England, pp. 175 - 194Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994