Jonathan Israel on Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza its 360 years ago he lived here and he was expelled what on earth did he say or write that made the Portuguese Jewish community so so angry Spinoza was a philosopher who thought that philosophy and matters in real life and in politics and in social context and one of the central features of his thought is an attack on what at that time was considered essential to religious authority for Spinoza miracles don't exist the supernatural realities don't exist and in fact although Spinoza was a great supporter of toleration and individual belief although no one was a stronger defender of freedom of conscience in the sense of individual belief he was extremely suspicious as the way collectively religious belief is used especially by politicians and states here in the political sphere so religious belief he noticed scan easily be used as a coercive force and even as a young man he began to rebel against religious authority so the heresies I think were essentially connected and not so much to what people believed because neither the rabbi's nor in fact in the Dutch context any religious community were Inquisition minded so he did also he did not believe in miracles no he did not believe in God as a sort of superhuman figure who could listen who could judge and who could punish God in Spinoza is really everything the reality of everything so not a man with the allowing governing force that decides rewards or punishes or intervenes in natural processes to make miraculous things happen so for Spinoza revelation is impossible they can't have been a divine revelation so it was seen as a denial of fundamental religious belief so what he said was shocking terribly shocked terribly 17th century mind Christian or Jewish yeah that's essential both of them yeah and now there's his conference later today you're there too and it's about a question should this ban on Spinoza be lifted what what's your opinion on that now I think as a storyand and as someone who thinks of him as a philosopher one has to have two opinions I know there's a danger if you say you have two opinion but I think it depends really on your perspective if you an even if you're within a Jewish context on your Jewish perspective I think if you're going to take the line of Orthodoxy yes enough tradition well and over binnacle thority then you have to say that the rabbi's made the right decision because from this perspective he was a complete rebel and revolutionary who was rejecting religious authority so it's understandable that they did that they made sense I was curious about your opinion but if you believe that religion needs to fit with the other criteria of modernity with democracy with toleration with individual freedom of thought and this is what Reform Judaism or what in the Netherlands is called the liberally a sacrament Judaism or part of Judaism has tried to reform itself in line with the Enlightenment I think from this perspective then they would say that the Orthodox rabbis were wrong were right and that the ban should be lifted yes yes I was wondering and I read something about that - what Spinoza himself would have thought of this I mean this whole debate about the ban being lifted he himself did not as you explained believed in religion in in God in the way that was most people there most people did then so would he mind about the ban would he think it's important if it's lifted no he would think that it was somehow weak apologetic defensive in an unimpressive way and it doesn't make sense for a collective authority to change its opinion two hundred and fifty years later do not live to been he would say well you should stick with your point of view because I represent something different okay that's this that's your point that you're probably going to make this afternoon something yes now you are a famous writer on enlightenment radical enlightenment also in Dutch history your book the Dutch Republic you argue in your work that Spinoza in fact is the backbone of enlightenment not quite you don't know I what I argue is that the backbone of the democratic enlightenment began in the Netherlands in a Dutch context among a group which I called the circus Pinos East I think other historians call it that too and I think it was a reaction to a specific Dutch situation now Spinoza was the only great philosopher among this group who still remembered now he stood out this he stood out the others Francisco sent an Endon a dream Koba and others were important then but mostly on the whole forgotten now but it has to be understood as part of a structural situation in which there were deep divisions in taxes could you say that in that era in in the Dutch Republic seventeenth century could you say that that circumstances were were favorable for Spinoza - - no - right - no but I think he did reflect a real minority response to a critical situation the situation let's say for instance in 1650 after vilem de trader briefly cause he died very young from smallpox but briefly he overthrew what Johan davit called the true freedom vara free hate and the problem was that the Dutch republicanism in its opposition to orange ISM and the monarchical principle let's say in the Netherlands was weak it didn't have a broad support so the question is how do you make a wider support how do you build a democratic republic and Spinoza is the first great democratic philosopher so this is a very important general question as a very as well as a very important question about the Dutch context of the Golden Age yes do it could you say that that's Pinos if he had grown up in in France or Germany that he would have in those circumstances in those countries have written the same he could his books were banned even in the Netherlands but because in 1678 the states-general imposed a general ban on spinners as philosophy unlocks so in theory at least you are not supposed to read them in Holland however the Netherlands was relatively free yet I stress relatively because it's not as free as some people and not as tolerant as some people think it was in this theory it was also the country where where the Davitt brothers were murdered absolutely a political murder in 1672 lynching they were lynched torn apart torn apart by the mob near parliament in the hague yes so that was a worried a lot about the mob but even before the debates were torn apart yeah so we were not that tolerant in those days every society spinors of thought is subject to being manipulated and ugly forces can be mobilized and that applies to the Dutch society just as it applied to all the others he was living in an age of religious wars he had seen how terribly ugly forces can be let loose quite easily and that they become very destructive politically very destructive and socially very destructive and he knew this very well and you worried about it a lot yeah let's turn to the Netherlands of the 21st century it's very logical I think after after what you said about the 17th century in Spinoza are we in any way a tolerant nation yes the Dutch have famous around the world is a tolerant nation and I think Europe as a whole is a tolerant part the world but that doesn't mean that everyone in Dutch society and everyone in Europe is tolerant and it also doesn't mean that the forces of intolerance aren't potentially strong in Europe and in Holland mm-hmm you could say that well if it's true that that Spinoza was a man who could combine reason and religion do you agree their reason and religion as he defined religion okay that's that's you you you explain that yeah but are we still a country that's prone to reason in your view they can never be enough reason that I don't think you could there may be more reason in one debate than in another debate it's even possible that there's more reason in the politics of one country than another country at a certain moment but you're a specialist on Dutch history yes so you can compare them and now yes I think then and now a tolerant balance has been devised which is very precious and which needs to be defended and fought for but which was very vulnerable then and which is also vulnerable in a certain sense now and so one has to think very carefully and also fight very hard to defend and protect what is precious yes that's more let's look more specifically at the debate or part of the debate there's one party in dutch parliament let's be honest about that who wants to diminish the number of moroccan citizens in the netherlands that's the Netherlands of today - yes how reasonable is this idea how sensible I think one should never single out Islam as a special element in this problem because over if you take a longer view of history and look at the Enlightenment you can see that Islam always had a very impressive reputation for his defence of toleration actually if you take the last thousand years into consideration there couldn't be any question that Islam was much more tolerant friends some Christianity and people were very aware of this in the 18th and 19th century so this is a great tradition of toleration of coexistence of religions and of protection of religious minorities so that's something for the Islamic world to be very proud of what Spinoza was worried about was religious authority not one particular religion and I think we should bear that in mind now it's even possible to argue in fact there was an article in one of the American newspapers yesterday that if you think that global warming and climate change is even more damaging or potentially destructive to our world than Isis which is a very rational argument I think then you could say that the religious authority which is most threatening to us right at this moment is not the religious authority that people are targeting and are thinking about but another religious authority which makes it possible for a large block of opinion in the United States to think that the whole story about global warming is a conspiracy a myth falls out by a bunch of scientists which who've been condemned by a group of theologians yes who have great authority in certain circles what you're in fact saying is that a religious authority might be more forceful power than the religion itself and you're saying that that's what Spinoza I was worried about is what religious authority could do to seduce people or to not even that I think if you read the preface to one of his most famous books the Tractatus theological politicus that the theological political tractored he makes the point that what that the religious belief of individuals can so easily be mobilized in fact he says every dictatorship tyranny and despotism has found an ideology but usually a form of religion but a perversion of religion he would argue to manipulate the public in such a way as to support that tyranny and I think there's a lot of truth in this he's certainly the first philosopher to emphasize how religious opinions have been used as a coercive force to manipulate not just minorities but the public in a particular direction against their own interest this is I think the way he sees the heart of how he sees the clash between reason and religion in my simple words how religion is being used by leaders let's turn to again the the the debate right now in a majority in our Parliament wants to see if it's possible to forbid Salafism one of the fastest-growing maybe the fastest-growing Islamic movement of our days fundamentalist movement is that is that a sensible idea to try and forbid that I'm very much opposed they must say to identifying particular religious strands or all minorities I think there's a very if one asks should private schools or religious schools be used allowed in the Netherlands or in any Western country or should the state supervision of Education mean that you don't have any religious schools that's a really real question but to say that one kind of religious teaching should not be allowed and other kinds of religious teaching are fine I have a problem with that yeah I don't think we can do that religion police violence know that preaching hatred and violence should not be allowed in a democratic republic so but you're not submitting the doctrine or the beliefs you're only forbidding the preaching of hatred to incite the hatred of against particular groups I think cannot be allowed in a democratic society the Democrats by definition a Democratic Society has to be intolerant of intolerance it has to be intolerant of those that say who attack or incite hatred against a particular group you could say that that since Paris or maybe since since 9/11 but Islam for many people has become the equivalent of fear could you say that that reason and religion those two important things for a force binos a reason and religion have have become more incompatible than ever no I I feel deeply I don't think that there's been deep down any really great change worries me about the current situation is that if one puts too much emphasis on Islam as the threat how easily this can be used as a new form of intolerance and a new form of victimizing in particular minority and as a new way of focusing negative attention in such a way as to be useful in an undemocratic manner for restricting freedoms and civil rights and so on she at the core of our values as a democratic society are universal and equal rights and I think we have to keep that at the forefront of our minds all the time and therefore it's very important not to not not to identify particular groups but rather a particular style of behavior or particular intolerance or way of preaching destructive intolerance as something that we can't allow as almost the famous Israeli writer said he was at this table three weeks ago he said you Isis is an idea it might be a desperate idea but it's an idea and you can't fight an idea with violence alone you have to replace it you have to find a better idea mm-hmm do you agree with I agree absolutely and that was the central problem of the democratic enlightenment that the majority of people in 17th 18th and 19th century societies were swayed more by religion than by what they thought of as political and social reason so you have to change the way people think all the Democratic Republic can't become work I think that the radical enlightenment thinkers thought in this way and maybe they sometimes exaggerated their fears I don't know but I'm inclined to think that they didn't and that is the heart of the Republic R attic Republic including our Democratic Republic today can't work unless there is a strong commitment to it on the part of the population there is no reason why that should conflict with individual beliefs every individual must be free to believe what they want but it does conflict with the coercive organization of religious power in such a way as to force other groups do or to think or to say things that they didn't want to say because then it's not just undemocratic but damaging harmful to us all thank you very much thank you

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Id: 61TMn5D32iE

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2015