Comments on: Not Islamofascism (III)

by: Aethelred

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:52:34 +0000

Thanks again. I also recall reading about Savonarola asking for clemency for the Medici allies. FWIW, in looking for info either way about the executions for sodomy, I found a couple of fairly detailed homosexual-positive tertiary sources, neither of which mentioned the executions, which makes me suspect that it might well not have happened.

This sort of thing is a big part of why I read Eunomia - you’re a great pointer to places where I need to re-check my thinking.

by: Daniel Larison

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:27:05 +0000

The Knox comparison makes more sense, though I think Savonarola was not nearly as fanatical as Knox personally. I don’t recall any mention in Martines of such executions taking place. I will have to check again, but my distinct impression was that Martines argued strenuously that Savonarola had not only not caused or approved of the deaths of anyone but had actually appealed for clemency for the allies of the Medici when the republicans took power, so that in Martines’ judgement Savonarola saved lives (lives of people who would, in time, come to despise him and support his execution).

by: Aethelred

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:47:39 +0000

Thanks for the link to your prior article - I hadn’t worked my way that far back in the archives yet. Sounds like a good book, though whether I’ll ever get around to reading it is another matter.

I don’t necessarily concur (though lacking any real knowledge of the specific facts in Savonarola’s case, I don’t necessarily dispute either) that Savonarola “never held political power in any formal or practical sense”. If his sermons and other exhortations were enough to effectively dictate the Signoria’s stance on some matter, I call that practical political power. After all - Calvin wasn’t an absolute dictator in Geneva either - he [very publicly] wanted Servetus executed by the sword rather than by the stake :{

FWIW, the Catholic Encyclopedia says “Savonarola did not interfere directly in politics and affairs of State, but his teachings and his ideas were authoritative.” Maybe closer to Knox than Calvin.

There’s unreferenced information floating about (e.g., in the Wikipedia article about Savonarola) to the effect that during his period of power the Officers of the Night executed people for sodomy rather than the previous fines. If that is true, then those executions can be most likely laid to his account. Further looking, though, makes it unclear to me whether that was actually the case. Did Martines’ book (which I assume went back to primary sources) say anything about that?

Thanks for the informative answer.

by: gabriel

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:12:33 +0000

Nor is it really fair to the Church in Spain at the time of the Inquisition. The fact is that the State coopted the Church far more than the Church coopted the State. Let’s stick to Calvin & the Taliban.

by: Daniel Larison

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:15:28 +0000

The main reason why I reject the listing of Savonarola with these others is that he, a friar, never held political power in any formal or practical sense and had nothing directly to do with government. He gave sermons, he exhorted people to moral reform, he inspired bands of youths to serve as a sort of public morality squad on the lookout for excessive sartorial choices and so forth, he called people to burn the “vanities,” and he used his charisma to pressure the Florentine government in certain directions, but all legal and civil power remained firmly vested in the Council and it was in fact one of the basic elements of the Savonarolan reform program that Florentine self-rule and republicanism remain intact against the excesses of the Medicis and their hangers-on in the aristocracy.

The cardboard picture of Savonarola-the-merciless-theocrat is something cooked up by his enemies to justify his murder. He was a popular and effective preacher who arose in a time of straitened circumstances for the people of Florence. He may have had his objectionable qualities (he was certainly one for the old put-down), but it is simply misleading to class him with the regime in Geneva and the Taliban. How many people did Savonarola have executed? Not one. How many Savonarolans did the Florentines have executed? At least three to start. Savonarola comes out looking a lot better than Calvin et al. if we are judging him by the standard of how abusive or violent the government was during his period of prominence in Florence.

http://larison.org/2006/04/27/oh-poor-friar/

by: Aethelred

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:04:19 +0000

Eh? I’d say Savonarola and Calvin belong together well enough (self-constituted individual charismatic authorities, ascetic and monomaniacal about the purity of the body politic, granted that Calvin was far, _far_ more, uhh, creative theologically), and the Inquisition (which AFAIK was quite uninterested in eliminating cosmetics or art, just heresy and challenges to political authority) does not.

I’d say the biggest difference between Savonarola and Calvin on the one hand and the Taliban on the other is that the former [two] essentially depended on their charisma to obtain and stay in power, while the collegial Taliban created a religously inspired fighting force with which they seized seized/supplanted a [badly fragmented] state apparatus. A closer Western analog to the Taliban which Nunberg might have/should used would be the Cromwellian Protectorate (surprised you didn’t bring that in :} ).

BTW, I agree that tagging the fascist label on the various Islamic groups and movement in question serves only to confuse and incite (which is presumably the purpose of those using it, though the good friar William would tell me not to discount sheer willful ignorance and intellectual laziness as an explanation also).