William Godwin: Communist or Individualist?


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Godwin is a very mixed bag. A complete text of his Enquiry (in various formats) can be found at the Online Library of Liberty:

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&person=28

This Liberty Fund site is an invaluable source for books on liberty.

Ghs

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Godwin is a very mixed bag. A complete text of his Enquiry (n various formats) can be found at the Online Library of Liberty:

http://oll.libertyfu...w.php&person=28

I haven't made the attempt yet.

This Liberty Fund site is an invaluable source for books on liberty.

Ghs

Yes, and mises.org is pretty good too.

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Here is an interesting footnote to Godwin. I posted the following on the JazzWestCoast list on 1/25/10.

[begin quote]

As part of a project I am working on, I recently had occasion to reread parts of William Godwin's *Enquiry Concerning Political Justice* (1793). Godwin, the father of Mary Shelley (of *Frankenstein* fame), is often dubbed the first philosophical anarchist. He extolled the virtues of individuality and criticized various cultural activities and institutions that he believed stifled individuality.

Among the eccentric views that Godwin defended, such as opposition to marriage and even "cohabitation," none is more unusual than his criticism of orchestral music. When I reread Godwin's discussion yesterday, it occurred to me that it fits in quite well with the development of jazz over a century later. (His remarks remind me of some comments that Miles Davis made in his autobiography.) In speculating where greater individuality in music might eventually lead, Godwin wrote, in part:

"hall we have concerts of music? The miserable state of mechanism of the majority of performers is so conspicuous, as to be even at this day a topic of mortification and ridicule. Will it not be practicable hereafter for one man to perform the whole?....It may be doubted whether any musical performer will habitually execute the compositions of others. We yield supinely to the superior merit of our predecessors, because we are accustomed to indulge the inactivity of our own faculties. All formal repetition of other men's ideas seems to be a scheme for imprisoning for so long a time the operations of our own mind."

I am posting this merely as a point of historical curiosity; I thought some JWCers might find it interesting.

Ghs

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Here is an interesting footnote to Godwin. I posted the following on the JazzWestCoast list on 1/25/10.

[begin quote]

As part of a project I am working on, I recently had occasion to reread parts of William Godwin's *Enquiry Concerning Political Justice* (1793). Godwin, the father of Mary Shelley (of *Frankenstein* fame), is often dubbed the first philosophical anarchist. He extolled the virtues of individuality and criticized various cultural activities and institutions that he believed stifled individuality.

Among the eccentric views that Godwin defended, such as opposition to marriage and even "cohabitation," none is more unusual than his criticism of orchestral music. When I reread Godwin's discussion yesterday, it occurred to me that it fits in quite well with the development of jazz over a century later. (His remarks remind me of some comments that Miles Davis made in his autobiography.) In speculating where greater individuality in music might eventually lead, Godwin wrote, in part:

"hall we have concerts of music? The miserable state of mechanism of the majority of performers is so conspicuous, as to be even at this day a topic of mortification and ridicule. Will it not be practicable hereafter for one man to perform the whole?....It may be doubted whether any musical performer will habitually execute the compositions of others. We yield supinely to the superior merit of our predecessors, because we are accustomed to indulge the inactivity of our own faculties. All formal repetition of other men's ideas seems to be a scheme for imprisoning for so long a time the operations of our own mind."

I am posting this merely as a point of historical curiosity; I thought some JWCers might find it interesting.

Ghs

This reminds of debates among "early" (and other) music fans and performers of just what the "correct" way to play a particular piece of music is.

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Godwin's comments were written at a time when touring "classical" virtuosi often performed their own compositions, and many of them improvised.

While he could still hear, Ludwig van Beethoven was a formidable participant in the cutting contests of his day.

Robert Campbell

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