On the record
What in fact emerges from the history of religious persecution is the lesson that the unity made by the suppression of Nonconformity is the unity of stagnation.
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Harold J. Laski
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gutenberg.orgHarold J. Laski: “What in fact emerges from the history of religious persecution is the lesson that the unity made by the suppression of…”
Editor's note · Context
Laski reflects on the consequences of religious persecution, suggesting that enforced unity leads to stagnation.
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More from Harold J. Laski
Ultimately, that denial is always made upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices attacked are subversive of the civil order.
The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…
When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.
Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.
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