Thanks for writing this up, and as someone who is on the margins of Quaker culture in the Philadelphia area (a central hub of Quakerism in the US), I thought this was interesting to look at. I think that EA ideas and Quaker values do have some amount of modern overlap which would be potentially useful to look at further.
I have a comment on nonviolence:
You write: “They were non-violent, considered, calm but principled. They had beliefs that were well constructed, well founded and considered—and beliefs they held strongly to, but never violently.”
Something to add, for context about Quakers—while they are deeply committed to nonviolence, historically this was not always calm, and the meaning of nonviolence held and still holds a good deal of plurality within it.
For example, Quakers were ahead of the moral curve on some things like abolition of slavery. However, we should be careful not to believe that this was a monolithic view strongly held within the community from the outset. It took time and advocacy within Quakers to see it this way. Benjamin Lay, one of the first Quakers seriously outspoken against slavery in the states was extremely passionately outspoken, seriously shamed his fellow Quakers who held slaves and, as I have heard, was indeed kicked out of multiple meetings for his passionate exhortations.
Benjamin Lay was nonviolent but he was he was not calm. His tactics of the time involved such things as spraying fake-blood on fellow meeting goers who held slaves and laying infront of the meeting house door so that people would need to step on him to exit.
He isn’t representative of the median Quaker, of course, but I think in reasoning out the origins of Quaker abolitionism, it was likely that some tactics like Lay’s were instrumental to getting the rest of the mass of the group to pay attention and start taking different kinds of actions. There are other Quakers in the tradition of taking “radical” action to spark change or push the group, such as Mary Dyer who was hanged after advocating for religious freedom.
I think the answer the question of “How did they best ensure they were on the right-side of the moral curve?” involves at least some amount of “there were people with radical views who expressed them extremely strongly and vividly in ways that caught attention and sparked conversation and action among the masses” AND because this religion believes that God speaks through people, sometimes passionately, people with strong and consistent views were often taken seriously in their moral convictions.
That’s a bit of a rough/crude take, and is no where near complete. My bottom line is to encourage people not conflate “nonviolent” with “dispassionate”, “calm” or “measured” when it comes to historical Quakers.
Thanks for writing this up, and as someone who is on the margins of Quaker culture in the Philadelphia area (a central hub of Quakerism in the US), I thought this was interesting to look at. I think that EA ideas and Quaker values do have some amount of modern overlap which would be potentially useful to look at further.
I have a comment on nonviolence:
You write: “They were non-violent, considered, calm but principled. They had beliefs that were well constructed, well founded and considered—and beliefs they held strongly to, but never violently.”
Something to add, for context about Quakers—while they are deeply committed to nonviolence, historically this was not always calm, and the meaning of nonviolence held and still holds a good deal of plurality within it.
For example, Quakers were ahead of the moral curve on some things like abolition of slavery.
However, we should be careful not to believe that this was a monolithic view strongly held within the community from the outset. It took time and advocacy within Quakers to see it this way. Benjamin Lay, one of the first Quakers seriously outspoken against slavery in the states was extremely passionately outspoken, seriously shamed his fellow Quakers who held slaves and, as I have heard, was indeed kicked out of multiple meetings for his passionate exhortations.
Benjamin Lay was nonviolent but he was he was not calm. His tactics of the time involved such things as spraying fake-blood on fellow meeting goers who held slaves and laying infront of the meeting house door so that people would need to step on him to exit.
He isn’t representative of the median Quaker, of course, but I think in reasoning out the origins of Quaker abolitionism, it was likely that some tactics like Lay’s were instrumental to getting the rest of the mass of the group to pay attention and start taking different kinds of actions. There are other Quakers in the tradition of taking “radical” action to spark change or push the group, such as Mary Dyer who was hanged after advocating for religious freedom.
I think the answer the question of “How did they best ensure they were on the right-side of the moral curve?” involves at least some amount of “there were people with radical views who expressed them extremely strongly and vividly in ways that caught attention and sparked conversation and action among the masses” AND because this religion believes that God speaks through people, sometimes passionately, people with strong and consistent views were often taken seriously in their moral convictions.
That’s a bit of a rough/crude take, and is no where near complete. My bottom line is to encourage people not conflate “nonviolent” with “dispassionate”, “calm” or “measured” when it comes to historical Quakers.