A Christian Cosmopolitanism

Autor: Van Dam, Michiel
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Cosmopolitan Conservatisms ISBN: 9789004446731
Cosmopolitan conservatisms : countering revolution in transnational networks, ideas, and movements (c. 1700-1930) / Lok, M. [edit.]; et al.
DOI: 10.1163/9789004446731_006
Popis: What use does the term ‘cosmopolitanism’ have for a conservative revolt which, in its very essence, seems to be its opposite? Defined by a provincial partisanship and an explicit opposition to Josephist ambitions of creating a more ‘cosmopolitan’ Habsburg Monarchy, the revolt in the Southern Netherlands (1787–1790) has conventionally been understood as a moment of intensification for provincial and national identity in Belgium. And yet, in this chapter I will try to show that the anti-revolutionary project of the United Belgian States contained its own cosmopolitan project, which did not aim to abolish enlightened Josephist cosmopolitanism, but rather alter it. Exploring the politico-religious literature of the revolt as showing signs of a ‘Christian universalism’, I’ll focus on the important role played by the writings of St. Paul. Through the pamphlets’ many Pauline references, another Brabant Revolt unfolds, exposing the intellectual influences and intercultural connections of the Brabant anti-philosophes, and allowing us to problematize what it meant to re-think one’s sense of self-government during what was not just an era of Enlightenment, but also a crisis of belief.
Databáze: OpenAIRE