After Paris: Dryden on Dangers of Hysteria

Popish Plot Playcard, 5 innocent Jesuits hanged

Popish Plot playing card

I’m hoping that the French will take a good look at America after 9-11 as they contemplate responses to the horrific massacre in Paris. The amount of damage that we did to ourselves and the world all but handed the terrorists the victory they coveted.

Given that people have been warning about overreactions for hundreds of years, however, I have little hope. Yesterday I mentioned the endless blood feuds that arose as Beowulf’s society responded to violence. Today I focus on John Dryden’s description of the hysterical response to the “Popish plot” of 1678, which convulsed England for three years. This “plot,” which was entirely in the head of one Titus Oates, led to the execution of 22 innocent men.

Dryden describes the events in his masterpiece of political satire Absolom and Architophel, which draws on the story of Absolom’s rebellion against his father King David. In Dryden’s allegory, Charles II is David and his illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth is Absolom. Because many in England were worried about the Catholic James succeeding his brother, they used the anti-Catholic hysteria to persuade Monmouth to rebel against Charles. Active plotting was underway when Dryden wrote the poem and there would be an active rebellion once Charles died and James ascended to the throne in 1685. James put down the rebellion and Monmouth, like Absolom, ended up dead.

I use the poem to show how unscrupulous people can use events like the Paris massacre for their own nefarious purposes. Rightwing political groups and rightwing media, including Fox News, are fanning anti-Muslim hatred in the wake of the killings. Some predict that France’s extreme rightwing party, the racist National Front, will prevail in the next elections.

As Dryden sees it, plots, whether “true or false,” invariably get used to stir up the masses:

But when to sin our biased nature leans,
The careful devil is still at hand with means, 
And providently pimps for ill desires;
The good old cause, revived, a plot requires.
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.

By the time Dryden wrote his poem, it was clear to most that the Catholic threat had been overhyped. Dryden appears to think that there was some minor plotting by Catholic extremists—even this is now in doubt—but his point is that the reaction was out of all proportion. It’s like saying that all Muslims are terrorists because a few carried out the assault. Here’s Dryden describing how the fear game gets played. The “oaths” are from Oates and other accusers who perjured themselves while the “dying vows” are from the innocents who were executed:

From hence began that plot, the nation’s curse;
Bad in itself, but represented worse;
Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried; 
With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied;
Not weighed nor winnowed by the multitude,
But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude.
Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies,
To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.
Succeeding times did equal folly call,
Believing nothing, or believing all.

Dryden notes that, unlike the lame Catholic plot (which as I say didn’t actually exist), the consequences of the hysterical overreaction proved dire, threatening the government itself:

This plot, which failed for want of common sense,
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence; 
For as, when raging fevers boil the blood,
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And every hostile humour, which before
Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o’er;
Work up to foam, and threat the government.

Having described a discouraging state of affairs, Dryden indulges in a concluding wish fulfillment that is (to put it mildly) overblown. David/Charles informs everyone that his mild manner is not to be misunderstood as weakness. After he speaks firmly and restores order, his actions are seconded by God (!):

“For lawful pow’r is still superior found,
When long driv’n back, at length it stands the ground.”

   He said. Th’ Almighty, nodding, gave consent;
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,
The mighty years in long procession ran:
Once more the god-like David was restor’d,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.

I’m all for a “series of new time” but I’m not counting on God to intervene. I’m afraid we’ll have to sort this out through representational democracy, something Dryden did not believe in.

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