The Impressionist has been reading a rather turgid book published in 1902. It relates the story of religious persecution in Scotland in the 1600s. In this time, the restored Monarch Charles II decided to impose the Church of England's essentially Catholic liturgy on an essentially Calvinist Scotland. It was not well received.
A group of ministers, known as the Covenanters, quit the established church and became renegades. They were non-violent preachers but were hunted down and killed without proper trial. Many lay people were caught up in this and paid with their lives. The years 1684-85 are known as the Killing Time.
When the Scottish philsopher David Hume (1711-1776) wrote that 'seldom are men blessed with times when they can think what they like and say what they think', he must have had such events in mind.
In the West we have more or less realised Hume's Utopia. And now the pendulum has begun to swing the other way. In a knee-jerk populist reaction to bomb outrages the UK government is in the process of trying to introduce laws against 'religious hatred'. After presiding over the ghettoisation of cultural minorities in the UK for decades, the government finally attacks the easiest target it can find.
It's a long road from shutting up fanatics preaching violence to suppression of 'unacceptable' artistic and scientific views. But a long road is covered by many small steps. We may yet see the return of the persecution of those principled enough - or rash enough - to say what they think.
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