The Republic of Letters: Epistolary exchanges and Revolution.

1793, why at all? Why France, why then Napoleon, why not women? Why not already in the Polis or the Roman Republic? Why endure millennia of absolutism in-between? Now, have we arrived at the end of History or is there still something left to be done? Truth be told, there seems to be no form we could impose on history that could create perfect order or sense, we can merely find conjunctures. The endeavour of this essay is to find and trace how the ancient ember of the principles of equality and liberty remaining from the roman republic, could re-ignite in the 16th-18th century – blazing higher than before – and culminate in the declaration of 1793. How was republican thought given new life and what were its preconditions? I shall consider the convergence of ancient thought with “modern” technology. Taking the Republic of Letters as remaining ember from the ancients and seeing how it could flare up again.

Since, this is a history of both culture and technology, with culture becoming technology and technology turning into culture, the first part of the essay will lay down the spectacles of cultural techniques seeking to erase that distinction. Ideally, this will enable the reader to themselves speculate about the implications and effects of epistolary exchanges at the heart of the Republic of Letters, detailed in the second part. The latter broadly concerns a description of the Republic of Letters and an explanation for the principles of its expansion, as well as an investigation into the Other against which the Republic situated itself. In the final part, I will trace the movement by which the media-cultural principles at the heart of the republic finally found a territory and enveloped the lived experience of Parisians, hence effecting the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1973”.

Cultural Techniques and Media.

In an effort to sufficiently defamiliarize the matter let us consider the Trobriand Islands, not far off New Guinea. What distinguishes the local’s language and mode of thought from ours is that change and becoming are foreign to their thinking. Indeed, Trobrianders have no distinctions for the past, present, or future, their language is only concerned with existence. In fact, if one tried to talk about a taytu (a type of yam) with a Trobriander, one could not converse about its attributes, because taytu contains them all: it is perfectly shaped, has no rotten spot, no spiky points. However, if one of those were absent or different, to the Trobriander it would represent an entirely different object: “If it is unripe, bwanawa, if overripe […] a yowana. If blighted nukunokuna. If it has a rotten patch, taboula. If misshapen, ususu. If perfect in shape, but small, yagogu. If tuber, […] ulumadala […]” (McLuhan, 2003, p. 501). Hence, for them if an object changes, it merely ceases being. The question that begs to be answered is whether this is a feature of their language as a medium, which does not allow for the expression of change. Here it is suitable to introduce the notion of cultural techniques to circumvent the dualism between a medium and culture (Siegert, 2007, 29). These highlight that certain contingent cultural operations termed “cultural techniques” precede the media concepts that arise from them. That is to say that counting was a feature of many cultures but few of them derived from that the concept of a number, or in the case of the Trobrianders, the difference of objects is recognized but that does not give rise to the medium of time and hence the notions of becoming, past, present, and future (p. 30). Considered through the lens of cultural techniques media are merely more eminent cultural techniques that serve to process reality into distinctions, hence the infinitely particular real yam – through the medium of Trobriander language – is abstracted either into a perfect taytu or still unripe bwanawa.

However, it is important to note that media can misappropriate or transgressively use other cultural techniques to introduce deculturation processes, that is processes that “loosen cultural codes, erase signs, and deterritorialize images and tones” (Siegert, 2007, p. 31). In our case we might imagine that a young Trobriander may start using the term taytu even for misshapen yam’s usually called ususu, hence diminishing the importance of shape as a cultural technique in distinguishing yams.

More importantly this abstraction is constitutive for successful communication. Precisely through the exclusion, the distinction of signal and noise, we create channels of communication as well as types of relations. Insofar, the media of both logic and mathematics function by considering all graphic form as noise (p. 32). Hence, the “parasite” of a channel – that noise which threatens to distort it – is constitutive of it. The greater extent to which a channel defines it’s noise the more differentiated it is from other channels and the more particular it’s relations (p. 32-33). It is difficult for us to understand the Trobrianders, because underlying their language are different cultural techniques for abstracting the real. Yet, if we were to learn their language (an eminent cultural technique) we would experience a process of deculturation ourselves, as we learn about the cultural origin of our conception of time. The following sections will deal with how the Republic of Letters also constituted such a process of deculturation.

Constitution and Effects of the Epistolary Cultural Technique.

The Republic of Letters had its origin as a 16th century network of select religious scholars who exchanged on biblical matters in Latin. However, it’s expansion only came about after the invention of the printing press allowed for the easy and fast distribution of the texts throughout Europe (Fumaroli, 1988, p.147)

Homogeneity. What allowed the establishment of a channel of communication between those distanced scholar’s was, to a great extent, that Latin, due to the Roman history of Europe, had universally been the language of scholarly endeavours and tied to the vocation of studying the ancients. It was a dead language that obeyed universal rules and was relatively stable, therefore it was a means for the early members of the Republic of Letters to transcend their local cultures and dialects, enabling them to not only converse on within a universal medium but already about a certain content (p. 143).

Addition. This, however, by itself would have made barely an impact on world history. In fact it was the invention of the printing press that supercharged the movement, because it allowed the simple and cost-effective diffusion of standardized Latin materials under study and hence allowed the multiplication of members without losing focus as to the materials of study. What had been considered at first merely a supplementary technique for the diffusion of knowledge, came to spread from Italy to all of Europe and form a network of libraries and led to the establishment of academies in Germany, France, Spain and England (p. 147).

Reciprocity. Epistolary correspondence rests on reciprocity. Even though individual letters can be structured by deference, as they usually were with regards to the crown, correspondence is continuous and reciprocal. This tit-for-tat coupled with the transcendence of local hierarchies and particularities through the uniform nature of writing created a sense of equality within the republic of letters (Goodman, 1996, p. 18). Moreover, the continuity of the epistolary exchange implied long lasting two-way relationships.

Consent.  In comparison, with the lived experience of French citizens from the 16th till 18th century, where they by birth found themselves under absolutist rule,  merely justified by Hobbesian philosophy, the Republic of Letters was maybe the only republic where members actively consented to being a citizen. Hence, already through joining, one came to re-evaluate the political order one was subject to.

Rhetoric. Since the epistolary exchange grew out of a humanist network it featured a change in the dominant model of dialogue between scholars. Instead of the dialectical model of the scholastic structure, exchanges shifted to a rhetorical type model of dialogue, that of the “letter” or “essay”. This distancing from the narrow logical formalism of the scholastic disputatio, extended disputation to a greater variety of forms, and thus enlarged the subject of knowledge and its relationship to others and the truth. No more, was scholarly dialogue the privilege of specialists, because the more open rhetorical mode also allowed the contributions of laymen, merchants, gentlemen, craftsmen (Fumaroli, 1988, p. 134). This was a novel and socialized mode of learning, that allowed diverse talents to contribute, whilst keeping an allegiance towards Platonic truth (p. 136). This is significant for the fact that rhetoric is an eminent cultural technique that allows for more “noise” than logical formalism, and hence is more accommodating to processes of deculturation.

Detachment. The most important effect of the epistolary exchanges of the republic of letters, was that it extricated individuals from the local fields of power they found themselves enveloped in. We must remind ourselves, that the avowed foundation of the republic of letters was merit, yet, in any locality different fields of power overlap in such a way that any intellectual contribution is not considered merely by itself but within a myriad of other contexts and fields of power e.g. the situatedness of the individual, the needs of the community, the maintenance of the local hierarchy, the sovereignty of the king et cetera (Daston, 1991, p. 378-379). Epistolary exchanges were able to transcend all these impediments to “fair” judgment, because they connected individuals from distant localities. This was already apparent to members of the Republic, for universally, the judgment of visiting foreigners, who had no stake in local ongoing, was seen to be of superior worth (p. 380). Moreover, the fact that intellectual contributions came from an international audience helped lift the veil on what were merely local superstitions. As a process of socialization, the republic of letters entailed that citizens started to disregard the judgments of their friends, relatives, religious communities, and compatriots in favour of those of other citizens of the republic (p. 369). In sum, it allowed the freedom to criticize others by making insignificant the citizen’s rank in other fields or their implications in local fields of power. Eventually, this expectation of criticism would, in a process of internalization, become anticipated and averted in advance, resulting in the idea that one could write and speak “objectively” or factually, without subjective distortions (p. 383).

The Parasite: Charlatanry. As instantiated at the beginning of this essay, what a channel considers to be its parasite is often constitutive of the channel itself, hence here, I want to consider the declared parasite of the republic of letters: The Charlatan. At the time when the print culture within the republic of letters expanded, many contributions emerged that sought to specify the nature of charlatanry, in an effort to define what was admissible versus non-admissible in the project of the republic of letters, and thus in its communicative channel (Füssel, 2006, p. 288;297). At first, charlatanry centered mostly on issues of citizens inflating their reputation, trying to take a place they don’t deserve in the hierarchy of merit. Thus, criticized were: windbaggery, cheap talk, boasting, and dissimulation. (p. 291). However, around the end of the 17th century, there were efforts to make a distinction between the pedant, now the one who inflates their image, versus the charlatan, who actively deceives others and thus stifles the search for truth (pp. 295). From this we can suppose a differentiation, a separation, within the Republic of Letters, that is two distinct foci, one towards manners and equality, the other towards truth. Furthermore, if people who inflated their reputation posed a threat to the republic then we may presume that a notion of merit was integral in the structuring of the channel.

The Implementation of Epistolary Culture in the Political Order

The humanists had created a small network of exchange modelled on the epistolary exchanges of the ancients. When the printing press was invented, this network expanded drastically, reviving an ancient republican way of communication. Characterized by consent in joining, reciprocity, the openness for the subjects of knowledge through rhetoric, the extrication from local power relations, and a democratic process for the apportionment of merit. This was the revival of an eminent cultural technique, that due to its distinct rules of communication deconstructed absolutist and theocratic culture and led to new cultural techniques for grasping reality and political impetuses summarized as the enlightenment. Yet, it possessed no territory. Much worse, in France, the lived experience was that the kings claimed sovereignty, whilst everyone else was powerless in the public sphere. In contrast to England, there were no political parties, national elections, nor a right to resist royal policies. Citizenship was merely permanent residency and subjection to the king. Gordon puts forward that this existence is to be felt as lacking dignity and that apart from revolt another strategy to cope is that of imbuing the insignificant areas of life, not under the yoke of the crown, with the maximum amount of meaning, and exercise one’s autonomy within (Gordon, 2017, p.3). It is precisely, the channel of the Republic of Letters, wherein such needs could be realized. This sphere remained apolitical for long, content to exist to the side of the contemporary political orders. At least until it found a territory.

When, in the middle of the 18^th century, Paris established itself as the capital of the republic, the French men of letters were drawn together and began to collaborate (Goodman, 1996, p. 90). Whilst, extension of epistolary relations with verbal one’s may at first glance be thought to be an enrichment, in fact, the lack of mediation proved to become an obstacle when the prevailing social customs thus far pegged to the aristocracy crashed head on with the collective critical principles and practices of the Republic of Letters (p. 91). The time had come to transcend the differences, that had so far been overcome by means of letters, in direct confrontation and oral exchanges, which were more spontaneous and less subject to the control of a speaker than written ones to a writer.

The mixing of different ranks and classes in society on equal footing led to great risks of misunderstanding, let alone the fact that during the Ancien Regime, for lack of a public sphere as we know it today, all relations were personal relations and hence all attacks personal attacks (Habermas, 1991, p. 11; Goodman, 1996, p. 94). The men of letters had usually studied subjects primarily by fighting over them. Education since the middle Ages was entirely agonistic and centred around the disputation as a ceremonial form of combat (Goodman, 1996, p. 92). In fact, the merging of personal relations with militancy may be best illustrated by the fact that the duel remained extremely prominent despite attempts of the crown to abolish it (p. 94). Therefore, at first, the men of letters relied on the salonnieres – female governantes of the Parisian salons who had not been privy to the agonistic education of men – to govern conduct. Salon’s took the form of weekly dinners, yet discourse was their defining function. The salonniere’s role was to assure a polite atmosphere, which she did with the consent of the men. This was the antithesis to the government of the king who authoritatively top-down reconciled competing claims of different groups. The salonniere too created order but did so in a republican fashion, embodying and enforcing the rule of law to which members had consented (p. 105). Once rules of verbal conduct had ben established, the men of letters took to writing again, to extend their ideals over all of Paris. Orienting themselves on the model of epistolary exchanges albeit addressed to a larger public they produced a variety of different genres, the newsletter, the journal, the pamphlet. However, they were all created in discourse with the wider public of Paris as readers responded to writers and became writers themselves. By now, conversing with the rest of the public, the latter too experienced the deculturation processes brought about by epistolary exchanges (Goodman, 136-138). This subjectivity of dialogue, reciprocity, equality and autonomy would then be commemorated albeit never instituted in the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen of 1793.

Conclusion

Through the invention of the printing press, the narrow humanist network of epistolary exchanges could grow to encompass most of Europe. Due to the structure and principles of such epistolary exchanges another ideal form of the Republic based on equality and merit was created in the minds of its citizens and apart from the grasp of the French monarchy. Drawing members from a wide array of nationalities and classes, but having these differences mediated through a universal form of correspondence rearticulated citizenship and deconstructed the cultural foundations of the prevailing political order. That the medium of epistolary exchange served these principles so greatly, became especially apparent in the French struggle to find rules of verbal exchange and politeness, wherein they had to rely on the salonnieres to take over the governance of conduct from the letters. Yet, soon enough they would return to writing journals, and pamphlets to draw the wider Parisian and French audience into their mode of communication, eventually reaching a critical mass that overturned the political system of France and was embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen of 1973.

Any history is as much of the past as it is of the present. If letters were a means to articulate new ideals, values, and a resistance apart from the absolutist system, which medium should we choose to overcome current obstacles? How do the present ICTs compare, are they enclosed within, part and parcel of a neoliberal capitalism? Which medium would us not only allow to articulate new values, but incline us to live them? At last, is our communication still rhetoric, open and allowing for noise, when protocols –standards for the form of digital communication – are enforced in all our digital communication? I believe this essay draws our attention to the fact that the choice of medium is equally important than the content, when we aim to create a “backroom” of thought.

References

Daston, L. (1991). The Ideal and Reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment. Science in context, 4(2), 367-386.

Fumaroli, M. (1988). The republic of letters. Diogenes, 36(143), 129-152.

Füssel, M. (2006). ‘The Charlatanry of the Learned’: On the Moral Economy of the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Germany. Cultural and Social History, 3(3), 287-300.

Gordon, D. (2017). Citizens without Sovereignty: Equality and sociability in French thought, 1670-1789. Princeton University Press.

Goodman, D. (1991). Governing the republic of letters: The politics of culture in the French enlightenment. History of European Ideas, 13(3), 183-199.

Goodman, D. (1996). The republic of letters: A cultural history of the French enlightenment. Cornell University Press.

Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. MIT press.

McLuhan, M. (2003). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Critical Edition. (Ed.) T. Gordon. Berkely, CA: Gingko Press

Siegert, B. (2007). Cacography or Communication? Cultural Techniques in German Media Studies. Grey Room, 29(29), 26-47. https://doi.org/10.1162/grey.2007.1.29.26