"Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce"
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Landor’s line is a coolly provocative mash-up: he borrows the language of the marketplace to describe the supposed benefits of religious pluralism, then dares the reader to notice how unromantic that is. “Every sect” isn’t praised for spiritual insight; it’s valued as a “moral check” on the next group over. The piety here is almost mechanical. Virtue, in this framing, doesn’t arise from revelation so much as from surveillance, rivalry, and the fear of losing “customers.”
The intent is less ecumenical sweetness than hard-edged liberal realism. Landor lived in a Britain where Anglican establishment still mattered, but dissenting denominations were increasingly visible, and the aftershocks of the French Revolution kept everyone alert to what happens when a single orthodoxy - religious or political - goes unchallenged. His metaphor quietly argues against monopoly. A dominant church, like a dominant firm, grows complacent; smaller competitors force it to behave, to justify itself, to clean up its act.
The subtext is also a warning about human nature. People don’t reliably stay “moral” because they are convinced; they stay moral because someone is watching and because reputations and power are at stake. That’s the sly cynicism: religion as a system of incentives. Yet Landor’s phrasing (“wholesome”) suggests he thinks this is not tragic but practical. He is pitching pluralism not as a lofty ideal but as a self-correcting ecosystem, where rivalry disciplines hypocrisy and keeps zeal from curdling into tyranny.
The intent is less ecumenical sweetness than hard-edged liberal realism. Landor lived in a Britain where Anglican establishment still mattered, but dissenting denominations were increasingly visible, and the aftershocks of the French Revolution kept everyone alert to what happens when a single orthodoxy - religious or political - goes unchallenged. His metaphor quietly argues against monopoly. A dominant church, like a dominant firm, grows complacent; smaller competitors force it to behave, to justify itself, to clean up its act.
The subtext is also a warning about human nature. People don’t reliably stay “moral” because they are convinced; they stay moral because someone is watching and because reputations and power are at stake. That’s the sly cynicism: religion as a system of incentives. Yet Landor’s phrasing (“wholesome”) suggests he thinks this is not tragic but practical. He is pitching pluralism not as a lofty ideal but as a self-correcting ecosystem, where rivalry disciplines hypocrisy and keeps zeal from curdling into tyranny.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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