"IT is difficult to speak or write with becoming moderation or propriety, on topics to which we are biased by prejudice, interest, or even principle"
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Moderation is hardest precisely where we feel most righteous. Lancaster, an educator working in the heat of early 19th-century school reform, is naming a problem that still dogs every “evidence-based” debate: the moment a topic touches our identity or advantage, our prose stops being a tool for clarity and becomes a weapon for winning.
The shrewd move is his three-part list: prejudice, interest, even principle. He doesn’t just scold bigotry or greed; he implicates virtue. “Even principle” is the trapdoor. It suggests that moral conviction can distort language as efficiently as self-serving motives, because principle invites a sense of entitlement to certainty. Lancaster’s point isn’t that principles are bad, but that they make us careless. When we’re convinced we’re on the right side, “becoming moderation” starts to look like weakness, and “propriety” like tone-policing. He’s warning that the very feelings that animate reform can sabotage its persuasion.
Context matters: Lancaster helped pioneer monitorial schooling, a system entangled with philanthropy, religious rivalry, and class politics. Those battles weren’t conducted in neutral terms; they were fought through pamphlets, sermons, and public appeals where each side claimed the mantle of moral necessity. His sentence reads like a preemptive self-check aimed at reformers as much as opponents: if you want legitimacy, you must govern your rhetoric, especially when your cause feels holy.
The intent is practical and disciplinary. He’s advocating a pedagogy of self-suspicion: treat your own certainty as a biasing force, because the loudest moral language is often the least reliable.
The shrewd move is his three-part list: prejudice, interest, even principle. He doesn’t just scold bigotry or greed; he implicates virtue. “Even principle” is the trapdoor. It suggests that moral conviction can distort language as efficiently as self-serving motives, because principle invites a sense of entitlement to certainty. Lancaster’s point isn’t that principles are bad, but that they make us careless. When we’re convinced we’re on the right side, “becoming moderation” starts to look like weakness, and “propriety” like tone-policing. He’s warning that the very feelings that animate reform can sabotage its persuasion.
Context matters: Lancaster helped pioneer monitorial schooling, a system entangled with philanthropy, religious rivalry, and class politics. Those battles weren’t conducted in neutral terms; they were fought through pamphlets, sermons, and public appeals where each side claimed the mantle of moral necessity. His sentence reads like a preemptive self-check aimed at reformers as much as opponents: if you want legitimacy, you must govern your rhetoric, especially when your cause feels holy.
The intent is practical and disciplinary. He’s advocating a pedagogy of self-suspicion: treat your own certainty as a biasing force, because the loudest moral language is often the least reliable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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