"When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations"
About this Quote
Comfort is a political position. Addison’s line lands with the quiet bite of an early-18th-century moralist watching a newly moneyed England congratulate itself on stability. “Easy in their circumstances” isn’t just wealth; it’s the soft armor of predictability: property secured, routines fixed, risks outsourced to the poor, the young, and the desperate. From that posture, “innovations” stop looking like progress and start looking like disruption, inconvenience, even moral threat.
Addison’s intent is less to praise innovation than to expose the psychology that resists it. He doesn’t accuse the comfortable of being wrong on the merits; he suggests their opposition is instinctive, “natural,” as if the nervous system itself flinches at change when the present is paying dividends. That word matters. If resistance is natural, it’s also predictable, which makes it useful for anyone trying to understand why reform stalls: not because arguments fail, but because comfort has its own logic.
The subtext carries a double edge. It’s a caution to would-be reformers: don’t expect the satisfied to volunteer for upheaval. It’s also a rebuke to the comfortable who dress self-interest up as prudence. In Addison’s milieu - coffeehouse debate, party politics, the early modern press - “innovation” could mean everything from financial schemes to religious toleration to shifts in manners. He’s naming a timeless pattern in bourgeois society: those most protected by the current order become its most dependable defenders, not out of villainy, but out of ease.
Addison’s intent is less to praise innovation than to expose the psychology that resists it. He doesn’t accuse the comfortable of being wrong on the merits; he suggests their opposition is instinctive, “natural,” as if the nervous system itself flinches at change when the present is paying dividends. That word matters. If resistance is natural, it’s also predictable, which makes it useful for anyone trying to understand why reform stalls: not because arguments fail, but because comfort has its own logic.
The subtext carries a double edge. It’s a caution to would-be reformers: don’t expect the satisfied to volunteer for upheaval. It’s also a rebuke to the comfortable who dress self-interest up as prudence. In Addison’s milieu - coffeehouse debate, party politics, the early modern press - “innovation” could mean everything from financial schemes to religious toleration to shifts in manners. He’s naming a timeless pattern in bourgeois society: those most protected by the current order become its most dependable defenders, not out of villainy, but out of ease.
Quote Details
| Topic | Change |
|---|---|
| Source | Joseph Addison, The Spectator (1711) , line commonly attributed to Addison in his Spectator essays. |
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