English 102: British and American Literature, 1650-1780
Professor Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook

MWF 11:00-11:50 l Girvetz 1004 l office hours: M 2-3, Th 10-11 l office: South Hall 2503 l 893-3349 l ecook@english.ucsb.edu l
TAs: Gordon Batchelor l Rachel Mann l Lara Rutherford l Summer Star

DISINTERESTEDNESS

Disinterested. 2: Not influenced by interest; impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced. Now always, unbiased by personal interest; free from self-seeking.

Disinterestedness: The quality of being disinterested; impartiality; freedom from self-interest or selfish bias. (OED)

Cato, in Franklin’s Busy-Body 3:

Cato is a man whom Fortune has plac’d in the most obscure part of the Country. His Circumstances are such as only put him above Necessity, without affording him many Superfluities; Yet who is greater than Cato? (CR 61).

…The Consciousness of his own innate Worth and unshaken Integrity renders him calm and undaunted in the Presence of the most Great and Powerful, and upon the most extraordinary Occasions. His strict Justice and known Impartiality make him the Arbitrator and Decider of all Differences that arise for many Miles around him.  (CR 62)

Mr. Spectator, in Addison’s Spectator 1:

Thus I live in the world, rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of an husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them … . I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories …