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Nothing to be afraid of here unless one is afraid of Pandora's box… a mythical beast at best.The box is a metaphor as it contained all the ills that make life hard. You recall that when the poor lasslooked inside she found but one thing inside that had not fled--hope. It is a nice thought. Too bad we no longer tell these stories to our children.
I think the picture of Justinian is beautiful and reminds me of some post- Raphael Renaissance work in Tuscany–artist–unremembered at this time.
The “idea” came from where. I cannot find it in the Constitution and Virginia's argument seems tobe a bit far fetched--unless of course it was an unwritten, but understood concept. What say you?
From they current prospective he means it... today we are aware that the ownership of another human is wrong; go back 140+ years and a significant proportion of the population thought it just fine.Historical empathy means we need to consider what the cultural norm was at the time and place we are considering. Can you dig it? If not the folks we study always are on the filthy end of the stick.Well! Now you have done it. Pandora's box gapes!Historical empathy leads us down a path where we find it difficult to condemn anything as it was thecustom of the times--slavery, peonage, foot binding, genital mutilations on females, prison for debtors, branding of criminals, decimation for disobedience , enforced conversions, Devil's Island,possession of territory by right of conquest, rape and pillage for successful soldiering, crucifixions,burning of heretics, torture of prisoners, blowing rebellious soldiers from the mouths of cannon--alldone, all justified at various times and accepted as normal practice. As horrible as these things are we cannot call them wrong because our lens looking backward was made in the present and whatis abhorrent or anathema to us would be perfectly acceptable to some our ancestors.There is worse to come. Your fine essay on culture suggested that we also should adopt cultural empathy. There is nothing particularly wrong or immoral about cannibalism and some say itis still practiced today in remote areas of the Pacific. The world is filled with people abiding bytheir cultural norms oblivious to our concern or objection. If a soldier stationed in Afghanistansees a man beating his wife in the street with a cudgel, what is he to do? If they see a man inthe process of killing his daughter (an honor killing) do they understand that it is merely their customand although perhaps against the law is not violative of the mores of the group. You see theproblem. We are trapped by time, geography and our particular culture and our educational systemdoes not prepare us to accept the wild deviations we are sure to see if we venture from these shoresinto societies quite different from our own.I too used to teach that judgment of other times had to be done very carefully lest we stray intoxenophobic ahistorical waters that obscure our vision of truth as seen by our subjects. This wasalways hard to do with all but the very best students. Most clung to the views and beliefs thathad been inculcated by their parents, their religion or the society itself. As you know, a liberaleducation is supposed to introduce you to the banquet of ideas so you need not dine on hamburgerfor the rest of your life. I was always surprised how difficult it was to successfully improve the palate.The only solution seems to be to tell students that what we are going to study is history as it waslived by the people in that time and that any negative views we might have of their practices, rituals or folkways must be held in abeyance as we view from afar and through a glass darkly.Thanks for your essay--it was an ACE!
I will mostly hold my tongue and say from a historical standpoint it is a good thing to bring about education on a subject that is misunderstood and get's glossed over in high school and in undergrad studies in college.Loosen your tongue--what do you think ought to be taught about the subject? I am sure that your takewould be of interest.
Not so good. Neither the Jews nor the Christians were paragons of virtue when it came to toleranceof other religions. In fact, you can make a good case that Islam was more tolerant in that they did not necessarily kill you for worshipping other gods. Pay your tax and worship as you please seems muchmore humane than convert or die as was the case in Christian nations from time to time.As to being created in his image--I have no idea what this means and I never did.
One of the best sources on this shameful chapter in our history is Mark Twain and the Anti- ImperialistLeague which was able to peer over the hill and see what we would have to do if we took responsibility for our "little brown brothers." One the other hand--we took them in 1898 and gave them back--with strings--after WWII. No other nation did this an Vietnam happened because we supported France rather than the Uncle Ho who had the most unfortunate tag of being a Nationalist/Communist--a real rara avis.
I am not sure that it was a PR ploy, but it is an interesting concept and perhaps similar to the “all menare endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"--sounds good, even if not really ourpractice at the time.As to the Judeo-Christian model--I accept this, but then is it correct for politicians to claim that we area Christian nation? When did this happen? Also: what Judeo-Christian laws were we founded upon?Did Christian monarchies or Jewish statelets promulgate any of the principles stated in ourseminal documents. I cannot see the influence.
