The relevance of European and American conceptions of history

[Chesterton]

Why should you know about the rest of the planet?

You affect them. They affect you. You have Orthodox brothers and sisters in many places, and you should be praying for them.

Edit: I replied to the wrong post.

 

[Occams Barber]

Does imprisonment in the USA mean that the prisoner is no longer a citizen? There are both federal and state laws regulating wages and working conditions. Why do these laws not apply to citizens who are in prison?

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution is said to have abolished slavery, however, a literal reading of the Amendment suggests that slavery is allowable as a punishment for someone convicted of a crime. As slaves, the laws regulating wages and working conditions would not apply to convicted criminals.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
​

OB

 

[Radagast]

You're confusing me with some senator or president that I may or may not have voted for.

No, I'm not. You have Orthodox brothers and sisters in many places, and you should be praying for them. You did not elect a senator or president to pray on your behalf.

 

[Chesterton]

No, I'm not. You have Orthodox brothers and sisters in many places, and you should be praying for them. You did not elect a senator or president to pray on your behalf.

I pray for the whole world on a daily basis. It's included in the job description. Why do I need to know where Syria is on a map to do that? If I ask you to pray for my dying relative, are you going to ask me his GPS coordinates before you do?

 

[Radagast]

If I ask you to pray for my dying relative, are you going to ask me his GPS coordinates before you do?

No, but I will ask you for the name of the disease, so that my prayers can be specific.

 

[Chesterton]

No, but I will ask you for the name of the disease, so that my prayers can be specific.

Well you know there used to be a Christendom where people prayed for each other before there were accurate maps or accurately described diseases.

 

[Radagast]

Well you know there used to be a Christendom where people prayed for each other before there were accurate maps or accurately described diseases.

"Let us pray for people in the North who are suffering from Plague" is sufficient specificity for what I was talking about, although 1st Century maps were better than you think.

 

[Chesterton]

"Let us pray for people in the North who are suffering from Plague" is sufficient specificity for what I was talking about, although 1st Century maps were better than you think.

I think you just conceded my point. I can pray for people to the east of me, without needing to pinpoint Syria on a map.

 

[Radagast]

I think you just conceded my point. I can pray for people to the east of me, without needing to pinpoint Syria on a map.

Knowing that it's to the east of you, and not to the west or south, is already a bonus.

That said, Damascus is the capital of Syria. I would think that all Christians should know roughly where that is.

 

[Chesterton]

Knowing that it's to the east of you, and not to the west or south, is already a bonus.

Really? This is getting interesting. If I pray for Syrians, you think God cares whether I know whether they're east or west of where I am? If I mistakenly think Syria is a province of Canada, God will disregard my prayer?

That said, Damascus is the capital of Syria. I would think that all Christians should know roughly where that is.

Damascus is the capital of Syria. Now you're insulting my intelligence. My church is Antiochian, my priest is Syrian, the deacon is Syrian, about a third of the congregation (my friends) are Syrian.

Should we go smaller than national boundaries? If I show you a blank outline of contiguous Syria, could you pinpoint where the city of Damascus lies? Is that important too? If you can do that, then can you pinpoint the second most important city, which I'm sure you don't know. And how about the most important neighborhood in that city? Do you know where my deacon's family lives? Can you see where this argument is going?

 

[Radagast]

Really? This is getting interesting. If I pray for Syrians, you think God cares whether I know whether they're east or west of where I am? If I mistakenly think Syria is a province of Canada, God will disregard my prayer?

No, He won't.

But the act of finding out more about the people that one is praying for is, I think, a useful spiritual exercise.

Damascus is the capital of Syria. Now you're insulting my intelligence. My church is Antiochian, my priest is Syrian, the deacon is Syrian, about a third of the congregation (my friends) are Syrian.

And you still can't find Syria on a map? I find that extremely puzzling. Or were you making some elaborate joke?

If I show you a blank outline of contiguous Syria, could you pinpoint where the city of Damascus lies?

I wouldn't swear to exact accuracy, but yes. Damascus is on every "Map of the Holy Land" I've seen since childhood. To the best of my knowledge, it hasn't moved.

then can you pinpoint the second most important city, which I'm sure you don't know.

I'm sure I don't (unless it's Aleppo).

Can you see where this argument is going?

I'm so confused as to your position that, no, I can't.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Before I reply, I just want to be clear. I initially thought you meant people actually playing a role in expanding, like acquiring territory, but you mean anyone notable for any reason who lived during the expansion era?

I mean more that the narrative is presented as heroic or good. Homesteaders carving lives from the prairies, cowboys herding cattle across the continent, etc. In my own country, you can't celebrate Voortrekkers building farms in vacant land or you are racist, as they were 'stealing land'. Colonisation must be presented as a complete evil; otherwise it is taken akin to if a German said something nice about Nazis, such as they built good roads and were efficient.

We had a whole controversy in which an opposition politician said Colonisation wasn't completely bad because it built modern infrastructure and brought western medicine, and everyone freaked out. She was called racist, burnt in effigy, forced to resign from leadership positions, etc.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

This is going back to what I meant with whitewashing history, where the plights of nonwhite people are always overshadowed by the positive achievements of white people. Ending fascism in Europe was worth starving Indian people, Manifest Destiny was worth slaughtering Native Americans, preserving the southern economy was worth enslaving African Americans.

This is nothing but the fallacy of juxtaposition.

Besides, ending Fascism in Europe was in the favour of Indians. Have you read what Hitler's plans had been? India would have ended up in the Japanese sphere in all likelihood, and the Bengal famine was more about their conquest of Burma. Read a bit about the atrocities Japan committed in China (Nanking specifically). Thinking that the war effort did not directly affect future Indian welfare is simply hogwash. Based on previous Axis activities, India probably got off lightly with famine.

WWII was not the 'victory of white people' as the Indian Army played a very big part, as did other non-white forces from the Caribbean or Africa. The Indian National Congress, after initial ambivalence, supported the war effort (although Gandhi said they should passively resist and if the Nazis kill them, then theirs would be the moral victory). Calling it 'the positive achievements of white people' is whitewashing history. Read up about the Brazilian expeditionary force in Italy sometime, or the Ethiopian campaign.

This is not an attempt at more nuanced reading, this is just another flavour of myth.

 

[Tom 1]

Yes, I am aware of the controversy that's been surrounding Churchill's character for a long time now. I'm sympathetic to both sides. While I am no way saying he was solely responsible for triggering the famine, his racist attitudes and genuine antipathy led him to make decisions that prolonged human suffering and aggravated the death toll. Instead of protecting the Indian public from the resultant food shortage, Churchill insisted that India absorb this loss and, further, continue to export rice to other countries. 3 million people are estimated to have died. This is going back to what I meant with whitewashing history, where the plights of nonwhite people are always overshadowed by the positive achievements of white people. Ending fascism in Europe was worth starving Indian people, Manifest Destiny was worth slaughtering Native Americans, preserving the southern economy was worth enslaving African Americans.

By no means do I think we should erase Churchill's far-reaching achievements, but moving his statue to a museum doesn't sound like an extreme measure. If anything it's our most objective option. Churchill's controversy goes a little deeper than the fact that King was sexist or that Lincoln was also racist. The two extreme narratives would be that either he was a racist or he was the Greatest Briton. I think most sensible people would agree that the former narrative is not going to stick, but it's brought up again and again so that we might move towards a more compromising middle.

It's easy to skim the surface and make judgements based on surface data - the real picture is always more complex. Famine relief in India was complex, in some other disaster Kipling related how whole shipments of wheat flour, brought in to feed a whole region, were wasted because no-one knew what to do with it, something the British simply didn't anticipate. People deal with things how they happen dependent on a whole range of things, from their own thinking and the thinking of others, particular to time and place and circumstance, and any number of other issues. It's easy to just look at the basics and apportion blame.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Why would he be 'a Republican'? That's an American thing. If you asked me if I was a 'Republican' you would throw me too. Apart from not using that word, a lot of us are swinging voters without strong loyalties.
Our two main political parties are Labour and Liberal.
Although he should know about the Eureka stockade. But yes saying he simply liked it, is a very Aussie thing to say.

Republican and Democrat have broader meanings than American parties, just as Liberal, Conservative and Labour also have broader meanings them simply party designations in various states. His Australian colleague understood my meaning perfectly, as did Radagast here.

Well to give them their due, they do have a lot of states.

And while I know Youtube videos are not the sum of knowledge in the US, the person asked which hemisphere Australia was in could not even get that right, let alone Nigeria.

As a homeschooler I took a full year on an area, America, UK, Asia, Africa. even a year is pushing it. When we did America I spent 3 months on native history and 3 on black history. The American's on the homeschooling board told me that schools there didn't cover native history and that black history is given a nod. 'black history month' So if they are not doing the world, or even their own continent, what are they doing?

I don't think it makes sense to give equal time to various continents. Those are largely arbitrary designations. For instance, the Middle East has quite a lot of history, quite a bit more to say about it than say South America, unless you create a lopsided historic view, where you can name the Juntas of Argentina, but not know about the Abbasid Caliphate say. The act of creating a curriculum is an activity of myth making, as you can easily give outsized importance to minutiae, just because you happened to cover it. I personally don't see why 'black history' needs to be separated from History in general, as if we need to give it special consideration or act as apologists for it. There is only History, and ideally we should try and present it in as objective way as possible (though true objectivity is impossible of course), and enshrining the history of a specific group is only cemented a skewed narrative instead of attempting it. School curricula are the playground of the propagandists.

 

[Radagast]

For instance, the Middle East has quite a lot of history

And the Middle East (plus Europe) is a lot more relevant. Where did geometry come from? The Greeks. Who invented democracy? The Greeks. Why are there 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour? The Babylonians (and the Greeks). Why is there a Senate in Washington DC? The Romans. Why is the English language so strange? Because a bunch of French guys conquered Anglo-Saxon England in 1066.

 

[Radagast]

"Yet the truth was that the modern world was invented in the Middle Ages. Everything from the legal system, to nation-states, to reliance on technology, to the concept of romantic love had first been established in medieval times. These stockbrokers owed the very notion of the market economy to the Middle Ages. And if they didn’t know that, then they didn’t know the basic facts of who they were. Why they did what they did. Where they had come from." -- Michael Crichton, Timeline

 

[agapelove]

It's easy to skim the surface and make judgements based on surface data - the real picture is always more complex. Famine relief in India was complex, in some other disaster Kipling related how whole shipments of wheat flour, brought in to feed a whole region, were wasted because no-one knew what to do with it, something the British simply didn't anticipate. People deal with things how they happen dependent on a whole range of things, from their own thinking and the thinking of others, particular to time and place and circumstance, and any number of other issues. It's easy to just look at the basics and apportion blame.

Agreed and I think there are a lot of misinformed people on both sides. However if we are trying to remain objective, there is no denying that Churchill played a part in the famine. It's not really an assumption. He did openly show disdain for Indians, calling them "beastly people with a beastly religion" and he even tried to absolve himself from any guilt by saying they caused the famine by "breeding like rabbits". He forced the colonial bureaucracy to continue exporting food and intervened when ships tried offering food, claiming those supplies would be needed as reserve rations. Of course his goal was never to kill the Bengals, but we could say their deaths didn't trouble him that much. Their lives were expendable in favor of achieving something else, which is a common story line. I think that's why there's controversy with exalting him as a hero. Besides as Christians we shouldn't even be so caught up with statues, they're a little "false idol-y" to me.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Like it or not, Greco-Roman Civilisation in its specific form of European Civilisation, played an outsized part in creating our modern world and technology and concepts that sustain it. This had lots of imput from others, from Babylonian and Egyptian civilisation, to the influence of Arab philosophers, etc. You can decry that it did so by force and Imperialism, and you'd be right - but it did so none the less. To ignore their history is thus not to understand history at all. We cannot pretend that the history of Ethiopia, though interesting in its own right, has as much relevance to the world at large as Italy say.

 

[agapelove]

This is nothing but the fallacy of juxtaposition.

Besides, ending Fascism in Europe was in the favour of Indians. Have you read what Hitler's plans had been? India would have ended up in the Japanese sphere in all likelihood, and the Bengal famine was more about their conquest of Burma. Read a bit about the atrocities Japan committed in China (Nanking specifically). Thinking that the war effort did not directly affect future Indian welfare is simply hogwash. Based on previous Axis activities, India probably got off lightly with famine.

WWII was not the 'victory of white people' as the Indian Army played a very big part, as did other non-white forces from the Caribbean or Africa. The Indian National Congress, after initial ambivalence, supported the war effort (although Gandhi said they should passively resist and if the Nazis kill them, then theirs would be the moral victory). Calling it 'the positive achievements of white people' is whitewashing history. Read up about the Brazilian expeditionary force in Italy sometime, or the Ethiopian campaign.

This is not an attempt at more nuanced reading, this is just another flavour of myth.

I'm not sure how that is a fallacy if the two are actually correlated? And I say "positive achievements of white people" because Winston Churchill was a white man, whose achievements overshadowed the destructive hardships he helped orchestrate that nonwhite people had to endure. It's an imperial narrative.