Wanda's character synopsis of Castelar:
"Luis isn't the swinish sort either. He's keeping his promise, absolutely polite. Unyielding, but polite. A killer, a racist, a fanatic; a man of his word, fearless, ready to die for king or comrade; Charlemagne dreams, tender little memories of his mother, poor and proud in Spain. Kind of humorless, but a flaming romantic." (p. 706)
I believe, on the basis of evidence, that consciousness is a property of organisms with central nervous systems, not an immaterial substance somehow interacting with organisms, so I do not expect to be judged after my death. In any case, post-mortem judgement is unnecessary. We judge ourselves and each other here and now. However, if any deity does assess human lives, then he will have to take into account their widely different historical contexts and individual uniquenesses. Castelar was racist by our standards but how could he have been anything else there and then? I mean: how could he have been anything else? Some people can and do question and critique received values but not Castelar, who resembles Lorenzo in The Shield Of Time.
The idea that everyone is judged by a deity with a single moral check-list is surely absurd.
1 comment:
Castelar isn't "racist" in the sense we use the word; the concept of race was only then gestating in European culture. They had plenty of ethnic prejudices, of course but that's par for human beings in any place or era.
He'd be very likely to be extremely -religiously- prejudiced, and culturally to in terms of values and customs.
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