In 165 CE, everyone is superstitious:
"...apart from a tiny handful of philosophical rationalists." (p. 95)
(They would have been at home in University Philosophy Departments where I have studied.)
"Even they mostly believed in the Gods, they just thought the Olympians didn't interact with humans, so you could discount them." (ibid.)
(The last stage before full atheism.)
Paula Atkins thinks:
"Because I'm black I'm a curiosity here, but it isn't important. I'm black but I'm living before the concept of race was even invented. And that feels just as odd as the rest of it." (p. 109)
This new timeline will have no trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Paula is creeped out both by the fact of slavery and by everyone around her taking it for granted. That it has nothing to do with skin colour demonstrates a lot about how ideas, assumptions, expectations etc are historically conditioned. We keep asking: what will the future of the new timeline be like?
Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.
17 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
No, the next stage would be either philosophic monotheism or conversion to
Judaism/Christianity.
What mattered to the Romans was cultural assimilation and loyalty to the Empire, not skin pigmentation.
There were even weird cases when slaves had their own slaves!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: that was quite common for -Imperial- slaves, who often held responsible jobs in government -- senior clerks and so forth, though not "department heads" by 165 CE. And Senatorial families usually had slaves or freedmen running their business interests on a day-to-day basis, since they technically weren't allowed into business. Sometimes Equestrians did so too.
Originally, the Imperial government had been an extension of Octavian/Augustus' household, in which slaves and freedmen usually held executive positions.
By 165 CE, equestrians and Senators held more of the upper positions, as the fact that it was "the government" sank in gradually.
Note that the Imperial government in the 2nd century had about 40,000 total civil employees in a population of 70 million or so, including tax collectors, and that 75% of its expenditure was on the military.
Though that included things like road-building and repair, and soldiers on detached duty were critical to provincial governments, particularly in the 'outer ring'.
The Roman government was radically decentralized by our standards -- most of its area was self-governing city-states. The provincial governors mostly interacted with local bigwigs who ran the city-states, though they also acted as appeals courts.
Our concept of 'race' is a product of the Age of Exploration/Expansion, because that involved sea-voyages from Europe to the ends of the earth.
If you -walk- from Denmark to Nubia, you'll just see gradual changes in physical appearance. Ditto if you walk from Denmark to Korea.
But if you -sail- from NW Europe to West Africa or Korea/Japan/China you get the extremes shoved in your face.
Even so, the original European explorers didn't make much of physical differences in East Asia -- they remarked that southern Chinese had the same complexions as "Moors" (North Africans/Middle Easterners) while northern Chinese had the same complexions as French or Germans, albeit with black hair and funny-looking faces.
Note that in areas like Britannia and northern Gaul and interior Spain and North Africa, the Romans built towns, which they expected local bigwigs to run. The bigwigs were the first to assimilate -- adopting Roman customs, learning Latin, building villas and townhouses. Then it worked down from there, and up from soldier-colonies.
Sean,
Yes, the next stage historically was monotheism but conceptually the next stage after "The gods do not intervene or interact" is "The gods do not exist."
Paul.
Racism of skin colour came from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Not really.
Note that the African slave trade began in about 2500 BCE, from Nubia, then was extended to a trans-saharan by the Garamantiens, and the first mass uprising of plantation slaves was in southern Iraq in the 800's -- they were shipped from the eastern coast of Africa to there.
I gather there was an ancient African slave trade but surely it was the historically more recent trans-Atlantic slave trade that made white Europeans regard black Africans as inferior?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Many thanks for these mini essays! Yes, if the Imperial gov't began as extensions of Augustus' household, I can see how he (and his successors) would naturally lean on trusted slaves/freedmen, who would hold senior positions. And that it would take time for patricians/equestrians to grasp the Imperial household was the "gov't."
I did know what we call the Imperial civil service was astonishingly small by the gargantuan standards of our times. I only wish the US and its 50 states had similarly small bureaucracies. Yes, a big reason for that was the decentralized nature of Rome's rule.
Yes, I agree someone traveling slowly from London to Korea by land would gradually get used to how the appearances of people changed. And would not find it as striking as one traveling by sail, with no stops, from London to Korea.
Paul: No, racism of skin color was not unique to Europeans, so dismiss that notion. Plenty of white Muslims also despised blacks. My late online friend, Bruce Binnie, talked of how Muslims he knew Libya told him of how one day they would again be trafficking in black slaves. The common view of blacks with many white Muslims is that blacks are good for nothing except as slaves.
And it was Christian Britons and Europeans, like William Wilberforce, who were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement, not Muslims or atheists.
I also dismiss atheism as offering nothing that would satisfy the deepest longings and needs of human beings.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I dismiss this way of talking about atheism! You have to listen to other people about what their deepest longings and needs are, not tell them.
I do not dismiss that notion. Enslaving black people generated the racist belief that they were inferior, whether the enslaving was done by white Europeans or by white Muslims. This is not changed by who led abolitionism.
Your whole way of discussing this is skewed by a pro-Christian, anti-Muslim, anti-atheist bias. I said nothing about who led abolition.
Slaves themselves fought back against slavery and killed slave-owners. That also helped to end it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Why? I see nothing of value in atheism. It offers nothing to move the hearts of men. Even the absurd Olympian gods offers something better than the hopelessness of atheism. It's my belief the end result of atheism is only despair, a belief that life is ultimately futile and useless. A view which can lead to belief all we can hope for is a hedonistic life--and not bothering to have children (see Stirling's comments about dangerously low birth rates).
My point being is that so often the only criticisms I've seen of the trafficking in black slaves in the West are denunciations of evil white Christians. Muslims are hardly ever mentioned. And it does matter who led the efforts to gradually abolish slavery--mostly white Christian Americans and Europeans.
Muslims had to be forced to abolish slavery--IIRC, Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1961.
You also overlook how seldom slave revolts ever succeeded, with the one in Haiti being the only one I know of.
Ad astra! Sean
I now realize that it is almost impossible to state something unequivocally enough to prevent any possible misunderstanding, especially when someone else approaches every issue from such a completely different angle that mutual incomprehension is almost built into a dialogue from the beginning.
When I say that the trans-Atlantic slave trade generated racism of skin colour, I refer to that racism of skin colour with which we are familiar among white Europeans and white North Americans. I do not mean to deny that other cases of enslavement of black people have generated that same kind of racism among another group of white people. Why should I deny that? I was not even thinking about it at the time but, now that it has been pointed out to me, I fully accept it. So can we now agree that enslavement of black people has generated racism of skin colour among certain groups of white people? I do not dismiss the statement as I originally made it.
I hope that it is evident that I try to clarify issues as much as possible here, not just to prosecute one side of an argument with a grip of death. After a long period of slave transportation, some Christians did more to abolish it than anyone else? Good for them. And, because they did that, I should now dismiss my original statement that slavery of black people led to racism of skin colour? The issues become totally confused here.
Sean,
Why what? You mean that you should tell other people what their deepest longings and needs are? Many atheists find value in life, are moved by scientific enquiry, artistic creation and social causes and do not live without hope. You mean that YOU would feel hopeless if you doubted theism.
It is YOUR belief that the end result of atheism is despair, futility and uselessness. Meanwhile atheists like Carl Sagan and many others tell you the exact opposite from their own experience. They not only hope for but also find much more than a hedonistic way of life.
None of this would in itself prove theism to be true in any case.
When I say that the trans-Atlantic slave trade generated racism of skin colour, I do not denounce only evil white Christians. I do say that the trans-Atlantic slave trade generated racism of skin colour. We should criticize our own societies and our own cultures first, not just reply: "Others did it as well"! And I do not deny that it matters who led efforts to abolish slavery but all the issues get mixed together here.
I do not also overlook anything. I disagree with you about it. Slave revolts were to be applauded whether they succeeded or not and, yes, that one succeeded.
This seems to me an awful lot of argument about nothing. It should have just been accepted that slavery of black people led to racism of skin colour instead of going through all this.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
A huge problem is that all I have been seeing for decades are endless attacks maligning, demeaning, tearing down, and denigrating everything achieved by the West, esp. the UK and US. Attacks going vastly beyond legitimate criticisms. I am absolutely fed up with that!
The anger that arouses, the knowledge of how one sided and biased such attacks are when I know of how others, like the Muslims, have been as bad, but gets what looks like a free pass, makes me more and more impatient with anti-Western attacks.
Disagree, what you said about atheism. What you said about some atheists only applies to a relatively small number. Nor do I believe the things you listed can, in the long run, really be satisfactory even to them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A big problem is that, if anyone says that slavery of black people has generated racism of skin colour, then this should be acknowledged as a fact, not linked to "endless attacks maligning, demeaning..." etc. It does not give a free pass to anyone but we should each criticize our own culture first. This includes people in Muslim countries opposing their repressive regimes with our support. ("Our support" does not include bombing them!) Anger against criticism of our own culture does not help.
Disagree with everything you have said about atheism. People like Sagan did not lead happy and fulfilled lives? You can judge better than they can what is satisfactory for them? Your judgements about the value of other people's lives proves the truth of theism?
This is not a mutually enlightening exchange of views but a series of uncompromising doctrinaire condemnations! It entrenches and reinforces your views but otherwise does not help.
Paul.
Europeans of that era regarded -everyone else- as inferior...
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