Re: The Need for Debate

On Monday, December 6, 2004, at 08:34 , Chris Bates wrote:

> I guess I was just thinking of things like galileo and the church when I
> talked of the church and state preventing debate. :)
Ah! But Galileo (1564 - 1642) is most certainly post-Medieval, especially
in Italy where the Renaissance had been underway for a hundred years or so
before Galileo was born  :)

Galileo's problem was that he was born during the Reformation when debate
on both sides of the religious divide was not exactly encouraged.
Dissenting in Calvin's Geneva was at least as dangerous as dissenting in
Catholic Rome.

Before Galileo was even a twinkle in his father's eye:
- Luther had nailed up his Thirty Nine Theses and the Reformation had got
under way,
- Henry VIII had broken with Rome, married Anne Boleyn and executed her;
- Calvin had established a Presbyterian theocracy in Geneva;
- the Council of Trent had begun.

It was, alas, a time of entrenched positions which ain't good for open
debate. But the medievals were great debaters.

[snip]
> read up on it. But I certainly got the impression from my teacher in
> school that the church especially supressed progress for centuries,
> indeed I'm sure he gave this as the reason why there was so little
> advancement in a lot of areas. *shrugs* I think there's always the
> problem of propaganda in history: old lies develop strong roots and then
> its very difficult to get rid of them.
Exactly. It sounds very much like the teaching we got when I was at school
in the 1950s. I thought things had moved on - but it seems not. I am
absolutely certain that my parents had no intention of lying to me about
what Catholics do and believe, but they were way off the mark as I
discovered when I converted. I'm sure most of my teachers were speaking in
good faith, but as you say "old lies develop strong roots and then its
very difficult to get rid of them."

> There's also often the problem of
> perspective: for instance, the "barbarians" (Goths, Vandals etc) who
> eroded the roman empire near the end. Were they really that bad? Was
> there nothing important that was good to say about them?
Yes, particularly the Goths.

> Surely there
> was something more to them than going around killing romans and creating
> chaos. But I've never heard anything about them apart from that fact.
They don't figure much in school history. But have a browse in the history
section of a good bookshop, or visit Amazon. My son who lives in south
Wales is keen on medieval history and related periods & has quite a few
interesting books. I'm afraid I don't remember any titles. But it shouldn'
t be too difficult to track down some stuff.

> Their claim to fame for most people is as destroyers.
...which as you say is rather one-sided and negative. The same with the
Vikings - ask most people about Vikings and you will told about helmets
with horns and pillaging & raping. In fact AFAIK there is no evidence for
horned helmets - it is IIRC due to a fanciful illustration in some
Victorian history book - and they did actually settle and develop quite
civilized communities, for example, at Jorvik (York), in Iceland &
elsewhere,

> That was a little random, but I often tend to ramble. :)
Well, why not?   :)

Ray
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http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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