Re: [conculture] Re: The things one finds

Tom Wier wrote:
> to the extent that Gauls were
> just dying to set up temples to their gods which just happend to be
> exact correlates of the Roman deities, with Greco-Roman facades to
> match.  It seems that we are often in such a rush to criticize this cul=
tural
> imperialism that we forget that often those whose ancestral cultures ar=
e
> dying, or have died, accepted this quite willingly, because it meant at=
 least
> a higher paying job and and, ostensibly, an easier lifestyle for them a=
nd
> their children.   (At least in the Roman case, eerily similar to simila=
r occurences
> in recent years, there was no official policy of Romanization on the pa=
rt
> of the government -- the government only cared that the provincials
> paid their taxes and obeyed the laws.
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Romanization was *entirely*
voluntary.  There was often prejudice against those who wouldn't
romanize, especially against the Christians.  That's the main reason
that the Christians were persecuted.  The Jews also had sporadic
persecution, but since most of them were concentrated in a single
province (Judea), until the Jewish Revolt, there wasn't much problem.=20
The governors of Judea generally looked the other way when the Jews
refused to make sacrifices to the Emperor (which was a law,
incidentally).

> At any rate, I think it would be interesting to investigate what would =
happen
> to just such a conculture, one which is under the thrall of some overwh=
elmingly
> dominant foreign influence and is in the last stages of social and/or c=
ultural death.

Or better yet, IMHO, a conculture refusing to assimilate, as in the
later stages of my Kass=ED (which stages I've only looked at briefly).=20
They were conquered, deported from their homeland, persecuted, and yet
retained their culture.  That kind of resistance has always fascinated
me.

--=20
"[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue
hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
William Caxton
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