Story of Civilization ~ Will & Ariel Durant

[winsummm]

JUSTIN: slavery is illegal in the US. we prosecute those who do it as  criminals.

claire

[mabel1015j]

if we find them, Claire.....................jean

[Robby]

Anything further regarding Post 790?

Robby

[Justin]

Yes, it's illegal but it is still practiced. We encounter evidence of it almost daily in the newspapers. Women and children are imported from third world countries for domestic work which seems to include sleeping with the boss's friends and customers.

[winsummm]

imprts . . .human ones?  children too. it is not the same as institutionazed slavery . . . a living part of a cultures laws and customs. You'r reaching Justin. . .just a little too far.  where does guilt end?

[JoanK]

Winsum:"we shouldn't judge ancients by our modern standards but i can't help it.  Which is probably why I don't like history very much".

But that's also a good reason for reading history. When we see how people in other ages were blinded by the assumptions of their time, it makes us want to discover how we are being blinded.

[winsummm]

dear  JoanK  I didn't know I was blinded until I began to see and think for myself about age twelve.  be attempting to do that ever since.  What I see horrifies me at times and at other times touches me deeeply.  it is good to see and not necessary to see through the eyes of those who are blind in order to do  so.

claire

[mabel1015j]

I have found it both edifying and depressing to read and study history. I love learning about the people and events of other times and places, but get depressed thinking how often we go over and over the same issues. We do seem to make some progress in some places, but it seems very slow and it's even more depressing when i find out that we have slipped in what i call progress. The most recent that we all know about is when i think back to 1970 and think about how hopeful i and my acquaintances were about how we were going to solve poverty, population issues, environmental issues, health/care issues, racial issues and how i assumed by the 21st century they would pretty much be taken care of...............................................i could get depressed realizing that no one talks about zero population growth any more, how public transportation in my area is not any better than it was in 1970, how school teachers in this town cannot afford to buy a house in this town, how we sometimes make more problems than we solve, (plastics/hormones/antibiotics given to animals)  and how young women are now wearing the most uncomfortable clothing and shoes that we tho't we were getting rid of in the 1970's and 80's!!! AND that women are often more objectified as sex objects and willingly so than any time since the 50's. I think we should all endorse the togas of the Greeks and Romans! ..................lol

The issues of the Catholic Church and how progressive we think Nicholas is is depressing to me. Obviously, the Church forgot about N and John XXIII and are apparently back to pre-J XXIII and maybe even pre-Nicholas V. Or the fact that there are still popes who are only male and still considered to be infallible......................... jean

[bookad]

hello there

I guess I need to introduce myself first.  My name is Deb and have been lurking in the wings following your group initially starting with a group January 2004, whose plan started by reading 10 pages or so daily.  Doing this I completed the initial book by W. Durant.  Unfortunately the group failed, fell apart or something, & when I caught up to your group before the senior site disbanded, and lucked out again to find you.  Whew!
Good to be here anyway. 
Never quite realizing some of the book was being copied I struggled to figure out where to dip in.  I have spent the last month reading the  posts, and feel somewhat comfortable with the era, though I find the Greek/Roman confusing especially with all the strange names. 
Anyway glad to be aboard and hope to contribute, but admit never have been online with a group before, and generally unfamiliar with protocols etc. 
I am Canadian & reside with my husband, 3 cats & Billie our collie-x dog in central Ontario where we live in our house...the last 6 years we have moved our troop of animals into a fifth-wheel, now RV and spend the winter in Brownsville, Texas.
Reading is my prime enjoyment, and history & people's perspectives and first hand accounts captivate me.
In my own reading was pursuing a book about 'humanists' and then found that was the topic with a certain pope here, then following Mabel's  feelings about  society  striving to get 'it right' post  ==we do not really appear to learn from our past.... moved me to begin a post myself.   
Humble apologies for not having the courage to post earlier.
Hello to you all.

[Brian]

Welcome Deb - - - hope you will enjoy the relaxed atmosphere in this group.

Brian.

[winsummm]

Hi  :)Deb/bookat

so glad you did chime in. as you can see we wander all over the place.  My own focus is modern practises that stem from the old ones.

And Jean I guess I'm a "cup half full" person because although I see all the sad things that are still happening I rejoice in some of the gains. My values are similar to yours also and frustration is a daily problem for me as well. Compromise is the name of the game it seems.  It is almost impossible to get it JUST RIGHT, but necessary to keep on tryig.

claire

[JoanK]

deb: welcome, welcome. Jump right in. There is no protocol here, just jump right in.

It sounds like you might also enjoy our nonfiction discussion: back with a link to it.

[JoanK]

Here is a link to the last page of non-fiction. Don't feel you have to read back any further than that: we wander all over the place.

http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=84.840

[Frybabe]

Hi Deb, Welcome!

[bookad]

hello and thankyou for your welcome
next winter we plan to be travelling so any stationary book group is out of the question
so pleased to be here
...and thank you Joan looked into the site link, the nonfiction group looks like my cup of tea as well
hope you are seeing better weather than where we are rain +++, I know southern Texas needs more rain as a rule, but this is excessive I would think....
have a good day
Deb

[winsummm]

hi Deb
our Texans have a reputation for EXCESSIVE I THINK.  WE could use some of that wet stuf here in southern california and they promised us, those know it alls on TV that it would be today and tomorrow.  almost noon and still waiting. . .

[/i]

[mabel1015j]

Welcome Deb! Always nice to get an additional voice w/ new experiences and tho'ts. As you've probably figured out, you don't need the book - which ever volume we happen to be on  - our fearless leader, Robby, give us food for tho't every so often and off we go - where ever it takes us.................good to have you and isn't nice to have a group you can "take w/ you" no matter where you go?

Claire - i was always a "half full" person myself, very much so, but the longer i live more negative i become. I try to work on that. Actually when i was teaching, right up to two yrs ago, helped me to be more optimistic because i wanted the students to be optimistic. I truly do think that the United States has been a wonderful, exceptional, postive experiment, but it seems to have gotten bogged down w/ me-me-me people. ..................... maybe i'm just watching too much 24/7 cable news, they always have to find something dramatic to tell us and day-to-day good-peoples' lives are not usually very dramatic. I know a lot of good people who are doing very good things and are still working on those issues i mentioned above, and so am i. I just didn't expect to be still doing that at age 70.....................surprise, surprise!...............jean

[winsummm]

The nice thing about teaching younger people is that they still DARE TO BE HOpEFUL. we even elected one of those to be  president here in the USA. "The Audocity of Hope"  does just that. sounds like his campaign speeches  even now at town hall meetings as in NEVADA this morning, exudes that flavor in his responses to questions.

CHANGE takes a while even in the short term  and  in the long term we often just don't notice it.  I'm almost 82 so remember way far back when women and gays and other than whites were treated badly as a matter of course. As for technology the changes are HUGE or I wouldn't be here with you.

claire

[JoanK]

Most of us wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the advances in medicine, hygene, etc. But we forget that.

[Robby]

As you have already been told, Deb, you are most welcome!!  Remain with us and share your thoughts with us.  As others here have heard me say so many times, each of us has our own area of knowledge and none of us pretends to be an "expert."  We share opinions, sometimes backed up by facts from various sources.

In a little while I will be picking up where we left off.  We are in Durant's fifth volume of the Story of Civilization entitled "The Renaissance."  More specifically, we are in that chapter entitled "The Renaissance Captures Rome" and are reacting to Durant's comments about the Pope, Nicholas V, who was struggling to hold his position.

Robby

[Robby]

Durant continues.

Nicholas loved the appearance and form as well as the contents orf books.  Himself a calligraphist, he had his translations written carefully upon parchment by expert scribes.  The leaves were bound in crimson velvet, secured by silver clasps.  As the number of his books mounted - finally to 824 Latin and 352 Greek manuscripts -- and these were added to previous papal collections, the problem arose of housing the five thousand volumes -- the largest store of books in Christendom -- in such a way that their complete transmission to posterity might be assured.

 The construction of a Vatican Library was one of Nicholas dearest dreams.

He was a bulder as well as a scholar and from the outset of his pontificate he had resolved to make Rome worthy of leading the world.  A jubilee year was at hand in 1450.  A hundred thousand visitors were expected.  They must not find Rome a shabby ruin.  The Presitige of the Church and the papacy required that the citadel of Christianity should confront pilgrims with 'noble edifices combining taste and beauty with noble proportions" which would immensely conduce to the exaltation of the chair of St. Peter."

 So Nicholas, on his deathbed, apologetically explained his aim.  He restored the walls and gates of the city, repaired the Acqua Vergine aqueduct, and had an artist construct an ornamental foundtain at its mouth. He engaged Leon Barrista Alberti to design palaces, public squares, and spacious avenues shielded from sun and rain by arcaded porticoes.  He had many streets paved, many bridges renewed, the Castle of Sant’ Angelo repaired.

 He lent money to prominent citizens to help them build palaces that would be an ornament to Rome.  At his bidding Bernardo Rosellino
renovated Santa Maria Maggiore, San Geiovanni Laterano, San Paolo and San Lorenzo  -- fuori le mura – outside the walls – and the forty churches that Gregory I had designated as stations of the cross.

 He made majestic plans for a new Vatican Palace that, with its gardens, would cover all the Vatican hill, and would house the pope and his staff, the cardinals, and the administrative offices of the Curia.  He lived to complete his own chambers, the library, and the rooms or stanze later decorated by Raphael.  He brought Benedetto Bonfigli from Perugia and Andrea del Castagno from Florence, to paint frescoes – now lost – on the Vatican walks and he persuaded the aging Fra Angelico to return to Rome and paint in the Pope’s own chapel the stories of St. Stephen and St. Laurence.  He planned to tear down the old and crumbling basilica of St.  Peter and raise over the Apostle’s tomb the most imposing church in the world.

It was left for Julius II to take up this audacious aim.

What a man!!  Comments, please?

Robby
 

[mabel1015j]

Wow! Does Rome have a Pope Nicholas Day? They should...............

FYI -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Library

The Vatican Library will remain close for three years beginning from 14 July 2007 for important work of restoration . The Vatican Library will be closed for ...
212.77.1.230/en/v_home_bav/home_bav.shtml - Cached - Similar -

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=vatican+library&oq=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=ZzCAS7zbDM2Qtgfd-dWeBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5&ved=0CDMQsAQwBA

The third one is images - very interesting

and this one has a video about the renonvations and the scheduled reopening

http://vatsecarc.blogspot.com/2009/10/vatican-library-closed-for-renovations.html                                  

I just realized while looking at the Wiki page of Pope Nicholas V that he was only pope for EIGHT yrs (1447 - 1455)    he must have had the energy of the Everready Bunny.............Yes indeed Robby, "What a Man!"

Also, it just dawned on me that my grandson's initials are NVP, close to Pope Nicholas V..............huummm........jean

[winsummm]

wow 

[Gumtree]

WOW is right Winsumm.

Thanks Jean - that's going to take ages to look at properly.

Hi Robby and all: I'm still around lurking and loving every minute of it.

The conversation about Nicholas  is very interesting especially his search for manuscripts and getting the ancient texts copied etc. As Justin, I think, intimated, if Nicholas hadn't done it someone else would have and today we would have them anyway. But the fact remains that Nicholas was the one.

I think it's easy to overlook the degree of slavery still apparent in the world.  Maybe it takes different guises and is dressed up differently but it is rife. People everywhere are enslaved even by their government - eg. the Chinese Cultural Revolution sent the people to work in environments and occupations for which they had no desire or skills - and there was no way out for them. Other governments hold their people in thrall to the mighty dollar. Millions are enslaved by poverty, lack of education and basic health care. Each year men, women and children are sold into slavery to be trained as prostitutes and the like. Slavery is all pervasive and it is in our own neighbourhoods.













 

[Emily]

This sentence stood out in Durant's latest excerpt. "He (Nicholas) lent money to prominent citizens to help them build palaces."

Nicholas seemed to be impressed with extravagent gestures. He paid scribes and translators outrageous salaries for their work. He lent church funds to the 'well-to-do' to build  palaces to impress the pilgrims coming to the jubilee, since the church hoped to make a lot of money, expecting around 100,000 visitors. Nicholas seemed too impressed by 'grandness' on a big scale to be leading a church whose teaching was the opposite.

Nicholas headed the church whose entire reason for being was based on the words of Jesus, and his grand style of spending seemed the exact opposite of those teachings.

It was one thing to spiff up Rome (repair the aquaduct and streets) but quite another to build palaces for the well connected (usually family or war lords).

I love beautiful decorated houses and large well designed buildings as well as anyone, but it seems odd that the leader of a religion that dismissed those things as unimportant and actually an impediment to being a Christian.

Nicholas would have been right at home in today's world of the rich crying poor mouth and asking working Americans to fund their gambling loses to the tune of almost a trillion dollars. He seems the type to take the 'widows mite' to bail out the over paid bankers and gamblers of today. He was way too impressed by wealth to head a church who taught the 'meek shall inherit the earth'.

I don't disagree with what he did (except the building palaces for the well connected), just that he did it under the cloak of Christianity which taught the opposite of grandeur for earthlings.

Nicholas was a hypocrite.


Emily



 

[Robby]

Emily, you don't mince words!  You bring an entirely different perspective to Nicholas' graciousness.  What do the rest of you think?

Robby

[JoanK]

When I traveled through Italy, I remember stopping in a small town that looked lost in time. The houses were humble adobe structures, the people looked poor, but from every place in town, you could see the church: huge, ornate, with a big gilded dome, the epitome of opulance.

I don't think Nicholas can be blamed for this -- much of the art that we are enjoying today is there due to this love of opulant churches. Is this wrong?

[mabel1015j]

I think i mentioned before that all the old beauty, architecture, glories, mansions, etc. leave me w/  very ambiguous feelings because we know that many people of the day could have used more than a little help. This discussion makes me think of the book Pillars of the Earth and that poor mason who designed the new cathedral, but whose family was "dirt poor" and at the mercy of the bishop's highjinks...........still i know that the church was the patron for many of the lovely things and savior of many books and artifacts that we wouldn't enjoy today......................we keep running into these dichotomies in our thinking about people, things and history, don't we? ................maybe that's what makes it interesting? ............jean

[Justin]

Here's a bit of interesting information I came across on a site called Delancy. 

 tidbits on the city of Florence at the flowering of the Renaissance, the 1400s, the time of Cosimo de'Medici, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci and countless other guiding lights - tidbits on homosexuals, prostitutes, witches and public spectacle:

"[After the Florentines' military defeat at Lucca] a familiar scapegoat was used to explain the Florentines' ineptness in battle: homosexuality. For years, clergymen such as the Franciscan firebrand Bernardino of Siena had been raging from the pulpit that the crime of sodomy was destroying the city. So famous was Florence for homosexual activity that during the fourteenth century the German slang for 'sodomite' was Florenzer. In 1432, the government took steps to curtail this perceived root of its troubles on the battlefield by establishing an agency to identify and prosecute homosexuals, the Ufficiali di Notte, 'Office of the Night' (a name made even more colorful by the fact that notte was slang for 'bugger'). A less official method of detecting homosexuals was for mothers to rattle their sons' coin bags: if the coins exclaimed, 'fire, fire, fire,' the money was said to be the gift of a sodomite.

"This vice squad worked in tandem with the Orwellian-sounding Ufficiali dell'Onesta, 'Office of Decency,' which was charged with licensing and administering the municipal brothels that had been created in the area around the Mercato Vecchio. The specific aim of these public brothels was to wean Florentine men from the 'greater evil' of sodomy. Prostitutes became a common sight in Florence, not least because the law required them to wear distinctive garb: gloves, high-heeled shoes, and a bell on the head. ...

"Held ... in Florences communal prison, the Stinche ... were more serious Criminals - heretics, sorcerers, witches, and murderers - for whom unpleasant fates awaited: decapitation, amputation, or burning at the stake. Executions took place outside the walls, in the Prato della Giustizia, 'Field of Justice.' These were popular public spectacles - so popular, in fact, that criminals often had to be imported from other cities to satisfy the public's demand for macabre drama."

Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome, Penguin, Copyright 2000 by Ross King, pp. 126-127, 132-133.

[winsummm]

time: UCLA  the 1940s ==  Dr. Karl With  Art History classemphasis on Florence, the items/artists you mention Justin but never a word about the homosexual activity there or the many artists we studied as part of it.

claire

[Robby]

Justin:

Good to see you after a long pause.  I was worried and about to send you an email.

Robby

[Justin]

 I appreciate your concern. but heck, Robby, I'm only 86- a young chick in this discussion group. That aside, I have already decided that when the call comes my response will be," I'm not going. Thanks, but no thanks."

Claire; In the 1940's we didn't dare talk about such things for fear of being suspect.  We, today, don't fully realize that the openness we experience was not always with us nor do we realize sometimes how far we have come. Coming out of the closet was an unheard of event in ordinary society. Certainly, a professor of Art History, if he wanted to continue teaching, would fail to mention such deviations. Both Leonardo and Michelangelo Buonarotti were homosexual, as were many others, as we know today but in the 1940s that was sub rosa.

[JoanK]

In other words, you could be homosexual to do art, but not to teach it.

[Robby]

I can only "second" what Justin has just said.  Homosexuality was not even mentioned. It was as if it didn't even exist.  "Certain" people knew about "certain" things but that was a sub culture which didn't touch the work place as most of us knew it.  In the 1940s even the topic of color differences was not on the conscious minds of white people.  The blacks, of course, knew it because they were the ones hurting but they kept their mouths shut.  I fought across France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany and never saw a soldier who wasn't "white."  We never asked about it because it was "natural."  We were brought up to know that "this is the way it is," not thinking of it as either good or bad.  Some of us, of course, felt badly about it but whether it was sexual orientation or color divide, it was not on the top of our minds.  Then Truman desegregated the troops and everything changed.  I fought alongside soldiers who I knew (or suspected) that they were gay but didn't give a damn as long as they were wearing the same uniform and their rifles were pointing toward the enemy.  I imagine that this attitude will ultimately happen regarding sexual orientation.  Notice what is happening how regarding women in combat.  Some soldiers still are angered and others don't care.

Those of us in the discussion who have watched cultures and civilizations change should not be surprised that nothing is permanent.

Robby

[JoanK]

ROBBY: "In the 1940s even the topic of color differences was not on the conscious minds of white people".

While living in Maryland, I noticed how color differences worked out so they were invisible to Whites, but very visable to Blcks. A road near my house was paved to a certain point, and then turned into a muddy dirtroad. The paved part led through a White housing development. When it turned to mud, it led to a small area of houses occupied by Blacks (land that had been the slave quarters of a plantation before the Civil War, and had been given to the ex-slaves. Their descendants had held onto the land, but the city had never seen fit to pave the road leading past.

At the Edge, where the paving ended was an elementary school, where my children, who lived a mile away went. The Black children, who lived almost next door to the school, didn't go there: the school district boundaries had been gerrymandered to bus them far away.

This segregation was invisible to theWhites, who never ventured down the dirt road, and didn't know the Black community was there. But it hit the blacks in the face every time they went down that muddy road. (I'm the exception, since my houde overlooked the whole area, so I couls see what was going on).

This was 1971. The situation didn't change until the White community decided that road would be a useful shortcut and lobbied to have it paved.

[mabel1015j]

My f2f book grp just yesterday was discussing Gail Collins book , When Everything Changed. It is a history of women in the U.S. since 1960. One of the topics of conversation yesterday was how homosexuality was never mentioned in the press thru most of those decades. When we talked about whether we "knew" any one who was gay, most of us did not know an openly gay person until we became involved in the women's movement in the 70's. As Robby said, there were men who were what was then called "fey" and women who were "butch" who we "suspected" may have been gay........isn't that a terrible way to put it, as tho it was criminal to be gay.........but that was the term we used. We didn't say "we tho't" someone may have been gay, but that we "suspected." Of course, lesbians have always had an easier time of it than gay men, particularly in the U.S. where men - in the 20th century at least -  haven't been allowed to be affectionate or live together, or sleep together.

The examples of racism are apt, and we also talked yesterday about the fact that Conn v Griswold - the Sup Crt decision allowing, first married couples, and eventually "everybody" (married or not) access to birth control was in 1965!?! Alabama didn't remove their law against interracial marriage until 1990, altho the court decision was in 1968, Va v Love. Can you believe how backward that sounds and it was only 40 yrs ago?

As an employee of Dept of Army for 13 yrs thru the 80's and 90's, i heard a lot of discussion about women and gays in the military. I talked w/ non-coms who said some the best cmdrs they had had were women and they had no problem w/ them, that when in action everybody was a part of the team. I read reports about the Danes having had gays in the mainstream of their military for yrs and having no problems. ............. Denmark sounds like a lovely country to live in...........for many reasons. All of the arguments that have been raised about women or gays were the same arguments raised about Blacks when Truman said the military would integrate. And every time the issue of gays living in the barracks, or sexual issues arising, i want to scream. Heterosexual relationships are NO different. People must learn to be professional and men may have to learn to fend off advances in the same way women have been doing for centuries! Be adults, deal w/ it! And move on. There are systems in place to deal w/ sexual harassment - whether it's heterosexual or homosexual.

I'm also reading Earthly Pleasures by PHillipa Gregory and she mentions King James preferences for young men - that was not the earthly pleasure that the title suggests.   It has ever been thus! Heterosexuals/homosexuals/prostitutes/etc. etc. This is the world. We are diverse, there are behaviors in our lives that are not choices and we should become adult about these issues. If the behaviors become criminal, or harassing, deal w/ that person, not w/ the group.

Thanks for the quote Justin.......jean

[winsummm]

and so it goes. now that we have THE BOMB we can reverse trends and work our way back to the mountains and the sea . . .what is left of us. History may even go on WITHOUT US. the obama administration is suggesting that it is transitional CLEAN energy to cleaner energy.

Claire

[Justin]

Joan: Yes, I think your observation is quite true. One could do art but not teach it as an open homosexual. Artistic performance tends to be accomplished by one alone. Teachers are more often working under the auspices of others and therefore less independent than artists.

[Emily]

The Vatican says it will go 'Green'. It has installed a few solar panels, but without changing the energy it uses now, how is that possible one might ask. It takes energy to create energy, even solar panels.

The cardinals announced that a company in Hungary was donating to the Vatican a plot of land  it would replant with trees, and give the carbon credits to the church. The land is wetlands and it was interesting that it was cleared in the Middle ages for farmland.

It is not very large it seems to me, and I don't know how much energy the entire Vatican complex uses, but planting trees that could take 150 years to mature on such a small plot would not seem to be sufficeint.

Was the land cleared because of population growth back in the middle ages? The article doesn't say, but since the church does not believe in birth control, I can see them cutting it down about the time it matures or before if the population continues to grow at the rate it is now. It doesn't take much to throw people into famine, a serious drought or flooding.

I oppose the selling of 'air' and calling it carbon credits. It is just another scam to me. The Vatican will still be belching smoke and it is a long way to Hungary.

This article seems to be from 2007 in the NYT, but I just read about it again a few weeks ago in one of the news magazines. Maybe they have just now started planting trees.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/europe/17carbon.html

Emily

[3kings(Trevor)]

There has lately been talk in these pages of Homosexuality.In this country during the last 30-40 years, there has been the same shift from 'anti' to tolerance of such folk, as in your country.

For myself, I think I have moved with the times, and accept Homosexuality as a fact of life. Over the years I have worked with several males and females of that disposition. I feel I have had good relations with them, but even now in my mid eighties, when sexual activity is mostly but dim memory, I still feel an unease in associating too closely with such persons.

Strange, isn't it? But I still shudder if I chance to see two males holding hands, or kissing. I avert my gaze, and think of, to me, more wholesome things.

I regret the twisted meaning given to good English words as in the following poetic lines:-
"No more shall grief of mine the seasons wrong
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay."  ( Wordsworth)

All the earth is not gay, as the new meaning tries have it, thank heaven..... +++ Trevor.