Indeed. I'm not arguing that by modern standards that the Roman or Athenian societies weren't repressive by modern standards. And even given the social structure that you'd outlined, we could probably agree that we'd rather live in Rome under Augustus than Tiberius (or, for that matter, the late Roman Empire with its crippling taxes), or that we'd rather live in Athens under Pericles than under Draco.
So, under the Rawlsian idea of social justice (i.e. which society you'd prefer to live in if you didn't know in advance what place in that society you'd occupy), I would say that Augustinian Rome was more just than the later Xtainized Roman Empire, and that Periclean Athens was more just than Athens under Draco or the Thirty-Three Tyrants.
Similarly, I'd argue that from the little is know n of the ancient Gauls pre- and post- Romanization, that I'd rather live in Romanized Gaul than pre-Roman Gaul. Why? Because living standards were better, and exercise of authority less substantially less arbitrary under Roman law than Gallic law (extrapolating from Brehon Law). And, given that the Gauls assimilated Roman culture relatively quickly and easily (while there were a few Gallic rebellions, they were infrequent compared to, say Judea), we can assume the Gauls didn't object to the change that strongly either.
I'm also arguing that the image of ancient Celts as freedom-loving anarchic egalitarian hedonists is more a projection of our desires of the Celts-as-wished-for rather than the Celts-as-historical-entities.
From Caesar's Gallic Wars (ok, not the most objective source), trans. S.A. Handford:
"Everywhere in Gaul there are only two classes of men who are of any account or consideration. The common people are treated almost as slaves, never venture to act on their own initiative, and are not consulted on any subject. Most of them, crushed by debt or heavy taxation or the oppression of more powerful persons, bind themselves over to serve men of rank, who exercise over them all the rights that masters have over slaves. The two priviledged classes are the Druids and the Knights".
So, pre-Roman Gallic society, from Caesar's account, seems to be close to the feudal society that filled the vacuum
left after the collapse of Rome.
And needless to say, not a good model for the Orlanthi (although most of what we know about the Orlanthi is of course
purposely misleading anti-Lunar propaganda. ;))
> Truth is 90% of any
> group of people will do what's expected of them by that group. 90%
> of the rest will rebel in minor ways but follow the group line on
> important matters. That leaves 1% who may challenge the core of a
> society's behaviour. It's how society deals with that 1% that
> determines whether its repressive and a lot depends on how easy it
> is to opt out.
I can't agree with you that the sole judge of how repressive a society is based on how it treats the 1% who rebel against its strictures the most. On that basis, given that the US incarcerates about 1% of its population (who by definition, are lawbreakers and the ones who rebel the most against expected behaviour), and has the second highest per capita incarceration rate, I could say that Saudi Arabia is a less repressive society than the US, as it has a lower incarceration rate. That would be absurd, obviously - how the other 99% of the population is treated has to be a factor in assessing the "repressiveness" of the society.
> Ancient societies *had* to treat people who didn't
> wish to be part of them harshly - you must be either in or out, if
> you're out - goodbye. The modern concept of repression comes from
> that same approach but nowhere for the outsider to go,
So you wouldn't agree that slave, serfdom or thrall-holding were repressive? All of which predate the 19th century.
Tom
Powered by hypermail