Re: RL language n' stuff...

From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd01_at_...>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:29:11 -0500


On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_...> wrote:
> Another stab at human-Kitori relations:

I really liked this story.

>>> Sure. Let's take Caesar.
>>> US version: Founder of the Roman Empire.
>
>>> Maybe a bit exaggerated, but that's how school history relates to those
>>> events.
>
> >From what Chris was saying, would the Americans know that much??
>
> If they really looked into it, they would recognize it as false... Caesar
> was a dictator in the late Republic. Octavian founded the Empire.

No longer resisting the urge to drive the point even further: Even more sadly, most of what I remember being taught about Caesar was in English Literature (11th grade or so), and that was from the play. I figured out the rest of what I know on my own, because I never was required to revisit general European (or other non-US) history in college. (Though now the US has the HBO series _Rome_ to supplement whatever is remembered from high school - and it has visual sexual content and violence to make it more noticeable and interesting - and even if the accents are difficult for many to figure out, they're easier than puzzling through Shakespeare's written language.)

US version I remember from high school (as well as I can remember): Great and generous man who was killed by gullible Brutus, scheming Cassius, and the rest of a mostly cowardly and dishonorable rabble of senators. Oh yeah, he was killed during a period of instability/civil war that gave rise to the Roman Empire, the first emperor of which was his heir Octavian, who defeated Marc Antony (known primarily from another play IIRC). (Extra credit for figuring out what the Journey song about the Rubicon was referencing.)

I could go on about how the people of the US, if they think about it at all, seem to think that the US created itself out of nothing after throwing the evil, taxation-crazed British Empire (often with the help of God, who is demonstrably on "America's"* side) - but expanding on this may be even more of a troll than what I just said. I mention this to reinforce a possible reason that history, especially non-US-centric history, isn't commonly thought about, taught, remembered, absorbed, etc.

To drag this back to Glorantha, I think that the last paragraph explains part of why "Americans"* love the Orlanthi, whose reactionary and religious conservative tendencies are often conveniently overlooked, downplayed, denied, or ignored. Authority is to be fought against (at least in fantasies).

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