Musical Taste and Ideological Predisposition

[Opus131]

Ah, yes, the ideal Byzantine government, the marvelous symphony of Church and State, emperors blinding their own sons and viceversa, bishops and metropolitans being deposed and blinded by emperors or giving their blessing to the deposing and blinding of emperors, mob rule making or unmaking emperors, religious civil wars and persecutions waging for more than a century! Indeed, mankind has never known a better, more Christian, intelligent, benevolent and effective system of government. Its return is to be heartily desired and vigorously pursued.

You can make any civilization look terrible if you just cherry pick all the bad parts. In fact, much of what we know of history is essentially just a collection of events that were considered to be important enough to write down, which would include a lot of terrible things since those tend to stand out. If they were as "common place" as you seem to suggest here, they wouldn't even be recorded at all. A lot of history is essentially "black chronicle" in this sense. Peace usually doesn't make it to the annals of history, and so it goes unrecorded, giving in the impression nothing at all happened in the past except terrible things. This is all the more true when it comes to Byzantium since this is a civilization that lasted over a thousand years, which is a LOT of history.

I mean, consider what one could write about the history of America starting from the turn of the 20th century up to today. Just look at all the wars they have engaged in. What would people say about things like the invasion of Iraq, which was launched under a false pretext and lead to the death of over a million people? An outline of the "major" historical events punctuating American history from 1900 to today would probably paint a far more bleak picture than what anybody who has lived in America during this century probably experienced, and even so i'm not sure all the wars and destruction wrought in the world by the American goverment would necessarely be an indictment of its system of goverment and civil structure (a civil structure which does not eschew the idea of a central authority. When it is said that the "law" is king, that's not an euphemism or mere turn of phrase), since bad "actors" can appear under any system.

To me, what justifies traditional civilizations like Byzantium and its social system is not the "absence" of abuses (which is just a consequence of our fallen human nature), but the fact such civilizations tended to model themselves after sacred and divine principles. Essentially, traditional civilizations were "good" in principle, though not always so in fact, while modern society is evil in principle, though it does have a few advantages and good things in practice. That's an important distinction. Under Byzantium, Christianity was able to unfold itself out of the "catacombs" to flower into a full blown sacred tradition that penetrated the whole of the society, and the emperors had a decisive role in this, starting with Saint Constantine. It was under Byzantium that the ecumentical councils convened. It was under Byzantium that the canon of scripture and all the finer theological points of Christianity were decided.

Meanwhile, i can't think of a single culture that has succeded into turning a majority of people AWAY from God than modern secular civilization, with their supposedly "free" systems of goverments which however are clearly under the iron boot of a finantial oligarchy, which is just autocracy under a different name.

[Florestan]

Essentially, traditional civilizations were "good" in principle, though not always so in fact, while modern society is evil in principle, though it does have a few advantages and good things in practice. That's an important distinction.

And who decides these principles?

Btw, Byzantium/Byzantine Empire is an ideologically-loaded term. They were simply the Roman Empire. The emperors, all of them, from St. Constantine to Constantine XII, never called themselves anything other than "Emperor of the Romans" and never called their state anything other than "Empire of the Romans"; the inhabitants never called themselves anything other than "Romans".

i can't think of a single culture that has succeded into turning a majority of people AWAY from God than modern secular civilization, with their supposedly "free" systems of goverments which however are clearly under the iron boot of a finantial oligarchy, which is just autocracy under a different name.

Here's a question for your consideration: if the "traditional" civilization was so good, just and benevolent, if the Christian principles so deeply permeated all its strata, from king to peasant, from bishop to cobbler, how come that it was possible to turn people away from it, in the first place? Certainly, one doesn't turn away from something they strongly consider good both in principle and in practice. That's like saying that in midwinter you can succeed in turning people away from a well-heated, well-furnished and well-stocked house.

Look, I don't claim that modern civilization is perfect. No civilization is. All are flawed in one way or another. None is purely good or purely evil. I don't live in the past, though, but in the here and now. And from my point of view, the good things of the here and now offset against the bad ones.

[steve ridgway]

I will die, almost assuredly, without being recognized as a full human by a significant portion of the population of the USA

I should point out that only Black Africans have 100% Homo sapiens DNA, the rest being found to have interbred with other related species, such as Neanderthals, that diverged from humans proper earlier in prehistory.

[hopefullytrusting]

I should point out that only Black Africans have 100% Homo sapiens DNA, the rest being found to have interbred with other related species, such as Neanderthals, that diverged from humans proper earlier in prehistory.

Lol, trust me, that irony is not lost on me.

Also, I've seen above folks talking about cherry picking - I don't need to cherry pick; I just need to exist.