Heard back from a number of folks about the "Bread and Circuses" post of 23 November. One response I particularly appreciated wondered:
Do you also make a check on data that supports your own agenda?
Then went on to say:
In the words of Frank Miller, the greatest
disservice of American Higher education is that it
brainwashes its sheep into believing that all
cultures/religions are somehow morally equivalent
despite the barbarianism that pervades many.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I very rarely get email "forwards" that promote any of the causes I support. I wish I did! But it makes a kind of sense, I guess, since in my experience the purpose of these emails is to encourage alarmist thinking, and off the top of my head I can't think of any alarmist causes I stand behind.
As far as Frank Miller's statement, I don't know how you quantify barbarism, exactly. Certainly there are more blatant forms of it on display in some cultures when compared to another, but you don't have to dig very deep into the daily operations of any culture to find examples of commonly accepted behavior that you or I might define as barbaric.
What's more, if a culture (or a religion/institution/person) is as reprehensible (in whole or in part) as you (or me or anyone else) insists it is, then no one should feel the need to resort to the invention of lies to illustrate the point.
copyright, © 2007 Wyatt Doyle
more on this topic here:
http://newtextureblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/more-on-bread-and-circuses.html
