'In primitive societies people tell tales and expect their listeners not to question them'
There is no doubting the overall validity of that but is it so really different in this day and age? Well, yes, given the emphasis on scepticism, criticism, transparency and the secular decline of tradition and traditional mindsets and certainties there is no comparison, really.
But perhaps something of that attitude persists nevertheless? It seems that at least in some circles women, poor people and minorities are expected to defer to their superiors and simply listen to what they're being told. Of course, since were all modern now it doesn't work in quite such a blatant way but the old domineering tendencies are not so easy to put to bed. And the structures of authority remain very much in place.
Perhaps another manifestation of this can be seen in the way people are silenced online. This can take the form a very nasty kind of badgering which can degenerate into relentless personal attacks. Of course, amongst the educated it can take on subtler forms. Many people have noted- and I think I've been guilty of it myself-that in online conversations or discussions one can simply ignore someone's comment or call a unilateral halt to the conversation in a way that would be deemed impolite in the real world.
For all our apparent refinement something primitive remains. Racial and tribal hatreds haven't really diminished in any appreciable way. A white man's journey is holy; the same journey, enforced on the Red Man, must be passed over in silence because they're not quite fully human.
I hate to harp on about this but it is, I think, worth noting, and it's this: the most barbaric acts of the 20th century were carried out by the supposedly most civilized peoples. Not just the camps, but Hiroshima, too. This is at a par with the fact that religious folk, worked up into a frenzy, have often slaughtered their fellow human beings.
There is no doubting the overall validity of that but is it so really different in this day and age? Well, yes, given the emphasis on scepticism, criticism, transparency and the secular decline of tradition and traditional mindsets and certainties there is no comparison, really.
But perhaps something of that attitude persists nevertheless? It seems that at least in some circles women, poor people and minorities are expected to defer to their superiors and simply listen to what they're being told. Of course, since were all modern now it doesn't work in quite such a blatant way but the old domineering tendencies are not so easy to put to bed. And the structures of authority remain very much in place.
Perhaps another manifestation of this can be seen in the way people are silenced online. This can take the form a very nasty kind of badgering which can degenerate into relentless personal attacks. Of course, amongst the educated it can take on subtler forms. Many people have noted- and I think I've been guilty of it myself-that in online conversations or discussions one can simply ignore someone's comment or call a unilateral halt to the conversation in a way that would be deemed impolite in the real world.
For all our apparent refinement something primitive remains. Racial and tribal hatreds haven't really diminished in any appreciable way. A white man's journey is holy; the same journey, enforced on the Red Man, must be passed over in silence because they're not quite fully human.
I hate to harp on about this but it is, I think, worth noting, and it's this: the most barbaric acts of the 20th century were carried out by the supposedly most civilized peoples. Not just the camps, but Hiroshima, too. This is at a par with the fact that religious folk, worked up into a frenzy, have often slaughtered their fellow human beings.
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