We’ve also absorbed the Protestant Reformation, the Counterreformation, the Thirty Years War, and the English Civil War into the background of our culture: see

We’ve also absorbed the Protestant Reformation, the Counterreformation, the Thirty Years War, and the English Civil War into the background of our culture: see the implicit suspicion of the Pope and global organizations in any right wing YouTube video. One can be completely ignorant of the world historical events of early modern Europe and still have absorbed their cultural impact. But that doesn’t make you any less ignorant of the sequence of historical events, new ideas, and great works that form the rational account of why our present culture and experience is the way it is. Sure, one can be ignorant and still function in human life, being carried along by the undercurrents of the time and culture in which accident assigned your life span. The question is why a thinking person would consider it acceptable to leave it at that.