4 ms·

The analysis is very questionable - Latin was not used to disseminate information as widely as possible, it was used to exclude common man from even being able

The analysis is very questionable - Latin was not used to disseminate information as widely as possible, it was used to exclude common man from even being able to read the bible, and to keep the church in power and let them make up rules as they go. This is why Protestantism has emerged, and wars have been fought over the issue. As powerful as a catholic church was, it was never comparable to a nation state - it never had a standing army, the pope was regularly in conflict with various kings and didn't always come out on top. Nothing on the list is new: East India Company was the original transnational corporation that had won wars against countries, supernational organizations like the League of Nations have existed for hundreds of years, and private currencies existed before bitcoin and blockchain. Corporations will never supersede governments because they benefit from them. Governments bail out corporations every time they fuck up - and I am not talking about 2008, the British Empire bailed out East India Company in 1857 when they pissed off everyone in India and could not deal with a rebellion, US bailed out the coal companies in 1921 when they executed several miners for unionizing and miners started shooting back. Most folks clamoring decline of a nation state seem to know nothing about past experiments in private policing, private currencies, private armies and others. Inevitably someone starts fighting back, or a natural disaster strikes, and then companies run for protection of a nation state. To put a line under it all, nation states have armies and people willing to die for them, I have never met anyone willing to die for Wallmart, and I don't think I will.

neutronicus 5y ago
It's not just once-in-a-decade bailouts, nation-states have all the responsibilities no one wants. "Superseding them" is jumping in front of a bullet
mensetmanusman 5y ago
The analysis is also questionable - Latin was used to disseminate information as widely as possible because Rome was based on Latin. It was used because of the expense of paper/time and the fact it required a lifetime to copy slowly by hand. After the Roman Empire, the Church worked to translate it into the working language of the common man so they could all have access in the local church where it was stored. Education levels at the time were low so few could read…
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Keep in mind that much of the Bible was originally written in Greek. (Well, that and Hebrew.) So that translation into Latin was originally an a16y feature.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I am not a religious scholar, but from all the reading I've done it appears that translating the bible was considered heresy, and punished harshly. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/02/23/bible-translators/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/02/23/bible-translators/ https://www.virgosacrata.com/vernacular-bible-translations.html https://www.virgosacrata.com/vernacular-bible-translations.h...
- pjc50 5y ago
  > the Church worked to translate it into the working language of the common man No it didn't; the translation was specifically a Protestant project. The Catholic Church kept services in English until the mid-20th century.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Your statement regarding Latin fails to account for the phenomenal expense of books, copying, and distribution. The total production of individual manuscripts as of the 12th century in all of Europe was under 1 million. There are over that many titles printed each year today. A single book would have cost the equivalent of about a half-million to a million dollars, much of that in the calfskin hide for the vellum alone (there's a reason palimpsests were so common), let alone the scribe labour. The University of Paris had a library ~1200 with 2000 total volumes. A slightly bookish household today could easily top that count. Books were written in Latin because it was less expensive, and less error-prone, to bring the reader to the book (teaching scholars Latin) than to bring the book to the reader (by translating it into the vernacular). Gutenberg utterly changed the economics of print media, with implications that shook Europe (and the rest of the world) for centuries. See Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Book as an Agent of Change for that story.

neutronicus 5y ago

It's not just once-in-a-decade bailouts, nation-states have all the responsibilities no one wants. "Superseding them" is jumping in front of a bullet

mensetmanusman 5y ago

The analysis is also questionable - Latin was used to disseminate information as widely as possible because Rome was based on Latin. It was used because of the expense of paper/time and the fact it required a lifetime to copy slowly by hand. After the Roman Empire, the Church worked to translate it into the working language of the common man so they could all have access in the local church where it was stored. Education levels at the time were low so few could read…

dredmorbius 5y ago
Keep in mind that much of the Bible was originally written in Greek. (Well, that and Hebrew.) So that translation into Latin was originally an a16y feature.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
I am not a religious scholar, but from all the reading I've done it appears that translating the bible was considered heresy, and punished harshly. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/02/23/bible-translators/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/02/23/bible-translators/ https://www.virgosacrata.com/vernacular-bible-translations.html https://www.virgosacrata.com/vernacular-bible-translations.h...
pjc50 5y ago
> the Church worked to translate it into the working language of the common man No it didn't; the translation was specifically a Protestant project. The Catholic Church kept services in English until the mid-20th century.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Your statement regarding Latin fails to account for the phenomenal expense of books, copying, and distribution. The total production of individual manuscripts as of the 12th century in all of Europe was under 1 million. There are over that many titles printed each year today. A single book would have cost the equivalent of about a half-million to a million dollars, much of that in the calfskin hide for the vellum alone (there's a reason palimpsests were so common), let alone the scribe labour. The University of Paris had a library ~1200 with 2000 total volumes. A slightly bookish household today could easily top that count. Books were written in Latin because it was less expensive, and less error-prone, to bring the reader to the book (teaching scholars Latin) than to bring the book to the reader (by translating it into the vernacular). Gutenberg utterly changed the economics of print media, with implications that shook Europe (and the rest of the world) for centuries. See Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Book as an Agent of Change for that story.