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> Was this true, did people really not question anything? No, it's not. This is what an YouTube entertainer writes to get viewers, playing into gossipy, naive
by swatcoder 4y ago
> Was this true, did people really not question anything?
No, it's not. This is what an YouTube entertainer writes to get viewers, playing into gossipy, naive folk history to reinforce the narrative they want to tell.
There's no shortage of primary sources and modern academic history that show, very plainly, wide exercise of skepticism, logic, critical thought, diversity of thought and (of course) disinterest with abstract concepts altogether. Yes, there were times when one epistemic regime or another dominated public discourse, just like there is now, but it turns out people suck at conformance with those regimes and have their own private experiences independent of the public discourse, just like they do now.
Private and subculture beliefs are, and have always been, all over the place.
- andrepd 4y ago> There's no shortage of primary sources and modern academic history that show, very plainly, wide exercise of skepticism, logic, critical thought, diversity of thought and (of course) disinterest with abstract concepts altogether. But we're not talking about educated people here, a very small elite of mostly clergymen, we're talking about an average peasant.
- swatcoder 4y agoI’m not sure I follow. If you’re saying we can’t have insight into the experience of an average peasant from primary sources and modern analysis, then we can’t draw the conclusions suggested in the article either, right? But if you accept that those sources may speak to the experience, the point is that the article’s supposition runs counter to them. The article’s story just articulates an ahistorical, folksy ideology where historical people (and others) are more one-dimensional and uniform than enlightened “modern” people.
- JohnClark1337 4y ago