Who says we can't learn from the past?

[altyfc]

"Nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern times existed in the ancient world," writes Frank Snowden Jr. "The ancients did not fall into the error of biological racism; black skin color was not a sign of inferiority. Greeks and Romans did not establish color as an obstacle to integration in society. An ancient society was one that for all its faults and failures never made color the basis for judging a man."

 

Aaron

[Primus Pilus]

Agreed, the Romans only discriminated against anyone who wasn't actually a Roman. It is widely agreed that the ancients would allow anyone of a particular economic or heirarchal standing to be included within their own social fabric, regardless of culture or ethnicity.

 

I can certainly accept this consensus. I can't, however, believe that things were any better for those who didn't fall into the 'elite' status. While accepting biological differences and some cultural practices within their own environments, the Romans still preferred their own. A poor man of differing color would be judged the same as a poor man of their own culture, but he was judged just the same. In theory, thats certainly more just from an ethnic standpoint, but still doesn't exempt the Romans from discrimination and prejudice.

[Viggen]

Sounds like todays capitalism mixed with a system like the caste in India?

 

cheers

viggen

[Gaius Julius]

I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but it seems that human beings; how ever far advanced they become, sometimes repeat the same "stupid" mistakes.

[Moonlapse]

True, anything that involves humans will intrinsically become corrupt.

[Lynch]

We as a people are like cheese, eventually even after you cut the mold off, it's back!

[Ursus]

"Nothing comparable to the virulent color prejudice of modern times existed in the ancient world," writes Frank Snowden Jr. "The ancients did not fall into the error of biological racism; black skin color was not a sign of inferiority. Greeks and Romans did not establish color as an obstacle to integration in society. An ancient society was one that for all its faults and failures never made color the basis for judging a man."

 

Aaron

I don't know if the original poster is still around, but I think this would be an excellent topic of discussion, since we spent so much time discussing the alleged negatives of Roman society.

[P.Clodius]

What negative sides?

[Ursus]

Well, I did say "alleged" negatives. ;-)

 

For my own part, the relative social tolerance and relative religious tolerance are two of the first things that attracted me to the Romans. For all the talk of the evil empire, they seemed to have had less prejudices than we moderns do.

 

Two things seemed to stand out in Roman society: gender and class. The first was very much a fact in the early republic, but as time went on women achieved a certain degree of liberation, at least if they were in the upper classes. So that leaves us with social class as the main source of "prejudice" in Roman society.

 

And the Romans did sneer at anyone who wasn't culturally Roman, but this was balanced by the fact that they were more willing than many societies, past or present, to turn a non-citizen into a citizen. After 212, all adult freeborn males in the empire functioned effectively as citizens.

 

So again, what we are left with is "class distinction", of which Romans were truly obsessed. But, in theory at least, the classes that had the greater share of honor and privledges also had the greater share of duties and responsibilities to the State, which seems "fair" in a way that modern egalitarian sympathies won't admit.

 

I'm forced to conclude the Romans, whatever their faults, were a lot more tolerant and accepting than modern cultures are in many instances.

[Guest GasHuffer]

I don't mean to soun\\d pessimistic, but it seems that human beings; how ever far advanced they become, sometimes repeat the same "stupid" mistakes.

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I could not have said it better. Besides, What is the big deal ? It's simple mathematics and only sponouec

at the top of the food Chian. And his brother the "Black Race" is at the Bottom. And again you can use this simple rule and apply it Social Status & Changes to Antisocial