Originally posted by @fmf[b]"Humanity is flourishing if we look at health, prosperity, safety, peace and happiness, and there are signs that all are improving. Attitudes to reason and science have made this the best age in which to have lived."[Based on the blurb from a BBC radio discussion programme]
Do you share this optimistic outlook?[/b]Technology has undeniably made the material conditions of life better.
However, there is a spiritual malaise. Of course, what can be said is that there isn't enough information in the past to document this, but there have been scholars that have examined the ancient world and concluded that there was a lot less depression.
"The reason why anger bulks so large in ancient authors may have been that depression was largely absent. I am not suggesting that te Greeks and Romans suffered from depression usually failing to identify it by any closely equivalent term; rather, that the frustrations of life commonly recognized as a major source of modern depression, tended in antiquity to produce emotions akin to anger. The emotional state we know of as depression may have been less common.
"To examine the Greek semantic clusterathumia/dusthumia/melancholia in full would take us out of our way. The complications are considerable: athumos can certainly mean 'despondent,' for instance, but when the exact meaning of athumia is determinable, it seems to be 'faintheartedness,' something close to 'lack of courage.' Nor was Greek melancholia, contrary to what is naturally and commonly assumed, the simple equivalent of 'melancholy.' There were of course melancholy Greeks -- and in Black Sun Julia Kristeva astutely identifies Homer's Bellerophon as the first one. BUt what the Greeks and Romans meant by melancholia was usually a rather aggressive kind of madness. That, so they thought, was a common result of the predominance of "black bile." Cicero says that the Latin equivalent was furor, 'insane passion.' For the medical writer Caelius Aurelianus, melancholia is akin to furor or actually a form of it.
None of this shows that one cannot express in the classical languages the thought that someone is depressed. The concept appears from time to time in modern translations of Greek and Latin books, and may not always be inexact. Among the Greek terms which can borderon meaning depression are lupe, or 'mental pain, and later on (from the first century BC) akedia, the ancestor of mediaeval accidie. But it is probably symptomatic that the best description of depression in ancient literature, which is to be found in Seneca's De tranquillitate animi, is accompanied by an express admission that there is no name for this condition. Hence a certain gap remains and that gap may have been full of anger-like emotions." P. 16-18
"It may be hypothesized, however, that the social and family structures of the classical Athenian world did in fact frustrate even free people, both men and women, in their desire to maintain satisfactory emotional relationships. Relatively hostile relations between the sexes, combined with pederastic ties which were emotionally short lived, can be imagined to have left most adult Greeks emotionally isolated, and irascible. depression in modern societies is primarily the result of failed relationships. In antiquity, there being no depression, or not much, the consequence was rage." P. 295-296
Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity, Harris, William V., Harvard 2001.
I think the price we have paid for a postmodern, atomized existence is depression.
But yeah, I Don't know. Sure, life is better in very many ways, but I also think that a lot of the joy that we glean can be overly superficial.
Originally posted by @philokaliaDespite the fact that there is not enough information from the past to document the truth of your claim about the ancient world, do you think it was "the best age in which to have lived"? If not then and if not now, when?
However, there is a spiritual malaise. Of course, what can be said is that there isn't enough information in the past to document this, but there have been scholars that have examined the ancient world and concluded that there was a lot less depression.
Originally posted by @fmfIt's not just my claim. It is the claim of scholars.
Despite the fact that there is not enough information from the past to document the truth of your claim about the ancient world, do you think it was "the best age in which to have lived"? If not then and if not now, when?
.. Is it the best age to live? Of course, if you have a clue of what you are doing and are a storng person, it is undoubtedly the best. You have the greatest resources to sustain your life and keep your health going well. You have so much technology.
Literally, I can download a book in less than a few minutes (including the search time) that a prominent medieval scholar would have maybe never even had access to.
I can get on an airplane and travel to a part of the world that would have been impossible for him to go to, and I have far more intellectual and artistic resources than literally even people just 50 years ago.
But... there are other new sorts of problems with that. Atomization negatively affects people and we have perhaps a significant amount of mental anguish that some speculate was not present earlier.
We also have symptoms of excess found in rampant gluttony, susbtance abuse, addiction to smut, etc.
But yeah...
This is the best time to be alive for practical purposes but we should not pretend that it is the greatest cultural high point.
We might be in a cultural rut for a very long time.
Originally posted by @philokaliaAnd you noted that there probably isn't enough information about the past to document the claim.
It's not just my claim. It is the claim of scholars.
Originally posted by @philokaliaSo in "cultural" terms, as opposed to "practical purposes", and in terms of the everyday lives of ordinary people like you and me, what do you think was "the best age in which to have lived"?
This is the best time to be alive for practical purposes but we should not pretend that it is the greatest cultural high point. We might be in a cultural rut for a very long time.
Originally posted by @fmfThat's a fantastic question.
So in "cultural" terms, as opposed to "practical purposes", and in terms of the everyday lives of ordinary people like you and me, what do you think was "the best age in which to have lived"?
I am not good enough at history but I imagine that life under Emperor Justinian I and Tsar Nicholas I would have been very terrific times for ordinary people in the sense that they would have high cultural standards, proper living, and good church life.
I think that another cultural high point would have been the 4th-5th century in the Roman world.
17th century Italy would have also been very interesting if you could catch Milan & Florence at the right time.
Late 16th century Spain would have been really interesting and positive.
But yeah man, I am not scholarly enough. I also assume there could be a very big difference between living in Antioch, or Constantinople, or a village on the Danube, so, a lot of this is very circumstantial.
But so is living in contemporary times. Growing up poor in Detroit today is probably quite horrible and has you misisng out on a lot so we shouldn't pick at this too much because it's too easy to deconstruct.
Originally posted by @philokalia[I'll take this one as an example.]
[b]17th century Italy would have also been very interesting if you could catch Milan & Florence at the right time./b]
17th century Italy would have also been very interesting if you could catch Milan & Florence at the right time.
For an ordinary person, how so?
Is not your fascination with 17th century Milan and Florence a product of your 21st-century access to information about them rather than a product of an appreciation of what life was actually like for an ordinary, most likely illiterate, geographically inert, socially immobile person with a short lifespan and a string of babies that died in their infancy?
What would an ordinary person in the 17th century get if they were to "catch Milan & Florence at the right time" [by which I mean travel there or live there] that would be superior to what you are able get from studying that era now, along with other eras, and other cultures, by examining things that would have been out of reach to ordinary people back at that time?
Originally posted by @philokaliaDo you concede that your historical perspective here might be somewhat naive and sentimental - and that your assumption about who would be your intellectual and social counterpart 400 years ago might be rather deluded?
17th century Italy would have also been very interesting if you could catch Milan & Florence at the right time.