History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

Is it true that a 19th century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine "predicted" the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust?

I've seen a quotation allegedly from Heine's text, but the book where I saw it doesn't provide the exact text from which it is cited.

The quotation is also not in German, but translated, which makes it harder to find the original source.

Flying Pig said:

That leaves the question of why Luther did not reform the Catholic Church, and why Protestants had no desire to reintegrate with a less corrupt Church.

Click to expand...

Luther had legitimate doctrinal differences of opinion with the Catholic church. Reform of the church infrastructure doesn't suddenly change whether man is or is not justified through faith alone. Luther broke the dam that let forth others with even more divergent views of Christianity than Luther did. This included differences of ceremony and worship as well as doctrine. A Latin Mass was dramatically different than a Congregationalist worship service. The Catholic sacrament of Baptism is dramatically different than the Baptist practice.

This is leaving aside whether or not the church was less corrupt. I think after Trent, the church had marked improvements, but it wasn't a wholesale change. Indulgences were scaled back rather than eliminated. Efforts were made to combat Absentee Bishops, remove political appointments of clergy, and connect the church more closely to the people who worship, but they also strengthened the Holy Inquisition.

Cutlass said:

That's always been a hard concept for me to grasp in the religious arguments. It seems to me that good works, in the absence of faith, and faith, in the absence of good works, should both be considered problematic for salvation.

Click to expand...

This is basically what the New Testament book of James is all about.

Louis XXIV said:

That's part of it, but it certainly isn't all of it. It makes it seem entirely political. The initial difference was the Sola Fide. The Catholic church preaches that good works are necessary to get into heaven. Luther, however, began to feel that it wasn't how one acted that was necessary for salvation. Instead, through faith alone, we are justified. I was taught that Luther himself pondered this question because he perceived a personal inability to do what he felt were adequate good works for salvation. This led him to question the whole necessity of good works and start to believe he could be saved regardless of works simply through faith.

Click to expand...

Thus beginning Protestantism's grand tradition of being a dick and then acting sanctimonious about it.

Traitorfish said:

Thus beginning Protestantism's grand tradition of being a dick and then acting sanctimonious about it.

Click to expand...

Then again, that's not something that any other religion wouldn't do.

At least, the "being a dick" part.

Wow, my rhetorical question brought up some interesting points. Thanks for all the input. My theory was that German thinkers took over where Greek philosophy and science to a certain extent allowed them to question things. Probably why the Jews kept coming back to Germany as well. The German economy and freedom of thought allowed for a greater education experience and openness to change more freely than other places, where culture and "religious" changes were not as common.

Are the statistics about the Jacobian Terror exaggerated, or it was as bad as it was?

Tolni said:

Are the statistics about the Jacobian Terror exaggerated, or it was as bad as it was?

Click to expand...

Depends on what statistics you have.

Is Blackadder Goes Forth an accurate depiction of life in the trenches in WWI?

JoanK said:

Is Blackadder Goes Forth an accurate depiction of life in the trenches in WWI?

Click to expand...

The generals go into the trenches far too often.

It was several deviations above the norm in terms of witty wordplay.

Not enough buggery. Wait, there's that episode where Melchett tries to get his leg over "Georgina", isn't there? Never mind.

When people say: "Oh fat people in the past were considered attractive as it was a sign of affluence" - is this wrong? I've heard it so many times. It's got the classic tell tale signs of a "common historical piece of knowledge" which is actually false. It's simple and easy to understand, check. It's vaguely plausible, check. You can say it to people and appear knowledgable, check.

Apart from those clues it also seems unlikely that body preferences would change dramatically from generation to generation. I've read articles that scientists have a good understanding of what the majority of hetereosexual men "like" and I know what females like too.

There's certainly evidence that some people wanted other people to see them as obese - see this sarcophagus from Etruria - but that's not necessarily the same thing. For example, a great deal of portraiture makes a conscious effort to show the subject as aged, weather-beaten or with imperfect features, but this may be more an ideological statement than a question of attractiveness. Oliver Cromwell's 'warts and all' portrait is the most famous example, but an awful lot of Roman portrait busts show their subjects with exaggeratedly craggy and wrinkly features, because Roman culture valued age and experience and distrusted the Greek ideal of smooth, almost boyish good looks. One might similarly imagine a modern boxer or rugby player showing off his battered nose, which - however much yours truly might wish it were so - is conventionally regarded as an ugly feature.

Your statement, then, is a dubious union of two suggestions - that being fat was a sign of affluence, and that it was considered attractive. I would suggest that the former is true, and that it led to obesity being shown off in the same way as a yacht or a sports car, but that the latter was probably not.

It should also be added that, except for 'mother goddess' figures, beautiful women in Classical art are always slightly slender by modern standards, although usually larger than modern fashion models and less curvy than those who grace the pages of gentlemen's literature. If you were likely to see actually starving people on an average day's walk through town, you probably wouldn't go home and idealise near-starvation as an attractive body type.

The final caveat would be that 'the past' is rather big.

Quackers said:

"Oh fat people in the past were considered attractive as it was a sign of affluence" - is this wrong?

Click to expand...

Attractive, not so much. Wealthy, yes. And it's still true to an extent in China, parts of Southeast Asia, and parts of Polynesia and Melanesia. But I'd tend to suggest that men are looking to be "pot-bellied" rather than "morbidly obese". Older women past child bearing age can also go down that road.

Flying Pig said:

The final caveat would be that 'the past' is rather big.

Click to expand...

But that's the biggest issue.

Wasn't it often tied to quite specific social roles, too? Like, example pulled out m' bum, among the traditional Fijian nobility it was appropriate for priestly clans to be overweight, because it was symbolic of their role as mediators between human society and fertility-ensuring gods, while it was appropriate for warrior clans to have more athletic figures, both for utilitarian reasons and because it symbolised their more physically-active role in the society.

This much is probably true. I would guess, though, that the most successful warriors would have been proportioned more like a prop forward than a gymnast. If nothing else, having an inch of fat between your armour and your vital organs would have greatly reduced the severity of a lot of injuries, and it's quite rare for seriously strong people to be as toned as body-builders are - the process of reducing fat to bring out the muscles takes away a large amount of functional strength.

EDIT: Running with my admittedly limited Classical example, the expectation for most Romans was that one did one's time in the army before entering politics and thereafter having relatively little to do with actual soldiering, except for occasional bursts when holding high office. I can imagine, therefore, that being built for long marches and trench-digging might have been associated with political inexperience, as that would be how the men who had recently been demobbed would look.

I doubt Roman elites were ever trench digging.

Masada said:

I doubt Roman elites were ever trench digging.

Click to expand...

Yet Roman elites were arguably more hands on involved than members of the American Military Industrial complex. I have yet to see Barack Obama buttoned up with his binoculars on a M1-Abrams in Afghanistan.

So what?