Occidental is a 19th century term to differentiate the west from the Oriental, and was used heavily in Greek studies from that era to differentiate Greeks from Persians.
I remember one translation (can’t honestly remember the work, if anyone recognizes it tell me, as I need to source it for a Tajik historian I know) where the Greeks were amazed that the Persians didn’t have markets in their communities, it was emphasized it was a Occidental-Oriental Emphasis.
This is of course true, but largely because most Persians were serfs to a larger hierarchy, and manufactured their own goods, the Satraps and nobles did heavily acquire wealth, and the silk trade route in that era passed through their capitals, including Persepolis, where they maintained a large treasury. The freedom of economic exchange was reduced to a minority, but it did exist, and Persia was if anything more dependent upon trade than the greeks, who fluctuated between trade and piracy as their financial policy.
But using such 19th century, saying anyone is Occidental, is absurd… it was a racist perspective from high imperialism in the 19th century. Its like the translation of Aeneas the Tactician from the 5th/4th century BC trying to say there was a constant battle in every walled community between the prolatariate and the oligarchical forces… it was absurd. Oligarchs did erupt, based on traditional Greek constitutional forms, but there were absolutely no Marxist uprisings in this era, nothing that can fit smoothly into the expectations of Marxist historical change.
You are again talking nonsense, Turd. Maybe it is because of the fact that you are a North American, because the fact that you have no inkling and no conception of Europe and especially of the European history is your own fault - and not the fault of anybody else.
Do you actually have anything to contribute to this thread, Turd?
Yes, I have. I’ve given two books already on this threads concept, Giorgio Agamben’s work on this very subject, THIS VERY SUBJECT that the OP underlines, and furthermore, I posted the earliest text used in the Historiography of Christianity, the Didache, which another poster in this thread refers to without naming (there was a early schism in the early church centered around the community this text was written for, they themselves not it in the work).
Your the one posting pictures of Pagan Vikings and German River Systems. That’s heavily off topic. Your the one trying to assert the ideas of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, conceived during the French revolution, as early Christianity.
Your purely off topic, and haven’t the slightest clue how to get back on. I offered to supply you with a list of important historians so you can learn properly the craft of history, so you wouldn’t be forced to lie and just make stuff up.
Like, did you know the Benedictine Order wasn’t the major force for developing German capitalism and law, but rather German Princes feeding land to establish municipalities on their land so as to attract settlers and guilds, fortify the positions and tax the living daylights out of it? Had nothing to do with Christianity. The Knights Templars (most certainly NOT Benedictine Monks) pioneered land speculation and banking concepts, parallel to the Jews in this era, something you failed to mention. Both had a major impact on your German Centric conception of Capitalism.
They largely take place in that period of Christianity prior to your oddly favored period between late antiquity and early dark ages.
You have contributed literally nothing but misinformation Arminius. The Benedictine emphasis on ordered living isn’t unique, and other monastic rules, such as St. Basil, is more in line with modern concepts of technological preservation, intellectual exploration, and diversity of options. All monastic orders own property, parcel out land, etc. Nothing happened special in Germany. Trade via river and sea goes back millennia, and we Germans didn’t invent it. We had a role to play in the Hanseatic league, but that’s hardly early Christianity.
And to say I know nothing of European history… that’s impressively ignorant on your part, I’ve likely read more primary texts and academic works on history involving Europe than you simply read books, on any subject. You’ll realize this as time goes by, because I’m going to start paying very close attention to your proclamation on the nature of historical facts. You tried to make up a bunch of bullshit here. I gave you the option to embrace good historical methods. You’ve more or less reject it. There is nothing left than to severely critique your approach from now on like a hawk. I’m not known for being gentle when it comes to unrepentant false historians.
You can philosophically and theologically oppose Christianity, or any theology for that matter, its not the issue… the two books at the very top of the site do just that… but he does it well. He is a good historian, a decent philosopher. Hence why I offered him. But in your case Arminius, you are a horrible historian, and in history, there is no room for bad historians. Its not like in philosophy where you can pull ideas out of your butt and claim tolerance and inclusiveness. Historians are one of the most aggressive and critical branches of intellectual investigation out there, ideas of science and method underline our approach, not this voodoo your doing.
Science and method, very German. Perhaps you should look into it.
This Arminius, is a example of just how far I will go to offer a historian leeway to name and adopt a historical method. He preaches that the Flavian Dynasty invented Christianity, and that Jesus never existed. My name is Onasander in that thread, a name many here can vouch is one of my well known pen names. Its a website that focuses on early European history. Everyone was far more hostile to him than I was. But I’m the one who cracked him:
Its generally a good idea to know your history really well if your going to post on a site where a skilled debunker of history operates. I’m not gentle, bad theories have to die if they can’t stand up to the facts. Your position fails to do so.
Turd or Contra-Nietzsche, It is not possible here to give you all the informations I have, because the extent is too big for you. And I am sure that you have studied nothing - except turdology. I just provide you some maps, because you have not even a tiny idea of the geography facts of the European history:
You have to consider the history of the Germanic peoples and of the Christianity in order to understand the Occidental culture - religiously the Roman Catholic and Protestantic Europe, geographically the Central, West, North, Northwest, South, Southwest, and some parts of the East of Europe.
I guess that you were even not born when I finished my study of history at the university.
There are some differences more, but we are talking about economy, and economically you are right, because economically only the scale has changed:
This time the danger is a global one, not only in an economical sense but also in a military and survival sense. Maybe this time the humans will not survive.
Who survived? The capitalists? The proletarians? Both?
Human cultures can insure that only the strong do not survive.
Reason why is the maker of the map left out several invasion of the time period he labeled for discussion, 100 to 500, he only looks at the German retreat as REFUGEES from the Hunnic onslaught, and the German tribes were usually of Foederati status, integrated into the Roman Empire, kings established as Roman Senators, and expected to serve. It wasn’t one great campaign, but a long, drawn out process relatively late, and many also adopted the Roman practice of founding Roman Towns even when not asked by the imperial authorities, and the tribal people gained serf status in the Germans conversion to the Roman system (which started under Diocletian’s reforms).
I’ll give you a glimpse into just how many different nationalities were invading in the 3rd century, a period that should be listed on that map if it really was 1-5th centuries AD,:
Diocletian’s reforms required everyone to follow their father’s trade. This was not a Christian idea, but a imperial Roman one that the Romanized Christians merely kept. The reason why the Roman Empire was in shambles economically and militarily before him was because a Thracian thug named Thrax killed the first Christian Emperor, named Alexander Severus, because he was upset Alexander was much more concerned about the Persian threat, and merely wanted to bribe the Germans into submission.
Thrax killed the Emperor, and declared himself Emperor. The Senate was fucking pissed, they were prejudiced only slightly against Christianity at that point, and Alexander was from a long Imperial lineage, and wasn’t cruel. They rejected his advances and claims, and nominated others as Emperor. Meanwhile, Thrax went north, and severely routed the Germans.
That’s something they must not of taught in school when you were growing up… The Romans used to send periodic armies into Germania to thin us out, preemptive strikes. Once in a while we would show up in Milan or France, but always during a civil war, and pushing us out was rather quick and easy. They always made very short work of us.
By the time Rome stabilized, the Roman economy had considerably shrunk, our toad systems reduced, and we were always on the defensive.
The Persians were ALWAYS the bigger threat, even when Rome was being over run.The capital of Rome (primary capital) was Constantinople. In the west, Ravenna, because it was easier to defend, and quicker communications to Constantinople.
Only reasons the Germans succeeded in overrunning the Western Empire was because of the intense pressure of the Huns, and that the Eastern Roman Empire was busy with the Persians.
Most German attempts to invade failed bad, they often were inslaved. Such as the Gothic invasions of Asia Minor… didn’t work out too well. Marcus Aurelius routed them. Actually, a lot of Emperors did.
Germans were in general pussies in this era. Its why the Eastern Empire had such success in taking back Visigothic Carthage and Italy.
If you look at The Visigoth Code, its clearly modelled off Roman Laws.
You would like the historian Jordanes, he was a Gothic writer.
Its important to also note… your not a direct descendant of ANY of those German tribes, they became the ancestors of the lands they conquered, not of Germanic. Alammani did particularly bad in its invasions. Isn’t that the name Germans use for modern Germany?
This is Belasarius, who lead a campaign to reconquer Rome and return it to the Roman Empire. He is defending the city in this picture:
Sounds like German supermen, don’t they?
Belisarius whooped them with far fewer troops. Byzantines were stretched this because of the Persians.
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We got our asses kicked, bad.
Only reason the Eastern Roman Empire couldn’t hold Rome in the long run was, this was when the plaque started to break out, and secondly, Persia was a far more serious threat.
The Germans did, centuries later, unify in the Charlamegian Empire, but quickly ran out of steam, split, and were invaded by “barbarians” from the steppe.
It was a very long time before we could amount to anything. We borrowed very heavily from the Romans, and our concept of economy came from classical sources, theology on trinitarianism, and secular policies of the princes, not “Occidental Benedictine” orders setting the foundation of German culture by doing viking raids
Honestly… I don’t know about you sometimes Arminius, your a discredit to the momory of our people, and to the craft of history. Even Hitler admitted nothing every really came from all the expeditions and archeological digs he sent out to prove the Germans were the master race. We did nothing till up about a thousand years ago except breed, fuck, and get drunk. We were not known as a society of wisdom or great thinkers. Our sages never dominated the philosophy schools, but other nations did from time to time. The period of our greatest triumph in your eyes was also the lowest ebb of our people. We were scared refugees, constantly fleeing, begging Rome for help, they have the Germans lands, and couldn’t defend them, had to retreat farther into the empire and hide. Cowards. Idiots, we wounded ourselves, guaranteed a era of ignorance of 1000 years. The Romans could of helped us, but we betrayed them. It took the black death, not out military prowess, to keep them at bay… they came back reconquering, and they were doing it well.
Belisar’s cuccess was of short time. The territories in Italy and in South Spain he conquered for a while were completely reconquered by the Germans (at last by the Langobards), by “us”, as you said, although you are not a German - but you hate Germans like Hitler hated Jews.
So it was 100% correct what I said before you started your ideological propaganda against Germans - probably wanting the WW3 because of the US debt.
You are a nihilist par excellence, and your fight against history is completely based on hate, on racism.
You need a scapegoat for your ideological nonsense - and you have found it.
Again: I am not interested in you Anti-Germanic hate - racism.
Who the fuck do you think is “we”?
Ethnic, national, even language identity criteria are completely unrecognisable over this time except through the childish myth of history.
Early Christians did not share everything in common (except in rare cases). But capitalism could be said to be incompatible with Christianity.
Jesus casting the money lenders from the temple had a great effect on Medieval capitalism, in that only Jews were able to lend money.
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice refers to this.
But whilst Xianity might not allow stocks shares and other forms of gambling and money lending/making; it certainly is easy enough to use to justify Feudalism though. God is all about hierarchy.
In practice, like most religious people, they tend to pick what they like, and ignore the rest. The Bible is good at this as it has so many contradictions, being written by committee.
Early Christians did not share everything in common (except in rare cases). But capitalism could be said to be incompatible with Christianity.
Jesus casting the money lenders from the temple had a great effect on Medieval capitalism, in that only Jews were able to lend money.
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice refers to this.
But whilst Xianity might not allow stocks shares and other forms of gambling and money lending/making; it certainly is easy enough to use to justify Feudalism though. God is all about hierarchy.
In practice, like most religious people, they tend to pick what they like, and ignore the rest. The Bible is good at this as it has so many contradictions, being written by committee.
I am German. More so than you’ll ever be, because I don’t betray our people by telling lies about our history.
I picked a random German City:
The economic influences were not Christian, other than the diocese for a while collected taxes. Pagans had a basic river trade (nothing at all particularly German about that, every society bordering rivers do this. Its not “Occidental” anymore than pottery, horseback riding or bows and arrows).
The town was free, walled itself off, was exploited for taxation, Jews ran the financial transactions.
Like I said in the above posts.
I’ll start listing other German Cities too if you need me to.
We have things to be proud of as a people. Needing to lie about our past isn’t a virtue, its a hindrance to seeing how we lives, to exploring our past to see what our triumphs actually were. Your approach to our history is disreputable, and shames us as a collective identity.
Christianity was very adaptive to economics over the eras it has existed, we were never static. We were theorists in it at times, great pioneers of it, but also tried to turn our backs on it from time to time as well. Why? Because we are a highly dynamic religion, spread over diverse populations and peoples, in many different eras. We morph and change.
Even the trinitarian emphasis of oecomonia doesn’t cover the miaphysites approach to management and economics. We had a large array of church fathers and scholars in any era to point to for doctrinal legitimacy, and they didn’t always agree on emphasis or approach. Why? Because economics and even collectivism isn’t the central, core concern of Christianity. The relationship of the Individual to God and Community is, through actions and conscious knowing.
Not everyone was expected to live communally, without poverty or possessions even around Jesus. He had property bearing followers. There were property owning communities following the Didache well into the 3rd century along the Persian-Roman border. We know from Archeological excavations in Syria and Iraq (ruins currently being destroyed by ISIS).
Explaining factual history is not racism, and accusing your social better, a German himself, of being a Racist is silly. However, you insisting on this board, preaching banal histories and misleading others with a narrow minded, master race mentality is.
It is not 100% correct, but Turd’s “interpretations” are even not 20% correct. They are based on lies, on bias, on hate, on racism, on resentment, and on lies again. He is fighting a fight against history, against Germans as if he had just declared WW3 on Germany. That has nothing to do with this thread.
Do not believe in agitators. They chosse some historical facts (for example: 20%) out of the historical context and glue them and their ideology together. That is not how scientific history works.
In all my posts here in this thread I was referring to all historical facts that are necessary in order to answer the question in the opening post of this thread. It has been proven that the economy of the Occident (the Christian Occident is meant!) can only be based on both Germanic peoples and Christianity, namely Roman Catholic and later also Protestantic Christianity. Belisar (Turd was talking about) had nothing to do with it, because he was a Byzantine, an Orthodox Christian, thus a man of the Orient (East Europe and West Asia). This was how the Europeans divided the world at that time as well as later and how they divide it today too: West and East. (And by the way: I am not against people of the East - the mother of my daughter is Greek, and my current wife has lived in Greece for 12 years).
Turd (Contra-Nietzsche) is an US American. He himself told me last year. Do not believe in his lies. He is telling lies over lies. And he is confusing this lies with cynism. That is rediculous.
Is robbery also a form of economy?
1,1) Is robbery also a form of capitalism?
Has Christianity anything to do with economy and capitalism?
If yes:
2,1) Is the Catholic formula “ORA ET LABORA” important for economy?
2,1,1) Is the Catholic formula “ORA ET LABORA” important for capitalism?
2,2) Is the ethics of Protestantic performance / achievement important for economy?
2,2,1) Is the ethics of Protestantic performance / achievement important for capitalism?
Is economy avoidable?
If yes:
3,1) Is economy avoidable by Christianity?
Is capitalism avoidable?
If yes:
4,1) Is capitalism avoidable by Christianity?
Belisarius was a Latin speaking Roman from Illyricum, and was most definitely Catholic. He even got to choose who was going to be Pope in Rome.
The Catholic and Orthodox Churches wouldn’t split for centuries till after this.
Your dogging the issue, and ate inventing history independent of the facts. And the Orthodox Christians are still Christians, even the Vatican recognizes this. Catholic Byzantine Rite Christians are nearly identical to Greek Orthodox, just under the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church recognizes Greek and Russian Bishops as legitimate Apostolic Bishops.
Is there differences? Yes, but not any listed in your analysis. Germans had a minor influence even in the middle ages on Christianity. A few great minds, fully worthy of respect (you don’t mention them), but not really different from say, the Chaldeans in Iraq. Actually, some of it was directly inspired from Iraqi Christiam influences in the middle ages.
Your not correct. Period. You will never win on this, cause your presenting a false argument. I will invite other historians onto this forum to rip you further if necessary. You don’t get to lie about this stuff.
Christians from even the earliest of times, I’m talking 1st Century, could own slaves and property. There was a communal expectation, but it wasn’t property, but rather of the injustice of mistreating one another, as all were servants to God, and brothers to one another. Christianity didn’t seek to contest the status quo, but rather, how men related to one another humanely and spiritually.
For example, overly taxing people was wrong, but taxes in and if itself wasn’t. Why? You could ruin people from tax farming in excess, when you as the tax collector are doing it for greed. But Christianity never contested the idea of taxation, just there were more important priorities.
You find this pattern popping up. Our early religion was inline with the Cynics in many ways on rejecting wealth, but when it was encountered, it was dealt with pragmatically, with expectations to properly invest it and administer it towards Christian aimed. This should be rather obvious, were still around. If we were really as bad as George Carlan joked about (and his jokes were funny, have a sense of humor people) in God always needing more money, we would of went bust in the first century, and we never would of built churches, much less afford to expand. We’ve always had wealthy members, and in the era before Cinstatibe the Great, attracted even Emperors. The nobility were allowed to enter. Alexander Severus, Phillip the Arab. The people wealthy enough to be able to afford sacrifices in the Caesar’s temples, and refusing… being Martyred, obviously had wealth. Doesn’t make sense to kick a starving hobo in the street and demand sacrifice… if he had a anamal to sacrifice, he would eat it himself.
Likewise, we never built communal housing for our communities I’m aware of. I follow archeology in the roman era very carefully, and look over the reports for all over Europe, I have yet to see North Korean style communes pop up. We more or less adopted the pattern of living that is local. Only place I’m aware of distinct Christian grottoes would be persian, and possibly under the Jewish Khazar empire in the middle ages, but can’t get any reliable archeological data. I don’t just research christian history, I research all history up till the 1700s (not logical to stop there, I just do).
Reason why Christianity so smoothlessly entered into Feudalism was:
We fully accepted and adopted Emperor Augustus’ Marriage Reforms. He instituted it as a awareness that the “Romaness” of the Romans was quickly dissapearing in a sea of conquered foreigners, the upper classes were having orgies on a regular basis, and very few in the Senate could be certain they were actually the fathers of their wives offspring. This was done to stabilize the Roman Nobility, and to make it easier to assert Roman colonies with actual Romans in the colonies. It had a strong root one can only look towards Arius Didymus for. Christians adopted this wholesale. We accepted the validity of Pagan marriages when they converted, but were expected to fall inline with Roman, not Jewish practices of Polygamy.
This kind of marriage adapted to the Roman cliental system, of noble, rich classes supporting the lower classes, and the lower classes backing them in their squabbles. This pattern echoes back to the republican era. Christianity in its early days focused more on recruiting ANYONE, but was mostly successful with the lower classes (as most people came from there), but as time went buy, we focused more on higher class nobles. Reasons are obvious as this recent psychological study suggests:
Optimism in testing a variety of systems arise when comfort/wealth systems hit a certain comfort threshold. People living in Spartan environments don’t experiment as much, even when options for expansion are available.
The underlining success of Christianity in its communion and feasting, juxtapositioned with fasting and community awareness needs to be carefully analysed in this light. There is likely some very concrete psychological insights to our methods.
Compare the early Christian communal feasts with the Feast in the Satyricon, where death and wealth was on parade in Pompey, celebrated in a demented Nietzschean manner, but luxury and shitting were equated. Christianity took the opposite stance.
Both kinds of feasting survive, but which attracts in the long run the worst hipocrits? Which one can you build a community in the long run off if? In one case, in the Satyricon, its nothing but parasites looking to gain favor from his will and immediate enjoyment, in Christianity, its coming together as far as your means can allow, supporting one another not just socially in a Marxist narrow minded sense but as equal in friendship and spirituallyz with a serious concern for their well being, but all engaged in a higher cause.
This is why there isn’t anything inherently “Germanic” about Christianity, or that the Germans made the Christian west, in some Germanic Nietzschean-Nazus fevor, the religion wasn’t built on racism or nationalism. It wasn’t built on indiscriminant socialism either. It focused on the needs and morality of the man neglected, tormented, and made something better.
Did Christianity support slavery? No. You can’t enslave a freeman and claim to still be Christian, as the very act is rather appalling by Christian standards.
Can you build a financial empire and still be Christian?
No on three assumptions:
Your wealth isn’t profiting anyone but you, merely being hoarded (not being invested into others, being put to work).
There are deeply impoverished people all around while your hoarding it.
Your wealth comes from debt that has broken and unreasonably distressed others, ruining them.
If you can be wealthy in a wealthy land, where all are taken care of, so be it, you won’t find a lot of complains other than the necessity to give to more impoverished regions, either via the church or via direct investment or business start ups, something. Don’t just hide out in Luxembourg and shrug your shoulders when you know people are starving elsewhere.
But we always had a concept of property. But we always had a contrast with the need for encouraging thinking beyond wealth, embracing poverty and working for the people. We emphasized living by educated, noble norms, tended to convert nobles early on, etc. We balanced the contrasts. We could be very complex even within small geographical regions. Its meant to be a universal religion, emphasizing introspective and communal awareness. Its not a socialist utopia though, outside the idealized heaven. There has been as many interpretations of heaven as there have been of hell, and many have taken conflicting stances of it. I’m not in a position to analyse it (as I’m not a theologian) and won’t dare claim its whatever we want it to be, and we all get it in the end. Its fairly apparent from the drift of the religion in general that is most certainly not the case. I only know that we weren’t as firm communal socialists as some make us out to be, and had we been better Christians certain practices, like extreme personak wealth building and slavery should of died out in our lands much sooner. It bothers me how a philosopher like Michael Psellos could still have a slave in the 11th century.
(Michael Psellos is definitely “Occidental”, a western philosopher, who’s roots were Graeco-Roman, living in a Roman Capital, looking down on more primitive and backwards Germans living in tiny, distant communities to the North West. Germany’s largest cities were measured in a few thousand residents, Constantinople over a million. Its absolutely demented to think Christianity was a German grown phenomena, or that the Franks were the crucial force to define it! It had eight centuries of experience before this, and several cultures competing along side the Franks or the Holy Roman Empire (which Volitare noted was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.)
Feudalism was a very complex system, but shot itself in the foot. Its militarism and heavy focus on inheriting property through proper lineages resulted in incest and technological stagnation. Its about as irresponsible as Socialism. But both of them are still far more advanced than some alternatives out there.
