Some person called Mary Beard, who enjoys the title of 'professor' at some 'university', has said to the meejah: " ... do I like the Romans? I really hate them ... I am not going to love a culture that gave the likes of me no political rights, however interesting I find them. The same would go for the Victorians."
"The same would go" for Germany before 1919; the Beard will have to "hate" pre-Weimar Germany. Comparatively, at least, she will accord an easier toleration to the more liberal German electoral system which left the Nazis in charge. I expect she adores Stalin and can't wait to live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
What a thoroughly fatuous individual. She "really hates" [schoolgirl talk?] every culture before around 1920. Dumping any attempt at nuance, she misreads earlier cultures by implying that 'political rights' had the same significance in all of them that the phrase possesses in modern Western societies.
I wonder what Livia would have made of being condescended to by the pity of a Beard, on the grounds that she "lacked political rights". Have fig, dear. Have several.
In earlier societies, male and female spheres were different and distinguished. Typically, the male sphere included the the relationship between the family and external society. The female related to the household. This is carefully explained in the last chapter of Proverbs.
We may be better off or worse off now that we have discarded such distinctions. In my fairer moments I can see plausible arguments both ways.
But for 'professor' Beard simply not to understand such elementary matters makes me wonder if it was ever wise to allow Cambridge the title of university. Is it too late for us to have second thoughts about this?
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Some even call Cambridge a city despite it's singular lack of a cathedral
What's her opinion on Islamic countries. Does she hate them? If so, and I can't understand how she cannot, then...Islamophobia!
Now don't be cruel to Fenland Poly!
I am surprised by Prof. Beard's foolish comments. I understood that one does not judge a culture that existed in the past by our standards. Obviously, women should be allowed to vote, we should not send boys up chimneys and none of us should be serfs. Equally, we cannot judge the past by 21st century standards. Prof. Beard really should no better. I think it equally fatuous to ridicule Cambridge. It is a far better university that many institutions in the UK that have the title 'university'.
You mean the good Professor was LYING in the intelligence² debate about the merits of Greece and Rome with the then Mayor of London, when she claimed that Rome was a better place to be a womyn? Tut tut.
Not only should women not vote, men shouldn't either. And serfdom was a good thing, at least as practised in Latin Christendom. This liberalism, which inspired the criticism of serdom in tbe above commenter, has led to me, a legal professional, being a wage slave in a US multinational - and I live in the Antipodies.
AvB
I cannot speak for Father but I suspect that, like me (a fellow Oxonian) he typed with tongue firmly in cheek.
Just as someone from Cambridge once called Oxford the Latin Quarter of Cowley.
On one occasion in the early 1930s, Sir Thomas Beecham, when conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra whose leader was the brilliant and highly-respected Paul Beard, noticed that rather than following his baton, the eyes of the string section were focused on the leader. 'Please gentlemen', he demanded (pointing to his own chin, then to the leader) 'kindly follow this beard, not that one!'
Fr H is perhaps doing something similar here...?
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