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Old 2009-01-20, 18:39   Link #73
Nerroth
NePoi!
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 43
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cal-Reflector View Post
I think the important point was: It was a different time, with different norms of morality, so judging behavior back then through a modern lens is problematic. Male-centered societies are certainly not unique to 11th (?) century Japan, so the most fruitful way to enjoy the story may be to accept the narrator's POV as representative of what might be considered good or unacceptable back then; nor does Murasaki fail to mention Genji's failings as a husband and human.
There are some ideas and concepts which are not tied to one particular era or culture, but which have re-surfaced time and again across human history - and which we should not simply cast aside or compartmentalise because it happened in such-and-such a place at this-or-that a time.

No society operates in a vacuum - and indeed, the man who was already having people build temples in his name across the parts of the islands not still under Ainu control would likely have had as much to say against such rigid societal stratification and problematic cultural norms as he did when speaking against the caste system which was all too prominent in the Ganges plain of his time... and which is, even now, the subject of fierce debate in modern times.

So long as our histories, cultural ideas and various heritages play a role in our development as a species, it's as fair to use a critical eye on the past as it is on the present - as we try to figure out what kind of world we want to see in the future.

(It was odd timing to read that post at the time I was watching Michael Wood's The Story of India documentary, at a point where he was discussing the theological debates held under the Mughal emperor Akbar, the efforts at bridging the gulf between Islam and Hinduism under Dara, and the long-reaching reactionary attitude of Aurangzeb - and he made the point "Can we judge the past by the standards of the 21st century? Should we judge our time by theirs?")

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo View Post
Three, using a word like "rape" to describe events in the book is useful for modern political activity, but violates the integrity of this ancient story. It is political commentary rather than literary criticism. Fair enough, but only one way of looking at things.
Whether it happened five minutes or five millennia ago, rape is still rape.


(As an aside, in the book accompanying that documentary, there was a mention of the mosque at Ayodhia, torn down by a mob of militant Hindus in 1992 - as a communal act of supposed retribution, since it was said that the mosque was built on the ancient birthplace of Ram, the deified hero of the Ramayana. Only, as it happens, the whole thing was a mass delusion - the archaeological team which was, ironically, funded by a Hindu nationalist government to 'prove the truth of the myth' instead proved that there had been no significant structure on the site prior to the medieval era. Quite sobering to think that the kind of tales and legends that might to some be isolated from the modern world can have - or rather, what happens when the worst, rather than the best, of our ancestors is drawn from for succour.)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo View Post
As you know, Alexander the Great, Plato, Socrates...all the great ancient Greeks took that kind of thing for granted, too.
And the main thing that many Greeks of his time were bothered with was not that Hephaestion was a man - it was that he and Alexander were around the same age...
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Last edited by Nerroth; 2009-01-20 at 18:53.
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