Actually, prior to the mid-1300s or so, the old world was mostly comprised of dar al-Islam - more or less, everywhere except Europe was not completely Islamic but Islamic to one degree or another, to the point where one traveller (Ibn Batttta) was able to travel throughout Asia, India, parts of the Mediterranean, and Africa without experiencing any real culture shock or not being in a predominantly Islamic area. And this was back when Islam was exercising tolerance towards other religions, before the Safavids started getting aggressive towards the Ottomans about what branch of Islam was better.
Hmm. I suggest you study what was happening in India under the Moghul Empire. It wasn't tolerant.
no, intolerance isn't necessarily a modern concept, but it wasn't dominantly practiced until the last five-ish centuries, which isn't that long if you think about it. When I mentioned that homophobia and disapproval of homosexuality was a recent concept, I meant recent like new-world recent. Back around the Greek/Spartan/(probably Roman, but haven't formally studied them) eras, it was way cool.
Have you read the Roman author Juvenalis at all? He's filled with fun racial hatred at the Syrians and Greeks. Rome was actually quite intolerant at various points in its history, beginning with patricians and plebeians in early Rome--they couldn't even intermarry at first! What you read in modern history books will necessarily be geared to appealing toward modern sensibilities, assuring us that every time except now was a utopia practicing our unrealized modern ideals. When you begin reading primary sources, though, you will begin your true education.
As for homosexuality in Greece, it was not the egalitarian homosexuality that you know today, where two big hairy men have sweaty man-love with each other, but something rather more like pederasty, involving typically a smooth young boy, the
eromenos, and the sweaty hairy older man, the
erastes. Also, the tone of much Roman writing makes clear that homosexuality was not viewed favorably. The histories of Dio Cassus vividly depict the emperor Elagabulus as a raging queen, and the tone makes clear that it is not praise. I dare you to read the Life of Elagabulus and then tell me that Dio Cassius meant his lurid account of Elagabulus as praise. At one point, Dio describes "he kissed him in a place where it is indecent even to mention." That's not the sound of acceptance, but a scandalous accusation appealing to the prudery of the average Roman.
After reading many historical writings not neatly packaged for consumption in secondary sources, it is my conclusion that homosexuality, in the egalitarian sense of similar-aged men rather than the pederastic sense of man on boy, has never been more accepted than it is today. Pederasty on the other hand has rarely, if ever, been less accepted. Ironic, no?
Sorry for sounding like I'm giving a lecture, but I wrote essays on the change from the tolerant old world to the intolerant new world AND the unlikely rise of Europe the backwater region to power recently, so the material's still fresh in my mind. Akigakak, if you really require evidence, I could provide some, but we're already pretty far off topic as-is.
I'm sure you got good grades. Teachers, even university professors, are rarely true scholars.
The only worrying aspect of your post, and the thinking that it exposes, is the belief that ancient times were a paradise or that mankind has ever been angelic and peaceable. You speak of Romans, but Caesar slaughtered two million gauls in his vast "tolerance" of them. Women and children at sword's point. You speak of peacefully travelling in India as a medieval Muslim, but vast numbers of Hindus were persecuted. A rigid caste system between the muslim Arab descendants of the invaders (the Ashraf) and the inferior muslim converts from hinduism (the Ajlaf) developed, to say nothing of the Hindus who did not convert. 80 million may have died. Of course, the Hindus had their own intolerant caste system internally among themselves before conquest. See any pattern yet?
No age is freer of war and intolerance than now. Mankind has always been a roiling crowd of people harming each other and competing for resources. Modern society suppresses this somewhat, but it will boil forth eventually, as it always does. You can write papers to the contrary, but human nature won't change at the typing of a few words. It has been sordid and will continue to be.
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Topic: Do I have a gay dwarf? (honestly homosexual relationship in game) (Read 15343 times)