Obscure Scholarly Rant

You were warned. ;)

If you have opened up a history book written in the last ten years or so you will notice that the dates are followed by “B.C.E.” or “C.E.” rather than preceded by “B.C.” or “A.D.”. “B.C.E.” stands for “Before Common Era” and “C.E.” stands for “Common Era” and they have exactly the same year values as B.C. (“Before Christ”) and A.D. (“Anno Domini”, latin for “Year of Our Lord”). This is to remove the “Christian influence” in historical research….

And confuse the living hell out of us.

In many ways I am for the removal of much of the Western cultural lens through which we view history and anthropology. Many philosophers and sociologists have spoken about the interaction of thought and word, how each affects the other. Often when we view another culture, we subconsciously make comparisons and evaluate against our own just in the use of language we use to describe it thereby causing us to misinterpret facets of those cultures entirely. For example we commonly refer to the most prominent Deities of India; Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, as a “Trinity” when the relationships between those beings is nothing like the Trinity that most of the Western World is familiar with. Often people will look at a group such as the Native Americans or Australian Aboriginals and describe their cultures as “Primitive”, subconsciously describing our society as an ideal that the these people did not attain and devaluing their cultures which are perfectly suited to the life they lead and beliefs they hold. Most anthropologists now use the term “Traditional” to describe societies whose cultures have maintained their traditional way of life for many generations, noting the “Western Civilization Model” is but one path out of many a culture can go. In freeing ourselves from these subconscious evaluations and comparisons, we can more fully understand the cultures we are looking at and the historical events they created.

However, the “B.C./B.C.E.” nonsense is where I draw the line. History has so many eras: The Romantic Era, the Era of Steam, The Vietnam Era, etc. etc. etc. When someone says “Common Era”; Common to who, common to what? Does it mean do we start counting backward from our common era, right now? Meaning we would tack 2000 years onto the old dates? What about the Muslims who count their years from Mohammed's flight to Medina in 622 AD/CE, making this year 1383? “Common Era” is far too nebulous a term to be used when reckoning dates. “Before Christ” and “Ano Domini” is a system of years that revolves nicely around single, easily referenced point. Though there are debates that the calendar is as much as four years off Jesus actual birthdate (Which BTW - was probably in Spring), A. Confusion over four years beats the hell out of confusion over thousands and B. The system has outgrown the event. When someone says “B.C. 3500" they are not even thinking about Jesus Christ or Christianity. They are simply using an event in world history as a reference point. I happen to know several scholars who are not Christians who had no hang ups about the B.C./A.D. system so obviously they viewed it more as an academic construct than a religious one.

So E-NOUGH with this “BCE” nonsense, and lets get back to simple, understandable “B.C.”

GAWD-DAMN-MUTHER-FUCKING-SON-OF-A-BITCH!

Senate Approves Drlling in the ANWR

You can read my prior commentary on this topic here.

As one of my friends observed, if everyone in the U.S. kept their tires properly inflated we could save more oil in 18 months than what can be taken out of the ANWR and if anyone thinks this expendature of tax our dollars is going to reduce gas prices they are truly naive'. What truly frightening is the precedent this creates: opening up our national parks for exploitation by corporate interests. Hope you enjoyed Yellowstone folks, because now all those trees are up for grabs! Somewhere the Lorax is crying.

There is one last shot at this, and that is they don't approve the budget for it. Keep writing your representatives!

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life. ~ Theodore Roosevelt