Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, Jim Dixon wrote: an invasion and the way the Saxons were treated; but the Normans were just copying the Romans, and the Romans were just copying the Greeks. It's easy to look at history in this way, seeing some people as villians and other as victims. But do remember that St Patrick wasn't Irish at all. He was an English boy, stolen by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. And for centuries English kings used Irish mercenaries to subdue their unruly subjects. Actually, St. Patrick is mostly a mythical creature constructed from the actual Roman ruling family Patricias. The whole St. Patrick chasing out the snakes is clearly a metaphor for the Roman church killing off the pagans. As is typical amonst the Roman church, the peasants, once suitably under control are made to believe the destruction of the old way of life was actually a blessing. The Romans pushed this on them until the old ways faded into the memory hole.
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
--- Start of forwarded message --- Actually, St. Patrick is mostly a mythical creature constructed from the actual Roman ruling family Patricias. Humph, said the camel... If so, did this 'actual Roman ruling family' author the works attributed (with scholarly acuuracy) to Patrick? More likely Patrick came from a romano-british family, probably an aristrocratic one. Many british chieftain families would have arrogated to themselves the name 'patrician', which was no more than a descriptive term for the gentes maiores in Rome, the Valerii, Claudii, Fabii and so on. A bit like the second names 'King' and 'Knight'. The whole St. Patrick chasing out the snakes is clearly a metaphor for the Roman church killing off the pagans. As is typical amonst the Roman church, the peasants, once suitably under control are made to believe the destruction of the old way of life was actually a blessing. The Romans pushed this on them until the old ways faded into the memory hole. First off, the Church as it existed then was not the 'Roman church'. This was before the schisms and the rise of Islam, when the Christian Church was administered from distributed nodes (the Patriarchates of Byzantium, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome). Secondly, your assertion about the meaning of Patrick and the snakes is dubious. I agree it is evidently a myth, but would posit a more likely source in paganism. Many Irish gods and godesses survived well into the Christian era (some even to this day) as 'saints' of the Church. While Patrick was a historical figure, the scribes may well have thought his career too dull for one of such fame, and decided to conflate several already existing myths, and add them to the story. A common practice in Hollywood these days -- a recent example is Braveheart, where the military innovations of Robert the Bruce (a Norman, just like the French-speaking Edward I, which is not mentioned) were ascribed to the medieval feminist, democratic new man William Wallace. Hagiographies are propaganda aimed at the time in which they are written. [Off topic completely here, but I read that for the last years of his life, Stalin's only reading was his own official biography... falling in love with the myth of himself, or taken in by his own deceit?] Thirdly, Patrick's conversion of the Irish was not a conquest. Nor was the conversion of much of Europe. It's very easy, from a post-religious perspective, to be nostalgic about paganism, since we understand almost nothing of it. Neo-pagan movements are generally comic, not in their internal ideas, but in the notion that they are somehow recapturing an old religion, a religion without scriptures or documents or a continuous tradition. All the best Tiarnan
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's very easy, from a post-religious perspective, to be nostalgic about paganism, since we understand almost nothing of it. Neo-pagan movements are generally comic, not in their internal ideas, but in the notion that they are somehow recapturing an old religion, a religion without scriptures or documents or a continuous tradition. Humph, said the camel... indeed! Nonsense, says religionmonger. You obviously haven't researched the pagan world to much depth. Druids, for instance, have a strong, clear line going way back, as do Wiccans. Because of persecution by the God-damned church, they spent a long time underground, but there's never been a time when they weren't active and working. *You* understand nothing of it, and never will unless you could somehow convince some group to initiate you, which is unlikely. Scriptures and documents, dear one, play no part in earth and goddess centered religions. Shamans, for instance, are called personally by their spirits, taught by the same, etc., and it's all very much a personalized experience. Experiential religions have no need of scripture -- that's the bailiwick of the later, false, paternalistic, religions of the dominator cultures.
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
-- When Patrick didn't do what he was told, I'm sure that his masters made no effort to learn his language. They just shouted at him louder in Gaelic. At 07:17 PM 9/4/2000 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Patrick would have spoken Gaelic or Latin as his first language.The Irish would have been no more difficult to understand than a Californian to a Noo Yawker. The upper echelons of Irish society may even have spoken Latin. The upper echelons of Irish society did not speak Latin, and the inhabitants of England at that time did not speak Gaelic. Ireland had never been conquered by the Romans. Latin had long since ceased to be the language of civilization, and had become merely the language of conquerors. Irish literature at the time was vigorous and thriving, while secular Roman literature at the time was non-existent. The nearest thing to literate and readable works produced in Latin at that time were evangelical texts created Christian proselytizers. The greatest literature of that era was Augustine's "confessions", which gives you an indication of how low the Roman civilization had sunk. At that time people learnt latin only because their masters shouted at them in latin, not because there was anything interesting to read or hear. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG jLpeTtmZcxp+K3zt6NovjkMT3+D13j0NLuDiBYZp 4NDsFXixvkrTO78zJc30/1dE3TfFaF7VPUGFyfBdz
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
-- At 07:06 PM 9/5/2000 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: More likely Patrick came from a romano-british family, probably an aristrocratic one. Many british chieftain families would have arrogated to themselves the name 'patrician', If he came from an aristocratic family, he would have been ransomed. He was not. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG M2lRDrJo619sFvJFOQgoW6cEQbs3k944ID47xCCJ 4FxnTtpHrAs1b2TRzUaTo6aOQiBq1NEwnvEGKg324
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
On Mon, 4 Sep 2000, Ray Dillinger wrote: And the Irish were similary denied the ability to read, or to play thier traditional music. (Bards tended to sing songs counter to the english policies.) It's a long damn tradition, unfortunately. In England, it goes back to the Norman invasion and the way the Saxons were treated; but the Normans were just copying the Romans, and the Romans were just copying the Greeks. It's easy to look at history in this way, seeing some people as villians and other as victims. But do remember that St Patrick wasn't Irish at all. He was an English boy, stolen by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. And for centuries English kings used Irish mercenaries to subdue their unruly subjects. When the culture of a conqueror is sufficiently different, and they can get away with it, they always try to take the native language away. That takes away all the old songs and poetry, and most of the stories, and makes it easier to stamp your own culture on a subjugated people. But this is mostly just laziness. When Patrick didn't do what he was told, I'm sure that his masters made no effort to learn his language. They just shouted at him louder in Gaelic. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
But do remember that St Patrick wasn't Irish at all. He was an English boy, stolen by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. De-lurking briefly to correct this... St Patrick was a Romano-Briton. There were no English in Britain at the time he lauched his Irish mission. There was no English language, and certainly no English identity. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes that make up the English (an identity that only established itself when the Franco-Norman ruling dynasty in England lost its territories in France) were spread across Germany and Denmark at the time. But this is mostly just laziness. When Patrick didn't do what he was told, I'm sure that his masters made no effort to learn his language. They just shouted at him louder in Gaelic. Patrick would have spoken Gaelic or Latin as his first language. The Irish would have been no more difficult to understand than a Californian to a Noo Yawker. The upper echelons of Irish society may even have spoken Latin. All the best Tiarnan
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
On Mon, 4 Sep 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Patrick would have spoken Gaelic or Latin as his first language. The Irish would have been no more difficult to understand than a Californian to a Noo Yawker. The upper echelons of Irish society may even have spoken Latin. An interesting point: There are ancient inscriptions in Wales that no one has been able to read in modern times. Deciphering an unknown langauge, not related to known languages, when it is written in an unknown script is a feat of linguistics that transcends mere cryptanalysis and has, so far, rarely or never been done. And, as language, doubtless it has regular structure, patterns, grammar, and the flexibility of use that people in everyday lives need in speaking - and presumably they're not even encrypted. "Poor Man's Crypto", possibly even better than digital crypto, may consist in creating an artificial language together, and then using it whenever you don't want to be eavesdropped on. Bear
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
On Mon, 4 Sep 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But do remember that St Patrick wasn't Irish at all. He was an English boy, stolen by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. De-lurking briefly to correct this... Oo Shows what happen when you post casually to the cypherpunks list ;-) You are right. I should have said that he was a British lad. St Patrick was a Romano-Briton. There were no English in Britain at the time he lauched his Irish mission. There was no English language, and certainly no English identity. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes that make up the English (an identity that only established itself when the Franco-Norman ruling dynasty in England lost its territories in France) were spread across Germany and Denmark at the time. But this is mostly just laziness. When Patrick didn't do what he was told, I'm sure that his masters made no effort to learn his language. They just shouted at him louder in Gaelic. Patrick would have spoken Gaelic or Latin as his first language. The Irish would have been no more difficult to understand than a Californian to a Noo Yawker. The upper echelons of Irish society may even have spoken Latin. Several authorities, eg the Cathoic Encyclopedia, say that St Patrick became fluent in the language of the Irish while in slavery. Some claim that he was born in Scotland, some say in Wales. None support your suggestion that the language of his masters was his native tongue. The real point here is that the Irish, generally portrayed as victims of the British, were sometimes victims, sometimes villians -- like most everybody else. PS. I am immensely fond of Ireland; me mother is Irish, in fact ;-) -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
Patrick would have spoken Gaelic or Latin as his first language. The Irish would have been no more difficult to understand than a Californian to a Noo Yawker. The upper echelons of Irish society may even have spoken Latin. Several authorities, eg the Cathoic Encyclopedia, say that St Patrick became fluent in the language of the Irish while in slavery. Some claim that he was born in Scotland, some say in Wales. Both Scotland and Wales contained people who spoke Celtic languages. Although it is difficult to determine where Patrick is from, I believe the scholarly working consensus is that he was from the Roman province of Britannia, where the majority of the inhabitants would have spoken a language of Celtic origin. Perhaps my analogy of New York and Californain English was misleading: a truer example would be the relationship of Spanish with Catalan, or Sicilian with Tyrolean. That's to say, mutually intelligible, with difficulty. Traders and slave-traders (such as the slaver who captured Patrick) would have traded with the Roman Empire in Britain and elsewhere, so presumably a lingua franca emerged. No doubt Patrick learned his powerful mastery of Old Irish from his captors. [If you want to read more on the subject, from sources more up-to-date and historically accurate than the Catholic Encyclopedia, try http://www.ucc.ie/~peritia for a jumping off point.] None support your suggestion that the language of his masters was his native tongue. The real point here is that the Irish, generally portrayed as victims of the British, were sometimes victims, sometimes villians -- like most everybody else. I don't deny it for a minute. I had a problem with the way you took the currently existing region known as England and its current (troubled) relations with Ireland, and projected it back into a period of history where an entirely different socio-political scene existed. All the best Tiarnan
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
At 1:24 PM -0700 9/4/00, Ray Dillinger wrote: An interesting point: There are ancient inscriptions in Wales that no one has been able to read in modern times. Deciphering an unknown langauge, not related to known languages, when it is written in an unknown script is a feat of linguistics that transcends mere cryptanalysis and has, so far, rarely or never been done. And, as language, doubtless it has regular structure, patterns, grammar, and the flexibility of use that people in everyday lives need in speaking - and presumably they're not even encrypted. "Poor Man's Crypto", possibly even better than digital crypto, may consist in creating an artificial language together, and then using it whenever you don't want to be eavesdropped on. How is your "Poor Man's Crypto" different in any way from _codes_? Cf. any standard text on why codes are not nearly as useful as ciphers. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
At 01:24 PM 9/4/2000 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote: ... An interesting point: There are ancient inscriptions in Wales that no one has been able to read in modern times. Deciphering an unknown langauge, not related to known languages, when it is written in an unknown script is a feat of linguistics that transcends mere cryptanalysis and has, so far, rarely or never been done. And, as language, doubtless it has regular structure, patterns, grammar, and the flexibility of use that people in everyday lives need in speaking - and presumably they're not even encrypted. "Poor Man's Crypto", possibly even better than digital crypto, may consist in creating an artificial language together, and then using it whenever you don't want to be eavesdropped on. That sound like the Navajo codetalkers. I can see two easy problems with this. A secret shared is no secret. If even one person versed in the language were to side with the opposing front, all records written in that cypher would become open. A new language would have to have new words for practically everything. Any borrowed word would open the language up to analysis. If you didn't get around to inventing a word for digital recording. You had digital, but you forgot recording, then saying digital recording in a sentance, would give someone a clue to grammatical structure. Unfortunately, to get a sufficient vocabulary to be flexible, would require a larger population using the language. If the language is sufficiently difficult to learn, it might be useful as a code but it would be hard to extend the population who could use it. If I remember my history, which is not to say that I do, the Codetalkers method worked because there was a small population who knew the language already, none of them were acquired by the Japaneese, learning the language was difficult, (the missionary who suggested it had managed to learn it some, if memory serves), and the language had existed, and been used, enough to be sufficiently complex. Still not complex enough. They had to spell some things out, like placenames. If just two people contrived it, then what they might have to say to one another might be secure, but would be limited to topics they had discussed in detail before, or related topics. If a population of 1,000 spoke it with fluency, and had for several years, the language may be able to deal with just about any current concept or object, but the opposition would almost certainly have access to the language as well. This would seem to limit the language to making disparaging comments about the person ahead of you at the checkout stand, confident that she didn't know what you were saying about him or her. Or discussing the shoplifting of luxeries with your schoolmates, relatively confident that the store clerk wouldn't know what you were planning, or even that you might not be casually discussing last nights game. Both examples I've suspected I might have witnessed. Good luck, Sean
Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)
At 07:42 PM 9/4/00 -0400, Tim May wrote: At 4:38 PM -0400 9/4/00, Steven Furlong wrote: Ray Dillinger wrote: There are good reasons for the governments of the world (even Italy's, for our Italian friend who is insulted that we don't write enough about Italy) not to want to test the limits of the law: adhocracies like ambiguity. What about the right to remain silent? How does the Fifth Amendment impinge on this issue? A criminal defendant has the right to remain silent. He cannot be compelled to tell where evidence is located. He cannot be compelled to testify against himself. Although this list is mainly focused on the social implications of crypto and privacy. It has also been a frequent forum for libertarian ideals: like smaller government. There can be no greater lever to reduce the size of government than "...to cut off its oxygen," that is revenue. One of the better examples of the intersection of the Fifth Amendment and taxes involves W4 and 1040 U.S. federal tax forms. For many years legislators have publicly maintained that we have a nation of voluntary tax compliance. (Yet woe onto those who decide not to volunteer.) Widely accepted federal court rulings consider statements on these tax forms as testimony (not evidence) in a court of law. Since under our Constitution one cannot be compelled to testify against himself it seems reasonable that one cannot be compelled to submit to endorsing either form. Only one case I know of (Conklin vs. U.S.) has been adjudicated on this issue. Conklin won but the case. The federal court ruled that submission of tax forms was voluntary, but the ruling was suppressed by a legal procedure which allow courts to selectively deny its citing in subsequent cases. Adhocracies like ambiguity Napster has tapped into a broad reservoir of resentment and resistance to paying too much for music. I believe all U.S. libertarians on the list should be considering how a high profile test case of the constitutionality of the U.S. federal tax system might tap into a similar disdain for taxation and achieve substantially more constraint of government encroachment on civil liberties than our valiant crypto coding efforts. ks
