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Mapping Ancient Rome

theamericanconservative.com

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Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#21

Post by tryitnow »

SamBam wrote: post #18

I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome. > The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cul…

My suspicion is that they had to find some ideological justification for writing about this cool project in a conservative magazine, so they probably just shoehorned those lines in there.

I don't think this is a bad thing. The more conservatives are exposed to ideas and cultures that are radically at odds with contemporary conservative mores, the more likely these conservatives are to open their minds.

And make no mistake, ancient Rome as a pagan civilization is absolutely at odds with contemporary American conservatism. They can twist and shoehorn in their preferred takes as much as they'd like, but once the seed is planted the smarter conservatives start looking beyond the provincial ideas they're inclined to inherit from their immediate cultural background.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#22

Post by PorterDuff »

The book is a bit expensive, although I'd like to have a copy.

Given the turn that modern politics has taken, I guess all that matters was this sentence:

"Today, as cultures cross-pollinate, and as technologies topple timeless ways of living, it is an open question whether the familiarity of Rome’s ancient forms will be felt much by those who live in the future, beyond the next horizon."

It's not a bad question really, with 'Rome' as a stand-in for all the well-worn bits of culture. Are 500 year old nursery rhymes still in practice and will they be? You can certainly see the change in the teaching of literature in schools. Latin or Greek are scarcely taught anymore. No doubt there are 100's of examples. 'Rome' of course is an imaginary construct that is really a later Anglo-American version of historical matters.

I doubt I'll live long enough to see the results of states that knock out the underpinnings of common culture. Perhaps they'll build their own fresh ones, perhaps it never mattered.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#23

Post by keiferski »

SamBam wrote: post #18

I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome. > The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cul…

Why does one need to be a conservative to find value in Ancient Greco-Roman civilization? It's certainly possible for someone to be critical of modernity yet not be some kind of right-wing zealot, or even right-wing at all. Personally I don't identify with any modern political ideology and think that there is a lot of value to be found in the ancients.

This black-and-white view of dividing everything into "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists" is extremely destructive and it's one of the main reasons that Western Civilization is in its current identity crisis. And that applies to all sides of the political spectrum.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#24

Post by PorterDuff »

TomMarius wrote: post #7
jriot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being a conservative consider being an extremist from your viewpoint?

Isn't conservatism basically forcing people to not progress? Some might see that as a nearly violent act against their freedom. But really, what else is there to conservatism than "do not change"?

"Isn't conservatism basically forcing people to not progress? Some might see that as a nearly violent act against their freedom. But really, what else is there to conservatism than "do not change"?"

To some degree I suppose. Given the natural tendency in politics to produce two opposing groups the monikers always become overloaded. In eras where 'conservatives' represented the mercantile class, change went hand-in-hand with building the huge trading companies, the industrial revolution, modernization and 'rightsizing' of farming practices, etc. so it depends.

If, 20 years ago or before, you had told me that the West was practically going to civil war over the question of the value vs harm of mass third world immigration, I'd have laughed at you. The rest of the disagreements are window dressing at this point I think.

No doubt it's all very confusing to the Chinese.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#25

Post by orliesaurus »

Off-topic but somewhat relevant: When I was in college (ca. 2009) I worked on a project whose aim was mapping ancient Rome in 3-D so that students could explore the city as if they were living in it. We were a team of three including our supervisor who was the expert in ancient Rome and we managed to recreate about 9000 buildings including temples in points of interest. Most recently I have discovered [0] that one version of assassins Creed that was based on ancient Greece is free to download, You can't play the game but you can explore the city with its really high quality renderings/interactivity and learn through quizzes

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/10/assassins-creed-odyssey-ge...

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#26

Post by golergka »

SamBam wrote: post #18

I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome. > The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cul…

I have read the same text and not for a moment read it this way.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#27

Post by al_form2000 »

SamBam wrote: post #18

I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome. > The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cul…

You are reading it with the bias you mention, and, as a consequence, you are attaching overbroad significance to a sentence that weighs in at about 3% of a text dedicated to the discussion of an archaelogical atlas of Ancient Rome.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#28

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

I bought the book for my wife, who has a phd in Roman history. Its an absolutely gorgeous book containing a wealth of information. Its also incredibly dense material. Its really made for specialists, but for them its completely worth the price. Im glad people are creating works like this.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#29

Post by rukittenme »

SamBam wrote: post #18

I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome. > The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cul…

I will point out that a dislike of "Identity Politics" can easily be defined as "divisions within some set that a person wishes to be uniform". For example, a Christian may be perfectly happy with Christianity's differences with other religions but very unhappy with divisions within Christianity itself. I don't think it is necessarily hypocritical to hold that view.

To put it in terms more familiar, intersectionality is intended to unify a diverse body against a larger uniform society. In a sense, the most conservative Americans and the most radical are one in the same. Radicals seek unity against enemies within and conservatives seeks unity against enemies without. The only thing separating some radical ideas from some conservative ideas is the scoping.

---

As a sidebar, I'm really digging this train of thought. Its kind of interesting to think that the only difference between Martin Luther and Pope Urban II was their scope of the world's problems. Which makes sense. After all we're only human. We don't think that differently from one another.

Re: Mapping Ancient Rome

#30

Post by clairity »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #4
angry_octet wrote: post #2

This is an interesting review of a more interesting project to create a digital geospatial model of the Rome of recent antiquity. It is mysterious why it has been published on an extremist website. It's like reading a article about the life and times of Goethe in Al Quaeda Monthly .

extremist? Really? And especially to the level of comparing it with a literal terrorist organization. The hard right has its genuinely extremist, white supremacist and nationalist elements but to claim that a conservative affinity makes a site like this into an extremist page is absurdly self-righteous and hypocritical even. Might as well say the same about Huffpo or NPR. No? I never understood how leftist and heavil…

> "I never understood how leftist and heavily "progressive" ideas automatically get a free pass as being fundamentally correct..."

that's pretty easy to explain: liberalism is grounded in inclusivity, and conservatism in exclusivity, which is a tension that lives in each of us. and from a young age, we are educated that sharing and caring for others is good, and being selfish is bad. we tend to equate things that are good with being correct.

note that progressivism doesn't lay on this spectrum at all, as it only advocates progress over stagnation (a different facet of conservatism).

the philosophical positions of these ideologies are different from their political implementations, of course.

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