"No no, THIS time it will be a utopia!" Medieval Period (~1000 AD) (media.piefed.social)
 
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[–] [S] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Explanation: It's a common fantasy of fascists and other far-right goons that if only a society were 'homogeneous' in such a way as they prefer, it would be a peaceful utopia.

Examination of any societies which attempted to enforce homogeneity, regardless of sect, generally reveals the exact opposite conclusion. Few things flare up the conflict engine like trying to suppress the beliefs of others, and once one genocide is done, the net narrows in order to start the next - or more 'schismatics' arise, which has the same effect.

As the Late Roman pagan writer Ammianus Marcellinus once noted in regards to sectarian disputes, "No beasts are so vicious towards one another than Christian towards Christian." One suspects that applies to any worldview which regards belief as mandatory.

... ironically, the painting shown is of the pagan Greek Titan Cronos devouring his sons.

For bonus points, Medieval Europe was actually comparatively broad-minded towards Black folk, as there wasn't a strong conception of racism in the modern sense. "Aethiopes" were different, sure, but so were those gruesome Fr*nch and D*nes! To white folk in Medieval Europe, Africa was a distant and exciting place, but fundamentally still filled with human beings who were not really much different than you or I (the occasional 'here there be monsters excluded', of course - what region does not have its fair share of boogeymen to scare the children with?)

Some of those medieval misconceptions, still, were quite curious - a 13th century AD German poet wrote of a mixed-race man with literally half-white and half-black skin, split down the middle! He's still described as handsome. He gets a good and holsum (by Christian standards) ending in the poem - converts, marries a Christian German girl, and goes back to his homeland to convert them to Christianity too, since they all only worshipped Jupiter (??????????) because they'd never heard of this Christ fellow.

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