Monday, April 22, 2013

Compare and Contrast

From Armarium Magnum:

His last point in the quote above is more evidence of his lack of understanding of the period he's working so hard to distort and then condemn.  There certainly were regular condemnations of curiositas amongst monks.  In his ignorance of the period and because of his distorting Whiggish prejudices, Greenblatt has decided this means "intellectual curiosity" and claims this means they may have copied the works he likes so much, but they can't have actually thought about them or discussed them as this was forbidden.  In fact, the word refers to curiosity about others, gossip and idle chatter - something probably common in small enclosed communities of celibate men - and had nothing to do with intellectual curiosity.

vs.



The greatest irony, of course, being that real, honest curiosity about the sacred tenets of the modern church is discouraged.

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