Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Professor bias - just a note

When discussing the reason the Kassites were successful in being easily assimilated into Babylonian society and then leadership, Dise states that it was due to their recognizing how important a role religion played in Mesopotamian life "so they became very active patrons of Babylonian religious cults..."

That seems to be a very ethnocentric and modernly biased view. It's just as likely they had a prophet of their own send them there. It's also possible they found life in Babylonia better than their life had previously been and 'realized' the Babylonian gods were more powerful or, at least, more beneficient. Perhaps they discovered the gods were all the same, just perceived or named differently. To a modern cynic, Dise's view may seem sensible but really? A whole culture changes, abandoning previous beliefs and gods so they can take over another by infiltration?

This is amusing. In the next lecture, Dise mentions possible modern bias of other historians in putting forth a king's motives as economic when Dise thinks that, since these kings lived in a culture that prided themselves on manly and heroic virtues, going to war may have been the entire point. I really am enjoying these lectures.

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