But I suppose that is the point: so dull and uninspired are the politicians of today that they don't even have the brains to take something good. I know very little about the mindset of the thief; but I've seen enough movies (Ocean's 11 anyone?) to know that if you're going to do it, you might as well think big. How depressing to find out that so many of the current generation of political leaders are little more than second-rate pickpockets. Then again, perhaps to go for the big heist, it helps if you look like George Clooney ?
Another one bites the dust: one more European politician has been busted for plagiarising their doctoral thesis. This time, embarrassingly, it is Annette Schavan who has been shamed into resigning. It is bad enough that she was the German Education minister; worse, two years ago, she put the boot firmly into the Defence Minister and rising star, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, saying it was 'shameful' when it was found that 90% of his dissertation was pinched from unattributed sources. Schavan's PhD title: 'Character and Conscience' Many of my colleagues worry on a daily basis about students copying work and passing it off as their own - and complain bitterly how the internet has made doing so much easier. As it happens, this is not a problem I often experience. There are (regrettably) few scholars working in my field - which means you can spot their work a mile off. Even the most conniving undergraduate or graduate student cannot get away with nicking someone else's work on medieval Greek literature or the archaeology of the Russian steppes. Guttenberg: PhD thesis not just nicked but boring But what makes the resignations of all these European politicians really depressing (you can find a rogue's gallery of them here) is how dull the their dissertations were in the first place, how boring the topics, how mundane the work they claimed as their own. If they had run in and pinched exciting and ground-breaking material about really exciting topics, then at least one might just about understand it - after all, claiming credit for other people's ideas is par for the course for the modern politician. As, of course, is risk-taking: high-stakes for high-office.
But I suppose that is the point: so dull and uninspired are the politicians of today that they don't even have the brains to take something good. I know very little about the mindset of the thief; but I've seen enough movies (Ocean's 11 anyone?) to know that if you're going to do it, you might as well think big. How depressing to find out that so many of the current generation of political leaders are little more than second-rate pickpockets. Then again, perhaps to go for the big heist, it helps if you look like George Clooney ?
0 Comments
Pope Benedict XVI Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement. He did so in front of an audience that had gathered for an important, if routine, meeting concerning three canonizations. Those present, including many senior cardinals were stunned into silence. Nobody expected it; but nobody ever does. In the 24 hours since, commentators have been scurrying to the history books to stress how unexpected and unusual the retirement. That has been good news for Pope Gregory XII, who stood down in 1415 - previously ignored by all but die-hard obsessives about medieval church schisms - but who suddenly finds his name front page news alongside his apostolic successor almost exactly 600 years since he disappeared off into peaceful seclusion in Ancona. The question on everyone's lips is what is the precedent this sets for future popes. But as those who look not at Old but at New Rome, the imperial city of Constantinople, the question would be rather different. Heads of what became known as the Orthodox church often retired, and the seasoned viewer knows that they never really chose to spend their old age in 'monastic perfection' (as one optimistic Byzantine chronicler puts it) - and as Pope Benedict himself is not set to do. It was a case of jump or be pushed. Pope Gregory XII There are - and always have been - passionate struggles behind ecclesiastical thrones, and not surprisingly so: interpreting God's will is a serious business and an enormous amount hangs on getting it right. When millions follow you, the stakes and the pressure are almost impossibly high. When there is noise amongst your senior hierarchy, however, it is not just exhaustion and old age that bite, but a crisis of confidence. In the Pope's case, there can be no question that physical frailty has played a part in magnifying concerns that must already have been overwhelming. But the real question is what was the issue (or issues?) that ground Pope Benedict down and where he was able to admit, in an act of profound humility, that he was not able to provide clarity of leadership? Was he, as a highly intelligent scholar, simply unable to decide between two competing views; or was there hostility to his conclusions from some of those cardinals who sat in silence as the Pope announced his news. Perhaps the comment that his decision was one that had 'great importance for the life of the church' is to be understood best as a pointer at those who had not stood alongside him when he most needed their support. As was always the case in Constantinople, the choice of successor will reveal what was really going on behind the scenes; Not the real Haghia Sophia Never, growing up in the 1970s, did I imagine that Lego would find itself in trouble, or that its designers would end up being accused of blasphemy; it was hard to think of ways those little bricks that could be offensive. But this week there has been an almighty hoo-ha because some bright (?) spark has finally realised that the creators of Star Wars borrowed heavily on the city of Istanbul/Constantinople for inspiration for the disappointingly sub-standard trilogy of prequels that were based on Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side. Having obviously missed the films when they came out a decade or so ago (or they'd have noticed then), it came to the attention of a Turkish group in Austria that Lego had made a model of 'Jabba's palace' that looked just like the Haghia Sophia. This was both racist and disrepectful to Islam, they said in a statement that duly went round every news room of every newspaper in the world and into the next day's pages. The real Haghia Sophia I could not help feel sorry for poor Lego who were only following what they saw on the film screen and on the mood boards by the movie big-wigs. But if anyone was being disrespectful, it was those Austrian killjoys for turning on the humble brick maker rather than the behemoth Star Wars franchise that plundered its inspiration straight from the streets of the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Skyfall tried too, by the way, with zero success - but that's another story...) As for the idea that using the Haghia Sophia 'mosque' was anti-Islamic and racist - well, the accusers should be ashamed of themselves. Although 'Jabba's palace' was a converted into a mosque after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it had been the jewel in the crown of Christendom for more than a thousand years beforehand, one of the most famous and important churches in the Christian world. Those minarets are are of course not original. And in any event they do not appear on Lego model anyway - the tower on the model is not a minaret, but more likely a small brick version of the milion, the post from which all distances in the Byzantine empire were measured. History lives and breathes and changes depending who is writing it. There is nothing new about expropriating it either. Nevertheless, it was a surreal week when Byzantium, the Ottoman Turks, Islamic agitators, Lego and Star Wars were all mixed up together in a single pot. It felt like being in another film, The Matrix: my childhood and my academic career blending together in a way I'd never expected. That doesn't often happen - unless, of course none of it is real... I'm working on Persia and Iran at the moment, the engine room of global trade, religion and science. It's where ideas and goods have been exchanged for millennia and today is no exception. I am fascinated and amused when societies over-promote people, and this guy seems a perfect case study (unless the mullahs know something I don't - which is quite possible). This week, though, I am particularly tickled because the President of Iran - who is quite powerful (has quite a good arsenal of weapons; never wears a tie; not good with kids) - has said he would not only like to be the first Iranian in space, but he would be prepared to be 'sacrificed by scientists' if it made his dream came true.
Not sure about you, but my science teachers never gave me the option of being ritually sacrificed. But if they had, I'd have been obsessed about whether on re-entry, I would have burnt with a squeaky pop; would have turned lime-water milky; or would have re-lit a glowing splint. Maybe we'll find out if President Ahmedinejad literally goes ballistic... So Google has shaken itself up and will re-organise under as Alphabet - hardly the most inspired choice of name, but handily ranks before Amazon and Apple in (hey!) alphabetical lists. Re-branding in this way, according to experts and stock-pickers alike, is a genius idea. Google, so the story goes, is not a normal company, and so it can behave in non-normal ways. One would think that something had been miraculous had been invented. As it is, the new name (and excitement) simply reflects administrative changes in how the Google Empire is run. The Byzantines would have approved. Most of them that is. The branding of the East Roman Empire as 'Byzantine' has its own story, worth saving for another day. But the Google into Alphabet has its own neat parallel in late antiquity when the authorities in Constantinople decided to switch from using Latin to using Greek. The Roman Empire of course used Latin as its primary language - although the Emperor Claudius commended a barbarian for managing to learn 'both our languages' (that is, Latin and Greek). Claudius himself loved showing off his own prowess in Greek, delivering 'long replies' to envoys when given the chance, and liked nothing more than quoting Homer (presumably also at length and also in Greek) during official business. Two problems emerged as the western part of the empire contracted and disintegrated and Rome itself spiraled into decline from the fifth century. First, the centre of gravity switched to the eastern Mediterranean where Greek was more widespread than in the west; and second, Greek was used by the computer programmers, the geeks and the Silicon valley equivalents of late antiquity - the Christian priesthood. Unlike Google's announcement on Monday, the decision to re-brand the Empire was not proclaimed from on high, nor in fact does there appear to have been a seminal, single moment when a choice was made. By the middle of the 6th century, however, the Emperor Justinian began to issue edicts in Greek; within a few decades, official business was being done at every level in Greek, rather than in Latin - and so too works of literature and history shifted decisively in favour of the former. |
AuthorI'm trying out micro-blogging -short bits of things I think are interesting every now and again. I'm on twitter too if you prefer doses of 140 characters Archives
October 2018
Categories
All
|