Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:46:28 CST
From: <U53644@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Irish Books/U.S. Bookshops
 <1993Jan21.001000.24460@massey.ac.nz>
 <1993Jan21.235517.19247@newstand.syr.edu> <28580@dog.ee.lbl.gov>

.........much overemotional response deleted..................

Let me reiterate what I was getting at, since it didn't seem to have been
understood the first time I posted.

       I am >not< (and did not) saying that Irish culture is somehow to be
       looked down on. I would, however, point out that......

              1. During the centuries from the start of the Viking invasions
                 to the end of British rule, most of the pre-existing
                 literature was lost - burned by armies, not preserved because
                 the colonial authority at the time didn't want it preserved,
                 etc. Now, if when deciding whether or not to learn Gaelic
                 (something I did consider - an ethnic pride thing), I do have
                 to ask whether or not there is enough left for this effort to
                 be worth my while. I also have to ask whether or not the
                 rewards compare favorably enough to those of learning some
                 other language. Even with a heavy pro-Gaelic bias, for me,
                 Gaelic appears well down on the list of languages to learn.
                 And, sadly, modern Irish literature has been mostly written
                 in English. It's as if Mollier had written in German - what
                 a loss.

                 Any inference that this reflects disrespect toward the Irish
                 (self-hate ?) is mistaken. Ireland spent centuries under
                 a memorably brutal colonial authority. Many other cultures
                 simply died under such circumstances. Ireland not only
                 survived, but still mananged to have a level of cultural
                 productivity. Expecting that level to match that of
                 wealthier, unoccupied countries would be ridiculous, though.
                 How much time does a tenant farmer have to write books ?
                 And even if he does, what are the odds that they won't be lost
                 ? Realistically, without divine intervention, Ireland couldn't
                 have matched the cultural output of Italy, or France, or China
                 ....   The opportunity didn't exist. Yet.

              2. While I do have some warm feelings toward certain countries
                 (Ireland, Israel...), work has to come before pleasure (at
                  least until I'm a lot richer). The Japanese, the Russians,
                  the Chinese, et al are large, powerful peoples that I'd do
                  well to understand - whoever I end up working for (even if
                  that happens to be myself, as a self-employed engineer)
                  will probably end up doing business with them, or competing
                  with them often (especially the Japanese, who are an
                  extremely visible presence in Chicago already).

                  As much as I might like Ireland - there simply isn't much
                  work to be done with it. From the standpoint of practical
                  considerations, understanding Japan must come first.

       As for a more scholarly interest...........

                  The other thing that I was alluding to was historical
                  interest - why the world is the way it is today, how
                  it got to be so. Well, certainly Ireland had a major
                  impact on the early history of the Catholic Church -
                  but so did Poland, the kingdom of the two Sicilies....
                  In comparative terms, if you look at the entirety of
                  European history, I think that it would be hard to
                  argue that Ireland had more of an impact than Britain,
                  France, Germany, Italy, Spain or Russia.

            key point : I don't have an unlimited amount of time, not even
                  enough to study the histories of those six countries in
                  any great detail (much less those and China, Japan,...),
                  and I have to leave out something.

         3. Someone seems to have completely inverted the point I made about
            the (relative) stability of early Ireland. I indicated that it
            had been relatively peaceful and stable, and that this was a
            thing for a culture to take pride in. It doesn't make for a very
            colorful history, but it does make for a much better life for
            those living in a country.

            The news coming out of Sarajevo is MUCH more interesting than that
            coming out of Dublin.Which city would you rather live in right now?

            I'm not quite sure how this became an assertion that Ireland was
            unstable.

            I would agree that some of the old Irish ideas of government
            (decentralised authority, the binding authority of the judiciary
             (the brehons) over the other branches of government, etc) are
            excellent - however they've already been incorporated into some
            modern governments. In the US, the former is known as "federalism"
            , and there is ample precedent for the practice of having the
            general populace enforce the law (deputization. It's worked quite
            well during certain times of disorder). The concept of an
            independent judiciary is one of the cornerstones of the US system.
            We also have a political movement called "anarchism" (not what you
            think - it's a nonviolent movement) which would take the US
            closer to that older model. Of course, the concept of having
            two representative warriors fight to settle a battle finds little
            support here.

            One needn't dwelve into old Irish history to find most of these
            ideas. They're alive and well today, and reappeared in American
            history (quite possibly directly transplanted - the Irish-American
            community is one of the larger segments of the US population).

            Is Ireland an important enough influence on history here, though,
            for the study of its' history to be a top priority? Well, it has a
            lot of competitors. And like I said, one doesn't have time to
            learn everything.

This is getting much too long. I think that I've made my point.

                                          Joseph Dunphy

Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic