These first few weeks will involve lots of reading on the history of Germanic tribes and researching what historians know about them and their culture. The first book I'm reading is called Before France and Germany by Patrick J. Geary and is a great preliminary read. One of the things that I've noted so far is the fact that the "Barbarians", as the Romans called them, did not have written history but relied on oral traditions. While this is not surprising, it proves to be difficult in truly understanding the Germanic culture before becoming "civilized". Geary points out that “when historians attempt to understand the barbarian world of late antiquity they must invariably turn to the written sources of their civilized neighbors, the Greeks and Romans…however…in describing the barbarian world, ancient ethnographers and historians had their own purposes and followed their own conventions that had little to do with what might today be called descriptive ethnography.” (39) The author goes on to describe how the Greeks and Romans saw the barbarians through a certain lens and often did not understand or misinterpreted their actions. Like a game of telephone spanning several centuries, there are invariably misprints and falsehoods that we have to muddle through to find understanding.
In reading this I feel thrown back to first quarter, talking about our mental models. How can we understand a people through the mental model of another, foreign culture? Is it even possible? Even if not, some of the descriptions the Romans gave are in the least entertaining: “They are generally tall, blond, and foul-smelling; they lived not according to fixed, written laws but according to senseless and unpredictable customs. They are fierce and dangerous in war, but slothful, easily distracted, and quarrelsome in peace.” (41) But I wonder, what is really going on here? If this description is accurate and I were to think of how this relates to German culture today, I would say that they are enjoying life. While modern Germans have a reputation for being hard workers, they also enjoy afternoon naps followed by coffee and cake and lively banter on the state of the world. I find it interested (though not surprising) that cultural misunderstandings have not gotten better over time. This churns my mind even further to think about cultural misunderstandings in my own life, specifically in Houston and the large Hispanic population. General stereotypes about all “Mexicans” abound in Southeast Texas because of cultural misunderstandings. But, I digress… the wheels are turning and its sure to be an interesting ride…
One thing that helps to 'sanitize' a Word document before it is copied and pasted into a blogger post (or email for that matter) is to copy/paste it into Notepad first. This will turn it all into plain text. Then you copy out of that text and paste that into your post. It is one step, but a key one. I did this with your post here (I can edit/add as the Admin).
ReplyDeleteStephanie, I appreciate your notation of the preconceived notions placed upon the barbaric Germans of the past and the Mexicans of Southeast Texas. People can apply whatever bias they possess upon others to fit their beliefs. i.e. The slothful Germans who were at other times fierce and dangerous. This argument reminds me of people who complain about lazy Mexicans taking all the American jobs.
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