As a (recently graduated) history student, I spent five years studying history in college and four more in high school. This was from 2000 to 2009 altogether, and during this time I noticed the shift from the use of AD and BC to CE and BCE in historical writing, particularly textbooks. I feel like by the time I was a sophomore in college, CE and BCE were the accepted terms and AD and BC had practically vanished from recent edition textbooks and from the mouths of teachers as well.
Personally I think the change was an utterly pointless and stupid thing. It seems to me that it was done solely in the name of political correctness and out of some totally misguided attempt to “subvert the system” or “break down the old ways” or whatever. OK, I get it, not everyone accepts the idea that Jesus was lord and savior of mankind. But do we really need to change two pairs of two goddamn letters that have had a commonly accepted and understood usage for practically the entirety of Western history? Just to avoid offending a few people?
I have no connection whatsoever to Christianity, I was raised Jewish and my family is one hundred percent Jewish, and I am extremely dismissive of organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. And yet even I wish they would just go back to using BC and AD.
Am I the only one who feels this way or was this change universally accepted?
I agree. It’s not much different from referring to the “holy city of Mecca” or the “holy city of Benares”. Nor is it any different from using the phrase “the Prophet Mohammed” or “the Buddha” (“enlightened one”). These phrases are not considered to be true by other religious groups, but it does explain their special status (and it’s polite).
These terms (Before Christ and Anno Domini) were invented by Christians for their own use. Considering that “AD” is simply an abbreviation of a phrase in a dead language, it takes an extremely sensitive person to be offended.
While I understand the idea of wanting a neutral dating method, this was a terrible way to go about it. If one considers the implications, the phrase “Common Era” is far less politically correct than BC, which is simply a descriptive term and relatively (if not 100%) accurate. The “Common Era” term automatically implies that the Christian dating system is common to the whole world- essentially telling those who use other calendars (Muslim, Thai, Hebrew, and countless others) to stuff it. Obviously this wasn’t the original intent, but it was ironically insensitive to use this particular wording.
They used to use it in Hebrew classes when I was a kid. The change now is part of a plot of the Jews to take over the world.
But I don’t have any problem with it. The terms “BC” and “AD” are divorced from their Latin meanings. The problem is – and I’ve pointed this out time and time again on the SDMB – that people have a morbid fear of metaphor and, like the robots they used to make fun of, they have to take everything literally.
I can completely understand a Jewish professor not wanting to use BC and AD because of his own personal religious beliefs, and using CE and BCE instead. What I don’t understand is the idea that the WHOLE SYSTEM needs to be permanently changed to accommodate a tiny number of people who might be offended at the use.
I think the whole thing was probably conceived by some really pretentious academic who wanted to “rock the boat” and make a big deal over it in the name of fighting the old, evil, racist, classist system and being inclusive and politically correct, so that he would get a lot of attention and be hailed as a great progressive. And naturally the knee jerk offenderati of academia hopped right on board.
(I’m the son of a professor - and department chair - at the university that I attended - so I’m more than a little jaded at academic politics.)
BCE/CE has been in use since the 1700’s. It has been commonly used especially among Jewish academics since the 19th Century. Aside from the obvious and understandable desire for Jews and other non-Christians to want to avoid calling Jesus “Christ” (i.e. “Messiah”), it’s also done in the name of historical accuracy. Jesus was not born in 1 BC (the monk who devised that dating system was off by at least 4 years), so it makes no sense acdemically or historically to use a benchmark event with an incorrect date.
Argent, you are completely wrong about the origins of the convention, and you’re also wrong that’s there’s any push to force everybody else to change. Anyone who wants to is still perfectly welcome to use the old BC/AD convention. No one in academia cares. Really. It’s about personal preference, not avoiding offence.
As time goes on, the move towards a more rigorous presentation of things is what’s going to occur in a scientific system. History may be a softer science, but it’s still a science.
I did a Pit thread about this a couple years ago. I’m not Christian, but honestly it seems laughable to me that anyone would want (or care about) such a superficial change. If we’re going to get Jesus out of the calendar, then get him out - start from the Norman Conquest, or the discovery of the New World, or the defeat of the Turks at Vienna, or whatever.
By the way, “CE” can also be taken to stand for “Christian Era,” thus soothing those who think it’s so vitally important to assert their religious self-importance.
And yet, the only people I’ve ever seen bitching about it those who get indignant about other people choosing to use the BC/BCE convention. I’ve never seen one person complain about someone else using “BC/AD”. This is one of those imagined attacks on Christianity that isn’t actually occurring. There is no push in academia to force other people to use the “Common Era” convention. Most academics just prefer to use it themselves. There is nobody out there hectoring people to not use BC/AD if they want to.
I’m not questioning the motives of the people using the new terms. I just wonder why anyone would bother creating them in the first place, and how they caught on, as they don’t make sense.
As I said, the “Common Era” convention had its roots in Jews not wanting to call Jesus the “Lord” (Dominus) or the “Christ,” and why should they have to? They weren’t and aren’t asking Christians not to do it?
There is also the academically valid point that the BC/AD convention is simply not historically accurate.
What does make sense about them? There’s nothing special about the last 2000 years that makes it “the common era”. The Gregorian calendar is based on the (wrongly calculated) birth of a (possibly fictional) person, and simply renaming it doesn’t change that. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t historically accurate, either- the intent is well-known. It’s unfortunate that this convention has persisted, but there you go. It’s like Greenwich.
If somebody wants to call it someone else, that’s fine, but “Common Era” is a silly choice.
What’s “common” about it is that it’s the system that is most commonly used and understood. It’s much easier just to remove the religious chauvinism from the language of the convention than to devise a whole new system. “Common Era” (or “Christian Era”) allows people to use the same numbers that are now most commonly used, but does not force them to bestow religious honorifics which they do not believe are merited. It would be completely impractical to try to innovate some whole other system and expect others to adapt to it.
Well, since part of your hypothesis is that this dastardly change is already a fait accompli, I wonder what you suppose the above implies about those who continue to oppose it so vocally?
Not really; academia seems to do okay with Kelvin, after all. Nobody is suggesting that we dump the mathematical bases for our current system of timekeeping.
I think we should take a cue from science fiction and start counting the years since the first atomic bomb detonation in 1945. That would make me born in 37 AE (Atomic Era). We could fix the whole “no year zero” mess and confusion by simply renaming 1945 "year zero’. Christians could keep their Jesus-centered calendar the same way Muslims and Jews keep their religious-centered calendars, but the rest of us could switch to something secular and important as a baseline. Who is with me?
