If you wanted to look at this question closely, examining a few periods of successful and unsuccessful attempts to change how people think about something, whether the attempts comes from without or within a particular culture, which times and places would you examine in order to study the question most usefully?
Some of the richer (in terms of texts to study) times and places I’ve come up with so far are the attempts of Jesuit missionaries to bring Christianity to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries, Soviet attempts to spread Communism in the 20th, the current attempt by the U.S. to “grow freedom” in the Middle East and elsewhere, the shift from a theological to a scientific explanation of the origins of the universe (19th century? current?) --are there any other times and places you can identify as being particularly rich in texts and interesting to know about?
Recommendations of particular books (and films) welcome, but mostly I’m looking for times, places, people, cultures…
A friend of mine was from one of those Viking cultures. (Sorry, I can’t remember exactly which.) According to her the entire society switched en masse from their traditional Norse religion to Christianity. This was done by a decision of tribal council and accepted by whole country.
Because I live in a Christian culture, the one thing I’m not hurting for is examples of Christianity moving in and putting its feet up on the furniture, though I’ll need at least good example of that. Any specifics you can provide about that one, I’ll be grateful for.
But I’m looking primarily for examples of when people changed their minds about what might be called the dominant paradigm in their culture: “This is how things work.”
“Uh, actually it’s not. Things really work like this–”
“Oh, really?”
I’m interested in exploring that "Oh, really?’ How willing people were to accept the new idea, how the new idea overcame (or didn’t) problems of resistance, how well documented this process was…
I’m afraid that’s all I know about it. I can tell you her name was Houdouck (Not sure I have the spelling right. It’s been years.) That might help you track down what Viking culture she was from. And, oh, she was from Minnesota. Lot of Swedes living there.
It was the most interesting transition to Christianity I had ever heard of.
So much of change is gradual. If you’re looking for sudden changes… Not sure how many I can come up with (especially not at 3:30 in the morning with insomnia), and I’m not sure if any of these are what you’re looking for
The spread of Islam
Copernicus (and Galileo) conjecturing and proving that Aristotle’s view of the universe was incorrect (The Catholic church didn’t take that one too well)
Any moment of culture shock – where an isolated people have a “first contact” with a radically different group of people. Tasmania comes to mind, though that ended in death. It’s certainly an example of unsuccessful change.
The French Revolution (but pick any revolution when the people suddenly have enough and overthrow a centuries old monarchy in favor of a different form of government)
Creationism versus Evolution (Check out the reaction to dinosaurs. An entire culture that believed that every animal that ever existed, still existed suddenly confronting the concept of extinction)
For externally forced transition look at Japan in the period from 1945 to 1975, it went from an agrarian yet military society believing in a god-emperor to an industrial, consumer oriented society in a generation
The atomic bomb must have resulted in major change in world view
Hmm, which leads me to one we’re undergoing right now: Discovering the degree of impact that man has on his environment
Now that I get to thinking about it, even at four in the morning there are so many of them. I hope some of those helped. Maybe you already thought of them.
Let me know which ones were hits and which ones were misses from your POV. Maybe you’ll get a better response from the board this time if they know what is (and isn’t) helpful to you.
Any rate, I think it helped me. After that bit of mental exercise I’m fairly sure I can sleep now.
Islam: a possibility. Don’t know much about its early spread. Was there a particular period of crisis in the spread of Islam?
Copernicus and Galileo: Also good. I’m a little concerned about discussing science vs. Catholic Church too much, but maybe this is the one I want
First contact: I’m really committed unfortunately perhaps to the Jesuits in N. America and don’t want to overwork this vein, nor make the Church into boogeymen.
French Revolution: Possibly.
Creationism vs Evolution: What I meant by “the shift from a theological to a scientific explanation of the origins of the universe (19th century? current?),” above
Japan (and the A-Bomb) seem to me not to be about a new and disturbing idea so much (maybe the Emperor is) as much as a political reality.
I guess the easier themes for me have to do with the U.S. and with Christian doctrine, where it crops up all over the place. If I could find a context to discuss the abolition of slavery, for example, outside of the U.S. or Christianity, I would jump on that.
Oh, and if anyone cares to know, alll this is for a course, but I think I’m fine by SMDB guidlelines–this course is one I’m trying to design, and maybe teach in three or four years, in a university setting, probably as part of team with a history or sociology professor (I’m an English prof.) Part of the course, as I’m imagining it, will be personal–that is, I’ll want to discuss whether any of the students (or the professors) is going through or has gone through a major change in worldview–and why (or why not)?
Glad I was able to help you get to sleep, lalaith. Hope I don’t do that too often with my students.
If you haven’t already, read the book *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions * by Thomas Kuhn. He is pretty much the classic author on the topic of paradigm change.
That Viking conversion story is probably Iceland’s. I think at least one saga deals with the event, but any survey of Iceland’s history will mention it, and probably mention the saga(s) in question.
Oh, and IIRC, the conversion wasn’t so much a case of people changing their minds about religion or the universe, but a question of the king of Norway having converted (and mandated Christianity in his kingdom) and even though Iceland was not part of Norway, there were still very strong ties, and there were political consequences to sticking to Norse paganism. I freely admit, though, that my understanding of the situation is limited.
The spread of Islam in its earliest years is a fascinating story from the little I’ve read of it. Unlike Christianity which really plodded along for centuries, Islam took off from the beginning.
I don’t know if it was something about the teaching of Mohammad or whether the people in the area were just ripe for a change. But Islam hit and it hit big. Interesting in that the people in the area should have had at least a passing familiarity with both the Jewish and Christian religions, both of them also monotheistic, yet neither caught on. (Understandable with Judaism as it is not about converts. Christianity is, though.) This monotheistic religion did catch on.
As for crisis in early Islam. Well, it may have caught on, but it still wasn’t easy for Mohammad – all part of starting a new religion. The period after Mohammad died was one of in-fighting. Schisms were established then that last to this day.
Perhaps. But for me it’s a fascinating and deeply personal subject: to know the world my mother grew up in, then compare that to the Japan I lived in as a child and the Japan I visited as an adult. To see three widely separated slices of life like that – the changes just really smack you across the face.
Ah, in an idle moment, I looked into this. I was curious when official slavery legally ended. Don’t recall the date, but it went on a lot longer than most people think. However, all the countries I could find information on were Christian.
Other countries, like some of the news reports I hear about the Mid-East, still have slavery. (And I’m not talking debt slavery like people mean in India. Geesh, if you’re going to include debt slavery as slavery then slavery went on for long past the Civil War in the U.S. with railroads and textile mills doing it to their workers.) I’m talking about honest to god, abduct someone and keep them in chains slavery occurring right now.
So I’m not aware of any wide-scale abolition movements in any country that wasn’t Christian. Maybe some other Doper is.
I was really wondering.
If they haven’t, give 'em time. In the course of life, I don’t think any intelligent person doesn’t.