Tumblr crosspost (17 February 2020)
Sep. 18th, 2021 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineAn anon said:
there's a story on bbc today about the discovery of a set of diaries by a yorkshire farmer around 1810 discussing homosexuality in an apparently accepting and more-balanced-than-expected way - does that attitude surprise or confirm your own thoughts on this time period? and since i've mostly seen pop media coverage, have you seen discussion of this diary or analysis of it in your field that you'd be willing to share? :)
I responded:
I haven’t! But my interests/studies have kept moving earlier and earlier, so 1810 is pretty late for what I’m doing now (I specialized in the 18th & 19th for my MA, but I’m working in the 17th and 18th for my PhD).
That said, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. IMO we often think of the past as a) something completely foreign or b) basically like here and now, only less ‘enlightened.’ And I think we have to resist that secondary impulse to flatten the often profound differences in place and time and culture. At the same time, it’s important to understand that … people are going to be people.
Because of that, there’s always going to be a considerable degree of variation in attitudes and not just a singular model of What People Thought Back Then. So it seems perfectly probable that some people would have ideas that sit pretty well with us, even though it’s not anything like the majority. You can find that wrt just about any issue in any period.
It is easy to find virulent and pervasive homophobia in the later 18th century, which I gather persisted beyond that time, so I wouldn’t be inclined to see the farmer as representative of the period per se. But it might show that there was a greater diversity in opinions and perspectives than what we often project onto the past.
there's a story on bbc today about the discovery of a set of diaries by a yorkshire farmer around 1810 discussing homosexuality in an apparently accepting and more-balanced-than-expected way - does that attitude surprise or confirm your own thoughts on this time period? and since i've mostly seen pop media coverage, have you seen discussion of this diary or analysis of it in your field that you'd be willing to share? :)
I responded:
I haven’t! But my interests/studies have kept moving earlier and earlier, so 1810 is pretty late for what I’m doing now (I specialized in the 18th & 19th for my MA, but I’m working in the 17th and 18th for my PhD).
That said, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. IMO we often think of the past as a) something completely foreign or b) basically like here and now, only less ‘enlightened.’ And I think we have to resist that secondary impulse to flatten the often profound differences in place and time and culture. At the same time, it’s important to understand that … people are going to be people.
Because of that, there’s always going to be a considerable degree of variation in attitudes and not just a singular model of What People Thought Back Then. So it seems perfectly probable that some people would have ideas that sit pretty well with us, even though it’s not anything like the majority. You can find that wrt just about any issue in any period.
It is easy to find virulent and pervasive homophobia in the later 18th century, which I gather persisted beyond that time, so I wouldn’t be inclined to see the farmer as representative of the period per se. But it might show that there was a greater diversity in opinions and perspectives than what we often project onto the past.
no subject
on 2021-09-18 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2021-09-19 12:50 am (UTC)