tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post405015175487327202..comments2024-03-28T17:46:07.937+00:00Comments on The Edithorial: What's In an Ancient Place-Name?Edith Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02518971064140009711noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-65517670301456687092014-01-05T05:24:34.758+00:002014-01-05T05:24:34.758+00:00If only we were all better people.If only we were all better people.Douglas Forastéhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01453039316775499407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4134533972010981122.post-72272490750230921212014-01-04T19:47:18.905+00:002014-01-04T19:47:18.905+00:00Countries beset by turmoil inevitably experience m...Countries beset by turmoil inevitably experience massive cultural loss on top of everything else. It's nothing that can be compared to the cost in lives - no one with a heart could ever make the argument that American tanks bulldozing parts of Babylon is <i>worse</i> than American bombs blowing up Iraqi children - but it's part and parcel of the same thing, and the experience of grievous cultural loss is traumatising, affecting individuals and societies as they attempt to recover from periods of devastation. I don't think we can really understand that, or properly empathise with it, without knowing what that culture, and history, is.<br /><br />The same is true where it's less a case of cultural destruction, and more one of cultural isolation. Places like Persepolis, Damascus, Bamyan and Samarkand should be full of tourists - but they're not. The same repressive circumstances that keep the people impoverished deter tourists, furthering the spiral. It's much easier to realise the tragic lost opportunity all of that is if we know enough to see those places as every bit the equals and contemporaries of Rome, Athens, or the Pyramids. I think the points you make here - and in many such posts relating the sites of current events to those of past - are emotionally useful for all those reasons.Matt Keefehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06504500969184399780noreply@blogger.com