Previous generations had the advantage that their most asinine, pigheaded, and ludicrous ideas were filtered by history, since the more serious minds didn’t record in documents how a sizable portion of us were the absolute worst.
You may be overestimating ancient writers and texts.
Perhaps. We have few examples of the daily ramblings of ancient peoples, though, and tend to view those times through the lens of the likes of Socrates, Homer, and Shakespeare rather than their insulting, bodily explicit graffiti or their tabloid fodder.
Okay but have you read Shakespeare? Or, for the Roman graffiti you referenced, Plautus? Or Suetonius if you want some good tabloid fodder? They’re similarly crude, and while there is a much higher level of literacy and wordplay, it’s… not that much different at its core. Even that graffiti, funny enough, has an example in the other direction - there are instances of graffiti in Pompeii which demonstrate a knowledge of classical literature amongst the urban masses.
My point in the end is simply that history is written by writers, and writers are not necessarily less insane, less gullible, or less prejudiced than the general population.
You may be overestimating ancient writers and texts.
Perhaps. We have few examples of the daily ramblings of ancient peoples, though, and tend to view those times through the lens of the likes of Socrates, Homer, and Shakespeare rather than their insulting, bodily explicit graffiti or their tabloid fodder.
Okay but have you read Shakespeare? Or, for the Roman graffiti you referenced, Plautus? Or Suetonius if you want some good tabloid fodder? They’re similarly crude, and while there is a much higher level of literacy and wordplay, it’s… not that much different at its core. Even that graffiti, funny enough, has an example in the other direction - there are instances of graffiti in Pompeii which demonstrate a knowledge of classical literature amongst the urban masses.
My point in the end is simply that history is written by writers, and writers are not necessarily less insane, less gullible, or less prejudiced than the general population.