Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "dr-phil"
Speaking of Those Tudors
I hope my Tudor friends have entertained and not offended. They do have opinions, which leads me to the subject of "they".
I'm always upset when people say "They used to believe ..." this or that. My response is that no time has a unified "they". I once had a visitor from what was then the USSR who was shocked to find that Americans don't all go clubbing every night or at least every weekend. (In fact, she was shocked that we don't HAVE any clubs where I live.) Folks in the future, watching our television shows, might say that "they" believed in Oprah's choices of what books to read, Simon's judgment of what is talent, and Dr. Phil's wisdom for how to live your life. I'm not criticizing any of those luminaries, since I've yet to watch any of them work their television magic. I'm just saying I am not one of "them", and I know lots of others who aren't either.
So when you hear that people of the Tudor era believed this or that, stop for a moment and think about who might have thought for himself, who might have known better and kept quiet to keep the peace, and who might have said out loud, "That's bollocks!" Just like "us", "they" were a varied and variably gifted lot.
I'm always upset when people say "They used to believe ..." this or that. My response is that no time has a unified "they". I once had a visitor from what was then the USSR who was shocked to find that Americans don't all go clubbing every night or at least every weekend. (In fact, she was shocked that we don't HAVE any clubs where I live.) Folks in the future, watching our television shows, might say that "they" believed in Oprah's choices of what books to read, Simon's judgment of what is talent, and Dr. Phil's wisdom for how to live your life. I'm not criticizing any of those luminaries, since I've yet to watch any of them work their television magic. I'm just saying I am not one of "them", and I know lots of others who aren't either.
So when you hear that people of the Tudor era believed this or that, stop for a moment and think about who might have thought for himself, who might have known better and kept quiet to keep the peace, and who might have said out loud, "That's bollocks!" Just like "us", "they" were a varied and variably gifted lot.
