Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[selenak]

And then you look at some of the suffragettes, who thought that if only women had the vote, there wouldn't be poverty, or children suffering, or whatever, anymore.

Sigh, yes. And in terms of the British section of women's rights, there's the sadness that even before they ever got the right to vote, they got disillusioned in that regard, what with WWI causing a split right through the Pankhurst family, with Emmeline and Christabel being pro war (and fond of slogans like "Britain for the British") while Sylvia the socialist was anti war and against the property franchise related voting rights aimed at by her mother.

All of which doesn't mean change isn't worth aiming for, of course. The monarchy that came back to Britain in 1660 was already irrevocably different (as James II found out), even if the Glorious Revolution still needed to happen, and the idea of ruling without Parliament entirely the way Charles I had done for eleven years just wasn't on the cards anymore. And while the overall politication of the population could have dark sides, one should never ignore the good sides. People identifying with their Parliament and seeing it as quintessential in the governing process is a good thing, even if it can never deliver the perfect government so many imagine.

Re: Stuarts and Scotland

[luzula]

All of which doesn't mean change isn't worth aiming for, of course.
No, of course not! Just that everything is always more complicated and the work is never done.