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cahnBackground: 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*
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*
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Poland: 1768-1772
Date: 2024-01-04 02:57 am (UTC)Creating a government on the basis of "everyone who's unhappy with the current government, for whatever reason," doesn't lead to a united program or a lot of great teamwork.
Huh. Who would have thought :)
Catholics still won't be allowed to convert to Orthodoxy or Protestantism. If they try, they will be exiled. Why? If there are enough Orthodox believers in Poland, Russian serfs are going to desert across the border en masse to escape their terrible lives in Russia. And if there are enough Protestants in Poland, there might be a Protestant enlightenment! And enlightenment makes for stronger kingdoms! And we can't have that.
...wow!
Poniatowski: And an outbreak of plague in 1769? Who wrote this episode? I demand a rewrite!
GAH. I can see why Polish people hate this guy -- I mean, things really fell apart, didn't they -- but it doesn't seem to have been his fault at all, he was just given a completely impossible job :(
MT/Joseph/Kaunitz: We just want to keep the plague out! And keep the war from coming across our borders, so what happened to the Turks doesn't happen to us! And reoccupy some territory that we suddenly realized we have claims to.
Fritz: Yeah, same! If the Austrians are doing it, I'm in!
LOL! I also laughed at the resulting Joseph/Fritz exchange :)
Fritz: Not really convincing ones, but again, as long as Russia doesn't object, who cares?
Hee!
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Poland: 1768-1772
Date: 2024-01-04 03:21 pm (UTC)Oh, good. I worry about boring you all, because I know you're here for gossip and Selena's here for personal relationships, especially the familial sort, and I'm the only one who's here for military history and foreign policy. But I wrote 25k words, and they're at least going to get posted. :P