Culture clashes - nothing new

https://www.flickr.com/photos/drwtwilner

Traveling in France, our guides were mostly Ph.D. students in European art, architecture, or history, and they gave us three comparisons that we had not acquired from previous trips to Europe.

1. The French Revolution (of 1789-99) has less in common with USA's revolution of 1776 than it has in common with Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966.  The great extent to which the revolutionaries destroyed cultural artifacts was tragic.

2. The Hundred Years's War (1337-1453) has a lot in common with today's Sunni vs. Shiite wars, or ISIS vs. everybody.  (So, one tactic that the USA could take with respect to ISIS is: wait 120 years for it to burn out.)

3. When we visited Notre Dame, Chartres, and various other cathedrals that included reliquaries, the guides used the very same language that we encountered in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.  "This is the {relic/stone} that we parade through the village when disease is present."  "This is the {relic/stone} that we parade through the village when enemies are threatening."  No spiritual progress in 50,000 years.  (So, one tactic that the USA could take with respect to religious fundamentalism is: wait 50,000 years and see if anything changes.)