princealbertofb Wrote:Bowyn, not sure what you mean when you say that freedom and equality are brand new concepts... Surely they existed in antiquity. Explain what version of equality and freedom you mean.
I mean real equality. Not lip service to a half baked notion of what 'all men' means.
The Greeks, Fine Ancient Culture, gave us Democracy and the ideals that all men are created equal, well accept that theirs was a slave economy and equality wasn't actually for all.
Romans, again if you were Roman you were equal, if you were anything else you were less equal.
Modern times, Women being treated as equals - Sheesh, it wasn't until 1960's that women got really freed from the hearth (but are they, still many questions about about wages). Blacks equal to whites - only in lip service, racial profiling and two men with the same exact resume can go applying for the same job and 3 times more often the guy with the white skin is hired instead of the black. Ask black guys how easy it is to get a cab in Any City USA.
It is an ideology that is maybe 500 years old as a real all encompassing idea applied to all people. But then as late as the 1920's men thought it was preposterous that women would be included as 'all men are created equal'. Woman's suffrage may have won the Vote legally, but plenty of males were none to amused of that change in the law of the land in August 1920.
So when was this idea of that all humans are created equal really set in? Has it set in yet? Jews, Blacks, Gays, Women, Orientals, Poles, Gypsies, Aryans.... We are equal, you who are not us - - - not so much.