On the cause and prevention of the plague

 

ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies offers an interesting insight into the supposed etiology and preventative measures suggested at the time of the Great Mortality (The Black Death):

Comments

[Ed]

Heheh, why does this remind me of today's "good professors" in regards to global warming?

[Major John]

At this moment, I think I prefer the wisdom of Italy...

[Marco McClean]

So in the 1300s, when the Pope of Rome knew everything there was to know about God and the world, he stooped to ask the world's doctors for advice about a plague that was killing thousands of people, and now, when the modern Pope knows no more about God than the Pope did then and very little more about the world, and doctors actually know how to arrest a plague that's killed millions and continues to do so, he won't consider their advice on the subject, though he accepts the ministrations of doctors upon his own person. With the stroke of a pen one very old man can save millions of people's lives, but he won't. Why do you suppose that is?

[gail]

In this case, I truly don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about...Are you talking about condoms for HIV protection? How is he going to change things with the stroke of a pen when hardly anybody pays attention to his position on barrier birth control anyway, including Catholics? Nobody who actually wants to use a condom decides not to because of the Pope. Certainly not anyone who also wants to have frequent sex with multiple partners, which is where the big risk factor is if you're talking about the large-scale epidemiology.

[gail]

And why do you think he doesn't know anything much about the world? He's a very well educated man even if he does have a bee in his bonnet about contraception.

[Marco McClean]

Gail, even if as you say hardly anyone pays attention to the Pope --which is a fib, c'mon-- there are plenty of countries that don't even pay the lip service to separation of church and state that ours does. The Pope has a great deal of influence over the laws of such countries, and has the deciding vote as to how available safe, effective family planning technology actually turns out to be to millions of women. That would be the Pope who has the news from his giant imaginary friend that contraception is the work of his giant imaginary friend's checkers opponent. And this would be the world where a billion people are painfully hungry all the time. The Pope is insulated from that; he's the prince and CEO of a multibillion-dollar tax-free business, and people with nothing, and with the certain prospect of more nothing, gather in their multitudes to adore him wherever he goes. Does that seem right to you? I mean, doesn't it seem even the least bit disconnected?

[gail]

Marco, I just have a hard time responding seriously to arguments that are so cartoonish-ly melodramatic. Why does everybody you dislike or disapprove of have to be Snidely Whiplash?

And, no, that was not a fib although it was probably an underheated understatement, which I always feel compelled to make every time you make one of your overheated overstatements. Just for balance.

[gail]

Also I thought we were talking about the spread of HIV rather than overpopulation or how rich the pope is (do bears shit in the woods?). Your terms of debate keep shifting. I didn't say nobody pays attention to the pope about anything, just about barrier contraceptives, which include condoms, which are used to prevent the spread of HIV. But if we're just talking about all the conceivable reasons you disapprove of the pope, then I don't see the point of the discussion because every time I try to route the argument in one direction to clarify what you actually mean you slip over into another category, and I don't think it's worth my time to chase you all over the map especially on a subject (i.e., your overall antipathy to religion) that doesn't hold my interest for more than about five minutes.

[gail]

Something that does kind of interest me is the point about the pope basing his positions on ethical issues on some kind of imaginary personal pipeline to God. That's really not how the system works. Papal decisions are the culmination of close to two thousand years of debate on the subject of what makes human life worth living. They depend as much on precedent as any Supreme Court decision and they rely on the magisterium (the accumulated reasoning from the past) as the SC relies on the constitution. That's one of the reasons that peripheral clutter like condoms end up becoming major issues -- approval/disapproval of them is based on the way they fit into the overall definition of human dignity not on their utilitarian function. I don't agree with the reasoning on condoms and I would attack it on the grounds that it does not fit into the ethical pattern, but I understand where it came from and why it's there, and your caricature of it is an ineffective argument because it doesn't strike at the basis of the belief, which is part of a massive ethical structure not a random, unconnected bit of "divine inspiration."

[gail]

You've got to remember that I'm a university rhetoric teacher and a long-time academic with a continuing interest in the evolution of ideas. I don't argue the same way that people do on the editorial pages or in the call in shows. It's like asking a chess player to take an interest in whack-a-mole. Not to say that I'm "better," but that I'm interested in thinking out each move in relation to the whole board and the trajectory of the game rather than the immediate gratification of each hit.