Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Worshipping the Worst

If you ever eat a "wild" edible plant, you can start to appreciate the effort undertaken by some ancient person to breed a domestic plant like peas or corn, or apples or cherries. It's pretty rare for such a person to be remembered. Johnny Appleseed is one case. (His life is remarkable and it's a snapshot of how people thought about the new United States at the time.)

It's not rare at all, on the other hand, for people to worship politicians, tyrants, and emperors who are almost always the bane of life on earth. When they are fondly remembered it's for vague, grandiose claims about what they did by sitting in a throne even though their subjects and vassals actually did it all. It's really pretty weird.

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