It’s been a nice snowy year, despite the recent spout of rain. Even better, we’ve also had blue bird skies. And not a moment too soon, either—because it was getting pretty Dark Age-y around here last fall, wasn’t it? What do I mean? Did you catch the big melodrama around the work of art featured in the paper? What a history lesson that was—and totally free of charge!
When the artist said he’d been inspired by Pythagoras “in a dream”—right in the CVN—I said to myself: “If our artists are dreaming about Pythagoras, it means they see we’re at the beginning of a new historical Renaissance—excellent news for the local economy!”
Then the following week someone wrote in and ‘demonized’ this Pythagorean artwork for us, too—in a very literal and eye-catching fashion. “Gosh!” I thought. “How timely!”
Pythagoras’s school? Which generated the arts and sciences our ideas are built out of in the west? Do you know what happened to the actual building? It was burned to the ground by a mob after local authorities blamed the Pythagoreans for their own economic malfeasance: “It was those vegetarians who exercise a lot!” they said. “They’re obviously cultists!” “Let’s go get ‘em before they turn their ‘math’ magic against us all!”
And true story: that’s why no one has heard of Croton, and everyone has heard of Athens. Oops! I guess scapegoating artists and scientists for your own corruption isn’t the best idea—historically speaking.
Chris Palmisano