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Original poster

to think this country used to be bloody barbaric?

178 replies

MycatsaPirate · 21/10/2017 21:42

We have Gunpowder on tv at the moment and it's brutal!

Thank goodness we have evolved over the last several hundred years and no longer think public torture and murder is a good way of dealing with things.

I actually feel quite sick. The horrific ways they dreamt up to kill people are unbelievable.

OP posts:
squishysquirmy · 23/10/2017 12:05

Actually maybe we are all hypocrites?
The crowd on the program watched a woman get crushed to death and a young teenager get tortured to death for entertainment.
We also all watched a woman get crushed to death and a young teenager get tortured to death for entertainment.
We knew it wasn't real of course, but we still watched it for entertainment didn't we?
The crowd were watching it in real life, but as far as an individual member of the crowd was concerned it would have gone ahead whether they watched or not. So why not go along to see the spectacle?

samG76 · 23/10/2017 14:13

Johnsnow's wife. I don't think there were any Christians at the time, and it was definitely the Romans who did it.

JonSnowsWife · 23/10/2017 14:49

and it was definitely the Romans who did it.

On the orders of christians yes. Who did they shout for when PP gave them the choice?

JonSnowsWife · 23/10/2017 14:51

Anyway, what this all teaches us is that humankind has no bounds in its capacity for cruelty as well as compassion.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow. Exactly. Humans are capable of absolutely anything.

Bloodybridget · 23/10/2017 17:27

I'm pretty sure that at the time of Christ's death, there were no "Christians". The Christian church came into being over the years following that.

samG76 · 23/10/2017 17:32

Jonssnow'swife - have you heard of Vatican II? It seems to have passed you by. And given that the Gospels were meant for a Roman audience, they were scarcely going to blames the Romans for it.....

ThomasRichard · 23/10/2017 18:00

I watched some of it on iplayer last night but it was far too graphic for me to enjoy. I know it’s what actually happened but I don’t think showing people being tortured and/or executed in multiple horrendous ways was a good thing to do.

Lentilist · 23/10/2017 21:19

We are still bloody barbaric, and I am absolutely certain that our own descendants will look back on us in fifty years time in disgust at what we do to animals for absolutely no reason other than taste , convenience and habit. Watch Carnage by Simon Amstell for an insight into what I mean. Then watch Earthlings.

That point over, I agree with PPs about religion being the cause of so much suffering and death, and I can't wait for it to disappear. One thing I can't really understand is people willing to die in the name of it.

Finally, people saying all cultures/civilisations in the past were barbaric - do you not think there must have been some small islands somewhere that lived in peace and harmony with one another? I like to think so!

Carnage

CoolCarrie · 23/10/2017 21:33

William Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered, in the Spittilfields area of London. There is a plaque there in his memory. . His head was put on London Bridge and the quarters were sent all over the UK as a warning to others. Of course his murder was completely illegal as he didn't commit treason as the English king was not Scotland's king.
We got our own back with Bannockburn as anyone who has watched Braveheart knows!

phileas · 23/10/2017 21:35

I actually hated teaching the gunpowder plot to my year two class

BMW6 · 23/10/2017 21:36

Lurking
Face up or down? Hmm - I think I'd prefer face down, so I wouldn't see it drop. And the spinal cord would be cut that 1000000th of a second faster!
I couldn't give less of a damn whether one is for peasant and another for nobility - the end result is the same!

If you think it was just England that was barbaric back then, try reading about the Spanish Inquisition Wink

JonSnowsWife · 23/10/2017 21:37

I know it’s what actually happened but I don’t think showing people being tortured and/or executed in multiple horrendous ways was a good thing to do.

Why not? How else are they meant to accurately depict a historic event?

BMW6 · 23/10/2017 21:55

It absolutely should be shown - you cannot and should not sanitise history.
Should Schindlers List not show the true horror of the Final Solution?

kalinkafoxtrot45 · 23/10/2017 21:59

I also feel very uneasy about the whole current trend of showing graphic scenes of torture as entertainment. Even though it's acted and not real. It's a drama, not a documentary. I won't be watching, it's sickening.

JonSnowsWife · 23/10/2017 22:12

Even though it's acted and not real

But is was real.

Historical fiction (which is what you can say Gunpowder is) still needs to be somewhat accurate.

Be3Al2Si6O18 · 23/10/2017 22:25

The horrific ways they dreamt up to kill people are unbelievable

It still happens. The munitions of modern warfare can only be created with a sick mind in the background, designing, testing and manufacturing them.

A bullet is designed to kill when it exists the body. The vacuum it causes is strong enough to whip out internal organs and severe arteries leading to death. High explosive warheads melt against an object, instantly sending fragmented metal out to ricochet a hundred times around the internal walls of a vehicle or a room slicing the occupants into dozens of pieces. Some are hot inverted cones of metal, which under high pressure and heat, travel inwards as molten liquid piercing the sides of a vehicle to send a stream of white hot liquid to burn through the skin and organs of the occupants. Some munitions flash-fry the air, sucking the oxygen out of their lungs and from around their space. Buildings and computer equipment are left intact to be occupied and accessed.

There seems little different, on a closer analysis, between then and now.

We haven't even considered NBC weapons.

outabout · 23/10/2017 22:41

None of the great 'empires' got where they did by asking the conquered people nicely to hand over everything, it was all basically theft and brutality with the most hideous of actions being taken to terrify others into giving what was wanted.
Just glad I have no TV!
At one stage beheading by axe used to have the axeman 'paid' in beer, so it was best to be early in the day for a clean 'chop' as later on it might take a few attempts to get the right place.
The British 'domination' of India had many aspects to be ashamed of (apart from many other places).

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 23/10/2017 22:47

I wouldn't touch this with a barge pole !!! Did none of you suspect this given the grisly pot ?
Give me a nice disaster movie any day Smile

SchadenfreudePersonified · 23/10/2017 22:49

@Be3Al2Si6O18

You are right- and I think that modern warfare, where to a very large degree we don't see the horrors that are being inflicted on fragile flesh and blood - means that we get blasé about it. The old days were brutal, but they were person-to-person, weapons weren't long range and couldn't kill/maim many people at once.

Being removed from the killing makes it easier to carry out. If we saw even half of the carnage that war causes, I suspect that there would be an outcry against any conflict (in the western world at least).

As I've said before - if we put a fraction of the energy into helping people as we do into killing them, what a wonderful world we would live in.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 23/10/2017 22:50

Be is right too - humans reallly are horrible . No other creature is quite as cruel and as destructive as we are . And we will eventually end the world if we continue as we do been watching too many disaster movies

SchadenfreudePersonified · 23/10/2017 22:53

The British 'domination' of India had many aspects to be ashamed of (apart from many other places).

If you want to read about brutal domination, read "King Leopold's Ghost" about the Belgian occupation of the Congo. It haunts still.

BertieBotts · 23/10/2017 23:01

Torture has been proven to not actually work. Yet we still use it.

outabout · 23/10/2017 23:11

@Bertie
The actual torture may not extract the 'information' but it does a good job of subduing others to follow instructions/demands.
One of the frightening things is that with modern 'drone' warfare the killing is done from a nice air conditioned 'office' somewhere very safe by 'video gamers' but utilising horrific weapons anywhere on the planet.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 23/10/2017 23:23

Thanks for that lentilist

Watching now . I always enjoy new ways to spread the vegan message Smile

LurkingHusband · 24/10/2017 06:58

if we put a fraction of the energy into helping people as we do into killing them, what a wonderful world we would live in.

Eisenhower agreed ....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.