Chap wrote:Without replying at the same length as your comments, I would simply like to recall my original point: the magnificent funerary monuments of ancient Egypt were constructed by the very poor many for the very rich few. If you want to argue the case that the poor many drew a degree of satisfaction from their labor proportionate to the effort it cost them, then you are free to argue that case. I don't think you have done that yet.
Until that is done, I think it remains the more plausible hypothesis that the poor many would probably have preferred to have been doing something else during most of the time they were made to spend constructing the monuments we admire today.
Again, total non sequitur. We learn nothing at all about whether Egyptians derived meaning from their funerary practices or other religious rituals based solely on the fact that it was a stratified society with concentrated wealth at the top. I am saying that the persistence, spread, and consistency over several centuries of religious practices and architecture suggests some lasting value of those practices and buildings for the people in that society. I don't see why that's such a controversial claim. You instead prefer to see it through some kind of Marxist lens, whereby the poor are forced against their will to commit the labor of their bodies to pointless building programs whose one purpose was to support the religious hobbies of a small clique. That is cartoonishly inaccurate, but I can't see from what you've written that your view is substantially different from that.
You seem to be clustering together temples and tombs with the pyramids of Giza. Tombs were not monumental on a significant scale except for Pharaohs, and there could be wide variety reflective of social status, down to simple graves. These last are often found as near as possible to the tombs of the elite, so that the deceased could share in the prosperity of the elite in the next world, which suggests that these poor people shared similar religious attitudes with those elites. And temple-complexes were not spaces reserved only for a tiny elite; indeed, the votive offerings by the non-elite found at these sites are the most valuable evidence for non-elite religion.
And in any case, laborers on monumental architecture were usually paid laborers anyway. The officials who oversaw the work were career bureaucrats who were highly educated and were paid accordingly. Many of the workers were highly skilled artisans, so I'm not sure what you think they would have rather been doing, especially because they were reasonably well-paid as well. Construction was often seasonal, and so then was much of the labor. As temporary workers in a pre-modern economy tied to the rhythms of the agricultural cycle, it is certainly possible that they would rather have been doing something else in the way that all of us would probably rather be doing something else most of the time anyway, but in practical terms I don't know what you imagine their options were, or what this imaginary clique of exploitative religious hobbyists could have done in practical terms that might have created more options for them. "Go home, we're sorry about this tomb stuff; turns out it's all pointless" would have perhaps been more accurate but less kind and certainly not socially beneficial, because it basically meant: "you're all fired; good luck feeding your families." These were public works, not private, and the fact that it was all done under the umbrella of religious ideology likely did give it some meaning to people, though obviously the range of attitudes could have been very wide indeed over such a great span of time. In the same way, people who work on Mormon temples believe they are doing something meaningful in their work beyond the money they are paid for that work, even if you don't think it is meaningful.
Chap wrote:There have been
accounts of mass voluntary labor on religious projects in more recent centuries. Perhaps there was sometimes reality behind these accounts. But as the linked source remarks "most of these events are known only from a single source, usually written by a member of the clergy from the relevant church. Several of these contemporary accounts are very similar in style and in details, which casts some doubt on their accuracy and also on the genuine spontaneity of these events, which may instead have been orchestrated by the local clergy."
I agree until the very last clause: what is the EVIDENCE that local clergy orchestrated these? The fact that a historical account is stereotyped can indicate all kinds of things, and a good historian would corroborate that claim with evidence rather than mere supposition, which is what the writer of this Wikipedia article does. But Jesus Christ, it's like you've never been Mormon (actually, you haven't, have you?). Even to take the cynical view, ideology removes the need to orchestrate; people perform of their own volition, and they often enjoy doing so.
My parents still cheerfully clean the church for free. To me it is not right that they are not paid for their work, but it is not an injustice to my parents or to countless other Mormons. I can decide that it is not right for me, but what arrogance it would be for me to deny that my parents derive meaning from their voluntary labor simply because I wouldn't. The fact that it was probably introduced by the church as a labor-saving measure is totally irrelevant to them. And the fact that the Church is a multi-billion dollar organization has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not a given Mormon derives any satisfaction from donating their labor to that organization.I can't very well demand that they respect my autonomy in deciding what is meaningful to me if I don't respect theirs.
"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."
—B. Redd McConkie
