Anthony Kaldellis: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yeah, I mean, sometimes the fights are extremely intense over things that I could see on the surface or, like, iconography. It’s like, it seems like a very subtle- … debate, like almost academic. And then a large number of people don’t see it as academic. They, they do see it like “the devil put ideas in your head that are—” … completely wrong, and it’s, it’s fascinating how that kind of division can emerge. I mean, the impossible question, and I apologize for asking it, but maybe just worthwhile to try to think about it is, on the grand scale of centuries of the East Roman Empire, is religion a constructive or a destructive force for the empire? Did it help it flourish, or did it hold it back? This society identified itself increasingly with what it saw as orthodoxy. Orthodoxy just means correct belief. I mean- … like every religion ultimately thinks it’s orthodox, right? That’s– But that’s the conventional name, right? Orthodoxy today might be called Greek Orthodoxy. And I mean, it’s such an essential part of the culture. It really is. I can’t think of the two of them inde… I mean, I try to because, as a historian, I have to test the models, you know, and try to see these things as independent of each other. But ultimately, it’s very difficult to disentangle them, and I would say that to the degree that this is a successful society historically, that its religion definitely contributed to that and played a role in it. Not without cost, right? It mattered to them. They valued it, but things that matter to you have a cost. And, and they, they paid that price. They were willing to pay that price for it. For example, at the very end, they had to choose between Catholicism, Western rule, where they essentially have to compromise on their faith, or rule by Muslims, the Turks, where they would not have to compromise their faith. And some of them were explicit that they were preferring option B, because the Turks will at least respect our identity. Like, that’s a cost. Yeah. But there’s other layers, like taxation and- … the, the, the functions of government- … that are connected to religion to the degree it interacts with the, the tax system. But it feels like that’s the engine of the society and, and religion is more like the cultural layer.…

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