From grimwulf@evansville.net Fri Oct  1 01:52:59 1999
Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8])
	by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id BAA50058
	for <classics@lists.u.washington.edu>; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 01:52:58 -0700
Received: from world.evansville.net (world.evansville.net [204.120.16.2])
	by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with SMTP id BAA15210
	for <classics@u.washington.edu>; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 01:52:58 -0700
Received: from evansville.net(pm07-s12-tier1.evansville.net[204.120.31.141]) (1991 bytes) by world.evansville.net
	via sendmail with P:esmtp/R:inet_hosts/T:smtp
	(sender: <grimwulf@evansville.net>) 
	id <m11WyQy-000ayHC@world.evansville.net>
	for <classics@u.washington.edu>; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 03:52:56 -0500 ()
	(Smail-3.2.0.98 1997-Oct-16 #9 built 1998-Nov-9)
Message-ID: <37F4752A.683FF5E4@evansville.net>
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 03:47:39 -0500
From: Stephen Huff <grimwulf@evansville.net>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: classics@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: deferential speech in classical Athens
References: <Pine.GSO.4.10.9909291210120.9892-100000@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

You will pardon my questioning the historical accuracy of 'riven' by social
inequalities.  At the turn of the last century Germany was the stablest
country in Europe.  Disraeli went to Germany to study its old age pension and
medical care systems with the idea of imitating them in England.  Bismarck had
imitated the cradle to grave system of Krupp in Germany as a whole, producing
social guarantees which made Germans so uninterested in revolution that
revolutionists in the rest of Europe made jokes about it.  Two or three of
these are mentioned in "The Soldier Kings, a History of the Hohenzollern
Family", one I recall was "Why don't Germans riot through the streets of
Berlin?"
"Because of the keep off the grass signs."

Germany still maintained the social inequalities of aristocracy/wealthy vs.
peasant and worker, but the condition of peasant and worker were far less
desperate than in other European countries at this time, and Germany was
hardly 'riven' by social inequalities.

Elias J Theodoracopoulos wrote:

> Many thanks for quoting Bruhn on E. Ba. 802. Unless native German speakers
> on the list persuade otherwise, RLH is right. Bruhn is ambiguous, but
> not ironic or snide. How would a member of the German
> professoriate at the turn of last century express social
> condescension, living in a society that was hardly less riven by social
> inequalities than contemporary England?

.