I second Inez on both counts; thank you for explaining that, most interesting; and agreeing that rote learning is an awful expensive way to make a computer out of a perfectly fine mind.
{Or, if one does have a lecture, hold a discussion period after. Because _that's_ when the learning's done.}
In re theories of national character (and note this becomes rather essay like, and more assertion than description...and may be too political for some, so be warned.)
It was at one time the fad (and still is, for some) to speak of nations as having character, as people do; and to speak of nations, cultures, civilizations, as following cycles, of vibrant youth and decadent and fading later years, pushed aside by a more vigorous upstart.
This also usually went hand in hand with racism, social darwinism, and other such tripe*.
*Well, perhaps tripe is too harsh for the theory of cyclical civilizations, but I see that--or at least, that idea applied on an _individual_ level ("The Turk", "The Spaniard")--in about the same light as the others.
Place in the sun refers more specifically to Imperial Germany, who deserved, in the Kaiser's words, "her place in the sun"*--and thus generally, the idea of a vibrant new empire displacing (an) old and failing one(s).
*colonies, basically, as that was the Coinage of Empire.
But as I implied earlier, I am firmly of the materialist school of history (well, mostly...), and thus my view is necessarily thereby influenced.
My basic (and more germane) point was that--whether one believed that Spain was weakening in comparison because of her* decadency and aging or its* mismanagement and dwindling resources, is immaterial; it is sufficient that the /outcome/ was that weakening, and we need not delve into the reasons to make our system.
*Interestingly the personification of nations, of imbuing nations with personal characteristics, I think most profoundly expressed itself in the use of personal _pronouns_ for nations; either female in that case, or male in the case of "The Turk" or "The Spaniard" etc.; but nations is perhaps the wrong word because while now we make more distinction between nation and culture (the former may overlap the latter or vice versa), culture and nationhood were, in the minds of those who imbued both with said anthropomorphism, much more closely interlinked. And expressed in such disparate yet similar ways as Bismarck's Kulturkampf--And CCC and Inez I hope you will correct me if I screw up the name or the reference, or both--and US Progressives' efforts in standardized education (and the Pledge of Allegiance).
The idea that a nation could not be great if its people were not united in thought, the nation as one giant person, dies a hard death.
{Ah, and what was I saying about lectures? Well, lectures and discussion, though for that we should probably mosey on over to the OT forum... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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