Cardassian society - enforcement or preference?

[Sci]

They were was progressive as they could be in their own time. We are as limited by our sensibilities now as they were then. We all have limits to what we can imagine, even you, Sci. Will we be criticized by future historians for not making social leaps that we aren't facing now and can't even imagine?

I hope so!

The past is what it is, what happened happened, and we can learn from the past without faulting them for their limitations that they couldn't overcome or even see. They weren't telling lies to themselves. They were just limited in their understanding.

Of course they were telling lies to themselves. Men have always known the full humanity of the women they were oppressing; slavers have always known the full humanity of the people they held in bondage; the wealthy have always known the full humanity of those they kept in poverty. And all have feared their subjects' rebellions throughout history.

Saying you have rule by the people when you're only letting an elite actually rule? That's a lie you're telling yourself. And future societies should recognize that lie.

 

[Pavonis]

They were was progressive as they could be in their own time. We are as limited by our sensibilities now as they were then. We all have limits to what we can imagine, even you, Sci. Will we be criticized by future historians for not making social leaps that we aren't facing now and can't even imagine?

I hope so!

Oh, really? Even if future societies have ideals and mores that offend your merely 21st century sensibilities? Are you really that enlightened?

Of course they were telling lies to themselves. Men have always known the full humanity of the women they were oppressing; slavers have always known the full humanity of the people they held in bondage; the wealthy have always known the full humanity of those they kept in poverty. And all have feared their subjects' rebellions throughout history.

Saying you have rule by the people when you're only letting an elite actually rule? That's a lie you're telling yourself. And future societies should recognize that lie.

It's not a lie, as in a deliberate deceit, though. It's a limitation in their view. "All humans are equal" isn't an ancient dictum that all past societies were failing to live up to just because you think they were deliberately being elitist asshats; it's an idea that is far most recent and one past societies hadn't latched on to yet.

You may as well criticize the ancient Athenians for not being vegan as well as for not being ideal democrats.

 

[Dal Rassak]

As to one remark at the top of this page... in actual fact, one of the titles of the Roman head of state was imperator, "the one who commands", which is where English gets the word emperor from.

 

[Sci]

As to one remark at the top of this page... in actual fact, one of the titles of the Roman head of state was imperator, "the one who commands", which is where English gets the word emperor from.

We covered this.

And the word imperator was not a synonym for "emperor" in our understanding of the term:

In Roman Republican literature and epigraphy, an imperator was a magistrate with imperium (Rivero, 2006). But also, mainly in the later Roman Republic and during the late Republican civil wars, imperator was the honorifical title assumed by certain military commanders. After an especially great victory, an army's troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. After being acclaimed imperator, the victorious general had a right to use the title after his name until the time of his triumph, where he would relinquish the title as well as his imperium....

At first the term continued to be used in the Republican sense as a victory title but attached to the de facto monarch and head of state, rather than the actual military commander. The title followed the emperor's name along with the number of times he was acclaimed as such, for example IMP V ("imperator five times"). In time it became the title of the de facto monarch, pronounced upon (and synonymous with) their assumption.

So, the title of imperator referred to successful military commanders, not hereditary monarchs -- and the monarchy we now call the Roman Empire was not an official monarchy, but was a de facto monarchy legitimized by the accumulation of republican constitutional offices. (One might compare it to the same way the ruler of, say, North Korea legitimizes his status through the accumulation of numerous seemingly republican titles [such as General Secretary of the Workers' Party, Chairman of the National Defense Commission, Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army].) Imperator was merely one of the titles a de facto emperor would acquire.

Tl;dr: "Imperator" may be where "Emperor" comes from, but it did not itself mean "hereditary monarch."