NationStates Jolt Archive

I am looking for actual historical examples where thinking (for oneself), and challenging prevailing authority/notions resulted in persecution.

Comments like "the Catholic Church". are not helpful. I need to know the Catholic Church and Joe Blow in year blah over blah. I want to be able to take the events you all share and search them on my own. I just need specifics to start from. I'd like to have a nice long list of stuff to reasearch.

I'm thinking the Tienamin Square incident (had to spell that one phonetically) might be one example. I don't care if the examples are ancient or recent. Some of both would be fab.

Please help.
Many appreciations in advance for your offerings.

Galileo vs. the Pope

what you mean like the Spanish Inqasition?

Socrates vs. Athens

socrates didnt he commite suicide? well horced suicide by taking hemlock? because he was Thinking alot?

Saddam as President of Iraq and freedom of politiacal thought.

The Lollards

Joan of Arc....

no wait, she was actually crazy...

Joe Stalin vs the World

I am looking for actual historical examples where thinking (for oneself), and challenging prevailing authority/notions resulted in persecution.

Comments like "the Catholic Church". are not helpful. I need to know the Catholic Church and Joe Blow in year blah over blah. I want to be able to take the events you all share and search them on my own. I just need specifics to start from. I'd like to have a nice long list of stuff to reasearch.

I'm thinking the Tienamin Square incident (had to spell that one phonetically) might be one example. I don't care if the examples are ancient or recent. Some of both would be fab.

Please help.
Many appreciations in advance for your offerings.

Is this for school work?

William Prynne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Prynne) vs The Crown

if where going into Puritans then what about the REFORMATION!

ok sorry bout that!

Christians vs Early Roman Empire infact Chritians vs. a Materialistic World

Is this for school work?

William Prynne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Prynne) vs The Crown


Oh... and don't forget Patrick Hamilton in 1528.

socrates didnt he commite suicide? well horced suicide by taking hemlock? because he was Thinking alot?
Yeah, officially for blasphemy - inventing his own gods, and corrupting the young men of the city, but really because he was making the big men of Athens look foolish by challenging the wisdom that they based their importance on.

Yeah, officially for blasphemy - inventing his own gods, and corrupting the young men of the city, but really because he was making the big men of Athens look foolish by challenging the wisdom that they based their importance on.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong

Giordano Bruno vs the Church.
Worker's Unions organizers back in the 19th Century vs Capitalist Stablishment.

The US college system v. Everyone. Now.

I am looking for actual historical examples where thinking (for oneself), and challenging prevailing authority/notions resulted in persecution.

Comments like "the Catholic Church". are not helpful. I need to know the Catholic Church and Joe Blow in year blah over blah. I want to be able to take the events you all share and search them on my own. I just need specifics to start from. I'd like to have a nice long list of stuff to reasearch.

I'm thinking the Tienamin Square incident (had to spell that one phonetically) might be one example. I don't care if the examples are ancient or recent. Some of both would be fab.

Please help.
Many appreciations in advance for your offerings.

You might do better to seek out times in history when challenging the prevailing authority didn't result in persecution.

That said, a few instances in American history:


The Massachusettes Bay Colony vs. Roger William and Anne Hutchinson
U.S. House of Representative adopts a gag rule in 1836 to prevent Congresspeople from discussing antislavery petitions
Socialist Eugene Debs was jailed for giving an anti-war speech that violated the Espionage Act of 1917 (he was sentenced to 20 yrs)
The Red Scare of 1919/1920
The McCarthy era witch hunts of the 1950s

The PATRIOT Act...

Oh... and don't forget Patrick Hamilton in 1528.

Hamilton didn't have his ears cropped so I couldn't remember his name.

Hamilton didn't have his ears cropped so I couldn't remember his name.

Yeah... he got off lucky, just burned at the stake.

Yeah... he got off lucky, just burned at the stake.

Lots of people did. More unusual things have a tendency to stick in my mind better.

Aung San Suu Kyi by the Myanmar's Military Junta (1989 onwards)

Chinese youth by China's Military Junta (Tiananmen Square, June 4th)

Martin Luther vs Roman Catholic church?

Martin Luther vs Roman Catholic church?
Well, to think about it, was he really all that persecuted? Atleast he came out of it without a scratch...

Andrei Sakharov vs. USSR, 1960s and 70s.

Gallileo, Bruno, and others vs. Catholic Church, Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Aung San Suu Kyi vs. Myanmar, 1989-

Anyone who isn't a Fundamentlist Christian vs. USA, coming soon.

Well, to think about it, was he really all that persecuted? Atleast he came out of it without a scratch...


He was excommunicated, and had to take refuge with a German Prince. Didn't his preaching also cause a war of some kind? I havn't really looked taht to much into it. I'm just going off the movie Martin Luther and the couple paragraphs we read about it in history 2 years ago. So I'm not positive about the war. But I know the first two are facts.

[QUOTE=Anarchic Conceptions]Is this for school work?

Yes, but not specifically my own (per se).

Because of the current educational agenda in my school district. That, to drill students so they can pass tests and the school can fulfill the expectations of "No Child Left Behind Act" rather than actually teach. Plus some other political nonsense, I have decided to homeschool my 7th grader through middle school.

I am very concerned that he be able to think for himself, even if that offends the status quo. I want to do some study of real world, real person examples so I am informed and to inspire him.

I am very pleased by the responses and am making a list to search later.
Please keep it coming.

The Salem Witch Trials
The Scopes Monkey Trial
The Cultural Revolution
The Red Scare
The Bush Administration promoting Intelligent Design

He was excommunicated, and had to take refuge with a German Prince. Didn't his preaching also cause a war of some kind? I havn't really looked taht to much into it. I'm just going off the movie Martin Luther and the couple paragraphs we read about it in history 2 years ago. So I'm not positive about the war. But I know the first two are facts.
Well you could say so, for there was something called 30 Years War that killed 1/2 or even 2/3 of the population of (what's nowadays) Germany ;)
This was, atleast officially, a battle between Catholic League and Protestants, =those who believed Luther but took place decades after Luther's death. In his lifetime there was mainly the massive peasant revolt all around Northern Germany in 1524, but Luther actually sided with the landlords and supported them against the poor proletariat who had "misunderstood" his idea. Personally, I think that was mainly because he was a greedy asshole and cared more about having rich and powerfull friends than standing behind what he had said, but that's just one opinion.

However, this has little to do with the actual question - was Luther personally bullied enough to justify the use of the word "persecution". Since no physical harm was done to him and he was able to live his whole life in safe and peace, I wouldn't really call Catholic counter propaganda and political operations as persecution of Luther.

Jan Hus.

http://www.blisty.cz/art/12632.html

http://www.hfac.uh.edu/gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/britannicaPages/Hus/Hus.html

http://www2.kenyon.edu/Projects/Margin/hus2.htm

The Church's adoption of Aristotle as the final arbiter of all things concerning the natural world (even when what he had written was patently wrong to even the most casual observer - such as in ballistics).

A more recent example: Wilhelm Reich vs. the FDA. Government backed book burning in the 1950's US? Who'd a thunk it?

antonio gramsci vs fascists

The Scopes Monkey Trial


The Scopes Monkey Trial?

Persecution?

The Scopes Monkey Trial was a media circus created by business leaders from the town of Dayton, Tennessee, who were convinced the high profile trial would be good for business and put their little 'burg on the map. The local mine owner who concocted the plan called his friend, John Scopes, who was a high school football coach, to substitute for a science class and teach a lesson on evolution.

Scopes was found guilty and sentenced to pay $100 (which his lawyer offered to pay, but which was overturned on a technicality).

Hardly ranks up there with Socrates drinking hemlock, does it?