I was reading the other day about the slight controversy over the use of Common Era and Before Common Era for Anno Domini and Before Christ. I'm not really too bothered about keeping AD and BC, and generally I'm in favour of political correctness (or being nice anyway). But just removing the references to Christ while keeping the whole thing based on his birthdate and then calling it the common era seems worse than keeping it explicitly Christian. If, for whatever reasons, the dominance of the Christian calendar gets up your nose, then having it rebranded as the universal Common Era is even worse isn't it?
And so, after some thought I've decided that the date we should use as year zero is the date of the moon landing. I wasn't alive at the time but apparently the whole human race was united in thinking it was very cool. There might be rumblings that this was a victory for the American industrial military complex, but it was an undeniably big deal and furthermore a magnificent scientific achievement - no gods or prophets involved at all. So, there you have it - Happy Year 42.
It's a bit of a small number that perhaps doesn't do justice to humanity's many millennia of doing stuff but sadly the exact dates of a lot of our most significant achievements (the wheel, writing etc.) are lost in the mists of time.
That gives us a lot of pre-ML dates (that have to be counted backwards), which is going to confuse a lot of people. 42 though is of course a significant number...
ReplyDeleteAn excellent and creative proposal to which I shall be giving my full support - davyh (born 4BML).
ReplyDeleteSA - That's true, but then a lot of my favourite things are BC and I manage. It would have been good to come up with a really early one (like the foundation of Jericho for instance), but there's a lack of actual dates.
ReplyDeleteDavy - That's the spirit! And congratulations on TGOE's anniversary. I bet you never thought back in 37 AML you'd still be blogging away five years later.
arf, no!
ReplyDeleteBut it would all be based on an untruth, as we all know that they never went to the moon. We can't have time frames based on imaginary events can we?
ReplyDeleteGod, I remember reading a very long article about all that in the Fortean Times years ago and then talking about it with a pal. Later on in the pub he brought it up and I, despite my protests that I'd just found it interesting, was saddled with the label of moon-landing-denier for ages.
ReplyDeleteThe debate over whether the landings even took place merely gives the idea a nice little talking point, like the whole business of Jesus not being born in AD1 (because of Herod dying in 4BC and some other things I think).
I couldn't not play you this! Probably the finest live band I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteVery appropriate John. I notice The Hives nicked their guitar-swirling move off of them.
ReplyDeleteAfter having witnessed both bands at close quarters many many times, I can report that The Hives half inched Speedo's moves, matching threads and guitar riffs wholesale. No bad thing, I suppose, as there's nothing new under the Sun. Or is there?
ReplyDeleteI think there's always something new, as well as all the recycled stuff. Sometimes (when I read about instruments that archaeologists have discovered) I wonder about the tunes that were played on them, and how we'll never know. But if we could travel back in time it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out that some really ancient tunes were still in circulation.
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