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Utopia In The Midst Of Oppression? A Reconsideration Of Guaraní/Jesuit Communities In Seventeenth And Eighteenth Century Paraguay, Thomas W. O'Brien
Utopia In The Midst Of Oppression? A Reconsideration Of Guaraní/Jesuit Communities In Seventeenth And Eighteenth Century Paraguay, Thomas W. O'Brien
Thomas W O'Brien
This essay is an examination of the 17th–18th century Guaraní/Jesuit communities in Paraguay, which were exalted as utopias by countless witnesses. These authors have stressed the long periods of peaceful coexistence, the rich and fruitful syncretistic melding cultures, the successful and bountiful economic life, and the relative justice. Nevertheless, controversy has always marked these communities because many believe that the Jesuit/Guaraní missions are best understood as integral to the larger oppressive imposition of European polity and culture. These authors stress evidence of condescending paternalism, structural inequality, restricted freedom of choice, and the erosion of a pristine Guaraní culture. This essay …
Options For The Poor In Twelfth And Thirteenth-Century Europe, Thomas W. O'Brien
Options For The Poor In Twelfth And Thirteenth-Century Europe, Thomas W. O'Brien
Thomas W O'Brien
This essay uses the lens of the "preferential option for the poor" to examine the unprecedented turn to poverty by religious movements in late twelfth and early thirteenth-century Western Europe. Three movements are selected from the many and various movements espousing poverty: the Humiliati, the Waldensians, and the Franciscans. The Humiliati developed a communal lifestyle that, in key ways, reflected the emerging urban working class. The Waldensians embraced a radical poverty that rejected all forms of property, but they were progressively marginalized from Catholicism and eventually became targets of the Inquisition. The Franciscans adopted a very similar sort of radical …