SCULPTURE AND MOMMY'S PROFESSOR'S LITTLE TALKING DOLLS | 2007-03-08
Anti-Catholicism in the nineteenth century was called "The Anti-Semitism of the Intellectuals." Just as people back then traded insults about Jews in public, all academics had Catholicism as fair game. Like the Jews, the Church asked for it. If you actually look at what the doctrine was back then you can see why. The Curia STLL hasn't cleared Galileo!
The mistake was not that the Catholic Church, like Jews, had a nasty edge. The problem was that the "intellectuals" really believed THEY didn't. Even less did the "intellectuals" believe they had a SILLY edge.
So all college grads were expected to make fun of those "painted statues" in Catholic Churches. Real, intellectual Sculpture was the kind we see in the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument and so forth, gray and serious.
As it turns out, the reason that Catholics had those painted statues was because the Catholic Church actually went back to the time when REAL Classical statues were being made and THAT was how they looked. As we all know by now the Intellectuals were assuming that the statues they dug up, the ones with all the paint and marble worn off, were REAL classical statues, while Catholics were just being silly peasants.
It's a useful intellectual exercise in how someone who worships Mommy Professor can be laughable, but NEVER get laughed at. NOBODY -- except me -- laughs when he sees those "Classical" Monuments in DC.
When fashionable targets like the Catholic Church get laughed at for still not forgiving Galileo, they get laughed at. When Mommy Professor makes an obvious fool of himself, everybody's acts like it didn't happen.