The Ousting of Spain's Moors

The Ousting of Spain’s Moriscos

The last Moorish kingdom in Spain was extinguished in 1492 when Granada fell to the Catholic monarchs. Thus ended an era of 7 centuries during which there was Moorish rule over most, or some, of Spain (an increasingly shrinking “some”).

That historical event coincided (not entirely a coincidence) with a marked increase in nationalistic Catholicism – Spain, or its ruling classes, held their country to be a triumphant Catholic nation, becoming the foremost power in Europe. 

Expressionism at the Royal Academy

I Don’t Know Much about Abstract Expressionism and I Don’t Know What I like

There are two related terms “Expressionism” and “Expressivism”. The former belongs to Art or Culture; the latter to philosophy.

Expressivism is a theory of ethics, or morality, that holds that our value judgments, for example, “lying is wrong”, do not, as the jargon has it, have “truth value”, in the manner of an empirical observation or a mathematical proof. There is no objective truth of the matter – only an expression of feeling. “Lying” bad grunt; “truth telling” (presumably scientific truth) good grunt. Or “Boo”; “Hooray”.

Don't follow the caterpillars in Spain

Don’t follow the caterpillars in Spain

Humans in general do not have a very happy relationship with creepy-crawlies. Most of us have a default assumption that creepy-crawlies are “nasty”, in the sense of probably in some way damaging to plants, fabrics, our structures, or our skin or worse.

There is something else as well. We can more or less anthropomorphise (and therefore think we understand) other forms of animal life, even dangerous predators (for example, sharks as psychopathic stalkers), but insects seem profoundly alien, especially those that do indeed do us harm.

Burglary in Spain

BURGLARY in SPAIN

“I have robbed”, I confessed to the bemused young Guardia Civil officer after I had found my way inside the rather imposing Guardia Civil barracks in Nerja (there is internet speculation that certain chips in the stonework date from the times of Civil War firing squads). My phrase book had correctly prompted me to say “me han robado”  (“they have [someone has] robbed me”), but in my somewhat panicky state it came out as “he robado”.