Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Dutch Golden Age

[The Lawspeaker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvY8dQQI13Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMzDGLROEWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMet9fwerF8

Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Dutch Golden Age"The world is my country, science my religion" - Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
Excerpt from Carl Sagan's legendary 'Cosmos' series.
Sagan discusses the period in Dutch history that is known as the "Dutch Golden Age" (roughly spanning the 17th century). During and after the war of independence ('the Eighty Years' War' (1568-1648)) against the Spanish empire, the Dutch Republic experienced its own Enlightenment which left a profound mark on modern civilization. Amongst the countless revolutionary Dutch inventions from this period are the microscope, telescope, the stock exchange, and the first publicly traded multinational corporation (Dutch East India Company). This period also produced some of the world's most famous painters like, e.g., Rembrandt and Vermeer.
Great books on the Dutch Republic are Jonathan Israel's 'The Dutch Republic' and 'Radical Enlightenment'. Simon Schama's 'The Embarrassment of Riches' is also a fantastic read.

[Selurong]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvY8dQQI13Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMzDGLROEWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMet9fwerF8

Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Dutch Golden Age"The world is my country, science my religion" - Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
Excerpt from Carl Sagan's legendary 'Cosmos' series.
Sagan discusses the period in Dutch history that is known as the "Dutch Golden Age" (roughly spanning the 17th century). During and after the war of independence ('the Eighty Years' War' (1568-1648)) against the Spanish empire, the Dutch Republic experienced its own Enlightenment which left a profound mark on modern civilization. Amongst the countless revolutionary Dutch inventions from this period are the microscope, telescope, the stock exchange, and the first publicly traded multinational corporation (Dutch East India Company). This period also produced some of the world's most famous painters like, e.g., Rembrandt and Vermeer.
Great books on the Dutch Republic are Jonathan Israel's 'The Dutch Republic' and 'Radical Enlightenment'. Simon Schama's 'The Embarrassment of Riches' is also a fantastic read.

Wow, the Dutch was an open society for most of it's time.

[The Lawspeaker]

Wow, the Dutch was an open society for most of it's time.

It depends. This is where pragmatism comes in and if something like Catholicism and other non-Calvinist Protestant religions (during the 17th century) or cannabis today are officially not allowed they will find certain "arrangements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedogen)"

They will find a construction in which the "offensive thing" can be harnessed and condoned. For instance: during the days of the Dutch Republic there was one official state church (the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Reformed_Church)) but article 13 of the Union of Utrecht (the de-facto constitution) outlawed religious persecutions and stated that everyone was entitled to the freedom of conscience. So what they did was this: publicly there was one church, privately everyone was free (within reason) to believe whatever he wanted so those who held different religions built hidden churches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuilkerk) and in this way the govermment could claim to be blind, dumb and stupid and being unaware of the "religious deviants" while the people could still have their own religious ideas. Much later on the Dutch created a system of voluntary political-denominational segregation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation) known as "verzuiling", where it was possible for each group to have their own institutions such as newspapers, radio stations, schools, clubs etc. This also made sure that the groups who disliked each other most (Protestants vs. Catholics and everyone vs. Socialists) could live with each other without turning each others' lives into a living hell. This system existed until the 1950s until it died of natural courses but even today some of the remains can be seen in f.i the broadcasting system.

The same applies to today's soft drug policy: owning over more than an X-amount will officially get you arrested and charged with breaking the law but if you want to smoke it privately then no other could be bothered. The "coffee shops" have been mandated by the government to sell an X-amount to customers and they pay taxes over it but where they get it ? No one "knows".

Prostitution was legalised in '01 and prostitutes have to pay income tax.