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This Wednesday night at the Manna Green Building we'll have the next installment of the Walk Thru History class. This week's topic: The Beard Tax and the History of Social Control.

Societies and governments have always had an interest in shaping the behavior of their citizens. The Roman Empire allowed cultural and religious diversity in the provinces, but required everyone to make sacrifices to the emperor to maintain some cultural cohesion. 15th century Spain instituted the Inquisition to force loyalty to the crown and eliminate the Jewish banking class that held much of the country's capital. One 19th century government taxed anyone with a beard to force cultural change. And in the United States today we use the tax code to create all kinds of carrots and sticks to encourage desirable and discourage undesirable behavior.

This Wednesday we'll talk about the history of individual freedom vs. the efforts of governments to create conformity throughout Western Civilization. We start in the Green Building at 7pm, usually wrap up the teaching around 8:30pm or so.

And just to wet your whistle, here's this tribute to George Orwell's 1984 (also author of Animal Farm, both of which I'll be mentioning Wednesday):