EB is not Historical?

[fomalhaut]

it's just an action movie

ill follow what bobbin says on this having no place here, but i would like to just reply to this; that analysis is too simplistic to a fault. The general idea of the film is one versus many, but who the "one" are and who the "many" are change depending on the cultural time and place.

The perfect example is, well, the other rendition of the 300 Spartans; Rather than racial, this film, filmed during the Cold War, was political. This used the legend of the 300 as a metaphor between communism and the free market/democracy.

Not to sound facetious or condescending, but rarely is a work of media simple as you say.

[Duguntz]

@formalhaut

The movie is just meant as an action movie, it really surprises me how many people find messages in things like these. The message, as Leonidas in the movie states, is about the portrayal of few against many. Free people versus the oppressors. People who come to this movie want to see people kill each other. They want excitement and entertainment.

The average person who watched this gave NOTHING about the portrayal and representation about the various ethnicities from the vast empire. They want to see their stereotypical views battle each other. A Spartan is a white man with a beard, a Persian is a Persian (and some compare a Persian to an Arab in their view). Going on with stereotypes, calling the Athenians philosophers is not an assault on intellectualism it is simply stereotypical name-calling at what the place is known for. Which has been common and still is so until this day. Arabs have beards, French are snail and baguette eating Beret wearing moustachemen. Russians are drunk on vodka. I certainly don't try to offend people, it is just an example of raw stereotypes worldwide.

We have to make a second Godwin law by the way. Every discussion about historical correctness will spin down into a debate how bad 300 portrayed ancient persia.

~Fluvius

Fluvius, i can't say how AGREE am i with you! it is ridiculous. it's the same in books, in movies. people tend to analyse them so deeply that they find second layer even third layer to the dialog and analyses "subliminious messages" so deep that the author himself didn't even tought about them :))))) And then the public "decide" what the author (or realisator) wanted to say! without even asking themself if maybe the realisator did put uberpowerful men just for the sake of... having awesome spartans, as the legend tell. Now. the spartans are white people (oh no... again an american propaganda because they're white actors) not to offence anyone, they probably should have depicted the spartans as african-american, and the persians aswhites.

one other subject : ASTERIX... A big serie about racism against the whole italian race... how about finding other secret meanings in those cartoon too? :)))

[Arjos]

Yeah amazing how the mind can rationalize so many things...
Take art tought in schools, is almost turned into a mathematical equation...

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well that is only right. You can't understand classical art without appreciating Mathematics.

[Arjos]

That's right, but it doesn't end there with metric and such...
I meant is not like you can take A and B, and everyone makes a wonder...

[antisocialmunky]

Cool, he has a pulse :)

Hey, don't worry about stupid questions or anything. The EB guys are very nice. Its just strange to see such strange questions in a first post especially when there are 2-3 Over/Underhand threads floating around currently.

Well, I suppose we haven't filled our LS thread of the month quota for a while so its nice to have a not-a-troll one when we do get a LS thread.

[fomalhaut]

hopefully until then, you stay with the community!
i like to be able to discuss these topics with other enthusiasts, the only others i could hope to do so would be my classics and humanities professors.

question; have any of you shown EB to historians or enthusiasts? what did they say? were they happy to see the most accurate depiction of ancient political, economic and military conditions of the classical era yet seen in entertainment media?

or to members of the team, did the super experts brought from the outside for specific input happy to hear what your project was?

[vartan]

Whether or not the thread initiator is a so-called "troll," what I find isn't talked about (much at all) on the EB sub-forum is the simple and wide-spread xenophobia (for lack of a better term) of the greater EB forum community, the virtual lack of patience amongst the users for those not well-acquainted with EB and all things related. This phobia isn't universal but it is very real and it is very contagious (again, for lack of a better term) because it has become hegemonic in its hold over well-rooted members of this community. Some self-reflection is in order; I'm sure the Org has no need for negative trends.

[Duguntz]

Well that is only right. You can't understand classical art without appreciating Mathematics.

I'm an opera signer and an actor, I write loads of poetry, some even selling... and I hate mathematics ;-) Golden number... it's only a number after all, no matter how many building, painting and poetry have been created following it's property. Art is evolutive and we must unlearn, transfore in order to appreciate it's "almost" infinite extent. I say almost, because as a lover of classical art, i say all must have limits

[Moros]

Opera singer? Well than you must known that music is pure maths as well. Even pythargoras knew that already. Well maths and theft that is.

[Arjos]

To me everything is math in its form...
I don't know if I managed to explain what I meant...

[Duguntz]

Opera singer? Well than you must known that music is pure maths as well. Even pythargoras knew that already. Well maths and theft that is.

we can see you're no signer! somebody taking music as pure mathematic can be right, but not artistic! The Intentions come first hand. An example of pure mathematics in music would be modern music. Now THAT'S only maths. With the comming of dodecaphonism, serialism. the music have been degradated don to simple mathematics, while it's much more than that. mozart for example. Everything seems ordinate, clean, very mathematic in fact. Well take a score, and analyse it, for the fun of it! Nothing's equal! inspiration drove him first, and natural gift of corse, but for one, he told himself no calculation was involved, in his own composition! Now, it would be funny that somebody TODAY came and argue what hi himself told about his own work! I named mozart because he's the most known, but there are many MANY more!

*By the "you're no signer" I ment no offence!*

[vartan]

Duguntz, no worries. The mathematization of many fields has been a topic of heated debate, and even today we see work done to fight what many deem to be nonsense. My philosopher friend is one of several folk I know writing papers arguing against the process. For the most part, mathematization was an early 20th cent. phenomenon, as I am aware. But like with all things, it takes longer to be debunked in public than in academia (gap can be upwards of half a century).

[Havok.]

oh my lord you don't know what you just started!!!! you just mentioned lorica segmentata as something in widespread use and contested that overhand spear thrusts were not used by hoplites, even calling them gay freaks!

and i think you have a misconception between the phalangites and the hoplite phalanx, one is a shield wall the other is a spear wall. the overhand/underhand spear thrust has been debated ad nauseum, with overhand always coming out on top. It's in my opinion that both were used whenever the tactical situation presented the needed for either/or but overhand was more dominant.

if you are going to even try and contest these assertions then you are going to need some sources, lots of them. i don't even think anyone from EB itself will come in here to assault you with writing and excerpts

Hahahahaha!
Blatterin' trollz aheaz!
:)

[antisocialmunky]

Opera singer? Well than you must known that music is pure maths as well. Even pythargoras knew that already. Well maths and theft that is.

That gives off the implication that music is easy to model when infact its incredibly complex. Just because you have some sort of descriptive model doesn't imply you have a good generative model. Its like saying archeology is just a bunch of digging or modding is just purely typing in some edu files.:p Well, I dunno if that was your intent but that's how it came across.

[Tellos Athenaios]

we can see you're no signer! somebody taking music as pure mathematic can be right, but not artistic! The Intentions come first hand. An example of pure mathematics in music would be modern music. Now THAT'S only maths. With the comming of dodecaphonism, serialism. the music have been degradated don to simple mathematics, while it's much more than that. mozart for example. Everything seems ordinate, clean, very mathematic in fact. Well take a score, and analyse it, for the fun of it! Nothing's equal! inspiration drove him first, and natural gift of corse, but for one, he told himself no calculation was involved, in his own composition! Now, it would be funny that somebody TODAY came and argue what hi himself told about his own work! I named mozart because he's the most known, but there are many MANY more!

*By the "you're no signer" I ment no offence!*

That is where the stealing and substance abuse come in. More seriously though, music in particular lends itself very well to study in terms of Mathematics and for much of Western history that is more or less how music was studied (Pythagoras being merely a particular famous example).

Anyway for a bit of OT fun: http://pierement.zoo.cs.uu.nl/muugle/

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

Whether or not the thread initiator is a so-called "troll," what I find isn't talked about (much at all) on the EB sub-forum is the simple and wide-spread xenophobia (for lack of a better term) of the greater EB forum community, the virtual lack of patience amongst the users for those not well-acquainted with EB and all things related. This phobia isn't universal but it is very real and it is very contagious (again, for lack of a better term) because it has become hegemonic in its hold over well-rooted members of this community. Some self-reflection is in order; I'm sure the Org has no need for negative trends.

I don't really have anything to say other than: I agree.

[Mulceber]

Whether or not the thread initiator is a so-called "troll," what I find isn't talked about (much at all) on the EB sub-forum is the simple and wide-spread xenophobia (for lack of a better term) of the greater EB forum community, the virtual lack of patience amongst the users for those not well-acquainted with EB and all things related. This phobia isn't universal but it is very real and it is very contagious (again, for lack of a better term) because it has become hegemonic in its hold over well-rooted members of this community. Some self-reflection is in order; I'm sure the Org has no need for negative trends.

I can agree with that, although I think in some cases the hostility isn't because the new member isn't familiar with EB, but because they frequently try to dictate history and find fault with EB based on what they heard in a high school history class or read on the internet. Also, the presumption of coming in as a complete novice and trying to tell the community that they're wrong is kind of insulting. If they're going to critique EB, they should at least do some reading - both on the EB forum to try to understand the rationale of the changes, and in libraries to make sure they have their facts straight. -M

[fomalhaut]

exactly, it's just not o.k. to make such contentions claiming a piece of historical work is 'not historical' based on the evidence of nothing. i doubt there is some EB-phobia or something, its just some basic etiquette is assumed.

I don't put EB on a pedestal but i respect it dearly, and if i were to ever come across reading that contradicted something in EB, i would make a discussion thread based on the reading, a link or at least citing the source if its printed, and have a discussion. Not "I RED DIS IN A BUK AND UR RONG"

[bobbin]

Can we just drop it now please? Or I'm going to lock the thread.