Backroom Errata

[Montmorency]

concupiscible
Concupiscible is a word meaning "worthy of being desired" or worthy of being lusted after. This archaic adjective can also refer to passionately desiring something. It does make one think of bodice rippers or possibly … literotica. Or, you know, of Channing Tatum with his shirt off in Magic Mike, which we would definitely describe as concupiscible.

https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/archa...#concupiscible

Good. One topic you probably have special familiarity with that others here would be interested in, but would find it challenging to navigate on their own, is how Ukrainian media is covering recent aspects of the country's relationship with America. If you have any comments we have a suitable thread for them.

As an historian approaching secondary sources I have found that the best was to approach ellipsis is to ask "what has been omitted and why?"

But you didn't do that, which shows the very process behind your supposition to be supposititious.

I said the way the source was quoted made it look suspect, then I quoted a professional review which suggested that the author has a tendency to make miss-representations in the book.

Unless you can support your reading from the review, you are the one guilty of misrepresentation here; the line you quote (without citation) gives no such implication. If it were the case that disagreement over academic conclusions eo ipso equated to misrepresentation by one party, scholarship across all fields of inquiry would hardly be possible.

If it's long either quote it in full or quote part of it and paraphrase.

Partial quotations are properly used if they materially represent the substance of the quote or highlighted meaning. No one holds that partial quotation is inherently misleading, but if someone did it would not be rational for them to apply such a standard knowing the prevalence of partial quotation. If one does not believe partial quotation is always misleading, one would have to make a case on the facts of a specific instance. You still have not.

I am not being absurd and accusing me of such is just an insult.

if one were even to follow your reasoning, it would refute itself as bare pretense. One could imagine finding a second review, a review in existence saying, "Gropman is widely considered in the field to be prone to dishonestly presenting sources to the opposite of their meaning." But one could not point to such a review to justify their initial characterization of the quote as misleading if it came to their attention after they had attacked the quote - that would be ex ante reasoning, a sharpshooter fallacy.

Malpractice warrants condemnation. You cannot be ignorant of the implications of falsely and maliciously accusing a historian of dishonest historiography.

Sometimes a critique of poor historiography is just a critique of poor historiography.

If you were more self-aware you would reflect on how this line redounds to you.

That was always going to ellit and obtuse response.

How could I take this as anything other than an admission that you have been purposely obtuse with (i.e. trolling) me?


I went to the trouble of getting access to the original work, The Air Force Integrates 1949-1964. The relevant section is "The Freeman Field Mutiny." The unit (477th Bombardment Group) in question had since its formation seen conflict between segregationist white officers - including the commanders - and black officers. The black officers were denied access to the white officers' club (barred under penalty of arrest). This was a widespread policy under First Air Force Commander General Frank Hunter, and a colonel under his command had been reprimanded in 1943 by the Chief of Air Staff in Washington when black officers put segregation to the test (they didn't even have a colored club) and were arrested. The surprisingly perspicacious military regulations prohibited racial segregation of officers' facilities, on the account that

...the idea of racial segregation is disliked by almost all Negroes and downright hated by most. White people and Negro . . . fail to have a common understanding of the meaning of segregation . . . . The protesting Negro . . . knows from experience that separate facilities are rarely equal, and that too often racial segregation rests on a belief in racial inferiority.

But Hunter didn't take this too seriously, protesting that "The doctrine of social equality cannot be forced on a spirited young pilot preparing for combat." Also in 1943 under Hunter, Colonel William Colman shot his black chauffeur because he didn't want a black chauffeur and was given a light punishment.

Low unit readiness, refusal to promote any blacks over whites (one calculated loophole was to designate all blacks as trainees and only whites as supervisors), and the officers' club issue led to open insubordination when the unit was transferred to inadequate basing (movement back and forth between Godman and Freeman Fields) and the whites tried to formalize segregation of officers. In summary, in April 1945 the blacks forced their way into the white club en masse; 61 were arrested, 3 later court-martialed. On following days even more officers attempted mass entry and were arrested. The incident gained national notoriety in Congress and the press. Within days the commanders attempted to force all officers to sign consent to segregated facilities. All whites signed, but some blacks refused. These were arrested, leading to the renewed insubordination of almost all black officers, with a resultant closing of of the white club as they tried to gain ingress.

How this story ends is not the issue and can be studied to independent satisfaction. Here is the place to reemphasize the total lack of cause to suspect any manipulation of primary material on the author's part to insert racist sentiment. Indeed, below is the full excerpt around the prompting screenshot, which is sourced to a "Rpt. of Racial Situation" on Freeman Field with scope of the few weeks before the mutiny:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Some whites made "disgruntled remarks" in the presence of
blacks, but all those put in the report had been made at the
white officers' club. They included, for example, the following
remarks:

c. "If one of them makes a crack at my wife, laughs or whistles
at-her, like I saw them do to some white girls downtown,
so help me, I'll kill him."

d. "I killed two of them in my home town, and it wouldn't
bother me to do it again."

e. "I went to the show on this base my first and last time
because I'm afraid I'll get into trouble some night when
they start making remarks about the white actors and actresses:
besides that, the smell in the show is terrible."

h. "Their club is better than ours. Why don't they stay in
their place."

i. "That isn't just what they are looking for. What they
want to do is stand at the same bar with you, and be able to
talk with your wife. They are insisting on equality . . . . "75

That is, the source material listed what it described as "disgruntled remarks" from white officers, prompted by Negro agitation for desegregated facilities. Gropman quotes these remarks - not idly or coincidentally assembled - from the report. For quote (i) to have been deceptively included one would have to believe that an officer signaled approval of blacks talking to his wife as equals, and that this was included in a list of negative racial remarks from other white officers. If one does not believe this, then there is no way in which the quote could have been materially misrepresented. To have advanced on nothing but sentiment any notion that this remark must have instead been supportive of the desegregationist aim the white officer class from Hunter down had long been unified in suppressing among blacks, is indefensible. In the worst case, you did not identify any conceivable misrepresentation but chose to level a spurious character assault regardless. To continue in this vein would be repugnant for any so-called scholar, a confirmation of bad faith. Complaints of mistreatment at my hands would hold little weight in that light, and would be deserving of more than disgruntled remarks.

Indeed, it is possible - but I can't remember the last time you actually argued against my point directly. Remember the time you spent pages accusing me of being transphobic just because I said I could appreciate why some fathers are more worried about their daughters safety than being socially inclusive to complete strangers? Remember how you you interpreted my critique of Beskar's appeal to gender-fluidity as transphobic when my point was actually that trans people are rarely gender-fluid and are often actually very much gender-conforming, just not their physical gender?

I remember that your statements entailed rather more than that, which I delineated carefully, and I never accused you of transphobia. You are rewriting the terms of a discussion after the fact.

Your combative style means you attack the other person on what you percieve their platform to be, rather than trying to understand that platform.

I see a reflexive refusal on your part to grapple with flaws in your positions as they have been stated.

So you expect others to raise certain arguments for you so that you can respond to them? See above about attacking percieved targets. I'm not you, I don't understand you, I don't know what you want.

If you want to discuss something raise it, if nobody argues against it then it may just be because we all agree with you and aren't interested in debating it.

It shouldn't be difficult to grasp. For example, if I post about a proposed policy, I will privately consider pros and cons, and open questions, as well as potential challenges to both the pros and cons from various perspectives. I may or may not post about some of these, which in full would look like a rather dense and meandering wall of text. I would however be prepared to discuss these points should someone else present an opportunity. Insofar as there is any response it almost never works out that way here, so I should probably leave well enough alone.

The question is malformed, because as I said Anglo-Saxon society doesn't work like that.

It is a mere logical necessity of hierarchy.If you are thinking through any attachments you have to Anglo-Saxon culture, step back. Some propositions:

A. Churls are lower in status than thanes.
B. Slaves are lower in status than churls.
C. Churls and above are free.
D. Slaves are not free.
E. Churls are the lowest-status men who are free.

A churl is simply anyone not a noble or a slave,

What is a whole number between 1 and 3? There is only one whole number between 1 and 3.

3. Suggesting it's generous to condescend to use consistent orthography is just another insult. Talk about not being able to back down.

I bet you and all your colleagues routinely use "king" instead of "cyning" alongside Old English words, because king is a generic term with the same meaning.

Right, and there's no evidence for this - it's a 19th Century invention.

What's the evidence against this? I have presented evidence for, and common sense agrees.

The ONLY thing all churls have in common is being free and not being noble and some of them DO NOT directly work the land. Do you not see how different that is to later Norman society, and how it is different to the plight of the modern American wage-slave?

This account on its terms alone maps pretty well to the broad middle class today, which ranges from garbage collectors to oncologists. Why do you reject my defense of the weak analogy and inadvertently argue for the strong?

Let's put this another way - you are a churl - but so is Warren Buffet.

Is Warren Buffet economically constrained?

In fact, the more appropriate interpretation of the churl with regards to modern American society (so much as it is applicable) is that all Americans are churls because all Americans are equal before the law. What you are trying to do is to compare wealthy Americans today to a legally distinct class that existed over a thousand year ago.

You're abusing language. Literal formal peerage is not what's relevant.

The insight into modern society is banal, the connection to Anglo-Saxon society is misconstrued. I simply pointed this out and now we're having a big fight about how I'm a bad historian?

You just like picking fights.

As I said, I didn't post that for its insight - countless others, including Obama, have made it in more or less detail - but because I thought you would like it.

Right now this is two separate "fights." If you're a bad historian it's not because of obtuseness over the content of the churl analogy.

I don't believe you, on either point. We've spent weeks litigating it and you seem unrepentant.

Yes, I'm saying I won't bother litigating your perception of me going forward. How much appetite I have to continue any other dispute is still indeterminate.

I just clicked the link and realised it was more screed, and you'd already accused me of supporting racism on my birthday. Yet, great present, more work.

What? It's a link to a White House press release. I didn't accuse you of supporting racism.

No, I get it. You don't get the point I'm trying to make - so your supposedly "good argument" doesn't address itself to my thesis. So you've demonstrated that you either don't understand my argument or you want me to make a different one.

Yes, I was saying your pedantry was misplaced and sketched a better attempt.

Like I said, if you don't like my contributions or value them (and you never do) why do you keep soliciting them?

Sometimes I have (I don't know how valuable 'America be craycray' is, but I'll take it). It's been a rough spot lately.

I gave you may opinion in my fist most - banal point - completely misunderstands Anglo-Saxon society and here we are days later and you're trying to argue against my interpretation of the historiography making points that are directly contradicted by the sources you quote.

I've covered this.

You're still tangling up wealth, power, and class in a totally anachronistic way. The medieval King has wealth and power because of his class, his social status, he doesn't get that status because of his wealth and power.. You really need to accept what I'm telling you when I tell you that America doesn't really have an "Upper Class" as it is traditionally understood, otherwise you're going to keep making these anachronistic comparisons.

Trump is a churl.

By anachronistically insisting that archaic class distinctions and modern class distinctions would have to map to each other one to one to be compared at all you make the error you accuse me of.

I meant "oppressed and immiserated". If I wrote that and sent it to my supervisor I'd get it back with the last word triple underlined and the word "miserable" above it with multiple question marks.

Some of the sources I quoted use the word immiserated, and it's hardly an unfamiliar word. El gustando no disputando.

You've quoted sources that demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the most basic concepts we are discussing - you continue to hold to an American concept of class as being wealth-derived.

Are you saying the sources are wrong about something, or that I've misunderstood them? To clarify, I never said Anglo-Saxon class was based on wealth. Modern class is largely wealth-based.

The fact is you're making a rear-guard action over a point that's clearly no longer accepted - i.e. that churls were the "lower class" of Anglo-Saxon society when in reality they were not, some of them had not only legal but actual rights and privileges in Anglo-Saxon society, some did not. Some were economically constrained (geburs) but many were not. Despite which they constituted a single legal class in society.

The best I can give you is that you're opposing an equivocation of status and class that no one fouled over. To say that someone is lower-status is not to imply that they have no rights or resources. If there were a world in which the worst-off lived like kings as we know them, it would still be correct to call them lower or lowest-status.

This is not quite the case in Europe, although the aristocracy have become less and less powerful over the last five decades in particular.

I've linked in this very thread how the majority of wealth in American and European countries is inherited. There is more to aristocracy than a certain title.

I certainly wasn't nice to you yesterday, but then again you insinuated I was racist just because I critiqued a source on racism in the American Air Force, and it was my birthday.

I didn't, but if you're frequently in the position of thinking I'm insinuating bigotry on your part, well - guilty conscience perhaps?

Why don't you just avoid phrases like "deserve ridicule", especially when I've quoted a review of said book which indicates far more serious forms of misrepresentation in the work. Also, do you actually think I'm being ridiculous, if so why do you bother?

I won't bother. You've lost credibility.

Have you considered just asking for clarification?

I do that frequently, and then you complain I'm accusing you of something.

Also - have you considered that you hold beliefs that I consider patently ridiculous? Like the belief that it's possible to differentiate between right and wrong without appeal to any higher power? I could give you a long, well sourced, argument on how a conceptual "higher power" is necessary to be able to define something as "right" or "wrong" and the difference between the objectively right and human perception which is only "subjectively right". Such an argument would, however, be utterly pointless between us because you would reject it on unprovable first principles - you would first dispute my definition of "right" and then you would argue that there is no discernible "higher power" and therefore I must be wrong.

Whatever the case, your argument would be not even wrong.

The only reason to have such a discussion would be to try to better understand each other's positions but given you have indicated you have no interest in exploring philosophical beliefs you reject. So - utterly pointless.

I have interest, but you're not that person.

[Greyblades]

I simultaniously want you to both shut up and not stop, its getting confusing.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You're abusing language. Literal formal peerage is not what's relevant.

This, right here, is you not listening. You accuse me of abusing language, and yet you insist that churl is the only "whole number" between slaves and nobles.

Clearly, as your own sources indicate, the Geburs were a legally-defined sub-class among the Churls present in Wessex (but not in all regions) and they were the ones directly butting up against slaves.

Now, you've done everything up to and including character assassination just to try to prove that your initial point against me was correct, despite which you claim that the historiography doesn't matter, which gives you a double out.

So what was the point?

I think this is really about your defence of the thesis that the wealthy in modern America form an aristocratic class, I'd argue that they don't because as a class they aren't cohesive. Yes, the wealthy in America often inherit their wealth, but then so did churls. The fact is for every Donald Trump you also have a Michael Bloomberg.

The difference is, with a real aristocracy if you take away all their money, it doesn't matter. This has remained true in the UK to the extent that up until 1997 every titled aristocrat in the UK automatically got a seat in the legislature, regardless of wealth. This was also true in many other countries at the start of the 20th Century.

Wealthy Americans wish they had that, and they wish they had the social access that real aristocrats have world-wide. This is the crucial difference, and this is why any critique of modern American society based on a comparison to medieval class structures is inherently faulty and needs to be challenged.

[Montmorency]

This, right here, is you not listening. You accuse me of abusing language, and yet you insist that churl is the only "whole number" between slaves and nobles.

I insisted that there is only one whole number between 1 and 3: that number is 2. There is nothing precious about an ability to convince yourself otherwise.

Clearly, as your own sources indicate, the Geburs were a legally-defined sub-class among the Churls present in Wessex (but not in all regions) and they were the ones directly butting up against slaves.

Beside the point, but to be accurate none of the sources I quoted describes a legal definition of "gebur". Building Anglo-Saxon England speculates that the group known as geburs in Wessex possibly arose out of freed slaves (as opposed to free men sinking into subjection).

Now, you've done everything up to and including character assassination just to try to prove that your initial point against me was correct, despite which you claim that the historiography doesn't matter, which gives you a double out.

The historiography reinforces the intermediate status of churls between slaves and nobility, which you don't contest. I don't know of what character assassination you speak with regard to churls, but since you engaged in character assassination to troll me I can't respect this whinging.

I think this is really about your defence of the thesis that the wealthy in modern America form an aristocratic class,

It has nothing to do about whether the wealthy form an "aristocratic" class. The analogy is valid whether or not that word applies. You have been hung up on the historical definitions of classes (e.g. stratified legal standing vs. theoretical equality under the law) rather than observing the cross-sectional relationship in practice, which latter is the point.

I'd argue that they don't because as a class they aren't cohesive.

What does it mean for a class to be cohesive?

The fact is for every Donald Trump you also have a Michael Bloomberg.

If by this you mean that most super-wealthy individuals were not born into wealth, you are correct - especially as concerns people outside the US or Europe. But the growth opportunities of the globalizing age have always been vanishingly few and predicated on criminality and political access at that level, and the good times have given way to secular stagnation. Below the masters, the petite bourgeois are much better at staying affluent or getting more so than those below are at breaking into their ranks.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But this has always been so. Most wealth is inherited, and what is inherited is mostly passed between the upper ramparts of society. in America this is especially a foundational racial problem, where as we see black families pass on almost no accumulated wealth whatsoever, even compared to middle class whites.

The difference is, with a real aristocracy if you take away all their money, it doesn't matter. This has remained true in the UK to the extent that up until 1997 every titled aristocrat in the UK automatically got a seat in the legislature, regardless of wealth. This was also true in many other countries at the start of the 20th Century.

Wealthy Americans wish they had that, and they wish they had the social access that real aristocrats have world-wide. This is the crucial difference, and this is why any critique of modern American society based on a comparison to medieval class structures is inherently faulty and needs to be challenged.

You are making two mistakes:

First, modern oligarchs and plutocrats, and their families, do have special access despite a lack of formally-specified status. This is still called privilege.

Second, even if the above were not the case it would not be relevant to instigating analogy, which is explicitly about the substantive inherent capacities of common people, and implicitly of their relationship to the ruling classes.

Again, this is the point. Your contrarian posture here is as misguided as if you said we cannot refer to modern military servicepeople as soldiers because they do not form in blocks or carry spears.

[Viking]

A long-delayed reply for @Montmorency.

I wonder if the variation in faces trends greater the larger in population the ethnic group

I would say necessarily. The larger the population, the stronger the evolutionary pressure needs to be to enforce homogeneity for a given trait. As far as human faces go, that sounds most relevant for sexual selection, and I am not sure it would be up to the task.

Size in numbers also correlates with size in area, so you can have founder effects and other phenomena that push for the branching off of new, distinct ethnic groups.

It didn't jump out at you that he is a Korean-American who basically became a Mexican-American (chicano)? Hence opening a Mexican restaurant.

Adoptees that are adequately young tend to adopt the culture they are adopted into. He would have a much easier time passing as a Mexican than a European where he grew up, so it's not the most surprising cultural identity he adopted.

I get the impression that he has a bit of a conservative personality (cf. the Action facet of the Openness to experience dimension in the NEO PI-R model); he does not seem very interested in trying out new things in general. He was set in his ways before he got to Korea.

If he had ended up in Mexico instead, I don't think he would be very interested in exploring aspects of Mexican culture that he does not already have some familiarity with, because that's how his personality works.

[Montmorency]

I would say necessarily. The larger the population, the stronger the evolutionary pressure needs to be to enforce homogeneity for a given trait. As far as human faces go, that sounds most relevant for sexual selection, and I am not sure it would be up to the task.

Size in numbers also correlates with size in area, so you can have founder effects and other phenomena that push for the branching off of new, distinct ethnic groups.

Pretty much all ethnic groups grow by outright absorbing/assimilating disparate ethnic groups as well as by intragroup sexual reproduction. But there's two ways to interpret what I said about facial variation, first in terms of variability in particular measurements within a group (e.g. interocular distance, ear height), second in terms of how the population can be divided into something like facial archetypes. These are obviously not unrelated but I would guess the former has prompted more research.

Adoptees that are adequately young tend to adopt the culture they are adopted into. He would have a much easier time passing as a Mexican than a European where he grew up, so it's not the most surprising cultural identity he adopted.

He mentioned that kids at school or in the gang identified him as Asian, so there's more to it than a scale of appearance (particularly as perceived from without).

I get the impression that he has a bit of a conservative personality (cf. the Action facet of the Openness to experience dimension in the NEO PI-R model); he does not seem very interested in trying out new things in general. He was set in his ways before he got to Korea.

If he had ended up in Mexico instead, I don't think he would be very interested in exploring aspects of Mexican culture that he does not already have some familiarity with, because that's how his personality works.

I don't know how to evaluate your impression of his personality. I would say he comes across as insecure or defensive (stemming from trauma), but that's not the same as what you're describing.

[Viking]

Pretty much all ethnic groups grow by outright absorbing/assimilating disparate ethnic groups as well as by intragroup sexual reproduction. But there's two ways to interpret what I said about facial variation, first in terms of variability in particular measurements within a group (e.g. interocular distance, ear height), second in terms of how the population can be divided into something like facial archetypes. These are obviously not unrelated but I would guess the former has prompted more research.

I don't recall hearing about facial archetypes in a scientific context like this. Skull shapes, on the other hand..

By the way, I generally wouldn't take large-scale assimilation for granted. Newcomers or expanding groups could displace or outcompete existing groups. It would be interesting to find out how common the different scenarios have been throughout history.

He mentioned that kids at school or in the gang identified him as Asian, so there's more to it than a scale of appearance (particularly as perceived from without).

If there were no social groups for "bad" (his word) Asian kids, then it is not difficult to see his choice as the second-best option.

I don't know how to evaluate your impression of his personality. I would say he comes across as insecure or defensive (stemming from trauma), but that's not the same as what you're describing.

The scientific underpinnings of the five-factor model (which NEO PI-R is based on) I haven't read much about, but I have listened to tens of episodes of a podcast where celebrities have their personalities broken down according to the 30 facets of the NEO PI-R (with both hosts and guests taking the endeavour seriously). From these episodes, for any of the 30 facets, it seems clear to me that the two extreme ends of a facet describe very different people.

For the facet in question, based on the episodes of this podcast, I would informally describe the people that score the lowest on "openness to actions" this way: when they book a holiday, they book the same destination as always, the same hotel at that destination as always, the same hotel room in that hotel as always; and when at the destination, they eat the same meals at the same nearby restaurant. People who score high on this facet, in contrast, like to travel to new destinations and try new things.

In other words, I think this guy, if he goes on holidays, prefers to go to the same old destination(s).

Perhaps insecurity, caused by trauma or otherwise, could indirectly lead to conservative choices as a means of keeping things stable and under control, but I can't immediately see that applying here.

Another facet where it seems that his score comes through clearly (much clearer, really) is achievement striving. He comes across as very ambitious, making sure that his restaurant has the highest standards. He focuses a lot on that his restaurant is the best, not just to boast; and emphasizes that it took "hard work" to get there (i.e. he doesn't take it for granted simply because of his background, he had to want to get there).

Nah, I think his underlying personality is coming through well enough. Maybe with a significantly rougher edge than it would have had with a different childhood and youth.

[Montmorency]

What does "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of" mean?

I don't recall hearing about facial archetypes in a scientific context like this. Skull shapes, on the other hand..

By the way, I generally wouldn't take large-scale assimilation for granted. Newcomers or expanding groups could displace or outcompete existing groups. It would be interesting to find out how common the different scenarios have been throughout history.

Skull shape in itself creates much of the face shape, and craniofacial bones and tissues are made up of multiple segments with distinct genetic and developmental processes. How that biologically comes together is not the point right now.

What I'm saying is, haven't you ever looked at people's faces and found that sometimes people from a given nationality or ethnic group will often have what looks like the same facial model but with slight variations? Like: 'that face looks like a face I'd often see on a French person,' or 'that's a distinctly Chinese (as opposed to Japanese or Korean) face.' It's not to say that a handful of facial models typify entire ethnic groups, but that particular basic facial models are particularly associated.

Unfortunately I can't clearly illustrate what I mean, since I don't make a habit of collecting prosopography from whatever visual media I encounter. If I can't collate examples of the kinds of trend I have in mind, I can at least give examples of what look like archetypes to me.

HP Lovecraft epitomizes the WASPy physiognomy in my mind.

This protester is easily identifiable as Jewish (aside from it being a Jewish-led protest).

If there were no social groups for "bad" (his word) Asian kids, then it is not difficult to see his choice as the second-best option.

Certainly the context-specific interrelationships between groups matter. A white/European-American child in that position would have barriers to assimilation due to the wider societal racial hierarchy. A (dark) black/African-American child could indeed grow up much like our subject D, though there would be an additional layer of influence from the prevalent African-American representation (not to say whether it's good or bad) in TV, film, and music that would be very difficult to conceal from a child even if living in a location with no other black people around.

I don't understand your framing of "second-best."

In other words, I think this guy, if he goes on holidays, prefers to go to the same old destination(s).

I can't really argue with a gut feeling, but why? I have read people who live through poverty often display this kind of behavioral/psychological tendency, but what did you see in the video that left you with this judgement? Making and persisting with a risky business investment in a foreign country seems like contrary evidence.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I insisted that there is only one whole number between 1 and 3: that number is 2. There is nothing precious about an ability to convince yourself otherwise.

It's not a scale between one and three, it's a scale between something like one and seven.

You have the nobility, broken down into the Royal family, containing the Cyning and the Æthelings, his sons, brothers, nephews etc., then the mass of the þeȝns from whom the king selected his Æorldormon and from which class came most of the non-monastic bishops. Then, below them, you have the mass of the ceorles, who were themselves subdivided into a, the geneats - the "peasant aristocracy" distinguished from the lower Þeȝns by being primarily landholders and farmers as opposed to warriors, the mass of men - the kotsetlas - and the bottom rung, just hanging on, the geburs who were tenant farmers often economically tied to a given estate.

Then you have slaves, mostly non-Saxons.

You'r just engaging in reductio ad absurdem - a geneat would be indistinguishable from a less affluent Þeȝn in the street or in the shieldwall - both mean "follower" or "retainer", the distinction is not one of wealth or even necessarily practical function, both could serve as landlords, the distinction is that one has access to the royal family in a direct way (in theory) and the other does not.In Anglo-Saxon England its all about personal relationship - status is defined (formally) by who you owe your loyalty to and in what context. Þeȝns are warriors first and foremost and it is from this that they derive their status and their privileged access to the royal court, not wealth, not even necessarily birth. Oh, I know you're going to mention Huscarls next - so let me preempt you by pointing out that huscarls are not self-supporting, they're professional paid soldiers as opposed to simply being retainers. Þeȝns were also farmers with their own lands who equipped themselves out of their own pockets. Incidentally, both þeȝns and ceorles fought in the Fyrd together as mounted infantry, in addition to weapons and armour they had to provide their own horses. That's why the property qualification for a þeȝn was five hides, or the equivalent of five small-holdings, because every hundred was required to provide one man for every five hides - þeȝns were that man for their own landholdings, ceorles might send someone else.

Beside the point, but to be accurate none of the sources I quoted describes a legal definition of "gebur". Building Anglo-Saxon England speculates that the group known as geburs in Wessex possibly arose out of freed slaves (as opposed to free men sinking into subjection).

The fact they're described in a charter regarding a manor owned by the king indicates a certain legal status. The problem is we can't be certain what that status is, something life slaves, like serfs? We don't know, exactly, what we do know is that they represented a different kind of status to that enjoyed by other ceorles.

The historiography reinforces the intermediate status of churls between slaves and nobility, which you don't contest. I don't know of what character assassination you speak with regard to churls, but since you engaged in character assassination to troll me I can't respect this whinging.

"You've lost credibility" was what you said.

You don't like it when people call you out for your bad behaviour, well suck it up - you once told Furnunculus his "caution [was] not respectable."

It has nothing to do about whether the wealthy form an "aristocratic" class. The analogy is valid whether or not that word applies. You have been hung up on the historical definitions of classes (e.g. stratified legal standing vs. theoretical equality under the law) rather than observing the cross-sectional relationship in practice, which latter is the point.

Outside the US class is inherited regardless of wealth. Go re-watch Downton Abbey, it's a study in class relationships, right down to the perpetually awkward position of the Early's American wife and brother-in-law.

What does it mean for a class to be cohesive?

It means they form a cohesive group with similar social standards, goals, tastes, etc. - a community with an in-group and out-group.

If by this you mean that most super-wealthy individuals were not born into wealth, you are correct - especially as concerns people outside the US or Europe. But the growth opportunities of the globalizing age have always been vanishingly few and predicated on criminality and political access at that level, and the good times have given way to secular stagnation. Below the masters, the petite bourgeois are much better at staying affluent or getting more so than those below are at breaking into their ranks.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But this has always been so. Most wealth is inherited, and what is inherited is mostly passed between the upper ramparts of society. in America this is especially a foundational racial problem, where as we see black families pass on almost no accumulated wealth whatsoever, even compared to middle class whites.

So you acknowledge that the most wealthy in America, those "holding the reigns" so to speak were not born into it. Do you understand how different this is to a class-system where people are born into a certain class and that defines their social standing? Do you understand that the only was to access a higher class in those circumstances is through personal patronage of the person at the top of that class (the monarch) and no amount of money will ever get you in?

You are making two mistakes:

First, modern oligarchs and plutocrats, and their families, do have special access despite a lack of formally-specified status. This is still called privilege.

Privilege of wealth is not privilege of class. They aren't the same and your insistence on trying to equate them demonstrates that a refusal to believe that class works differently outside a Republic like the US. Compare the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans.

Second, even if the above were not the case it would not be relevant to instigating analogy, which is explicitly about the substantive inherent capacities of common people, and implicitly of their relationship to the ruling classes.

Again, this is the point. Your contrarian posture here is as misguided as if you said we cannot refer to modern military servicepeople as soldiers because they do not form in blocks or carry spears.

And this is the part you refuse to accept, Anglo-Saxon society doesn't work like that'. Status is conferred by access to the King, he decides if you're a þeȝn or a ceorl - and then everyone else agrees with him. So how do you make the change? Pretty simple really, you demonstrate loyalty to the king and an ability to kill his enemies. Anglo-Saxon society is totally militarised, all free men serve, and even priests and bishops can be found in the shield wall. If you don't have the requisite five hides, well, the king will just give you land.

In this society deeds grant access and access grants wealth. Wealth does not, by itself, grant access.

You're engaging in Marxist historiography again, insisting on seeing other times and places in the context of your own society. In this case you're comparing an absolute monarchy with a completely militarised (free) population against a largely demilitarised republic. Apples and oranges.

[Montmorency]

I think I get what you mean.

I think I've found a good comparison to illustrate: HP Lovecraft (colonial Anglo) and TE Lawrence (British Anglo).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._June_1934.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...e_lawrence.jpg

Tell me you don't see it? Now the next step if my notion has any validity would be to identify any systematic proportion among the general population of this facial model - maybe it's just a weird coincidence. (Well, the proper first step would be to parametrize the putative facial model but...)

Koreans and Latin Americans can have similar skin tones, so in the absence of any relevant groups of Asians to join, a group of Latin Americans (or natives) would in practice be the group where his physical appearance would be the most similar to the other members.

Considering the great variation in appearance within the groups "Asian" and "Latin American" (of whom the latter comprise everything from overwhelmingly European-ancestry countries like Argentina and overwhelmingly Amerindian (and minimally-admixed mestizo) countries like Bolivia), that's too sweeping an assessment. At any rate, it isn't helpful to dignify sorting by appearance or color.

I would like to emphasize that in the five-factor model, the starting point is not that the aspects of a person's personality that it describes tend to be heavily affected by a person's background (the model is not supposed to describe a person's personality exhaustively, at any rate). In theory, a preference for the same holiday destination every year is independent of your current and past wealth; though I suppose greater wealth could lead to more expensive habits. If you are very rich, maybe you'll take a cruise in your personal yacht to the same five destinations every year instead of sticking to just one destination. The key is a preference for doing the same rather than trying something new.

I also want to emphasize that the five-factor model does not operate with dichotomies; for every facet, most people fall somewhere in the middle between the two extremes, but it is easier to understand the facets by looking at the extremes.

Now for why I think he has that personality trait: one thing that really stood out, is the language. It is possible he has difficulty learning Korean, but my theory is that he doesn't really care to learn Korean, which would be consistent with a low score on this facet. His personal style, like the way he dresses, also seems a bit like he is stilling living his old life. Granted, if a person has been forced to live a very different life, they could try to hold onto something from their old life because it relates to their identity, even if they have a general preference for trying out new things.

He did say that he was a "little bit" excited to get out of his old lifestyle; but it also seems that this excitement was about leaving behind a life he didn't really enjoy rather than being excited at the prospect of moving to a new country and integrating into a new culture.

In personality theory, I think success is generally associated with the dimension of conscientiousness. The facet of ambition, which I mentioned above, belongs to this dimension. He could have scores that are average or above on some other facets of that dimension as well, such as self-discipline (cf. his reference to "hard work").

OK, like any model of personality insight more data (interview material, professional examination) is better, but I understand where you're coming from.

It's not a scale between one and three, it's a scale between something like one and seven.

You have the nobility, broken down into the Royal family, containing the Cyning and the Æthelings, his sons, brothers, nephews etc., then the mass of the þeȝns from whom the king selected his Æorldormon and from which class came most of the non-monastic bishops. Then, below them, you have the mass of the ceorles, who were themselves subdivided into a, the geneats - the "peasant aristocracy" distinguished from the lower Þeȝns by being primarily landholders and farmers as opposed to warriors, the mass of men - the kotsetlas - and the bottom rung, just hanging on, the geburs who were tenant farmers often economically tied to a given estate.

Then you have slaves, mostly non-Saxons.

You'r just engaging in reductio ad absurdem - a geneat would be indistinguishable from a less affluent Þeȝn in the street or in the shieldwall - both mean "follower" or "retainer", the distinction is not one of wealth or even necessarily practical function, both could serve as landlords, the distinction is that one has access to the royal family in a direct way (in theory) and the other does not.In Anglo-Saxon England its all about personal relationship - status is defined (formally) by who you owe your loyalty to and in what context. Þeȝns are warriors first and foremost and it is from this that they derive their status and their privileged access to the royal court, not wealth, not even necessarily birth. Oh, I know you're going to mention Huscarls next - so let me preempt you by pointing out that huscarls are not self-supporting, they're professional paid soldiers as opposed to simply being retainers. Þeȝns were also farmers with their own lands who equipped themselves out of their own pockets. Incidentally, both þeȝns and ceorles fought in the Fyrd together as mounted infantry, in addition to weapons and armour they had to provide their own horses. That's why the property qualification for a þeȝn was five hides, or the equivalent of five small-holdings, because every hundred was required to provide one man for every five hides - þeȝns were that man for their own landholdings, ceorles might send someone else.

This is well-worn ground by now, and it reinforces the logical necessity of the proposition that churls are the lowest class of freemen. The internal structure of the churl class does not change the external hierarchy!

"You've lost credibility" was what you said.

You don't like it when people call you out for your bad behaviour, well suck it up - you once told Furnunculus his "caution [was] not respectable."

Your bad behavior was the problem here!

Outside the US class is inherited regardless of wealth. Go re-watch Downton Abbey, it's a study in class relationships, right down to the perpetually awkward position of the Early's American wife and brother-in-law.

All class at all times is a matter of networking above wealth. Formal title applies to very few humans today, and it's not the meaningful thing.

So you acknowledge that the most wealthy in America, those "holding the reigns" so to speak were not born into it. Do you understand how different this is to a class-system where people are born into a certain class and that defines their social standing? Do you understand that the only was to access a higher class in those circumstances is through personal patronage of the person at the top of that class (the monarch) and no amount of money will ever get you in?

Almost all megamillionaires and billionaires have been created in the past two or three generations, because of contingencies in the global economy that are fluid. Even adjusted for inflation there were almost no such people a hundred years ago. You're born into it after the first generation, similar to how an immigrant family in America will always give birth to lifelong Americans regardless of their own original status.

But before that, it's applicable at all points in modern history. If, for instance, you've read anything about early America you'll notice that people from wealthy, landed, educated families were falling into destitution all the time. Some even died penniless or in debtor's prison. Yet even so they were typically able to maintain access to capital, professional opportunities, other influential bourgeois people, political power, etc. Why? Because they were from the "right" families! Ain't you ever heard of the Boston Brahmins? And that's just New England, it was all over the country like that. The Southern slavers, who were in any sense an aristocratic throwback, had almost all their wealth destroyed in the Civil War. Guess what happened in the aftermath? Most of those slavers picked up and re-enslaved the blacks and rebuilt their wealth and political power. With the invention of sharecropping where planters could not rely on slaves they literally transformed the blacks into serf-like tenant farmers, who could leave or demand remuneration at the risk of their lives.

To this day descendants of the aristocratic families are disproportionately represented in Southern business and politics.

Privilege of wealth is not privilege of class. They aren't the same and your insistence on trying to equate them demonstrates that a refusal to believe that class works differently outside a Republic like the US. Compare the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans.

You don't understand how class works today.

And this is the part you refuse to accept, Anglo-Saxon society doesn't work like that'. Status is conferred by access to the King, he decides if you're a þeȝn or a ceorl - and then everyone else agrees with him. So how do you make the change? Pretty simple really, you demonstrate loyalty to the king and an ability to kill his enemies. Anglo-Saxon society is totally militarised, all free men serve, and even priests and bishops can be found in the shield wall. If you don't have the requisite five hides, well, the king will just [I]give you land.

Again, this doesn't affect the analogy because the analogy does not depend on these specific relationships.

In this society deeds grant access and access grants wealth. Wealth does not, by itself, grant access.

A wealthy enough landowner will always have access to the king, unless it's war. Obviously.

You're engaging in Marxist historiography again, insisting on seeing other times and places in the context of your own society. In this case you're comparing an absolute monarchy with a completely militarised (free) population against a largely demilitarised republic. Apples and oranges.

Wrong. This is because you fundamentally don't understand the comparison. I don't think I can help you.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This is well-worn ground by now, and it reinforces the logical necessity of the proposition that churls are the lowest class of freemen. The internal structure of the churl class does not change the external hierarchy!

OK, so... what?

"There's always been a 1%"?

Your bad behavior was the problem here!

If by bad behaviour you mean "trolling" that's just slanderous.

I'm not trolling you, I'm reflecting you, I tried being polite and you ignored me, so now I'm deliberately being antagonistic because it's all you respond to. You don't value good manners or compassion, so I refuse to avail you of those things. It is a waste of my time.

All class at all times is a matter of networking above wealth. Formal title applies to very few humans today, and it's not the meaningful thing.

Formal title has never applied to many humans. In England only a few hundred people at any one time have ever held formal title, excepting baronets and knights. You're avoiding the core point here - in this case it's not about "networking" but about access to one specific person, a person who in all instances claimed decent from a pagan God, Woden. This was true for all Anglo-Saxon Kings from all seven kingdoms, excepting possibly the last, Harold II.

Almost all megamillionaires and billionaires have been created in the past two or three generations, because of contingencies in the global economy that are fluid. Even adjusted for inflation there were almost no such people a hundred years ago. You're born into it after the first generation, similar to how an immigrant family in America will always give birth to lifelong Americans regardless of their own original status.

Debatable - the globalised economy has had certain perverse effects on human society. The landed aristocracy held a strangle hold on the lives of all people prior to the French Revolution. It's difficult to quantify their wealth in today's terms, or the extent of their political power.

But before that, it's applicable at all points in modern history. If, for instance, you've read anything about early America you'll notice that people from wealthy, landed, educated families were falling into destitution all the time. Some even died penniless or in debtor's prison. Yet even so they were typically able to maintain access to capital, professional opportunities, other influential bourgeois people, political power, etc. Why? Because they were from the "right" families! Ain't you ever heard of the Boston Brahmins? And that's just New England, it was all over the country like that. The Southern slavers, who were in any sense an aristocratic throwback, had almost all their wealth destroyed in the Civil War. Guess what happened in the aftermath? Most of those slavers picked up and re-enslaved the blacks and rebuilt their wealth and political power. With the invention of sharecropping where planters could not rely on slaves they literally transformed the blacks into serf-like tenant farmers, who could leave or demand remuneration at the risk of their lives.

To this day descendants of the aristocratic families are disproportionately represented in Southern business and politics.

Well, technically, modern history begins with the Renaissance, aka the Early Modern Period. The American South is certainly a fascinating culture, one which established a landed aristocracy and a slave-caste based on race whilst also managing to distinguish between that aristocracy and the mass of non-slaves. On the other hand, we have an untitled-aristocracy here too. When I visited the Trecarrell estate with my mother over the summer the owner, whom you would call a "country squire" was telling us about the time be managed to talk his way into Lambeth Palace library to see manuscripts relating to the manor house.

You don't understand how class works today.

On the contrary, I understand it works differently outside the US. One is reminded of the rather amusing story of when Her Majesty visited Normandy in the 1960's, I believe it was then. The local peasants lined the streets, doffed their caps and shouted "Viva la Duchess!" to the considerable embarrassment of her French hosts.

Again, this doesn't affect the analogy because the analogy does not depend on these specific relationships.

The blogger's analogy was between the modern American who is disenfranchised but doesn't realise it because he votes and the churl imagined to be disenfranchised but doesn't realise it because he's better than a slave. Well, the churl did realise it, and he was still better off than the modern American.

A wealthy enough landowner will always have access to the king, unless it's war. Obviously.

This ignores the point I referred to a while back, where the king owns all the land, so it's up to him if you're wealthy or not. This is true in early Anglo-Saxon society and later post-conquest. It's less true in late Anglo-Saxon society where landholding (as opposed to renting) has become much more prevalent but the central point stands. The only really practical way to get that wealthy that you have access by default is to get into the aristocracy because your ability to acquire land and wealth is dependent on the king or a powerful magnate.

A really good example of this in Early Modern times is Thomas Cromwell, a more enduring example is Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Brandon's father was a knight, Sir William, who was of sufficiently low standing that he was accused of raping a "gentlewoman" which isn't something that happens to genuinely noble people in late-medieval England as a rule. he got off. Cromwell, of course, was just a good lawyer who amassed fabulous wealth and titles under Henry VIII until he was offed by some actual aristocrats for basically being too common.

Wrong. This is because you fundamentally don't understand the comparison. I don't think I can help you.

There is no meaningful comparison, that's the point. Your view is no more applicable than Greyblades labelling Anglo-Saxon society "pre-feudal". In both cases you're drawing a false comparison that is based on common (and therefore shallow) modern understanding of the historical context.

We are not living in a post Anglo-Saxon society, we haven't been for centuries. We're living in a post-Roman society. Don't believe me, look up how votes for magistrates were conducted in the Roman Republic and compare it to the Primary process for selecting presidential candidates in the US, never mind the junk food (including pizza).

Remember, this started because you asked for my opinion. My opinion is, and was, that the point being made by the blogger is banal and the comparison is misconstrued. Don't like that opinion? well, you'll remember not to ask in future, then, won't you?

[Greyblades]

There is no meaningful comparison, that's the point. Your view is no more applicable than Greyblades labelling Anglo-Saxon society "pre-feudal". In both cases you're drawing a false comparison that is based on common (and therefore shallow) modern understanding of the historical context.

Elucidate, historian. Was the norman conquests not a substanstive enough societal change to consider a book mark in history to lable pre and post?