Backroom Errata

[Viking]

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...)

The thing that stands out the most to me is that they both have quite long faces, which is not really a trait that I would particularly associate with the British Isles. The guy in the second photo looks almost German, though I suppose something could feel off about that assignment. But knowing their nationalities, my assessments are of course compromised.

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.

And that's how you are supposed to interpret it; don't think of Argentina, but maybe you can think of e.g. Honduras. It was a Mexican gang in this case, but I don't think that it is important.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Oh - on Ellipsis:

"It is not normally necessary to use an ellipsis at the beginning or end of a quotation; almost all quotations will be taken from a larger context and there is usually no need to indicate this obvious fact unless the sense of the passage quote is manifestly complete."

MHRA Style Guide, Second Edition, p.46.

So, ellipsis at the end of a quotation begs the question what is missing. But hey, it's not like I'm an expert on academic writing, is it?

[Montmorency]

No, that was yet another example of you jumping all over me because you don't like my opinion.

"Source look dodgy, possibly dishonest" is an opinion on a source. I don't like shoddy historiography, you're reading too much into it.

It's not a valid opinion. It's beyond the pale.

So, ellipsis at the end of a quotation begs the question what is missing.

The allegation of dishonesty is what begs the question, fallaciously.

But hey, it's not like I'm an expert on academic writing, is it?

Between you, after all said, and an academic work where content and context present no indication of misrepresentation, you shouldn't expect an appeal to your authority to carry any clout.

This flagrant malicious arrogance and self-righteous dishonesty is what totally tarnishes my esteem of you, which perhaps has been perniciously inflated all along. :(

Who are "the rest"? They're a minority. In reality you have slaves, the Royal family, the Thanes, and the churls are "the rest".

Yes. What are the logical entailments?

This is an anachronistic interpretation of medieval society, it grossly under-estimates the medieval reverence for monarchy. This is a society where good people burned other people alive for having the wrong beliefs.

Such a dramatic claim, that everyone below the King in medieval societies was essentially a willingly-servile wretch with no concept of self-worth beyond the wellbeing and prosperity of the King, would of course demand prodigious evidence, and at least a response to the counter-evidence. Every monarch has claimed divine legitimacy in some form, yet we know for a fact that there has been great variation in the strength of these regimes. We know for a fact that people at all levels of courtly society have always jockeyed for influence among each other. A king is just a man, with finite resources and transactable loyalties. He cannot grant, or retract, a prerogative without a price.

I suppose you think I'm joking again, or trolling.

I don't even understand what that section means.

No, I just think it sounds silly. Seeing religion as the "opiate of the masses" and referring to historical wealthy, non noble, classes anachronistically as "bourgeois" makes you look like a Marxist. You claim not to be a Marxist, though, even though you look like one.

I used "bourgeois" in reference only to modern (in the broad sense) groups.

Capital, class, and factors of production are terms used by Marx. They are also common to all other modes of economic analysis. I'm not doing anything special when invoking very diffused terminology. Opiate is a metaphor and not economic terminology, and a conservative or non-ideological writer would have no barrier to applying it where she deems appropriate in the sense of a distracting or neutralizing force. A common alternative in use is "soma."

The thing that stands out the most to me is that they both have quite long faces, which is not really a trait that I would particularly associate with the British Isles. The guy in the second photo looks almost German, though I suppose something could feel off about that assignment. But knowing their nationalities, my assessments are of course compromised.

One of the difficulties I would have is - since I'm a visually weak person - describing in detail what the similarities or differences are between their faces. It's not about the length per se. All I can tell you is that they look like basically the same face to me, with minor variation. Without examples (though IMO a greater number of instances in my perception) I would further add that Australians tend to have a certain highly-common facial type of archetypical character. The question remains whether there is some systematic prevalence here, or if it is just a coincidence. Half of Australians are first or second generation immigrants, so even if some archetypes could be characterized whether there would be any correlation to self-reported or genetic heritage is another question.

Now this, this is probably a coincidence.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's not a valid opinion. It's beyond the pale.

Why?

It's a source - doesn't matter what it's moral stance is if you're analysing it from an historical viewpoint. Falsification or manipulation of evidence for a perceived moral good is not acceptable.

To suggest the reverse is to engage in the sort of mental doublethink practised by modern politicians who lie to advance their political agenda.

The allegation of dishonesty is what begs the question, fallaciously.

Accusation of incompetence, actually, and its not fallacious. The source is presented in such a way as to undermine the credibility of the work it is presented in. This despite the utterly banal point it is trying to make, which is that white Americans were almost universally racist at the time - especially those who were "officers and gentlemen".

Really, everything you say here is just you attacking my character because I disagree with your assessment. People can get professorships and Full Chairs and still be utterly terrible historians.

Between you, after all said, and an academic work where content and context present no indication of misrepresentation, you shouldn't expect an appeal to your authority to carry any clout.

This flagrant malicious arrogance and self-righteous dishonesty is what totally tarnishes my esteem of you, which perhaps has been perniciously inflated all along. :(

The amount of negative moral weight you apply to "bad book, obvious point" here is what is really beyond the pale. I linked to and quoted a review from when the book was released which accuses the author of misrepresentation.

I have a low opinion of the man who wrote the book as an historian. That's it. The end. No further comment. No further interest. I still don't understand why you posted the link to begin with - surely none of this was news to you.

It's also worth noting that your supposed esteem was based on the belief that I was firstly a theologian and then, after I insisted I was an historian, that I was a critic of old English literature. Now that you're being forced to confront the fact I'm a serious historian you don't like me. You only liked me when you thought I was an academic of "soft", irrelevant, subjects like religion and lit crit.

Yes. What are the logical entailments?

Most people are churls - as a class churls exist between the two extremes in society - the warrior-elite and the disenfranchised slaves. They overlap with both in terms of their actual lives and how they are lived.

Such a dramatic claim, that everyone below the King in medieval societies was essentially a willingly-servile wretch with no concept of self-worth beyond the wellbeing and prosperity of the King, would of course demand prodigious evidence, and at least a response to the counter-evidence.

This is not at all what I said. You are completely missing the point I was making, which is that this is not a society you can just interpret through a modern lens - the people just don't think like you. There is a huge body of literature on the conduct of medieval "princes" of which Machiavelli was really the last word, and probably actually a bit of a satire.

In the peasant's revolt of 1382 the commons attacked the King's officers, they attacked the King's Palaces, they killed the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then they met with the King, negotiated, left, came back, negotiated some more, the King's party murdered Wat Tyler and the Rebels were ultimately dispersed. Richard II then went back on most of the grants he'd offered the Rebels and things went back to normal. About a decade and a half later Richard's nobles turned against him after years of excess and bad government, declaring him a Tyrant not a King, and Henry Bolingbroke deposed him. That only happened once Richard's behavious came to be seen as morally rupugnant and against God's Law, though.

Every monarch has claimed divine legitimacy in some form, yet we know for a fact that there has been great variation in the strength of these regimes. We know for a fact that people at all levels of courtly society have always jockeyed for influence among each other. A king is just a man, with finite resources and transactable loyalties. He cannot grant, or retract, a prerogative without a price.

I said "I could go into all of the machinations of how this worked in practice but despite what you might call "political realities" it was also a reality that everything rested on one man," so obviously I've already acknowledged that members of the court could jockey for position.

They could also try to use witchcraft to murder the king - but only evil people do that.

Nonetheless, a King is still a magical person ordained by God. For the ultimate example of this look at the Japanese Emperor, who has survived everything for the last 2.5 millennia.

I don't even understand what that section means.

Well, I've explained it multiple ways - you just don't believe me.

I used "bourgeois" in reference only to modern (in the broad sense) groups.

Capital, class, and factors of production are terms used by Marx. They are also common to all other modes of economic analysis. I'm not doing anything special when invoking very diffused terminology. Opiate is a metaphor and not economic terminology, and a conservative or non-ideological writer would have no barrier to applying it where she deems appropriate in the sense of a distracting or neutralizing force. A common alternative in use is "soma."

I'm critiquing your assertion that "God and Guns" are opiates in the first instance. All Americans have an unhealthy relationship with firearms, even the ones who don't like them, but they are not an "opiate" and neither is religion. Marx's assertion that religion was an opiate was based on his observation of the agnostic, deistic and atheistic Upper Class and their use of opiates. He concluded that the only reason the lower classes believed enthusiastically in God was because it was a substitute for economic or political access, or just opium they couldn't afford.

That's a specifically Marxist viewpoint, it was enumerated by Marx.

As far as I'm concerned it's also utter rubbish - it infantalises certain people for holding certain beliefs the observers doesn't share. Reductive and insulting.

One of the difficulties I would have is - since I'm a visually weak person - describing in detail what the similarities or differences are between their faces. It's not about the length per se. All I can tell you is that they look like basically the same face to me, with minor variation. Without examples (though IMO a greater number of instances in my perception) I would further add that Australians tend to have a certain highly-common facial type of archetypical character. The question remains whether there is some systematic prevalence here, or if it is just a coincidence. Half of Australians are first or second generation immigrants, so even if some archetypes could be characterized whether there would be any correlation to self-reported or genetic heritage is another question.

Now this, this is probably a coincidence.

They both have quite long, rectangular, faces. In the case of TE Lawrence the long nose in particular might be interpreted as a result of his Scottish ancestry. However, generally people in Britain have more oval shaped faces, if anything.

[Montmorency]

Hmmmm, another familiar face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGGqWwVb3sU

[Montmorency]

Hmm, I read a little about rifts between Lukashenko and Putin a year ago and apparently it's now gotten fairly serious.
https://abcnews.go.com/International...plies-68428223

And I wish Brenus were still here. I completely missed last month's general strike in France.
https://twitter.com/Pie2reLouis/stat...81869155340294

[Montmorency]

Intermission: healthcare in China is mostly privatized, very expensive, very corrupt, and sucks ass. Even with government and private insurance, citizens pay up to 1/3 of costs out of pocket, 3 times that of US patients. USA! USA!

Oh wait, our current path is toward resembling China? Damn.

2015 data showed that 44 percent of poor families in China are impoverished by illness debts.

Someone send this shit to the Sanders campaign.


In other news, women now make up the majority of the US workforce, having regained their numerical superiority in higher education decades ago (there used to be more women than men in college before WW2).

The female is future?

[Montmorency]

@everyone

Here is a fun thing. I believe we've seen the like in a movie or two before. Science-fiction prescience?

Wanna be entertained by an ethnic joke?

At an upcoming New Year's party:
"Did you hear Bibi has been indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust?"
"A toast to that."
"Next year in DC!"

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