Messages

271

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: In the News

« on: January 23, 2023, 12:50:31 AM »

Yes, I edited the OP and added the example of "if the Navaho say please don't make Navaho-style art with swastikas, a polite person listens."

I think you are implying the connection with the idea that states have claim to everything found on their territory (so eg. the state of France claims the right to prevent the exports of a painting by a medieval Florentine with no known connection to the kingdom of France, or the state of Turkey claims rights to things made by ancient Ionians and Dorians and Luwians thousands of years before there were any Turks on Turkish soil).

Another thing that does not do well on the Internet is the difference between "actions which can reasonably end friendly relations between two people" and "actions which the surrounding society should intervene to punish."  If someone publishes a sacred story which the person who told it did not want shared, that's not something that the state or strangers should interfere with, but its definitely something which could reasonably end the relationship between teacher and student. 

272

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: In the News

« on: January 22, 2023, 09:26:17 PM »

I'm not as convinced as the author that change involves the abandonment of tradition, because traditions that stagnate don't become more precious and preserved, they become dead. Traditions that survive should change and be exchanged, that's the natural way human culture evolves over time.

I noticed loud and confident people online ten years ago throwing around the term "appropriation" with a deep misunderstanding of how culture works.  Cultures borrow, and as they borrow things they adapt them.  The only thing rude is if they start to claim that their version is the true and authentic one and fail to acknowledge the inspiration (or if they borrow something they are being specifically asked not to borrow: I think the Navaho have said "do not copy old Navaho art with swatzikas on it").  That overlaps with the trope of the white person being a better Black person or indigenous person than the actual blacks and indigenes, as seen in Avatar, blackface minstrel shows, armed Americans dressing in war paint, et depressing cetera.

But social media culture is stupid, aggressively confident, and all about soundbites (and stupidity makes great soundbites).

273

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Canadian Politics 2023

« on: January 22, 2023, 03:02:13 AM »

Just some notes:

The BC forestry industry is in crisis after 150 years of management by people whose only disagreement was how much of the money from cutting down all the trees should go to the workers, and how much to the bosses. The crisis was hurried by climate change which allowed the Mountain Pine Beetle to spread north and eat the pine plantations laid out after clear cutting.  Climate change is also killing the local and imported cedars which need cool summers with some rain not a month or two of no rain. CBC on structural issues CBC on a speech Tyee

The BC salmon fisheries are in trouble too, some people blame parasites spreading from open-tank fish farms, climate change is probably a factor too

A few homeless people in BC are dying because they take shelter in dumpsters and the garbage trucks don't check that anyone is in there before dumping the dumpsters into the compactor

The police have released a bit more information about the twin brothers with semiautomatic rifles who robbed a bank and shot six police officers before dying CBC

Alberta PM Danielle Smith is throwing a temper tantrum that the federal government is preparing a Just Transition Act to help oilfield workers change industries as those jobs go ("what do you mean we can't extract more and more fossil fuels forever?")

And the federal health minister is saying louder and louder "provinces, it would be a really good idea to require people to wear N95 or better masks on public transit and in public indoor spaces" (the PM and co rarely let themselves be seen in a mask any more though; but at events such as Davos there are rigorous infection control measures to keep powerful people safe)

Canadian companies are getting caught up in the fashion for layoffs

Former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has a book out which says the same things that anyone else who left the Trudeau government unhappily says (that Trudeau does not care about the details of policy just about how something will look or how voters will react).  Moreau was implicated in the We Charity scandal and spent five years as Trudeau's Minister of Finance so give me a policy wonk, lord, but not yet!

And there will be a provincial election in Alberta which will probably end the United Conservative Party government after one term

Edit 2023-01-22: Oh, and a second Liberal cabinet minister got caught hiring a close relative (or a senior advisor's close relative) to do "communications". In this case, its not obvious that the relative provided any services for the money.  The names are Mary Ng and Ahmed Hussen and both are still in Cabinet and in parliament.  If this sounds like the We Charity scandal, where Trudeau gave a large sole-source contract to a scam charity which had paid members of the Trudeau family generous speaking fees, you have a good memory. Global News summary, the figures involved are about $93,000

Edit: and the government of Canada has reached a 3 billion dollar settlement with 325 First Nations over the destruction of lives, language, and culture at the residential schools https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/residential-school-band-class-action-settlement-1.6722014

274

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Emotional Drama in Fiction Set in Other Cultures

« on: January 20, 2023, 07:47:42 PM »

Did you mean to reply to this thread with one word?

Reading part 2 of the short story, it moves on to have more 21st century trappings, but it still inspired me to think "why are there so many stories with swords and castles where characters have the emotional lives of postwar Americans?"  Human experience is frighteningly diverse: there are people going to bars and dance clubs like COVID never happened!

275

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: Russia/Ukraine Crisis 2022-3

« on: January 19, 2023, 11:24:56 PM »

Perun has a theory of how offensives work on the very low density battlefield in most parts of Ukraine with vast numbers of drones and guided munitions: secretly gather your forces, throw a few companies or a battalion's worth of troops against one of the areas where one company is holding 3 km of front, then scatter or entrench before too many explody things start falling out the sky

https://piped.mha.fi/watch?v=UGZi-F3tz-o&t=2595

Edit: I am starting to think that the Ukrainian position on recruits is "its not 1915 and we don't have a massive fertile peasant population, to win this war we want a small well-equipped force that can attack and not lose too many people doing it."  Supposedly the defenders of Bakhmut are mostly Territorial Defense militia, so the rest of the army is in the rear doing something.  And supposedly the International Legion stopped accepting volunteers without combat experience (not just military experience?)

276

Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall / Re: Specialisation, skills, and flaws in modern and premodern heroes

« on: January 19, 2023, 06:36:41 PM »

Also, its not just that Agamemnon is a selfish prideful person who makes bad decisions.  There is a scene in the Iliad where he wants to give a speech that starts with stressing how hard their situation is and turns around, but he overdoes it and the Achaeans start to say "you know what, going home does sound good, my wife is there and I am tired of living in a shelter on a beach and fighting half of Asia every day, and its not my brother's wife who ran off with Paris."  That is a clear failure of his skills in rhetoric which another character has to save him from!  In a tabletop RPG, you know he rolled a bad failure on his Leadership or Oratory skill.

277

Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall / Re: Specialisation, skills, and flaws in modern and premodern heroes

« on: January 19, 2023, 06:10:16 PM »

Hm, yes, that's all very fair points... though I think more of those are what I'd think of as flaws and issues of character than skill? You're right re the future hero missing skills, but for the medieval stuff issues with skill tend to be "you've not reached your potential/the societal expectation" rather than "this other guy is good at X, you're good at Y, these are different skills and that's narratively important"

The medieval Arthuriana which I have read is very clear about two things:
- skills take time and teaching to acquire, and acquiring them is hard
- skills are specific, and knowing fencing (sword and buckler) or wrestling does not mean that you know fighting (knightly weapons) or horsemanship

In contrast, the modern novels I object to teach that if you are the Hero you can spent a few weeks or months practicing something you have never done before and start outdoing people who have done it for their job since puberty.

It does not necessarily go in to point 3:
- the qualities which make for excellence in one skill or area of life may be contrary to those which make for excellence in another (that is all over Indian thought though)

For example, in Jehan de Saintré:

At thirteen little Jehan catches the eye of a noble young widow, who spends the next seven years training him into a suitable courtly paramour. She teaches him edifying maxims from Latin authors with a helpful translation, and gives him a reading list. She advises him how to spend largely but wisely on good clothes and horses, and on appropriate presents to gain the good will of others at court, and provides him with the funds to do it. At twenty she sends him off to win renown with deeds of arms, and advises him on the ceremonies and choice of opponents. ...

Eventually his lady transfers her affections to a worldly young abbot, large and muscular, who humiliates Jehan in a wrestling match. We learn that Jehan, although a successful warrior, has not been taught to wrestle, unlike wealthy monks like the abbot who "are adepts at the art, as at tennis, hurl-bat, pitch-bar, and every pastime of the sort. They are their only recreations when among themselves..."

Jehan later has his revenge on the abbot and his former lover with matter of fact cruelty that reminds me of Tirant lo Blanc. Like Tirant, Petit Jehan de Saintré combines chivalric and courtly ideals with frank sexuality and practical detail.

When I wrote my first journal article on aketons, pourpoints, and gambesons, I read a lot of romances from the 12th century which have scenes where a character gets into trouble because the situation calls for a skill they never learned (eg. they have to strip someone of his armour, and they don't know how to do that).  I did not take notes on that and I do not own those books so I can't give chapter and verse (I do have this on Ulrich von Zatzikhoven though).

278

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: UK Politics 2023

« on: January 18, 2023, 07:03:13 PM »

Thanks!  The culture war thing does seem to engage very small but passionate groups: LGBTQ+ and trans rights organizations, feminist organizations, the radical right, and some people who spend too long on social media and take it all seriously.  And the current issue of making it easier for people to have their state-issued ID reflect their gender presentation and identity seems like a pretty estoeric one which mostly affects trans and intersex people and mostly affects their interactions with states rather than eg. sports organizations or women's organizations.  Isn't the most common use case stopping trans and intersex people being hassled by police or customs officials because their gender presentation does not match their ID (or being outed to employers because their gender presentation does not match their ID?)

279

Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall / Re: Specialisation, skills, and flaws in modern and premodern heroes

« on: January 18, 2023, 06:34:50 PM »

It's interesting perhaps how historically uncommon the "everyone has strengths and weaknesses" model actually is in fiction. Admittedly premodern heroes perhaps had fewer skill-sets to use, but by and large I can't think of a huge number of texts until (in historical terms) quite recently where the protagonist isn't essentially a brilliant all-rounder.

Achilles is a one-man army but nobody would expect him to make things like Odysseus (I think he may cook BBQ once) or solve big communal problems like "how to take Troy without fighting our way in".  He is focused on himself and his glory and his friends and sex slaves.  Agamemnon is king but a terrible leader.  Odysseus is handy but tends to solve problems by tricks (or expending his crew) rather than hacking his way through them, and Poseidon hates him.  Paris is really really sexy but not great at fighting, and Aphrodite loves him.  Lancelot can't keep his cote on, Gawain and Galahad are better at the Christian virtues but can be a bit rigid and proud which is also a mortal sin.  And Arthurian literature is full of scenes where the future hero is educated as a child or young man in the skills they will need as an adult, or gets into trouble because they didn't get taught a skill they need.  Petit Jehan de Saintré catches the eye of a noble lady who spends years training him up as a suitable paramour inside and outside the bedchamber!

Tirant lo Blanc is a murder hobo fond of the old ultraviolence. 

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Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: UK Politics 2023

« on: January 18, 2023, 03:20:22 AM »

I have seen a claim on social media that the Scottish gender recognition reform bill is originally a piece of legislation which Theresa May brought out as a quick thing to do for LGBTQ+ rights before trans issues became such a culture war issue in the UK.  And that a group called Stonewall drafted the original version.  Is that correct?

I find it very hard to find clear, honest information about trans issues.

281

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Emotional Drama in Fiction Set in Other Cultures

« on: January 17, 2023, 11:22:42 PM »

I'm nervous about posting this topic because what I see as a hard problem jubal often sees as no problem at all.  But Jubal's post about characters in The Witcher who are obsessed with another character's lack of sexual experience and a short fantasy story with some 20th-century family tensions got me thinking.  Some kinds of fiction focus on interpersonal tensions and characters' desires and feelings.  When these stories are set in other cultures, authors often have trouble: should they project things from their experience or the stories their culture produces (which usually feels wrong), or try to understand the things characters in societies like the setting quarreled about and were hung up on (which is hard, because before the 19th century few people left detailed records of their emotional and interpersonal lives)?  How can they communicate what is at stake to their readers?  And for authors who are not historians or anthropologists, how can they find those models from outside their culture in the first place?

In a society inspired by medieval and early modern Latin Christendom, a young woman might be torn about whether to spend some private time with a guy who is hot and rich but also totally likely to blab and ruin her reputation, or about whether to marry and accept the clear place in society but legal disabilities which come with that, or about whether to marry for the pleasures of the world or please God by remaining a virgin (very many women in late medieval and early modern England never married, demographers and creepy people get excited about this).  I can think of examples of those scenarios from those cultures, but I'm not sure it would be common for a young person in those cultures to feel that finding someone to have sex with was a fundamental part of becoming a functioning adult like an American teenager in the 1990s/2000s might feel.  (Although there are a lot of hints that many people's ideas and practices diverged pretty far from the ones laid down by learned theologians).  Marriage was important in those societies in ways it has not been in Canada for decades.

Anthropologists tell me that parent-child tensions are strongly correlated with neolocal marriage practices (ie. teenagers tend to get rebellious in cultures where adults are expected to found their own household independent from those of their parents and their spouse's parents).  People who volunteer with crisis lines in the USA find people who suffer because of all kinds of strange beliefs which I would not have thought were part of North Atlantic culture any more.

It gets harder if the setting is one which did not leave writing such as northern and western Europe before and outside Roman rule.  People in the Arras culture must have suffered because of false beliefs and expectations and quarreled over things less concrete than "whose goats got in to my garden?" or "who galloped through my standing crops chasing a boar?" but with no written records how can storytellers imagine a plausible set and sell them to readers who may be pretty provincial?  This century, a scary number of people never read or watch stories written before they were born unless those stories are from their sacred text, so they don't even have experience with earlier versions of their own culture.

I don't think I am expressing this very well but its all the time and emotional energy I have.

282

Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall / Re: What are you reading?

« on: January 17, 2023, 07:22:57 PM »

The answer unfortunately is everyone and Ciri respectively. I think if one wanted to be really really generous, one could just say that virginity is seen as a particularly crucial aspect or life stage in the setting: but I don't think one should be that generous, it's an active choice on Sapkowski's part and it's a really weird active choice.

I think you got through more books than I did in '22 certainly, an interesting list. Perhaps I should keep a list, but perhaps this would just be somewhat depressing for me. I have the same issue re reading like a scholar rather than a reader, and am still very much a PhD student as much as I feel bad about this and ought to have finished by now.

Its also a difference in types of books: there are books which are meant to be "one and done" reads (and which compete with TV and computer games for entertainment times) and books meant to be referenced again and again or meant to be read slowly with concentration.

I see you had On Stranger Tides on your list - presumably this book was the basis for the Pirates of the Carribean film of the same name?

I think it was (there was also a Disneyland or Disneyworld ride, but they needed a plot and characters and Tim Powers delivered).  L. Sprague de Camp stories where most characters have strengths and weaknesses are closer to my model of the world than "a young adult from a good family quickly becomes better at anything he turns his hand to than people who have done it as a job for 10 or 20 years."  (And yes, malnutrition and childhood diseases were a factor before the 20th century, but aristocrats worked hard to become 'effortlessly good' at things, and they had staffs of specialists to make them look good).

In terms of messages for young readers, "to get good you need to do lots of hard repetitive practice and criticize yourself" is much more helpful than "if you are the chosen one you can get good at anything quickly."

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Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall / Re: What are you reading?

« on: January 17, 2023, 01:32:51 AM »

I finished another book finally. I’m still not sure that brings my year total into double digits, which is frankly embarrassing. Need to do better next year. Anyway, I’ve now read Blood of Elves, the third Witcher book. It was fine as fantasy books go, except the whole thing about obsessing about virginity which is a bit weird and also some of the Ciri-Yen scenes which rang a teensy bit hollow to me? But I mostly enjoyed it, I'll probably read some more of the books in 2023.

I'm afraid to ask who is obsessed with whose virginity given the tradition of SF and fantasy authors working the private-times kind of fantasy into their fiction.

Speculative and historical fiction which is focused on characters' neuroses and interpersonal conflicts faces the double empathy problem of understanding what issues (hangups? mistaken beliefs that bring sorrow or cause unwise actions?) characters in a different culture had, and communicating those issues and emotions to the reader.  The Lion in Winter and many more recent Hollywood films and games have Boomer daddy issues which don't necessarily fit their settings.

Here is the kind of book I read in 2022.  My ability to read books end to end or for pleasure was much less while I was a PhD student.

284

History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Space yays

« on: January 16, 2023, 10:16:02 PM »

I wonder how much of the Whipple shield not capturing the science fiction imagination is just the name. It unfortunately sounds like a specially designed cup lid for messy drinkers of cream topped coffee, more than a piece of brilliantly conceived space engineering.

It could be worse, an early sexologist was named Dr. Beverly Whipple.  I don't know if the story that the "Whipple tickle" almost became a piece of official scientific nomenclature is true, but it should be.

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History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Receptiogate

« on: January 16, 2023, 08:32:38 PM »

To be fair I didn't go into all the gory details!

A few links in my browser history are:
https://rogueclassicism.com/2020/04/16/dirk-obbink-and-stolen-p-oxy-allegations-some-food-for-thought/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/museum-of-the-bible-obbink-gospel-of-mark/610576/
https://brentnongbri.com/2020/10/30/more-on-dirk-obbink-and-the-provenance-of-the-sappho-papyrus/
https://rogueclassicism.com/2021/02/16/conversation-classics-c-michael-sampson-on-p-sapph-obbink/