Speaker 1: Finally, helloly, hello, Hey, how's it going. That's all right? Well,
Speaker 1: other than that, I'm in a very bad place right now, Okay,
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, Northern Ireland. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, like you spend a little bit of a
Speaker 1: time abroad and you're like, oh, I see, Which is
Speaker 1: not to say that like France is not also constantly
Speaker 1: teaching on the verge of becoming fascist, but at least
Speaker 1: shit works there. Like you go over there and like
Speaker 1: their roads are all nice, right, Like all of their
Speaker 1: town centers have like open shops in them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like it's really clean and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sometimes I do. I do think about how
Speaker 2: like France was like a couple of a couple of
Speaker 2: legislative maneuvers and like fuck ups away from having Marine
Speaker 2: lipin right now as or president or whatever it was.
Speaker 1: I think I think she got done for something now.
Speaker 2: Though, so yeah, and now that, but she got done
Speaker 2: by people who are like even more reactionary than she
Speaker 2: is as far as no, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1: Like you know, don't you don't have to like say
Speaker 1: like so like I don't want to go so far
Speaker 1: as to say that I'm like a Frond's apologist. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's good there that like sometimes you
Speaker 1: can see like a firefighter throw a flaming garbage bin
Speaker 1: at a cop, and also like there's stuff works. That's all.
Speaker 1: That's all. Yeahs are probably related to.
Speaker 2: Be fair, to be fair, Yeah, I don't I don't
Speaker 2: know what I would do if I went to like
Speaker 2: going to another place. I really don't know how I
Speaker 2: would handle it, because I'd be like this, you just
Speaker 2: have you just have buses and trains. They go to
Speaker 2: places there aren't like you just I don't even like
Speaker 2: I would, I wouldn't even know. I don't even know
Speaker 2: what to do. I wouldn't know what to do with
Speaker 2: that because I would literally like I would be like
Speaker 2: the like the medieval peasant thing, like my mind blown
Speaker 2: every second of every minute just by like tiny things
Speaker 2: I see, you know it like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like I mean and granted, like one of the things.
Speaker 1: So it is true, like it is a fundamental fact
Speaker 1: that one of the things that's going on over there
Speaker 1: that makes it better than here is that they're still
Speaker 1: in the EU. Now, to be clear, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: against Fortress Europe. I think that it's bad and I
Speaker 1: don't like it. But also like the reasons why we
Speaker 1: hear in the UK left that you have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with how racist it is as an institution, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's like and it still exists as this terrible
Speaker 1: racist institution, but at least like they'll give you money
Speaker 1: for like your roads or like a theater or to
Speaker 1: like pay for things. And so now we just like
Speaker 1: don't have any of that, and our government doesn't pay
Speaker 1: for anything. So everything is just like falling apart in
Speaker 1: real time here, and when you go to places where
Speaker 1: they're still investing in stuff, it's just it makes you
Speaker 1: so angry, Like it makes me so angry that we
Speaker 1: just don't have a force of political will to do
Speaker 1: anything to improve life. It's like the the just like
Speaker 1: the governing consensus here in the United Kingdom is that
Speaker 1: this is as good as things can be. Like they
Speaker 1: just get they can't get better, sorry, Like better things
Speaker 1: aren't possible. It has to be exactly like this. And
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, okay, word, you know, like we've had
Speaker 1: like all of these riots with like the fascists like
Speaker 1: again lately, and the government here just keeps being like, wow,
Speaker 1: they've got really legitimate concerns, damn And you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Then meanwhile, over the.
Speaker 2: Weekend, Oh okay.
Speaker 1: The police arrested like four hundred and fifty old people
Speaker 1: yeah again, yeah yeah, for writing two sentences on a
Speaker 1: on a poster. So it's like it's so like that
Speaker 1: is those concerns are not legitimate. The only concerns that
Speaker 1: can be legitimate are the concerns of fascists. And the
Speaker 1: only thing that things can do is get more racist.
Speaker 1: They can't get better or fairer or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And so it's like, I mean, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: France isn't racist, obviously, it very much is. But also
Speaker 1: you get to like eat a stick.
Speaker 2: The time tradition there, God damn it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you know, but at least I would get
Speaker 1: to eat a stik tartar like on a nice square
Speaker 1: that is pretty when you watch trams go by, and
Speaker 1: you're like, god damn it. Anyway, yeah, like I'm fine,
Speaker 1: everything's fine. It's fine, isn't it. Things are fine?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
Speaker 2: Ah oh man.
Speaker 1: Like seriously, though, like I when I got off the plane,
Speaker 1: the first thing that happened was in the airport. One
Speaker 1: of the escalators wasn't working, and then I got down
Speaker 1: to the train station and my train was delayed, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yep, we're definitely back, yep. Oh hm hm.
Speaker 2: Ah, I see, uh yeah, I can't. I just like,
Speaker 2: it's just it's just sad. I don't even know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: You know, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's it's you know, I don't like,
Speaker 2: I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't
Speaker 2: even know what to say about it. I don't know
Speaker 2: what to say about it because I don't like, I
Speaker 2: can't like, I can't get a handle on what's going
Speaker 2: on at any point. I you know, I am. I
Speaker 2: am heartened by the Corbin Party. However, that name that changed.
Speaker 1: Okay, So to be clear, that's the intention, that's the
Speaker 1: intention of it, is that they're gonna they're gonna have
Speaker 1: a vote on it. Weren't on the street. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know who said this through, but uh, Justin
Speaker 1: just sent me over a thing right before we started recording.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he got it from, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to read it out word for word. Anyway, because
Speaker 1: we love this like it's at the top of it.
Speaker 1: It says the Horny People's Party for the Many, not
Speaker 1: the screw, thank you very much. That says we may
Speaker 1: not officially know what the Corbin and Sultana Party is
Speaker 1: called yet. Popular suggestions so far include both of the
Speaker 1: People's Party and Arise, but we do know one thing.
Speaker 1: They are shaggers. So so far, internal car columns has
Speaker 1: been full of stories about inner party banging amongst volunteers
Speaker 1: and junior staffers, and already they've got a slightly surprising
Speaker 1: reputation for horniness. Still, though it could be worse, the
Speaker 1: Carbonicea Sultanas are the least are at least relieved that
Speaker 1: they don't have the same reputation as junior stafferers in
Speaker 1: Reform who are becoming known for their phenomenal ghakiness. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go, listening. I'm doing light. I'm doing light
Speaker 1: Green Party entryism at the moment. So I joined the
Speaker 1: Green Party to vote for Zach Polanski and we're going
Speaker 1: to see how that goes down, because I think I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen any of his campaign materials,
Speaker 1: but he's really good, Like he's got that thing like,
Speaker 1: he's really sharp, he's to the point, and he's trying
Speaker 1: to do socialism over there. And also he's floated at
Speaker 1: the very least the possibility of a coalition with whatever
Speaker 1: the Corbon Party is. So I'm trying to push them left.
Speaker 1: But if I don't stay in, if I voted for
Speaker 1: him and I got the outcome I wanted, that's good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I if that doesn't work out, then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go for the corbord one. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, positive positive developments on both sides
Speaker 2: of the pond in that regard. I think I am
Speaker 2: not a member of DSA. I was in the past.
Speaker 2: I didn't leave because I had problem had huge problems
Speaker 2: with them. I left because I moved and they didn't
Speaker 2: really have one here anymore. It got disbanded for various
Speaker 2: and sundry reasons. But the DSA at their most recent
Speaker 2: convention apparently voted as far as I can tell, to
Speaker 2: do away with their old delegate system. And I mean
Speaker 2: it kind of opened it up to socialist communist entryism
Speaker 2: into the part to a degree. Uh, And I think
Speaker 2: that is good. I think they can use the structure
Speaker 2: that they have to do a lot of good and
Speaker 2: set themselves up as like a temp post as a party,
Speaker 2: you know. I uh, I the only you know, the
Speaker 2: only thing is like they there, there are still some
Speaker 2: Zionists in there, and they have to be removed. I
Speaker 2: you know, there were some votes on stuff, and they
Speaker 2: did thankfully vote to become a aggressive anti Zionist party,
Speaker 2: but they you know, some people voted against that for
Speaker 2: like various reasons, and some people voted against it because
Speaker 2: they are Zionist. And you know, they have to make
Speaker 2: those zone in those internal decisions. But you know, any
Speaker 2: any org at this point, if you are forming it,
Speaker 2: it is leftists. You're doing leftist entryism. It's already a
Speaker 2: Marxist party whatever it is. You know, Israel, like the
Speaker 2: genocide has to be a red line. You can't like,
Speaker 2: you can't have any kind of like apologists in therefore,
Speaker 2: you can't have people doing that like from a messaging standpoint,
Speaker 2: that's bad and uh, it's you know, counterintuitive to what
Speaker 2: we're trying to do now. So yeah, that's my thing.
Speaker 2: Wherever you are, if you're hearing me, I you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's uh, you gotta remove those people like
Speaker 2: you know, and each ORG can go through their own
Speaker 2: procedures for how to do that. It's not for me
Speaker 2: to say exactly how that's done. But I mean I
Speaker 2: think you have to do it or you're not considered
Speaker 2: a serious ORG.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I feel it.
Speaker 2: I feel to everyone, uh not just DSA. As I said,
Speaker 2: I'm very very proud of you guys. Thank you. Uh,
Speaker 2: the Mark sister are going to be piling into that thing,
Speaker 2: like like the disease is trying to get through the
Speaker 2: door and that the episode of The Simpsons where mister
Speaker 2: Burns has all the diseases and the guys like pushing
Speaker 2: all the little things through a doorway. Anyway, Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is a this is an audio medium. Everybody knows exactly
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about. Yeah, uh yeah, it's uh yeah,
Speaker 2: there's you know, bad stuff but uh but but uh
Speaker 2: but good good uh some good things. And I don't
Speaker 2: and I really think that I was talking about this
Speaker 2: in the discord, but I really think that we have
Speaker 2: to get away from like saying like everyone feels this way,
Speaker 2: everyone feels everyone is like this. Everyone does this not
Speaker 2: because I don't like not because it's like oh not
Speaker 2: all whatever, but because I think saying everyone like that
Speaker 2: just increases like defeatism and nihilism, and it's counterproductive to
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do here because like, it's not everyone,
Speaker 2: Like in all of the western countries I know of
Speaker 2: the people are completely opposed to what the leadership is
Speaker 2: doing on things like on on like Gaza and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's like, so it's not everyone. And I do think
Speaker 2: that people like make themselves very defeatist and very and
Speaker 2: and you know, stuff like that. It's you know, Graham,
Speaker 2: she said it, you know, pessimism of the intellect, optimism
Speaker 2: of the spirit. But occasionally there you do have to
Speaker 2: have a little bit of optimism of the intellect because
Speaker 2: it's not everyone. If it was everyone, you wouldn't see
Speaker 2: these poles, you wouldn't see these protests. They wouldn't be
Speaker 2: trying to arrest eighty five year old people with one
Speaker 2: leg in you know, New Shropshire, sure to Lund, England
Speaker 2: or whatever, for if their position in this was secure.
Speaker 2: It's not. It's a failing position, and you know, it
Speaker 2: is what it is. So there's there's no reason to
Speaker 2: seed all of that to it just because annoying and
Speaker 2: shitty people are in power, you know. Yeah, these political
Speaker 2: systems are in are are beyond imperfect. They're corrupt and awful.
Speaker 2: Of course, bad people are going to get into power
Speaker 2: in them. That's just I mean, that's that's how it like,
Speaker 2: that's how it goes, you know. I'm sorry. Uh, and
Speaker 2: that sucks, but it is. You know, you just got
Speaker 2: to keep going anyway. Yeah, yeah, let's uh, let's get
Speaker 2: to talking about this. Uh, get into the show because yeah,
Speaker 2: we got some stuff to cover here, Yeah, we sure do. Yeah, Hello,
Speaker 2: and welcome back to We Are Not So Different, a
Speaker 2: podcast about how we've always been idiots. My name is
Speaker 2: Luke and as all as, I'm joined by doctor Eleanor Jennege,
Speaker 2: and we are here to talk about We actually had
Speaker 2: a couple of separate things to discuss today, but before
Speaker 2: we get into it, we got a question from Arcturus,
Speaker 2: one of our patrons. He said, many times I've heard
Speaker 2: people compare the Trump administration to a medieval court, in
Speaker 2: the sense that it's filled with yes men who grovel
Speaker 2: around him in hopes of gaining power and or money.
Speaker 2: But to what extent we're with medieval courts? Actually? Like this,
Speaker 2: is it to some extent a modern assumption. I imagine a
Speaker 2: lot would depend on the individual monarch, but in general,
Speaker 2: would groveling around a medieval monarch actually actually get you
Speaker 2: much in the way it seems too for republican politicians,
Speaker 2: or would the monarch and everyone else simply have contempt
Speaker 2: for such sickophants.
Speaker 1: Ah, depends on the monarch, you know, like, and.
Speaker 2: I guess I struggle to think of a time in
Speaker 2: history where monarchs haven't been flattered into giving stuff by
Speaker 2: sycophants like oh yeah, any like I don't. I might
Speaker 2: dare say that any monarch, any emperor who's ever lived,
Speaker 2: has been like, has had at least one person like,
Speaker 2: even the most straight shooting ones of them all, you know,
Speaker 2: have one guy's like, sir, but your sister's cousin lives here,
Speaker 2: and they could use a new grain silo or whatever.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know what, you're right, here's twenty thousand
Speaker 2: ducats and he's like, but sir, there's only nineteen thousand.
Speaker 2: He's like, keep a little extra for yourself. Yeah, eleanor yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2: I used to believe that hasn't happened every time anyone's
Speaker 2: been in powered throughout Oh oh, for.
Speaker 1: Sure, and it's like, you know, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: sometimes that's just the homies. But if you think the
Speaker 1: homies aren't in there flattering, of course they are. And
Speaker 1: you know so that there's always going to be a
Speaker 1: certain amount of finangling going on. And you know, we
Speaker 1: see the sort of interpersonal and inter palace conflict play
Speaker 1: out all the time. So I'm think you hear like
Speaker 1: a really good example of sort of like what's going
Speaker 1: on in when you read Procopius's Secret History, right, and
Speaker 1: when he's all like, secretly, this is what was going on,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, none of that was true, I
Speaker 1: would wager, But the point is he's still in there
Speaker 1: kissing ass. You know. Homeboy is like filating the boot
Speaker 1: on the regular and then going home and writing his
Speaker 1: little weird like porn fantasies at the same time. And
Speaker 1: that just kind of gives you an idea of like
Speaker 1: an average courtier, right, So that's like he's doing all
Speaker 1: of that behind the books to like blow off steam,
Speaker 1: but it just kind of shows us what he's doing
Speaker 1: in real life actually, And you know, certainly we can
Speaker 1: see that particular families will be in power, out of power,
Speaker 1: or connected to people. And I mean you tend to
Speaker 1: see more of it with worst kings, right and like
Speaker 1: you know that, yeah, like and obviously the ones that
Speaker 1: go down in history like as the worst, most bullshit
Speaker 1: kings you've ever seen in your life, they're a lot
Speaker 1: more susceptible to it, right. So the people who simply
Speaker 1: cannot stop giving away shit to their favorites, those are
Speaker 1: the ones we really know about. Like think about here,
Speaker 1: like Edward the Second and his series of boyfriends, you know,
Speaker 1: and like the way he did giving the dispensers everything
Speaker 1: they ever wanted and pissing off the entire kingdom. You know,
Speaker 1: that goes like above slightly because that's about who you're
Speaker 1: actually fucking, I guess.
Speaker 2: So that's like, I mean, would that be too dissimilar
Speaker 2: from this, Like I'm not saying that Trump is fucking anyone,
Speaker 2: but there are people who are getting into these positions
Speaker 2: by fucking people, you know, by yeah, oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and I do think that like
Speaker 1: sexuality is always like in there in one way or another.
Speaker 1: That's just another way of currying favor in theory, you know,
Speaker 1: So that that is certainly happening. And I mean you
Speaker 1: can always kind of buy your way in. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's certainly true that money has always been at play,
Speaker 1: you know. And I guess what you tend to see
Speaker 1: from like good kings or smart kings is what they
Speaker 1: are able to do was kind of like turn the
Speaker 1: people with money who are obviously against them, sort of
Speaker 1: away from themselves and towards other objects.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So, for example, like there's an ongoing hate fest in
Speaker 1: Bohemia between whoever is fucking king, you know, like usually
Speaker 1: the Chevy Slits against the Rosenberks, who are a massively
Speaker 1: powerful royal noble family. Sorry, And like what Charles the
Speaker 1: Fourth does when he gets in is he'll give them
Speaker 1: little missions. M m. Well, he'll be like, why don't
Speaker 1: you go do this for me? And like it gives
Speaker 1: them like prestige, and he pays them to do it,
Speaker 1: and it gets them going out and doing things instead
Speaker 1: of scheming against him or attempting to sway him to
Speaker 1: their will. Right. So it's like he does this good
Speaker 1: job of deflecting by saying, go out there and do
Speaker 1: other things, Like he uses them to go around and
Speaker 1: collect preachers that he likes, and which is why I
Speaker 1: know about it, right, And then you certainly see in
Speaker 1: like but then there are all there's always like weird
Speaker 1: things going on, and it's like sometimes it could be
Speaker 1: literally the church that is the sycophant, you know, like
Speaker 1: if we look for example.
Speaker 2: At like anytime, uh the anytime the church was in Avignon,
Speaker 2: they were they were they were absolutely sycophantic to to
Speaker 2: the French, French monarch every time, like to yeah, to
Speaker 2: the point that it would like people people at the
Speaker 2: time were like, yeah, they're they're French vassals.
Speaker 1: Like that are yeah, And like you certainly see a
Speaker 1: lot of that with Saint Louis. That certainly comes up.
Speaker 1: You know, you see rather a lot of whispering and
Speaker 1: ears at the French court in particular. You know those
Speaker 1: groups that are up, there's groups that are down. You know,
Speaker 1: we when we were doing our one Hundred Years War episodes,
Speaker 1: we saw a lot on on that, right, like when
Speaker 1: when the king goes mad, the various parts at play
Speaker 1: and the various groups who are kind of in there.
Speaker 1: And I mean I suppose that this is something, you know,
Speaker 1: it certainly this doesn't go away in the early modern period.
Speaker 1: Arguably it only exacerbates. I mean, go look at Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteenth Court, like the ultimate snake pit. But you
Speaker 1: know he's also doing that smart thing, you know, like
Speaker 1: Versailles is created very specifically because he brings all the
Speaker 1: nobles there so they can't scheme against him, because if
Speaker 1: all of your power is dependent on you being at
Speaker 1: court and wearing a new dress every day, then you
Speaker 1: don't have any time or money to be out in
Speaker 1: the countryside scheming. You can only be at Versailles. So
Speaker 1: that kind of keeps that stuff. But obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of power plays going on there and a lot
Speaker 1: of like really strenuously enforced hierarchies as a result of that.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I guess the other thing too, is like,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, obviously we're seeing like Trump is
Speaker 1: a terrible example of everything, right, Like he's the worst
Speaker 1: turned up to eleven most fucked up example of anything
Speaker 1: that you can ever have. But that it's not like
Speaker 1: this hasn't been going on the whole time, you know,
Speaker 1: with everyone. It's not like you know, it's like it's
Speaker 1: you don't even necessarily need to be in the White
Speaker 1: House all the time. You just need to like give
Speaker 1: enough money. Yeah, too, like various things, because I mean,
Speaker 1: what what are like campaign donations are super packs if
Speaker 1: not a form of currying favor, you know, and we
Speaker 1: definitely see kickbacks. So I think that the way it's
Speaker 1: what people are responding to is that with Trump, it's
Speaker 1: it's just a little more obvious that there are certain
Speaker 1: people with certain levels of power as opposed to organizations
Speaker 1: with certain levels of power. So I think it's brought
Speaker 1: it back down to the individual more, which is why
Speaker 1: people respond and see it as being more than evil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean I think with like
Speaker 2: I mean, I think when they say medieval, it is
Speaker 2: partly you know, derogatory, but also partly that like it
Speaker 2: was the they they had, so they had trouble with
Speaker 2: like subter refused to some degree. So like you can
Speaker 2: kind of see the stuff that they're just like doing,
Speaker 2: and it just plays out and it's very obvious sometimes
Speaker 2: in history, and and you know that's just because you know,
Speaker 2: they haven't developed like you know, the advance, like you know,
Speaker 2: how do we market this? How do I advertise it?
Speaker 2: What kind of propaganda? That's not saying they didn't do
Speaker 2: good propaganda or anything, but it's just different and it's
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to say. And so like when you
Speaker 2: see these people coming in and doing this, and they're
Speaker 2: just like coming in and it's like a pay for
Speaker 2: play thing like it there, and and it's been denuded
Speaker 2: of every everything down down to like this like bare
Speaker 2: like farcical representation of government. So like we've just stripped
Speaker 2: it all the way back to you know, the Middle
Speaker 2: Ages or even the classical era or something like that,
Speaker 2: you know, where the scheming vizier, the scheming unit, the
Speaker 2: empress dowager who has too much influence, you know, like
Speaker 2: any of these things, any of these tropes that are tropes,
Speaker 2: but they also have basis in reality they've been happening.
Speaker 2: But like with this, it's just so out in the
Speaker 2: open that like it really is hard to like find
Speaker 2: like this is like this is like real Banana Republic shit.
Speaker 2: And people in America who think themselves better than that
Speaker 2: and always have and in the West for that matter,
Speaker 2: see it and they're scandalized by it because you know,
Speaker 2: even though we've been do administering colonial and post colonial
Speaker 2: states like this for hundreds of years, people in the
Speaker 2: Imperial Corps are still dropping monocles, you know, because because
Speaker 2: Trump's like, yeah, pay for play, which like it's always
Speaker 2: been all politics has been paid for play, like the
Speaker 2: whole time. It's just they're not hiding it, and that
Speaker 2: bothers people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that I agree with you. I think
Speaker 1: that one of the major problems that a lot of
Speaker 1: people have with Trump, like especially from the right, you know, like, uh,
Speaker 1: is it's about politess. It's about the fact that you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do a better job of hiding it than this.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be much more cloak and dagger, you know,
Speaker 1: so we were not supposed to kind of see the
Speaker 1: seemi underbelly of politics, which certainly exists and has always existed.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I do think that it is kind
Speaker 1: of problematic the way, as you say, people always want
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, well then it's like it's like a
Speaker 1: medieval court. I'm like, in what way is it more
Speaker 1: like a medieval court than I don't know, like the
Speaker 1: tutors like like look at Honda the eighth Court, Like
Speaker 1: it's not like that, and if so, look at the.
Speaker 2: Debauch like look at the debauched courts of you know,
Speaker 2: like Louis the fourteenth, Louis the sixth, Like not for
Speaker 2: Louis the fourteenth because he was very small, but like
Speaker 2: Louis the sixteenth, look at the the the the Tzars
Speaker 2: as they wound down towards the end, like they were
Speaker 2: getting fooled by like some some He'llbilly mystic who like
Speaker 2: because they were so inbred they could like he was
Speaker 2: just staring them down. Everybody else's like, why are you
Speaker 2: guys enthralled by this? And they were like he is magic, Like,
Speaker 2: how is that any different than than any of this?
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's not. But I mean I do think
Speaker 1: that also there is this tendency to kind of roll
Speaker 1: every court ever together and call it medieval, and I
Speaker 1: think it is. One of these interesting things is that
Speaker 1: people people failed to engage with the fact that monarchy
Speaker 1: continue for quite some time, right, like, and that it
Speaker 1: took the Communist Revolution to bring it down in Russia.
Speaker 1: I mean, here it still exists, right and there's still
Speaker 1: kind of wild shit happening. And you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at how we needed World War two or World
Speaker 1: War one to sort a lot of this shit out
Speaker 1: here in Europe, that that is just something that is
Speaker 1: fundamentally true, and it's something that is still in play
Speaker 1: and certainly you know, for example, here the if you
Speaker 1: want to look at the government, which I don't, but
Speaker 1: you know, like the government is completely enthralled to the
Speaker 1: royalty here. Like so for example, there was like a
Speaker 1: big thing, this was years ago now where they kind
Speaker 1: of like went and looked at who owned all of
Speaker 1: Scotland and turned most it turned out most of it
Speaker 1: was the Queen and everyone was like huh, like it
Speaker 1: seems bad and they were gonna do it with England
Speaker 1: as well, and basically the Queen stepped in and was like,
Speaker 1: please don't do this.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, we remember we did an episode on that
Speaker 2: article from I think it was last year about like
Speaker 2: how what the king what the King and the Prince
Speaker 2: of Wales's own and you know they are in the
Speaker 2: hospital bays and shit like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, and so like that is in theory
Speaker 1: kind of the other way around. Like in theory, the
Speaker 1: government is supposed to be in control here, but you
Speaker 1: know you've got the royals who are able to pull
Speaker 1: these strings. And okay, so yeah, we're a backwards place,
Speaker 1: you know, in that we have a monarchy et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But the point is there are always these interests.
Speaker 1: There's always going to be like and provided money exists
Speaker 1: in these contexts, and you know, there isn't massive reform,
Speaker 1: which I don't know, maybe there will be, you know,
Speaker 1: where war was going on about it. We always talk
Speaker 1: about how I think when we started this show, I
Speaker 1: didn't really think we were in a pre revolutionary moment,
Speaker 1: and now I do think we are.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we Yeah, I definitely think we are. Now
Speaker 2: I think we've I think uh, the I think the uh,
Speaker 2: the perilous nature, the precarity that people feel, the existential
Speaker 2: nature of everything coming together, uh, the situation in Gauza,
Speaker 2: the way that immigration is happening, concentration camps popping up,
Speaker 2: Government's not really giving a shit about it. This is
Speaker 2: this is push. This is pushing people much further uh
Speaker 2: as it always has in the past. This is pushing
Speaker 2: people to uh to the left. You know people, people
Speaker 2: are are moving beyond that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I definitely think we are.
Speaker 1: So yeah yeah, And I mean I think that that's
Speaker 1: really the only thing that can eliminate what we have
Speaker 1: at the moment. And I guess, yeah, the point is
Speaker 1: that Trump is a really gross, over the top example
Speaker 1: of this sort of thing. But actually I think that
Speaker 1: really the early modern courts are are worse for it
Speaker 1: than the medieval ones. The medieval ones there's lived a
Speaker 1: little more I think, I mean, there's a little more God.
Speaker 1: I guess there's a little more God, which kind of
Speaker 1: restrains people a little bit. But that but also I
Speaker 1: guess I don't know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I would really say that I don't really think there's
Speaker 2: much of a difference. I just think it changes, like
Speaker 2: technology changes, what you see changes, their ability to like
Speaker 2: hide and mask and and politicize and propagandize certain things.
Speaker 2: Uh changes, But like I mean, you've still got people
Speaker 2: doing power plays, you got powerful families, you got moneyed
Speaker 2: interest doing things you gotta, you gotta scheming, Vizier buying
Speaker 2: his way into the government and then running it as
Speaker 2: a shadow chancellor, which is, you know, a big you
Speaker 2: know thing throughout history. Like it's it's not it's I
Speaker 2: think the reason people feel this way about this, like
Speaker 2: if I'm if, I'm if, I'm like, okay, fine, Like
Speaker 2: maybe they're not being derogatory to the Middle Ages. I
Speaker 2: just think it's so crass that people just have to
Speaker 2: reach for like you know, another crass age or something
Speaker 2: like that, and I don't know why they wouldn't stick
Speaker 2: to some point in versailla or anything. But you know, hey, uh,
Speaker 2: I guess there are a lot of There are a
Speaker 2: lot of gestures around now, folks, so uh, yeah, yeah
Speaker 2: it's medieval. Hey, I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, I need a
Speaker 2: mix of yeah, denegatory towards Medieval the Middle Ages, and
Speaker 2: then you know, some of it. It's just like I
Speaker 2: don't fucking know, man, it's real. It's it's a fucking
Speaker 2: clown show out there, and I gotta be honest, it
Speaker 2: does kind of remind me of like a medieval like
Speaker 2: gesture troop rolling through kind of deal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And like I mean, for example, I don't
Speaker 1: find it that like, I don't find it particularly bad
Speaker 1: because it's like I don't know, like John the first
Speaker 1: he did ship like this, ever the second dishow like
Speaker 1: you know, they're there are all kinds of kings where
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, like I could see them doing
Speaker 1: that absolutely, you know, but I guess that I think
Speaker 1: VERSI more often. But then, to be fair to the
Speaker 1: average person, I think they don't realize that versall isn't medieval,
Speaker 1: because I don't think that is true. I don't think
Speaker 1: people don't know what medieval is, and that's so that's fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, like you know, you got people they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: ever saw that was like what like sixteen hundreds, like
Speaker 2: you know, and you're like, well, not really but uh
Speaker 2: well kind yeah but not you know, and they're like yeah,
Speaker 2: sixteen hundreds and you're like fifteen hundreds is kind of medieval,
Speaker 2: and you're like okay, yeah sure, and you're just like
Speaker 2: wait what.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, I trying and I
Speaker 1: guess that people are trying to voice their displeasure with
Speaker 1: a with a fucked up situation. So I'm not here
Speaker 1: to be like actually actually but h.
Speaker 2: Random people go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just gonna say, I guess that this
Speaker 1: sort of has just always kind of been around, so
Speaker 1: you know, it's maybe we've attempted to control for it,
Speaker 1: but we've never been successful at it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, random people online doing it. You know,
Speaker 2: like I might be like, all right, come on now,
Speaker 2: but you know, like with journalists and stuff, you got
Speaker 2: no excuse fucking like you know, yeah yea, yeah, like
Speaker 2: be less Laly, come on, if you you know, if
Speaker 2: you're if you're you know, tying it to a specific
Speaker 2: medieval thing or something you want to make the Guster's joke.
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of corny, but okay, fine, you know,
Speaker 2: but outside of that, you know, would be like, this
Speaker 2: is no different than the court of any of the
Speaker 2: debauched Droman emperors, or the debauched French kings, or the
Speaker 2: debauched nineteenth century or the debauched Ottomans or like or
Speaker 2: the debauched Clinton's or the debauched Trump's.
Speaker 1: Pot the debauched ming you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, sorry, yeah, our characterists, thank you very much
Speaker 2: for the question. We're only gonna do one today, folks,
Speaker 2: because we have We're gonna be talking about another question
Speaker 2: in just second. But today I wanted to say, uh,
Speaker 2: we're not gonna plug the Pictreon because the situation in
Speaker 2: Gauza is desperate. We should have done this a long
Speaker 2: time ago, and I just I haven't done it. I
Speaker 2: haven't talked about it on here, but please donate any
Speaker 2: money you can spare. There are thousands upon thousands of
Speaker 2: individual accounts on uh you know, you could see him
Speaker 2: on Blue Sky people advertising him on Blue Sky, Twitter,
Speaker 2: wherever you are. You know, usually they're they're being advertised
Speaker 2: through a place called chuffed dot org, which I've seen
Speaker 2: people say does sound like kind of a fake thing,
Speaker 2: but it's not. I promise I've donated through there. It's
Speaker 2: it's real. It's it's a real thing. These are verified.
Speaker 2: But also there's uh and I'll try to include links.
Speaker 2: There's the Samir Project, which does food and aid and
Speaker 2: also has like a kid's camp that they try to
Speaker 2: run so that kids can kind of try to have
Speaker 2: a normal life there. Uh, Lifeline for Gaza is another one.
Speaker 2: There are some I'm missing eleanor Medical Aid for Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 1: Medical Aid for Palestinians is a real great org as well,
Speaker 1: doing a lot of on the ground work, So shout
Speaker 1: them out. Yeah, you know, we are all very concerned
Speaker 1: about our comrades in Gaza. You know, if you're on
Speaker 1: blue Sky, you can see I try to kind of
Speaker 1: like big up the various accounts that are attempting to
Speaker 1: get some help, and you know, it's a horrifying situation. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's only so much that we can do as individuals,
Speaker 1: but you know, let your inner anarchists out and attempt
Speaker 1: to do some mutual aid, you know, like grounded. These
Speaker 1: people can't help us back, but I think we can
Speaker 1: all agree that their continued survival is good for all
Speaker 1: of us here on the planet. So yeah, anything that
Speaker 1: you can spare at the moment, if you can send
Speaker 1: it towards our friends in Palestine, that would be great.
Speaker 2: A dollar, two dollars.
Speaker 1: Literally, anything like a doll a dollar for them is
Speaker 1: a big deal, you know. And if we all kind
Speaker 1: of like gave a dollar to someone every day, they'd
Speaker 1: all be doing a little better, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, one thing I've seen suggested is like
Speaker 2: pick a couple of you know, campaigns, individual campaigns if
Speaker 2: you want, and just slide them a couple bucks every month.
Speaker 2: Like it. Like, things are tight here for a lot
Speaker 2: of people completely everywhere, not not America, not just America,
Speaker 2: not just the West. Everywhere in the world. Things are
Speaker 2: getting tight for regular people and we're all getting squeezed.
Speaker 2: But you know, these people, you know, especially in the
Speaker 2: Western countries, these people are being killed in our names
Speaker 2: with our tax dollars. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that uh,
Speaker 2: that's what we're doing for today. Folks. Please help those
Speaker 2: people if you can, just yeah, for the love of
Speaker 2: whatever God or.
Speaker 1: Spiritual humanity or.
Speaker 2: Whatever you you hold sacred, just fuck please anything. Yeah. Anyway, folks,
Speaker 2: we'll got two topics, and we'll include links for all
Speaker 2: that stuff in the show notes. Anyway, onto the main show, folks.
Speaker 2: We've got two topics for today. We don't normally do
Speaker 2: split episodes that often, but sometimes there are a couple
Speaker 2: of things on our minds and hearts and doing a
Speaker 2: whole episode on one of them just wouldn't work for
Speaker 2: whatever reason. So here we are. First stuff, we got
Speaker 2: a question about periodization and the Middle Ages and attempts
Speaker 2: to reform away from well things words like medieval and
Speaker 2: Middle Ages and and other things like that. Now, before
Speaker 2: you turn off the episode in a fit of rage
Speaker 2: that we're covering such a dry topic, at least hear
Speaker 2: us out. Come on, we can make it fun. Just
Speaker 2: give us a chance. But seriously, it's a good question
Speaker 2: and gives us a chance to go more in depth
Speaker 2: on periodization and like, you know, oh why, like why
Speaker 2: is this just a random one thousand year period that
Speaker 2: doesn't really delineated by like technology on the front end,
Speaker 2: Like why do we do this, and like, how how
Speaker 2: do we come up with periods in the first place?
Speaker 2: If you if you think you come up with a
Speaker 2: new period, do you just you know, what do you
Speaker 2: do with it? Do you just write about it and
Speaker 2: hope people pick it up? Like you know, so yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just one of those things like if
Speaker 2: you're going to do it about technology, that's fine, but
Speaker 2: then like you can't apply it to the world at all.
Speaker 2: Like if you go by gunpowder, if that's the marker
Speaker 2: of modernity, then like China got there in like eight ten,
Speaker 2: and you know, no, no, it's to China, But I
Speaker 2: don't think they were really modern in the ninth century,
Speaker 2: you know. And you know, so where do we draw
Speaker 2: these lines?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: And how? And is it really possible to do completely
Speaker 2: global universal periodizations? Uh? Yeah, we will, you know, we'll
Speaker 2: discuss then. Since you ate all your dinner and those
Speaker 2: awful vegetables that tasted really good, but the way, I
Speaker 2: don't want to fucking hear any complain about it. It's
Speaker 2: time for some dessert. And look, we have to beat
Speaker 2: this drum. We've beat the drum before, but it's getting
Speaker 2: out of hand and we need to address it. We
Speaker 2: have to talk about what constitutes convert shit for Christians
Speaker 2: and the growing let's just say ahistorical views on what
Speaker 2: it meant to be a Christian until I don't know,
Speaker 2: like nineteen forty five or so. Because if there's one
Speaker 2: thing Christians have always always loved to do, it's cook
Speaker 2: up and say new herisies in stupid ways to perceive
Speaker 2: divinity and the difference between God and Jesus. We've got
Speaker 2: a lot of problems with you people. You're gonna hear
Speaker 2: about them. Yeah, not just yet. One second. First, we
Speaker 2: got a question from our patron, Horatio hex He said,
Speaker 2: I have a weird question. Are there any attempts to
Speaker 2: modernize and quote de westernize end quote the periodization of
Speaker 2: historical events, especially since we start to have a truly
Speaker 2: global view of history or is it too early to
Speaker 2: even and start thinking about that? And before I let
Speaker 2: eleanor go into it, I just want to briefly give
Speaker 2: you an example of how hard it is to do
Speaker 2: periodization based on the word feudalism. As we understand, it's
Speaker 2: going to take a second. But you know, as we've
Speaker 2: discussed several hundred times or so on the show, The
Speaker 2: Pyramid of feudalism with the neat little hierarchies paying goods,
Speaker 2: services or marshall prowess up the chain until you get
Speaker 2: to the king, with reciprocal duties flowing downward and reciprocal
Speaker 2: military service and the Church enforcing social cohesion is far
Speaker 2: far too neat and tidy to reflect reality. China's version
Speaker 2: of feudalism that happened much earlier between one thousand and
Speaker 2: two forty BCE didn't fit this mold perfectly. They had
Speaker 2: advanced political bureaucracy and manorial structures similar to the field
Speaker 2: systems that Europe would use later that govern peasant life,
Speaker 2: but the military dynamic was not even close. Later in
Speaker 2: the eighth the ninth centuries CE is when you could
Speaker 2: say Europe got the closest to the popular conception of
Speaker 2: feudalism under the Martels and the Carolingian Empire, which had
Speaker 2: the reciprocal military service and manorial relationships, but with a
Speaker 2: state too decentralized and nation to enforce a lot of
Speaker 2: these precepts, and the Church's power over the superstructure is
Speaker 2: not yet total. After that, versions of quasi feudal practices
Speaker 2: cropped up all over Europe. And other places other parts
Speaker 2: of the world for the next thousand years or so,
Speaker 2: but none of them combined everything together as we understand feudalism. Thus,
Speaker 2: because the term feudalism is confusing and isn't totally applicable,
Speaker 2: we mostly use the term manorialism to describe these kinds
Speaker 2: of social relationships. However, there's always a catch and periodization,
Speaker 2: and this is no different. We can't actually say that
Speaker 2: the popular idea of feudalism never existed in reality because
Speaker 2: of late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century Japan, which
Speaker 2: seemed to combine all aspects of feudalism into a rigid
Speaker 2: social structure overseen by a universal religious entity. They did
Speaker 2: extreme reciprocal relationships between peasants and nobles and reciprocal military service,
Speaker 2: wherein vassals were given fiefs in exchange for fighting on
Speaker 2: behalf of the lords and the shogunates. You'll no doubt
Speaker 2: remember this from the book and Show shogun. This is
Speaker 2: really really close to the popular idea of feudalism, which
Speaker 2: means when periodizing things, we can't fully toss feudalism out
Speaker 2: with the bathwater, because it's very sparsely applicable. What's more,
Speaker 2: this was happening at the turn of the seventeenth century
Speaker 2: in Japan, which is generally agreed to be the early
Speaker 2: modern period. So you've got Chinese feudalism from before the
Speaker 2: birth of Christ, European feudalism that filtered out in the
Speaker 2: Middle Ages, and Japanese feudalism well after the age of
Speaker 2: exploration and colonialism began. And that's a twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: year period of history. Oh and before we make any
Speaker 2: hard and fast recommendations about the use of feudalism, we
Speaker 2: must remember that it has its own technical definition under
Speaker 2: Marxism in the form of the quote feudal mode of
Speaker 2: production end quote, which undergirds our present understanding of how
Speaker 2: the world works and the dominant modes of production. Everybody
Speaker 2: now understands that we live under capitalism, and you know
Speaker 2: that was Marx and Adam Smith to a lesser extent.
Speaker 2: You know. So if you're going to toss out feudial there,
Speaker 2: then we have we're going to have to rework some things.
Speaker 2: Not only that, if you want to be hypertechnical about it,
Speaker 2: you could break feudalism down into three component parts. First,
Speaker 2: the pastoral aspects of the manorial structure, with peasants paying
Speaker 2: up to lords for housing and protection, second the martial
Speaker 2: aspects of reciprocal military duties between liege lords, their vassals
Speaker 2: and retainers. And third the superstructural aspect of a monarch
Speaker 2: or emperor at the top with rigid social dynamics enforced
Speaker 2: by the religious entity. By now, it's pretty obvious why
Speaker 2: periodization is really difficult when you have to coordinate three
Speaker 2: different aspects appearing in different places around the world twenty
Speaker 2: five hundred years apart from one another in some cases,
Speaker 2: and all of their own little idiosyncrasies based on material conditions.
Speaker 2: Eleanor my mouth hurts, What are we to do with this?
Speaker 1: How?
Speaker 2: How do academics make sense of this? Like like, where
Speaker 2: where do you begin? Where do you even begin?
Speaker 1: Okay? So what I would say is we are trying
Speaker 1: to work on this, and so right now there is
Speaker 1: a specific move towards what we're calling the global Middle ages, okay,
Speaker 1: and we're defining this and what we're attempting to do
Speaker 1: in terms of periodization here is we're going by dates. Bitch. Okay, look,
Speaker 1: look what what year is it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: That's the only thing you can do here? That's like yep, because.
Speaker 1: Because time is like a gratitude, the dating systems aren't
Speaker 1: all always the same. And like, of course, there are
Speaker 1: arguments to be made here about kind of forcing European
Speaker 1: dating on the world, et cetera, et cetera. But what
Speaker 1: we are kind of settling on for the global Middle
Speaker 1: Ages is like about five hundred to fifteen hundred. And
Speaker 1: the reason we think that this is kind of fruitful
Speaker 1: is that there are there are parallels in in varying places,
Speaker 1: like so, for example, the way trade networks work, the
Speaker 1: way that history itself is recorded, the way and even indeed,
Speaker 1: whether it is literacy rates, the way that taxes are collected,
Speaker 1: things like this, you know, And what we are attempting
Speaker 1: to do there is kind of decentralize the idea that like,
Speaker 1: you know, Europe is doing the four seventy six to
Speaker 1: I don't know, fourteen ninety two or fifteen seventeen thing,
Speaker 1: and then then then that's what the Middle Ages isn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't happening anywhere else, right, Yeah, so there is
Speaker 1: so for example, we will look at like the ecology
Speaker 1: of what's going on in these places or the tech
Speaker 1: of like how are people building boats. You know, things
Speaker 1: like this are very very similar across it. And I
Speaker 1: think that there there is, of course, like a certain
Speaker 1: level of anxiety still about using using the term medieval
Speaker 1: at all in a global context. But I think that
Speaker 1: the scholars who are doing this work have done a
Speaker 1: really great job at kind of like highlighting how there
Speaker 1: are are these similarities, right. Like, you know, if if
Speaker 1: we're looking, for example, at like the Incan or Aztec
Speaker 1: empires stuff like that, then then you could really see
Speaker 1: a lot of similarities to what's going on, uh you know,
Speaker 1: for example, I don't know in China, And indeed we
Speaker 1: certainly see a lot of trait that is kind of
Speaker 1: going from the Americas specifically into Asia. What the Global
Speaker 1: Middle Ages is attempting to do more particularly as a
Speaker 1: field of study, is like decentralize Eurasia a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: because like the trouble is that Eurasia does just tend
Speaker 1: to like push everybody else out of the way, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know, there's tons of stuff that we could
Speaker 1: be doing down in Africa or you know, certainly within
Speaker 1: the Americas, and you know, increasingly in Australasia as well.
Speaker 1: So but they are. Granted, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that ends up happening in other regions where there
Speaker 1: hasn't been such an emphasis on literacy is that we
Speaker 1: are more reliant on archaeological things, or folklore studies or
Speaker 1: indeed oral histories, which is fundamentally these are different disciplines
Speaker 1: than history, right because history as a discipline relies on
Speaker 1: the written record. That's what we're doing. We're taking the
Speaker 1: written record and we are interpreting it. Granted that we
Speaker 1: do that in conjunction alongside of archaeological finds, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, but we are trying to kind of like
Speaker 1: push that out and so that's what Global the Global
Speaker 1: Middle Ages is trying to do. But it's so young
Speaker 1: as a field that like people are largely unaware of it, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, so this is something like as a
Speaker 1: I think it was first kind of come up with
Speaker 1: in sort of like the late nineties is when people
Speaker 1: started first looking at it. So it it has really
Speaker 1: kind of blossomed out of that, like it especially became
Speaker 1: larger in like the teens. You know, I'm mostly aware
Speaker 1: of it from the UK side of things, but like
Speaker 1: Oxford and Birmingham and stuff have been working on the
Speaker 1: global Middle Ages, like and running huge conferences like twenty
Speaker 1: twelve they had a really big one. In twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: they had a really big one. And so so what
Speaker 1: they're we're attempting to do here is what they're kind
Speaker 1: of terming like a combinative studies, so like putting all
Speaker 1: like put everything in a big dish and shake it
Speaker 1: up and have a look at it, right instead of
Speaker 1: like contrasting, which I think is good and useful. And
Speaker 1: so you know a lot of our friends are doing
Speaker 1: really awesome work in these places for sure. Now Here
Speaker 1: on this show we are a little bit stimy because
Speaker 1: I'm a Europeanist, right and you know, yeah we do,
Speaker 1: we do, and and I think that that is that's
Speaker 1: an important thing to flag up. And you know, like
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty solid understanding of what's going on
Speaker 1: in Asia, but you know, if we're talking about subs
Speaker 1: of hoar in Africa, I get real shaky, real quickly.
Speaker 1: So like I defer to my betters in these things
Speaker 1: that I do, I read these things, yeah, I absolutely do.
Speaker 1: But so here, I guess what we're proposing is just
Speaker 1: kind of doing things based on date, and then what
Speaker 1: they are proposing even further within the study of the
Speaker 1: Global Middle Ages is, yeah, we're doing it based on date,
Speaker 1: but the reason we're doing it based on date is
Speaker 1: that we can see globally there are certain things that
Speaker 1: are common across all cultures, and you know, this makes
Speaker 1: it a useful term and a good way of kind
Speaker 1: of like branching out. So yeah, like the work is
Speaker 1: getting done, but the thing is it's in its infancy,
Speaker 1: which is why we are still kind of like not
Speaker 1: aware of it as a society. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: like you can check out there is a Past and Present,
Speaker 1: which is like one of the big history journals. They
Speaker 1: did in twenty eighteen, a dedicated art dedicated volume on
Speaker 1: the Global Middle Ages, and the introduction is indeed free
Speaker 1: and unlock to read online, So if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to read a little bit more about it,
Speaker 1: we'll put the link in the show notes there so
Speaker 1: that you can check it out. But the answer is
Speaker 1: everybody's right, this is confusing and it's weird, and we
Speaker 1: are kind of like groping towards working on periodization, and
Speaker 1: the way that we do this is by nerding out
Speaker 1: most nerdally having some conferences, and we start with journal
Speaker 1: articles and then we move towards books and then you
Speaker 1: can then hopefully like broaden that out, and but it
Speaker 1: takes a while, and you know how fucking hard it
Speaker 1: is for us to even get anyone to take the
Speaker 1: concept of medieval history seriously as a discipline that should
Speaker 1: be studied, like, let alone, when you're trying to broaden it,
Speaker 1: like a way, we're we're fighting real uphill battle on
Speaker 1: this one, folks. So yeah, like it's definitely happening, but
Speaker 1: it's these things happen slowly because you know, intellectual movements
Speaker 1: often do. So yeah, but whore, we're getting there, We're
Speaker 1: getting there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to get started on my
Speaker 2: paper about how the dating system should be reoriented around
Speaker 2: the date of the Trinity nuclear test, and you know,
Speaker 2: a year before that should be year zero, and then
Speaker 2: everything before that pre modern era, everything after that is
Speaker 2: modern era or maybe you know whatever. But like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like doing this for the Middle Ages, doing it
Speaker 2: for for most doing it for most time periods across
Speaker 2: the world is hard. And the reason that dates are
Speaker 2: used is because it's really the only thing we can
Speaker 2: kind of agree on. Like I mean, if you look
Speaker 2: at kind of what we think about as like medieval culture,
Speaker 2: what represents you know, the Middle Ages in you know,
Speaker 2: as between after the classical and Ancient era and before
Speaker 2: the pre the early modern era, you know, like a
Speaker 2: lot most people say that China entered this when they
Speaker 2: started the Three Kingdoms period, which was in the two hundred. See,
Speaker 2: you know there was the Ghana Empire was quasi medieval,
Speaker 2: you know, probably in the four or five hundreds like
Speaker 2: these this is before the fall of the Roman Empire,
Speaker 2: I mean back in the two hundreds, is before they
Speaker 2: even split the damn thing. You know, Like so you can't,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to, like you basically have to
Speaker 2: give some on the edges in order to make this work.
Speaker 2: Because if you say that the global Middle Ages, or
Speaker 2: is it sometimes called post classical history, the post classical era,
Speaker 2: if you say it starts in two hundred, like okay,
Speaker 2: maybe for like one or you know a couple of
Speaker 2: other places, but for the majority of the world, no, not,
Speaker 2: they were not close. The Romans were still all over
Speaker 2: the Mediterranean, Europe and you know, parts of Africa and
Speaker 2: Western Asia, and you know they the Persians one of
Speaker 2: the most important civilizations of this time, the most important
Speaker 2: civilizations in the history of the world in terms of
Speaker 2: what they did under the Sasanians and everything. They aren't
Speaker 2: considered to have reached the Middle Ages until the Arab
Speaker 2: the Caliphates conquest in like the early six thirties, I
Speaker 2: mean the late six thirties. Like you just you can't
Speaker 2: because like some of these places adopted iron earlier or later.
Speaker 2: Some of these places had like very like the Chinese
Speaker 2: had inventions obviously very far in front of other people.
Speaker 2: They had a lot of inventions earlier in India, and
Speaker 2: I mean, of course, the Islamic Golden Age is like
Speaker 2: you can't just base it on this because if you do,
Speaker 2: you are unable to period a period of size anything
Speaker 2: like if you want to base it on technology, because
Speaker 2: there's no technology. There's no like technological jumping off point
Speaker 2: around for one hundred to five hundred CE. That like
Speaker 2: that delineates it from before that, Like gunpowder hadn't been
Speaker 2: invented and wouldn't be for three hundred or so years.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, silk production was only in China
Speaker 2: at that. You know, it's like these things have you know,
Speaker 2: there's no way to make it fully global in a
Speaker 2: way that corresponds to everything, because even if you talk
Speaker 2: about technological advancements in Afro Eurasia, the America's had completely
Speaker 2: different things, where like they did not make the same
Speaker 2: technological advancements and they didn't have a lot of the
Speaker 2: same forms of writing that we did, but that didn't
Speaker 2: stop them from having advanced empires. I've talked about the
Speaker 2: Inca on here before. They ran an entire system of
Speaker 2: like quasi like quasi primitive communist type deal where every
Speaker 2: family got land from the state and they had repositories
Speaker 2: of grain and food and stuff like that. You know,
Speaker 2: they also had a lot of patriarchal imperial stuff on
Speaker 2: top of that. But they did that, and the only
Speaker 2: writing or counting systems we know that they have were
Speaker 2: these little not keeping things that we don't understand called
Speaker 2: cupu and they did all that, like keeping records on knots.
Speaker 2: So like that is a political advancement that is insane
Speaker 2: compared to anyone else in the world at that time,
Speaker 2: maybe even compared to China. Not that they were advanced
Speaker 2: beyond China, but like having that advancement so early without
Speaker 2: writing that we can understand or find is that's like,
Speaker 2: that's fucking like space age, like it's insane. Also proves
Speaker 2: that you know, you can, you can have you know
Speaker 2: you can, you can do land reform and everybody's fine,
Speaker 2: you don't have to just be assholes. But you know anyway, point, Yeah, look,
Speaker 2: periodization is hard. I mean I yeah, yeah, it is
Speaker 2: eleanor what. What are some successful attempts to reform periodization
Speaker 2: that you can think of, like just you know, obviously
Speaker 2: we say ce so that's a big one, even though
Speaker 2: to me that's just like lipstick on a pig. We
Speaker 2: haven't reduced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A thing I like in terms of
Speaker 1: periodization is the use of the term the long ye. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think it's way more useful, like like you know,
Speaker 1: the long fourteenth century.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, although they never do it for the fucking Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: do they, But like you know, it's a can tell
Speaker 1: you what the eighteenth century, that's one of the longest motherfuckers. Well,
Speaker 1: I know, the century longer than the eighteenth century has
Speaker 1: never existed, so but I think that's really good. I guess,
Speaker 1: like my from my standpoint as a social historian, I
Speaker 1: think that using the term the long really helps like
Speaker 1: just not be like yo, like these things don't just
Speaker 1: appear overnight, right, So the I think that it is
Speaker 1: really good because it acknowledges spillover and how these things
Speaker 1: are are interconnected. And I think that it's it's really
Speaker 1: useful even in just a modern sense, because I think that,
Speaker 1: for example, the term the long nineties is really useful.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the end of history. Yeah, we're in the law,
Speaker 2: We're in the long nineties until the current consensus breaks apart,
Speaker 2: and then we're in something else in my opinion, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So I think the long has been a really good one.
Speaker 1: I think that moving towards attempting to do things by
Speaker 1: dates is good, but I it's a difficult one. I
Speaker 1: suppose also just acknowledging the early modern. That's that's an
Speaker 1: important thing I suppose to the modern, because before you
Speaker 1: just used to get a lot more like pre Enlightenment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just sort of like, okay, well it's all pre Enlightenment,
Speaker 1: isn't it, dude, Like you know, come.
Speaker 2: On, it doesn't mean anything. It's stupid, yeah, not to
Speaker 2: men like yeah, and I mean not to mention that
Speaker 2: in like you know, I don't know. Whenever they start
Speaker 2: periodizing this in like this era, in like two three
Speaker 2: hundred years, we're all going to be called postmodern, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're all going there, and they're gonna date postmodernity probably
Speaker 2: to like the beginning of the Cold War or something
Speaker 2: like that. But like, yeah, it's you know, like it's
Speaker 2: it's it's hard, like it really is just fucking difficult
Speaker 2: to do, and like you like like and like I
Speaker 2: don't like the term post classic cool because like what
Speaker 2: the fuck does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, which, oh, I guess that's classical.
Speaker 2: Post antiquity, post ancient, like what I.
Speaker 1: Like, late antique, that's I find laid a really useful,
Speaker 1: laid antic I think is good. I guess I use
Speaker 1: that one a lot. Yeah, laid antique.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean go.
Speaker 1: Ahead, hold on, I'll just pause.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You know, period a periodization is uh tricky
Speaker 2: because uh there's a lot of people. Uh, the world
Speaker 2: is vast and things haven't become terribly homogenized like they
Speaker 2: are now until the nineteen hundreds ish, like maybe the
Speaker 2: late eighteen hundreds, like we are, you know, we it
Speaker 2: seems so set in stone to us, but you know,
Speaker 2: like the world's I've only been like this for a
Speaker 2: couple of hundred years. Before that, it was far less homogeneous,
Speaker 2: and everybody was like kind of going at their own speed,
Speaker 2: you know, separate and unequal development and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. Yeah, that that's a lot about periodization. When
Speaker 2: we say Middle Ages here, we mean global Middle Ages.
Speaker 2: You know, take your pick four seventy Look, I'll give
Speaker 2: you four seventy six to fifteen seventeen. There you go.
Speaker 2: That encompasses the whole thing everybody. I don't want to
Speaker 2: hear it. I would normally do fourteen ninety two, but
Speaker 2: the five hundred to fifteen hundred people can have their
Speaker 2: cake any I don't want to hear anything else. That's it, though. No,
Speaker 2: we're not expanding it anymore.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we don't call it post class school here
Speaker 2: because that term sucks to me.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But yeah, when we're I promise when we're talking about
Speaker 2: Middle Ages, we do try to delineate and make those delineations.
Speaker 2: Although I do use Medieval and Middle Ages to just
Speaker 2: any anywhere in the world during this period of time
Speaker 2: is medieval to me, even if we're talking about Medieval America,
Speaker 2: is you know, is a much different place than medieval
Speaker 2: China than medieval Bohemia. But you know it's you know,
Speaker 2: we got to do it otherwise we're just if we
Speaker 2: don't have a common way to speak about this, then
Speaker 2: it all just breaks down and we can't even like,
Speaker 2: forget doing history podcasts. We don't even have a way
Speaker 2: to describe history because nobody can agree what anything means. Anyway, folks,
Speaker 2: that's periodization. And now since you've sat through that, it's
Speaker 2: time to talk about stuff that is annoying us. So
Speaker 2: you sat through the delicious and nutritious dinner, it's time
Speaker 2: to dive in ice cream Sunday bar that is Christianity. No, really,
Speaker 2: this one is fun. I promise that Eleanor and I
Speaker 2: I have looked on with trepidation for quite some time.
Speaker 2: Growing trend emerges where in some bog standard type of bullshit,
Speaker 2: christian postulating is labeled as adult convert shit or an
Speaker 2: example of the stupidity of quote. American Christianity end quote
Speaker 2: as a defense against how embarrassing they are, and it
Speaker 2: simply has to stop. I witness individuals on both Twitter
Speaker 2: and Blue Sky saying quite openly that calling the Pope
Speaker 2: the Antichrist is not typical Christian behavior and is something
Speaker 2: only converts would do. And I don't even know where
Speaker 2: to begin with that shit, because calling the Pope the
Speaker 2: Antichrist is so old that it predates the legalization of
Speaker 2: the religion itself. You know, none of this is intended
Speaker 2: to defend the underlying stupid takes being offered. They are insane.
Speaker 2: It should be mocked, but not like this. And also,
Speaker 2: I believe that people use terms like American Christianity, America Protestantism,
Speaker 2: and American Catholicism as ways to deflect from the very
Speaker 2: real problems of reacttionarias that inhabit all levels, of course,
Speaker 2: all Christian institutions across the globe. But we will get there. Also,
Speaker 2: it's really asinine to think that American Protestantism is a monolithic,
Speaker 2: monolithic thing. It's like six hundred different sex all arguing
Speaker 2: about whether the color of the rug is should be
Speaker 2: green or blue or some shit like. That's not a monolith, people,
Speaker 2: not in the way that you think. Anyway. Uh, this
Speaker 2: started because I was I was annoyed, and I got
Speaker 2: annoyed because I saw something like I sent it to
Speaker 2: Eleanor and I just I don't.
Speaker 1: It cracked my brain wide open.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that I do not understand. So it's
Speaker 2: a it's a it's a Reddit screenshot, and it says, say, say,
Speaker 2: for example, tooth Catholics of equal standing both go to
Speaker 2: confession at the same time. Ten minutes later, one engages
Speaker 2: in vorn ocation, the other in sodomy. Both die at
Speaker 2: the same moment and are judged in heaven. What if any,
Speaker 2: would be the difference in terms of heavenly consequences? Would
Speaker 2: they be equal or would one be more grave? And
Speaker 2: somebody responded then said, uh, you know, sodomy would be
Speaker 2: worse because it's not just the sin of lust, but
Speaker 2: also in a front of the divine order of creation.
Speaker 2: In other words, neither an anus nor mouth are meant
Speaker 2: to be sex organs. One my visualize, uh, and this
Speaker 2: just goes into like a bunch of bulls and shit
Speaker 2: like one. I visualize this as a vector in in
Speaker 2: space where the length of the vector magnitude of the
Speaker 2: sin is influenced by all the end dimension. Look, I'm
Speaker 2: not shut up her, that's not okay. Look I don't
Speaker 2: care the bit please, the bit that I.
Speaker 1: Think that we need to do right, like ignore all
Speaker 1: the vectors bit. But so he's like, he's there's three axes, lust, unnaturalness,
Speaker 1: and interpersonal violence and so the but like he gets
Speaker 1: down to it and he goes, so you can no, no,
Speaker 1: like he says, uh, so you can add more dimensions
Speaker 1: and look for other factors. For example, you can define
Speaker 1: a fourth dimension unitive ends and masturbation becomes us in
Speaker 1: since it devolves lust, abuse of sex or organs, and
Speaker 1: personal isolation, but no interpersonal violence. But part of it,
Speaker 1: he says, is that, like, so there's lust on natural
Speaker 1: and interpersonal violence, so heterosexual rape would be equal in
Speaker 1: magnitude to sodomy, and homosexual rape is worse than the above. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: So the reason, the reason I've got a fucking problem
Speaker 1: with this is Saint Augustine literally, not Saint Augustine, Saint
Speaker 1: Thomas Aquinas literally did all this shit and you're wrong. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's crazy to me to watch
Speaker 1: this person who thinks he's a Catholic, Like ignore Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 2: Hold on, plea, please just one ticket. Oh that's just
Speaker 2: one ticket, because I just have a threshold issue before
Speaker 2: we get there, before you before you tear this apart.
Speaker 2: And the threshold issue is this, there is nothing more
Speaker 2: Christian in history. And if you've heard us talk about
Speaker 2: these monks and these nuns and everything like that, there's
Speaker 2: nothing more Christian in history then devising insane scenarios to
Speaker 2: go and hester your priest or your bishop or whoever
Speaker 2: about regarding trite little like sexual alliances. Oh what if
Speaker 2: I get a hand job while I'm riding in the
Speaker 2: carriage to church and by going to heaven father or not,
Speaker 2: I got the hand job.
Speaker 1: In the church, but it was but it was on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday and my wife did it. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is that okay? Father? Like what do we need? And dude,
Speaker 2: it's like just please just say a Helmary And I
Speaker 2: don't care this. Don't do it in the church again,
Speaker 2: leave me alone. I don't like you know. That is
Speaker 2: that is Christianity. That is look at look at Dante.
Speaker 2: Look at the minute that Dante was going through to
Speaker 2: like divide these people into different types of sin, different
Speaker 2: types of sex, like and one sin is greater than
Speaker 2: the other sin is greater than the other sin, like,
Speaker 2: and it just depends on various things. That is Christianity.
Speaker 2: That is Catholic Christianity, that is the history of Christianity.
Speaker 2: Bar nunn eleanor please uh, Saint Augustine of Hippo or
Speaker 2: whoever the fuck.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I guess this is now that you brought up, Dante, though,
Speaker 1: Let's just point out to the one thing that also
Speaker 1: happens here. All these motherfuckers who just want to obsess.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because they always want to obsess about the
Speaker 1: sex sins, right, Like, I don't see them going into
Speaker 1: this level of like I'm being like, oh, imagine n space. Also,
Speaker 1: shut the fuck up, your nerd. I will not imagine.
Speaker 2: I'm not imagining.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna imagine shit.
Speaker 2: I can barely imagine in space when I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: cool sci fi stuff. I'm certainly not imagining it here
Speaker 2: for you. Ranking and jobs like oh my god, I
Speaker 2: got a hand job here. Oh I fingered my Shut
Speaker 2: the fuck up. We were all in middle school and
Speaker 2: I just said this ship to Saint Augustine too. Oh
Speaker 2: but like, shut up, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I don't care about your body. Yeah, like, okay, so
Speaker 1: these guys only want to talk about sexual sins like
Speaker 1: no one is out here being like okay, like what
Speaker 1: about sinning by cheating on your taxes or some ship. Like,
Speaker 1: nobody's doing that, right, So they always want to define
Speaker 1: it in terms of lust. But if we look at Dante,
Speaker 1: what Dante shows us is that lust is kind of
Speaker 1: like the least worst sin, like, you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of the rings. He's like, he's like, well we've all
Speaker 1: been there, yeah, like yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no Dante, yeah exactly. He like he he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they sin, and then I mean later of course he's like,
Speaker 2: well the homosexuals are you know, a little worse. So
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, man, But again, that's the same, Like
Speaker 2: it's not the same thing because Dante was doing it
Speaker 2: more elegantly and he is not like a weird freak
Speaker 2: like this, at least not in this respect. But like,
Speaker 2: it's that's the same thing, Dante, Dante delineating those things
Speaker 2: is the same goddamn thing, except he doesn't say in
Speaker 2: space because he's not a fucking dweb.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like and Aquinas absolutely does come up with
Speaker 1: like a hierarchy of sin based on what whether or
Speaker 1: not he perceives the sin to be logical. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like you don't need end space, because it's
Speaker 1: just got What we have instead is this idea of
Speaker 1: logic being harmonious with God and in and therefore in
Speaker 1: alignment with God. And so therefore the more out of
Speaker 1: alignment something is the worse it is, right, And so
Speaker 1: this guy's saying that, like, oh, specifically he says that.
Speaker 1: So the thing is he is actually letting his own
Speaker 1: modern ideas cloud his thought, if that's really what he
Speaker 1: wants to do, because he says that, like he says that, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, like the like sodomy is kind of the
Speaker 1: same as heterosexual rape and that homosexual rapist words, and
Speaker 1: it's like that is absolutely not true according to Aquinas,
Speaker 1: because what Aquinas's thing is is that the logic of
Speaker 1: sex is only for having children within marital circumstances, right,
Speaker 1: And so he says that actually rape, but the way
Speaker 1: a mad raping of women is not as bad as
Speaker 1: sodomy because at least someone can get pregnant, which is
Speaker 1: fucking dire, dude, Like it's so dire, it's so dire.
Speaker 1: So this guy actually does have modern sensibilities because he's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's that's bad and it's bad and illogical likexodomy.
Speaker 1: It's not fucking illogical likexodomy. If you want to go down,
Speaker 1: if this is the fucking road you really want to
Speaker 1: go down, if this is what you actually want to
Speaker 1: go down, then you need to fucking own it, like
Speaker 1: eat it, you know, eat the eat the whole thing
Speaker 1: that belongs to you. Now, don't do this like oh,
Speaker 1: like guess that, like, oh it's betterly his bad. It's
Speaker 1: sort of shut the fuck up, you nerd. And the
Speaker 1: reason why he is right that the reason why, Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting though, because you notice here he's like, sodomy
Speaker 1: is uh is mouths and amuses. I'm like, what about
Speaker 1: the hands, bra, You're trying to get away with hand jobs?
Speaker 2: Bra?
Speaker 1: Who's trying to get away with hand jobs? Right now?
Speaker 1: I know, I see your ass. You know. He's kind
Speaker 1: of like trying to sort of like do these condemnations right,
Speaker 1: And also it doesn't really necessarily make sense because he
Speaker 1: also says here that like, like a homosexual rape is
Speaker 1: worse than all of the above, Well, what about when
Speaker 1: women are sodomized, when they're raped by men? That's better?
Speaker 1: Like how that would be? It should be the same
Speaker 1: for you? Right, And like The reason why the Aquinas
Speaker 1: is kind of more chill with rape than he should
Speaker 1: be is he's like, well, at the very least you
Speaker 1: could have a baby, and also that situation can be
Speaker 1: made right by forcing the rapists to marry the woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in which case everything's fine now. Actually, so it's like you,
Speaker 1: if you want to get into this, this kettle of fish,
Speaker 1: then you need to realize that someone smarter than you
Speaker 1: has already done this and it's actually worse and more
Speaker 1: horrifying that you are willing to deal with.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he's yeah, like somebody has already done this.
Speaker 2: He's considered like a genius of the church, and a
Speaker 2: literal saint already did this. Yeah, a literal saint already
Speaker 2: did this. And he already did it in like a
Speaker 2: creepy or a more domineering, in patriarchal way than what
Speaker 2: you're saying, because he's like, this is fine because a
Speaker 2: woman gets you know, if the woman gets pregnant. Then
Speaker 2: there was that politician in America who was like the last,
Speaker 2: the last Republican to like, uh get run out for
Speaker 2: wokeness and never be able to come back to you know,
Speaker 2: like if if there's a bay if the woman becomes pregnant. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's not rape. It automatically use like that.
Speaker 1: Because during real rape, a woman's body has ways of
Speaker 1: shutting that whole thing down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, exactly, because we're actually ducks. Yeah something. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So uh, folks, look, if you're going to do it,
Speaker 2: you gotta you gotta be at least as depraved and
Speaker 2: insane as the masters here. I don't want to hear
Speaker 2: about in space or any of that. Uh yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean I mentioned it earlier, but uh, in the same
Speaker 2: thread where they were talking about that Reddit post, people
Speaker 2: were like, oh, they called the pope the anti Christ.
Speaker 1: Classic classic.
Speaker 2: That is so Catholic. Why why do you think the
Speaker 2: anti pope is called an antipope because he's related to
Speaker 2: the dude.
Speaker 1: It's like calling the Emperor anti Christ, calling the Pope
Speaker 1: anti Christ, calling that guy over there.
Speaker 2: At Christ hat.
Speaker 1: This is the number one thing that Christians like to do, is.
Speaker 2: That when you get mad at the pope for anything,
Speaker 2: doesn't he looked at you the wrong way? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But can we talk about that other that other tweet?
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, we're getting there, yeah anyway, Yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: get there now. Because this is this is this is.
Speaker 2: This is fun and Ellen or I think her brain
Speaker 2: is going to explode.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm so mad about this.
Speaker 2: You should be. However, we should also is it?
Speaker 1: Oh God got it? I got it on here somewhere
Speaker 1: because I was rantic about it on well, I wasn't
Speaker 1: rantic about it. I was hinting that I was going
Speaker 1: to rant about it on a blue sky. Where's it going?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: It's so I can't find it so bad. I want
Speaker 1: to be able to like get the exact wording right
Speaker 1: because it's so it's so stupid, but it is. This
Speaker 1: is great podcasting. We should definitely leave all of this
Speaker 1: in for the listening discretion of our viewers. Uh, like,
Speaker 1: people are just gonna love it. But yeah, I honestly
Speaker 1: can't find it. It but it is more or less.
Speaker 1: This woman said, Jesus did not he wait, no, here
Speaker 1: it is okay. And also I'm going to give her
Speaker 1: at her at is toneski t O n E s
Speaker 1: k e e E if you want to go yell
Speaker 1: at her on Twitter. And she says, Jesus did not
Speaker 1: primarily die for you because he loves you. He primarily
Speaker 1: died for his own glory.
Speaker 2: All right, hold on hold on, let's I want to
Speaker 2: say number one, that there is nothing more Christian in
Speaker 2: the history of the world than coming up with insane, stupid, nonsensical,
Speaker 2: bullshit reasons to like to to to to figure out
Speaker 2: like oh and say, the divinity of God is like
Speaker 2: special in some way that is the oldest thing in
Speaker 2: the world. To the point that this is a version
Speaker 2: of an early heresy called docetism. Now it's a very stupid,
Speaker 2: very modern version of dosetism. But like the basically justism
Speaker 2: was that uh, Jesus is part of God, and the
Speaker 2: human form of Jesus that came onto the earth and
Speaker 2: was crucified was just uh an illusion and basically a
Speaker 2: way to uh to big up the power of God
Speaker 2: and Jesus essentially, you know, as someone said about the
Speaker 2: about that tweet, you know, oh, Jesus is or a
Speaker 2: farm on the cross, and that's what that's what doctism
Speaker 2: is to, you know, to to to a greater or
Speaker 2: lesser extent. Now, with that being said, eleanor please go
Speaker 2: the fuck off.
Speaker 1: Okay, so like it no, no, like no, in the
Speaker 1: first place, like the entire point of Jesus, the entire
Speaker 1: fucking point of Jesus is that he did it for everybody, like.
Speaker 2: The for God so loved the world that he said
Speaker 2: He's only begotten son, so that he may die on
Speaker 2: the car that like, it is a heresy of the
Speaker 2: highest order because it denies that. And I love when
Speaker 2: people do heresies that deny the underlying conceptions of the religion.
Speaker 2: They're being heretical against. It's like, okay, man, just go
Speaker 2: do something else. You're not Christian anymore, like I mean,
Speaker 2: it just.
Speaker 1: It's the entire point of it is okay. So so
Speaker 1: the Nicean creed, the Nicean creed, which you say every Sunday, okay,
Speaker 1: includes the lines like we believe in the One Lord
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of
Speaker 1: the Father God, from God, Light from Light, true God,
Speaker 1: from true God, begotten and not made one in being
Speaker 1: with the Father. Through him, all things were made for
Speaker 1: us men and for our salvation. He came down from
Speaker 1: heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was
Speaker 1: born of the Virgin Mary and became man for our sake.
Speaker 1: He was crucified under Patrus Pilot. He suffered, died, and
Speaker 1: was buried. On the third day, he rose again in
Speaker 1: fulfillment of the scriptures, he has sent it into heaven
Speaker 1: is seated at the right head of the Father. You like,
Speaker 1: it is literally in there. He came down from heaven,
Speaker 1: like you know, for us and for our salvation. He
Speaker 1: came down from heaven, not for his like fucking glory
Speaker 1: glory form.
Speaker 2: No, Now, if he wanted to, there are way better
Speaker 2: ways to our farm than to get yourself strung up
Speaker 2: on a fucking but sticks of wood. Wait, just levitate above.
Speaker 2: Everyone speak loud enough for where they can hear you.
Speaker 2: That's it. There you go, You've You've proven the whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the point of Christianity is that Jesus could have done that.
Speaker 2: He could have done all of it. He could have
Speaker 2: said no, and it would have ended because he had
Speaker 2: the same he had the same power as God to
Speaker 2: whatever extent you believe. But he definitely could have stopped him.
Speaker 2: So if he could turn water into wine, he could
Speaker 2: definitely pull himself off the cross and without without an issue.
Speaker 2: And it's uh, it's like, it's it's also in it.
Speaker 2: It's it's the it's the fundamental thing. And like to me,
Speaker 2: like I am not a Christian anymore. I don't care
Speaker 2: about it. But like to me, like, if you're a Christian,
Speaker 2: you think about it. The thing about it has to
Speaker 2: be that God and Jesus loved you enough to do this,
Speaker 2: and he loved you enough to go through this horrific
Speaker 2: pain and take and become the sin eater to do this.
Speaker 2: That that's the point. If you don't have that.
Speaker 1: What's the point? Like, I mean, this shit is in
Speaker 1: the Niciene Creed, it's in the Athanasian Creed. It's like one,
Speaker 1: it is the central chet tenant of Christianity. It's what
Speaker 1: makes you a Christian as opposed to Jewish.
Speaker 2: Right. One of the reasons that Nicee Creed was written
Speaker 2: in this way is because they specifically rejected doctism. There.
Speaker 2: They were like, no, there was no Ora farming. It
Speaker 2: just sucked for him. It sucked. It sucked.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, like have you read the Bible. Like
Speaker 1: the entire thing is about how much he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to do this, like going up to it. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, father, but like take this cut from me,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know how how tempted he is,
Speaker 1: how he doesn't want to do it, Like you know,
Speaker 1: the the lamentations in the garden are all about how
Speaker 1: much he doesn't want to do this because it's gonna
Speaker 1: suck so badly, but he has to do it for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's the whole fuck. That's the whole point,
Speaker 1: the whole point. If it was just for his glory,
Speaker 1: he'd be like, sweet, let me get out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it it It just denudes the religion of what
Speaker 1: is there for. I don't I don't even understand why
Speaker 1: you want this girl, Like.
Speaker 2: Oh, like I've made this kind of joke before, but
Speaker 2: it is true. Like George Lucas and the people who
Speaker 2: wrote the Bible had the same idea, which is that
Speaker 2: if you have a chosen one, if you have someone
Speaker 2: who has all of this power and can like do
Speaker 2: whatever they want and is the person of destiny, you
Speaker 2: have to fully break them. You have to destroy them.
Speaker 2: They cannot be like, it cannot be that they that
Speaker 2: has to happen. Sometimes know whether that happens because they
Speaker 2: betray themselves and they they do things that they never
Speaker 2: should have done and they commit horrific acts a genocide,
Speaker 2: or if it's that they have all this power but
Speaker 2: they choose to endure it as a human being would
Speaker 2: and die without like overawing everyone and and and turning
Speaker 2: themselves into the God Emperor of earth. That's another way
Speaker 2: to do it. If you don't have that, then there's
Speaker 2: no fucking point in being a Christian like there there
Speaker 2: there's no there's like just be an ah, like yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: worship the dollar. Who gives a shit? Hell, just go
Speaker 2: to one of those prosperity gospel churches where they like
Speaker 2: at least teach like God's going to give you this
Speaker 2: money because he loves you. That it's it's a horrific
Speaker 2: blasphemy to the Bible and everything, but it's closer than
Speaker 2: this this like this is yeah, like you're not like
Speaker 2: you're not a Christian like and this is like this
Speaker 2: is a problem with like with Christianity. Todays people just
Speaker 2: say this stuff and like you can't there's no way
Speaker 2: to tamp any of it down, Like you can't. There
Speaker 2: are no overarch there there are no real overarching uh
Speaker 2: structures to this. And I mean not that it worked
Speaker 2: in the Middle Age just because you had all the
Speaker 2: heresies then too, but like once people like when people
Speaker 2: read things a spiritual import or even just regular stuff,
Speaker 2: but especially of spiritual import they like their mind imagines
Speaker 2: them and like in saying in weird different ways, it's
Speaker 2: not like it's not just like a static thing. And
Speaker 2: so like somebody's going to see this and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: God is or farming on the cross. I know the
Speaker 2: person's going to see it and be like God and
Speaker 2: Jesus are like completely and totally separate. And and then
Speaker 2: you know another person's going to see it another way,
Speaker 2: and you get into the arianism and all that sort
Speaker 2: of like you get into all those divinity debates, and
Speaker 2: so when you don't have that overarching thing and you
Speaker 2: don't have the superstructure, it all just kind of devolves
Speaker 2: into this. And since like all of like the especially
Speaker 2: all of the western countries, but a lot of countries
Speaker 2: in the world are just like, well, we're just like
Speaker 2: marching on into oblivion and we're not going to do
Speaker 2: anything to stop it. Of course, people who have these
Speaker 2: like like people who are at the end of their
Speaker 2: rope are like, yeah, of course, you know, Jesus is
Speaker 2: or farming on the cross. I'm you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: die because you know, like because I can't pay for healthcare,
Speaker 2: like people just I don't and I don't really know
Speaker 2: how you fix that other than by Christians just being like, look,
Speaker 2: we just have to like excommunicate all these people, we
Speaker 2: have to get them out, like we have to do
Speaker 2: that because like even like even the Catholic Church now
Speaker 2: doesn't do that. All the fucking reactionaries are in there,
Speaker 2: and like, uh, none of the woke popes before now
Speaker 2: did anything. Like it's just like, I mean, I really
Speaker 2: don't I really don't know how you you stopped that
Speaker 2: apart from just like mass excommunicado, I don't fucking know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the entire thing is just incredible to me,
Speaker 1: because don't get me wrong, like this shit has always
Speaker 1: been around. Many people love to do this as much
Speaker 1: as everybody else, Like there are plenty of heresies that
Speaker 1: are kicking around. I guess what bothers me is when
Speaker 1: people are like, I'm a brain genius who consider this
Speaker 1: on like an end access. I will not consider it
Speaker 1: on an end access. Get the fuck off off Twitter,
Speaker 1: log off, Go speak to your priest about this, Like,
Speaker 1: go tell your priest, Go tell your priest to his face.
Speaker 2: If you're mapping sins on an on an in space
Speaker 2: access like that, you need to be doing one of
Speaker 2: two things. You need to be an advanced uh, like
Speaker 2: academic level mathematics so you can figure out like advanced
Speaker 2: forms of like quantum like whatever. Or you need to
Speaker 2: be a monk and you need to be writing like
Speaker 2: cryptic monk shit in somewhat like if you're doing that
Speaker 2: and you and you could seriously conceptualize that, like what
Speaker 2: the fuck you're posting that shit on Reddit? What the
Speaker 2: fuck are you doing? Man? Like, like go go do something,
Speaker 2: like you know, go do something with that shit. And
Speaker 2: you're just like, oh, it's in the in space. Uh God,
Speaker 2: was are a farming up? Like what the fuck are
Speaker 2: we doing? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like like I just don't know what it's for.
Speaker 2: You know I And I mean like but an another
Speaker 2: thing is like and this is kind of the thing
Speaker 2: I was thinking about with like American Christianity, American Protestantism,
Speaker 2: Like there are no overarching church organizations in this country
Speaker 2: that have like the kind of that that are rigid,
Speaker 2: that are set in stone, that have these huge like
Speaker 2: backings and everything like that, that have the institutional legitimacy
Speaker 2: that the Catholic Church does now or ever did in
Speaker 2: the past. There is nothing like that in America. The
Speaker 2: Catholic Church is not like that because it's badly riven
Speaker 2: here between like the you know people who go but
Speaker 2: they're like nice liberals, the lapse Catholics on they're kind
Speaker 2: of on one side, and then you have like the crazies,
Speaker 2: which I mean, it's that's like it pretty much everywhere
Speaker 2: else in the world too, with Catholicism. But like the
Speaker 2: people talk about American Protestantism as a monolithic thing, No,
Speaker 2: there's no Protestant monolith here in this country. Southern Baptist
Speaker 2: churches that are members of the Southern Baptist Convention disagree
Speaker 2: with and split off from them all the time. They're fighting,
Speaker 2: constantly fighting about everything. There. You know, there are seventy
Speaker 2: eighty ninety kinds of denominations of like Evangelicals. And then
Speaker 2: on top of that, you've got like the you've got
Speaker 2: like the pluralist religious groups. You know, you're Unitarian Universalists,
Speaker 2: You're you're Northeastern Protestants, you know that, you know, the
Speaker 2: kind of more refined they're more accepting of gay people
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. You've got all that. It's none
Speaker 2: of this is a monolith and people here are just
Speaker 2: like giving giving up on church fair faster than they
Speaker 2: were before. Like it's not a thing. It's like this
Speaker 2: vague institutional backing that people have for certain issues like
Speaker 2: Israel and stuff like that, but there's no religious rigor
Speaker 2: to it. And most of these people can't like direct
Speaker 2: their flocks to do anything because they don't have that's
Speaker 2: not an institutional Like Protestantism in America has fractured so
Speaker 2: many times that like you've got non denominational groups that
Speaker 2: are denominations. You've got non denominational groups that are just
Speaker 2: like we want to have an electric guitar and let
Speaker 2: some guy talk about one love and everything like that.
Speaker 2: That might as well be hippie communes. And then you've
Speaker 2: got you know, non denominationalists that are like cults that
Speaker 2: you know, abduct children, like it's you've got all stripes.
Speaker 2: It's just this weird thing. And I don't I really
Speaker 2: don't know what they do with it. I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you. I don't know how you
Speaker 2: reform it other than like the dune thing where you like,
Speaker 2: you know, orange Catholic Bible like un ironically, I really
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think it's strange that there is
Speaker 1: this desire inside them to invent some new form of Christianity.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I don't quite get. Like I suppose
Speaker 1: that you know, as we say, this is this is
Speaker 1: a deeply held Christian Uh. I guess this is what
Speaker 1: they do for sports. But on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: don't really see the point of being Catholic if you're
Speaker 1: not going to like be Catholic with it, right, Like
Speaker 1: if you're if you're gonna try to out smart a Quitas,
Speaker 1: if you're going to like say, the IC in Creed
Speaker 1: isn't real, then like why are you a Catholic at all?
Speaker 1: Just like go go be a Protestant. There's lots of them.
Speaker 1: I don't get it.
Speaker 2: Jesus our farming on the cross. Holy fuck, Like I cackled.
Speaker 2: I can't like that. Like that's good heresy, right, that
Speaker 2: is the hair. If you're gonna do a heresy, that's
Speaker 2: the heresy I'm looking for. That is like you're reviving
Speaker 2: some like second century bullshit. Okay, Okay, now we're.
Speaker 1: Cooking out, Yeah, like we're cooking Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, if you're gonna do a heresy. Don't go
Speaker 2: half assed with it anyway, folks. We've been talking for
Speaker 2: a while. But but yeah, there's a lot going on
Speaker 2: in the world. We'll be back with the something else
Speaker 2: next time. I'm not sure what. And also with the
Speaker 2: final installment in our series on and Or very sad,
Speaker 2: we gotta we gotta pass the baton off to Rogue
Speaker 2: one and see how many of our faves get got.
Speaker 2: But yeah, folks, that's gonna do it for us Today, Eleanor,
Speaker 2: what is going on with you?
Speaker 1: A few things. I went and stopped over on Cancel
Speaker 1: Me Daddy to talk about historical cancelations, so you can
Speaker 1: check that app out there and over on YouTube, which
Speaker 1: you may have heard of. I did an interview with
Speaker 1: my good friend Ben Smoke for Ralph World, So if
Speaker 1: you check out my socials, I'll have the links up there,
Speaker 1: and we simply love to see it. So if you
Speaker 1: could watch those things and make large magazines that think
Speaker 1: they should hire me for shoots, I would appreciate.
Speaker 2: That would be cool. Yeah, oh yeah, you can. We
Speaker 2: we meet Eleanor. Derek and Danny went on the History
Speaker 2: of Philosophy audio Archive podcast to talk about the first
Speaker 2: Crusade and all that sort of stuff that we did
Speaker 2: with our first Crusades series. So yeah, check that out
Speaker 2: if you want to hear that, and you know, welcome
Speaker 2: to the Welcome to the Crusades dot com if you
Speaker 2: want to check that out. But yeah, I'm normalm where
Speaker 2: I normally am. I'm not normal. I'm very not normal, but.
Speaker 1: I am normal.
Speaker 2: I am not normal. Do not tell the news that
Speaker 2: I am normal. But yeah, I'm on the socials where
Speaker 2: I normally am. You can find my old show, People's
Speaker 2: Sistery of the Old Republic where you are listening to
Speaker 2: this anyway, folks, that's going to do it for us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time.
Speaker 2: By