Quotulatiousness

March 19, 2022

Belisarius: War & Plague

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Epic History TV
Published 18 Mar 2022

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Big thanks to Legendarian for Total War: Attila gameplay footage, check out his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOI2…

Big thanks also to our series consultant Professor David Parnell of Indiana University Northwest, who you can follow on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/byzantineprof

Total War: Attila gameplay footage used with kind permission of Creative Assembly – buy the game here: https://geni.us/qDreR

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🎨 Original artwork by MiΕ‚ek Jakubiec https://www.artstation.com/milek

πŸ“š Recommended reading (as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases):
πŸ“– Procopius, History of the Wars https://geni.us/L3Pgc
πŸ“– The Wars of Justinian by Michael Whitby https://geni.us/Xxrd3
πŸ“– Rome Resurgent by Peter Heather https://geni.us/ZFoU1
πŸ“– The Armies of Ancient Persia: the Sassanians by Kaveh Farrokh https://geni.us/jMQo3z
πŸ“– Late Roman Cavalryman AD 236–565 (Osprey) by Simon MacDowall https://geni.us/XMGl

πŸ‘• Buy EHTV t-shirts, hoodies, mugs and stickers here! teespring.com/en-GB/stores/epic-histo…

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#EpicHistoryTV #RomanEmpire #EasternRomanEmpire #Justinian #Belisarius #ByzantineEmpire #Romans #Ostrogoths

History of Rome in 15 Buildings 01. The Hut of Romulus

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

toldinstone
Published 27 Sep 2018

This first episode of my History of Rome in Fifteen Buildings discusses the origins of Rome in relation to the enigmatic and frequently-rebuilt structure known as the Hut of Romulus. Along the way, we’ll encounter a floating phallus, a remarkably accommodating she-wolf, and, of course, the homicidal demigod who founded the city of Rome.

If you enjoyed this video, you might be interested in my forthcoming book Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

https://toldinstone.com/naked-statues…
If you’re so inclined, you can follow me elsewhere on the web:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorian…
https://www.instagram.com/toldinstone/

To see the story and photo essay associated with this video, go to:
https://toldinstone.com/the-hut-of-ro…
Thanks for watching!

QotD: The sterility of partisan political argument

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

For the partisan of deadly nonsense, the person on the other side is neither right nor wrong, since rightness and wrongness are never to be discussed: the person on the other side is merely a jackass, a bigot, ignorant, uninformed, pathetically stupid, Neanderthal, reactionary, bitter, a yokel, a class-traitor, and racist, racist, racist, and racist.

If you are arguing with someone, say, who has a better education than you, a higher I.Q., with perhaps a doctorate in law and a career as a journalist and a published series of books on his resume, that does not matter. The mere fact that he comes to different conclusions than the Party line indicates that he is stupid uneducated Nazi bigot, and a stupid bigoted fascist racist moron.

This is argumentum ad cloaca β€”β€” ratiocination via offal. Whatever the loudest donkey laughs loudest at, you take to be untrue. Since that was the way (admit it!) you yourself were convinced, O ye of little mind, it is the first, usually the only means, to which you resort to convince others: the volume and clamor is what matters, not the content.

The reason for the inadequacy of these condemnations, the reason why they are so unimaginative, is because of the paucity of the moral vocabulary of the Left. They do not have words to express outrage, so they sneer and yodel. They are like creature struck dumb, and only able to act out their condemnation by means of antic pantomime.

The more closely they follow Marx, the more impoverished their moral vocabulary becomes. You cannot call someone evil once you accept the proposition that all standards of good and evil are merely genetically-determined group survival behaviors, or merely culturally determined artifacts, or merely ideological superstructures meant to promote class interests. Your concept has lost its referents: it can be used only metaphorically, or ironically.

Likewise, you cannot call someone damned if you don’t believe in damnation. There is no such thing as blasphemy if there is nothing sacred, supernatural, or divine.

Likewise again, you cannot call someone illogical if logic is no longer the standard used to separate self-consistent from self-contradictory statements: because then you would have to argue the merits of the case, and rely on reason, like Adam Smith, rather than on verbal fetishes, like Karl Marx.

Our Progressive detractors have to call the object of their scorn a racist (or a parallel word, such as sexist, lookist, homophobe, capitalist, colorist, agist, whateverist) because that is the only arrow in their quiver. That is the only thing they have to shoot, so they shoot, and do not care how short of the target the dart falls.

John C. Wright, “The Crazy Years and their Empty Moral Vocabulary”, John C. Wright, 2019-02-18.

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