Hello, ladies and gentlemen, brothers, sisters, comrades, friends. As always, I am glad to have you guys listening to me. We have a special treat for you guys today that I don't think I even really alluded to. I might have mentioned it in maybe the pop Quiz episodes we
did recently. But before we get to that, I want to give a quick shout out, as always to my incredibly kind and generous supporters over on Patreon and substack, specifically those supporting at the executive producer level and above my longtime supporters Mike Meyleman and John Andre Saither. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you guys sticking with me this long, and everybody else as well who supports the show on Patreon and substack. Please feel free
to subscribe to either if you haven't already. There is free stuff for the A lot of people jokingly call them free loaders out there. I don't like saying that because I always feel a little bit guilty, but it's still fun. But no free content and a lot of exclusive content, and more than anything else that I can hopefully use to persuade people to join up is these are ad free episodes on Patreon and substack, whereas you get you know, a pepperine of ads on the regular
feed on Spotify or Apple podcasts. But regardless, if you haven't subscribed to History Impossible on substack or on Patreon, please do so. Become a member and you know, show your love if you can, with a couple bucks every month,
but even if you can't, that's totally fine. Please just see this as a chance to, I don't know, spread the word, you know, just let people know that History Impossible is a thing and it's something they might like if you think they might like it considering all the stuff we get into here with this particular episode, like
I said, it's a bit of a treat. It was a conversation that I had with longtime friend and mentor Danielle Ballli, host of History on Fire, writer of many books, pretty much a jack of all trades.
He actually has two.
Podcasts, in case you guys didn't know. His other first podcast, Drunken Dawis, is actually one I've been on a couple times. So if you miss those episodes, go check them out there, but also just subscribe to that and History on Fire if you somehow have not already. But Danielle has been at this for actually over ten years now, this being History podcasting, and he's been doing a lot of cool stuff.
He has some new projects, specifically one project I have in mind that he has announced on The Drunken Taoist. I don't think he's rolled it out yet, but he is going to be covering the history of Rome in a separate series from History on Fire. But I will let him talk about that one day. I just wanted to give you guys a sort of heads up on what's going on with him too. But yes, this conversation we had was all about what was about two things really, well three things we were catching up for a fair
bit of it. We spent about fifteen minutes talking about what he's been up to for the last couple of years with his show and just in general. But we also talked about one of our shared favorite stories, which is the story of the Taiping Rebellion, and then from there we use that as a sort of excuse to talk about the revolutionary nature of Protestantism basically in global history at this point, and the Typing Rebellion is probably
the best example of that. Potential. So it's a very free wheeling conversation, much less structured than my usual interviews. But that's just because Danielle and I have known each other for a while and it was a lot of fun, and we'll probably be doing something similar again in the relatively near future. We always have stuff that we like talking about, at least on the phone, and sometimes we're like, yeah, this should probably be a podcast. So we're hopefully going
to get back to that sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, sit back and please enjoy this conversation about some impossible history.
I'll let me to tell you what you would have seen and heard if we're not being pleasant listening, if you were at lunch, or if you have no.
App But I know it's a good time to switch off the radio. An ancestor of mine maintained, if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, Eva Russen Banji out of it. You know, general one who knows that I desire thou. I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is inside. I don't feel an the laughing dream.
I feel a laughing night wore. If we hearship to guilt if.
We hear assure to guil.
Some say the world will end empire, Some stay Anie. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold of those of favor fire, But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice is also great and would suffice.
This is History Impossible.
Well, like I said, guys, I'm here with longtime friend of the show, something of a mentor to me, Danielle Bolelli, host of History on Fire, writer of many awesome books. I'm sure ninety nine percent of you know who he is, know his work. But I'll just start by saying welcome and thank you for coming on History Impossible again.
Thank you so much for having met. We are planning on doing an outdoor recording, but the Ween today decided that's not going to happen. So here we are.
Indoors, indeed, and we have power through outdoor recordings before, at least on your show. I've been on it, and it's been a while since we did a history collaboration. Though I think we are planning on doing a little bit of a something. I don't want to say much that we did a little bit before I got another rerun about like.
Not saying match we're said we used to. We did an episode about video games in the past.
I don't want to ruin it.
It's fine, yeah, it's yeah. We way back when we did an episode on historian video games for History on Fire, but that was behind the paywall. I'm thinking of releasing it again early next year, in twenty twenty six. However, in the meantime, we've both played five thousand more video games, so we should probably just re record it and do an updated version.
That's right, because there I don't even know how many history based video games have come out since then. I mean it's been a lot.
It's been a lot, and good ones and better better than before.
And who knows, maybe by the time we can get this next one out, a new Ghosts of Yota.
Game will be out, or exactly.
I mean, Danielle is playing Assassin's Creed Shadows right now, which I have yet to try so pricisely what I'm doing. So yeah, but we also have another thing that we worked on together coming soon to your feed, which I don't know if you want to spoil that one.
Oh yeah, sure, So that's the one episode that we recorded in the past was actually that one. I think you did the research for it. Yeah, and it's about the Mafia during World War Two working with the Allies supposedly maybe kind of. Yeah, and there's a whole story about that.
I think. My favorite thing that I was able to get you to do was to read the phonetic quotes from Lucky Luciano. Oh yeah, of course, so is Danielle's best imitation of an Italian American mobs?
Yes, exactly, Well, basically a real life story to my own. It's an autobiography.
Lucciano is a great character, I should say. I mean, I'm I understand why you wouldn't, but I am still I'm really wanting you to do some kind of proper biographical story about your favorite mob in the mind now.
I think I did for Patreon. I did just a Patroon episode was shorter and it was a quicker episode. But one that I had a blast doing was an episode about the history of the Calton Club in New York. That was like one of those clubs that central to the jazz scene and it was a major mafia hangout. There was a Francis for a couple of movie and it was very good and I like it. Okay, I'm interested.
I'll check it out for myself because I haven't seen it. I just heard that. I think it just did badly.
Yeah, it wasn't super popular, but it's actually a really good movie, okay. I mean part of it is that you're not following one character, You're fulling a bunch of characters all revolving around this club. But the music is amazing. Some of the stories are great. There's a couple of lucky cameos that in there that are great. It's a fun story.
Yeah, we got some of that stuff. And I don't know how much you watched a bit, but that amazing show scores. It was behind called Boardwalk Empire. Yeah, like lu in there. I mean the big guy who the big mobster I should say, who sort of at the center of that story besides Nuki by Seucemi is Arnold roth Sey. It was like a whole other amazing story, especially because it evolves baseball, you know.
I mean some of those guys are the Dutch Shultz only mad then some of those guys were pretty wild buggy seagull. Yeah, a lot of those. But I had a blast because I mean, while I was talking about that part, for sure, I was also just enjoyed doing an episode about music, you know, really talking and because it was behind the paywall, I could take because I'm always sketchy about something that's it is on the main
feed regarding what legal and what's not. I think it's legal to take small clips from songs that you're throwing their own podcast. But still I like doing it as things. So I could take you know, little cleep from you know, Cab Callowe Orton.
Or some of the great You could play a lot of that music. As long as you're talking about it, you know, then you're good. But yeah, no, I I there's so many great stories of I mean great and tragic stories of musicians from that era that you could also do, you know, stories about I don't think it would end on such a downer, but if I remember right, it's Sam Cook is the story I know about. But that one just ends with the horrible tragical Yeah yeah, crazy musician stories.
Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's planting there's And I enjoyed those because there are such great story in the history of music and the lives of musician and all of that but.
At the same time, I'm like so not into music biopics, Like I didn't see a complete Unknown. I've heard it's good. I was never a giant I'm not a giant Dylan fan, but I heard it's good. But I just don't really care all that much about that, and I'll check it out one day. But honestly, it just kind of peaked with Walk the Line, which was probably the best one because sort of the legit singing that was happening in it by Walking Phoenix and Rees with her spooning. That
was pretty cool. But at the end of the day, the music biopic almost always has the exact same plot arc sure, it's the musician doing better, better, better, better than he has a big fall off, usually because of drugs or a woman, and then he builds himself back up again, usually from the inspiration of another woman or the woman that he burned, and that's just, you know, the way it always goes. That's why the John c Riley movie Walk Hard Story is so good.
No, that's why I think sometimes maybe the movies are not the best medium for it. Uh huh. I think, well, it depends. Some are like one that I deeply enjoyed, and then I swear we're going to get to a point of this episode about like one that I we'll just catching up. He enjoyed is a movie called The Cadillac Records.
Oh that was a great one.
Yeah, fantastic movie about the early blues. Yeah, you know, Muddy Water, so Howling Wold Facta James, all of that.
It was the movie that proved to me that Beyonce I could act.
And can sing. Because the thing is, when I listened to Beyond Beyonce, I'm not exactly the target for like her music. It's fine for what it does, it's not my thing. But besides that, it's like, it doesn't really make her voice shine. But when she's imitating her, when she's doing Ata James, she's amazing. You're like, how the hell have I not ever heard her voice sound like this?
Because it's beyond amazing. But when I listened to the music she makes, I'm like, cool, it doesn't valorize her voice at all.
What makes me laugh really hard about that too, is that Eda James, always the perpetually grouchy lady, hated Beyond this performance because of course she did. Yeah, but there's a scene in that movie, which was like sort of the last big film I remember Adrian Brody being up until just last year, I guess, which I haven't seen The Brutalist yet, but I planned to at some point. But yeah, he played the head of talent the records,
and he and Da James apparently had a thing. And there's a scene where she's singing I'd Rather Go Blind, and it's like a very moving scene with them saying goodbye to each other without saying it, and it's just such a great scene. And yeah, maybe that actually is a really good example of a counter example what I was just saying.
That music, but it's not about one chiroc.
Yeah, it's about it's about a movement. It's about Motown. It's a birth of Motown, which is incredible. Yeah, And I think something like that is really interesting. I mean, you could do a anyone could do a history podcast about the grunge scene or the punk scene, and they've done it. I mean I've seen, I've I've heard some good podcasts out there that do music history.
Especially one that I badly want to do is about the but the Holy and Richie Valence, who died on the same plane crash right on the same day, and so they were like two of the early rock and roll icons, and yet they were like, you know, on paper, they should have never gone anywhere because but they only looked like the biggest nerd on the planet. Richie Valence was a guy who was you know, his biggest hit was in Spanish in the nineteen fifties. That's not a
very welcome thing. So neither one should have made it. They both made it huge. They were both really young, incredibly talented, and both died on the same day, and so it was like, yeah, so that would be a story that interested me about the birth of rock and roll. They unlikely rise to fame. I think at some point I would love to do that one.
Yeah, you could get conspiratorial, though, and do a whole thing about how not only do rock stars altend to die at the age of twenty seven, but that there seems to be a lot of really bad luck with musicians and planes happened to Alia back whenever. That was early two thousands, And I don't mean to make light of it. I'm just saying it's very weird that that just happens, seems to happen so often. Yeah, So I mean that that was sort of I just I'm fine
with just doing a tangent like that. I just kind of wanted this to be a little bit loose but before we get into more structured stuff. But I guess, yeah, because so people somehow who don't know what have you been up to? Because I mean you kind of for people who didn't join the Luminary band wagon, you kind of dropped off for a little bit.
What happened? So I yeah, you know, I did Easter on Fire for about four some years, initially between twenty fifteen twenty nineteen. Then I got the ungodly good contract from LUMINARII to put me behind the paywall. Mostly I was still doing I had my Dank carling close, so I was doing like two episodes per a year, three so that people still know that I existed, but a
whole bunch who are behind the paywall. Then in I think must have been twenty twenty one or twenty two something like that, I came out of the contract and just releasing episode again. And then I'm in addition to releasing new episodes, I'm regaining the rights to those episodes
and releasing those as well. So these days, the history on fire feed is a mix of rerands, which realistically only a tiny portion of my audience I've heard, so for them it might as well be the first time they hear it, and then new content, and so that's kind of what I've been doing with eastery on fire.
Well. I really like the one that you, I think just put out the first part of a rerun of a story that it's just a great story of itself about the free state of Fume under Gabrielle de Nuncio, the ultimate warrior poet who apparently because I actually had to read about him for my class in grad school, and Danielle can tell you that I was basically live texting him as I was reading it, being like, who does this author? They think she is calling him a
proto fashions? It's not that, but to her credit, I'm like it on her name, but that's okay.
She was not saying that.
She was actually saying it's too simplistic to say that the Nunzio was this early version of fascism, but we can't pretend that he didn't have an influence absolutely. Benita Mussolini did a sort of cheap cover band version.
Of pretty much a rock star. So Maussolini was like, I want to look cool like him, and so Pulpy.
Exactly. Yeah, so you have part two of that coming out soon, I believe. But and actually what we're going to mostly focus on today is another rerun that you did, but you've also been doing the new episodes. Like keeve been saying, I particularly enjoyed the Genpay War that you did WITS in a way. It's kind of a prequel to Ghost of Sushima. Funny enough timeline wise at least. But yeah, there there's a lot of other good ones
out there that you did. I really recommend people who if they haven't listened to it, check out the insanely brutal two parter you did about the death squads down in Salvador.
Yeah.
That's pretty rough, Yes, but you do hear about a very saintly figure in the first episode, which is pretty amazing. I don't want to spoil too much of it, but Oscar Romero. Yeah, and it's it's a very good story because it reveals that the effects of I guess we could just broadly say American imperialism doesn't really matter who's empowered. No, not at all because the essentibly nicest ex president that
we've ever had, at least in our lifetimes. Yeah, Jimmy Carter h just as complicit as Ron Reagan in a lot of ways.
Yeah, it's always said there's a difference between evil and evil to the tenth power, you know, noise like Carter was bad in that regard, and Regan of course was one hundred times wars. Yeah, you know, so it's kind of like it's not that there are yeah, that there's a good US foreign policy there, they're just a bad US foreign policy. You're a horrible uant.
Right.
For a bit, I had this thought, and I think we might have talked about this at one point where I was thinking like, okay, so the fact that Carter was more of a hypocrite is what rubs me the wrong way about it. But then it makes me think of the very classic moment Norm MacDonald had where he was in the car with Jerry Seinfeld doing that show and he was saying, well, you know, I'm not heard Patton Oswald say that the worst thing about the revelations
about Bill Cosby was the hypocrisy. I thought it was the rape eat exactly. Yeah, So yeah, at the end of the day, I think it just matters what's bad.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah yeah, yeah.
So yeah that as brutal as that story is, I think it's a very good story for people to learn about, to learn about in only a tiny corner of I mean, it's just a tiny example of like the horrible things that have happened in Latin America essentially on our watch or due to our support, Yeah, which has been going on for over one hundred years, as people will have problemrobably no doubt read or heard on my own podcast.
I'm going to be doing the thing about the Banana Wars suit and Smedley Butler, who was affected by those but.
Oh yeah, I'm pretty too sure. I'm going to do both him as a character and also Guatemala, which is at the center off That's.
Right, Well, he was, he was everywhere. That's the thing about Butler.
He was in fact, that's about him specifically, and one about the Queen Guatemala in Yet fifty three, Yes, because that was the Yeah, well that is also connected to the rise of globalization with with the United Fruit.
I mean, that's a whole other, very interesting.
Rabbit hole to go down.
Actually, I found. I am gonna pat myself on the back. I'm really good at transitions, because here's a transition. Smedley Butler was not only stationed all over Central America, he was stationed in China during the Boxer Rebellion, which is not we're gonna be talking about, but we're gonna be talking about what led up to the Boxer Rebellion, which is something that you talked about in an epic three
part series. You did that, like I said, recently got the rerun treatment that I really recommend people go listen to. And it actually something that I've talked about before too. Coincidentally, around the same time you were doing this series, I talked about the Mercenary Frederick Townsend Ward. We fought in this event known as a Taiping Rebellion, which I think the best way to just like give the short version for it is just to say, most destructive war in
human history besides World War Two. Yeah, possibly more, depending on how you're measuring things.
Yeah, at least twenty million.
The very least.
And again yeah, part of the elevator pitch would be what if Jim Jones of Jonestown fame, you know, don drink Lakoule that Jim Jones. What if Jim Jones was at the head of an army of a million people. Yeah, that's more or less. What happens with the Typing Rebellion where our lead character we starts the rebellion is just shit crazy. He suffers from a nervous breakdown after failing the Imperial Examination three different times, which was his way to get out of poverty. And you know, there's an
incredibly high failure rate. It's a high stress situation.
Passage.
Yeah, and you know he has this old village resources in him to study to try to make it. They they do all that, and he fails, and then he does it another year and he fails, and he does it a thirty year and he fails. And that's when he really loses it. And at that point when he loses it is where is where sings go really to hell because you know he as he goes through this major crisis, he spent a month in body alien and
screaming about fighting demons and things. When by the time he comes back and he said, no, no, no, you guys, the understand I wasn't crazy at all. It's just that I met with my father God who told me that I'm Jesus Chinese younger brother and that it's my duty to read the China of all the demons, which incidental
involves starting a coup against the government. Yeah, which you know, it's the premise is crazy guy screaming on the sidewalk, except that through a series of random circumstances, I was
about to use the word of luck. It's probably not exactly lucky for the twenty million people guy as a result of this, but like, as a result of all that, he does go from being the crazy guy screaming in the corner to be instead being the head of this huge movement that you know, he went pretty damn close to be able to unseat the ruling dynasty and becoming emperor. That's how crazy the story is.
The impression I got from both your work but also just from reading about it myself was that it you really were at the height of the heavenly kingdom as was down. And also this man we're talking about, his name was Hongsho Chuen, very hard name to pronounce. I think, Danielle, you did a very good job, all things considered, pronouncing those names, and you did thank my partner Molly for the pronunciation guide, which I still have the MP three of by the way, of course, But yes, it's uh.
Those names are notoriously difficult, obviously, but Hongsho Twin and the Heavenly Kingdom they pretty much rivaled. They were like a rival empire within an empire. It was I mean, maybe not an empire, but a kingdom for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I know an empire because they spread, they conquered territory, and they, as you said, they very easily could have caused problems. I didn't make the case and I still won't that the only reason the Qing dynasty, who were running the show in in Beijing, they the only I'm not gonna say the only reason they were able to push them back was because of the help of mercenaries like Ward. But Ward did help modernize their military, so it played a major art. Sure, But yeah, it's
a I mean putting the focus on the Heavenly Kingdom. Yeah, and the typing rebellion for that matter, is very important to what I've been thinking about lately, because it, at the end of the day, is something that I think a lot of people don't appreciate. Those few who do know about the Typing rebellion is that that was the birth of another Protestant sect of Christianity. That's because it's that's how it started.
And yeah, exactly, I should have specified my quick summary.
Well, no, the quick summary was. I was going to actually ask you about that as my first question, but you gave a great elevator pitch as you said.
Yeah, I think part of what happens is that as he is on his way to take the exam for the third time, he rans into some Protestant missionaries in China. Handy my booklet about this is the Truth about the Gospels and stuff. He puts it in his pocket, doesn't really care take the exam, fails, flip out, But in the reading of the booklet is where he starts pinning the whole. That's why he believes he is Jesus younger brother.
He takes what these guys were trying to convert him to and mixes it with his own insanity and reviews religious beliefs in coming up with these Uh, you know, the typing were hardcore religious fanatics. Oh yes, and and they were based on I mean, it's funny because many early Christians at the time they were cheering for the typing. So you're like, these guys are Christians like us, Well, not quite like us. They believe some weird shit, but close enough.
If you look at if you look at how people in the United States, like people within these church communities like responding to the news. As far as they were concerned, this is just this is what they.
Were always hoping for.
Of course, the Heathens in China and the orient are becoming like us, exact Christian Well about.
That, yeah, they work out that great? But yeah, yeah, well, I mean.
I kin'd want to get the sort of core of the context. I guess that surrounded a lot of these things, And a theme that I think came up a lot when you first started discussing the context was the theme of to bring it back again to this word imperialism, because at that time, the people who resonated most with Hongshu Twin's preaching and its following followers, they were essentially
oppressed from multiple directions. We could say, the more obvious one I think would be Queen Victoria and the British Empire and what ultimately came to be known as the Opium War. Yes, do you want to give a quick sort of rundown of all that and Queen Victoria's habits if you remember them.
Yeah, I mean it's nuts, because yeah, in many ways, part of what weakens the Chinese dynasty to the point that it makes it easier for something like the Typing Rebellion to take place ed being the process of the opium Wars, and you know that's kind of infecting the
first first episode. I did a trilogy on this topic, and the first episode is really all background in a way, and the huge comparty is the opium War, because I mean, the opm War is one of the stories that's so insane that it's only slightly less insane because we put it right next to Taiping, which is even worse. But otherwise, the idea that you have a private company, the East India Company, that is essentially running a state in India. It's it's own private state, and they start going to
China selling a bunch of opium. When China is like, hey, this is a public health crisis for us, We're going to ban opium trade. The Indian companies say, no, you don't. You don't mess with our trade, and they use the muscle of the British Empire to essentially force China after a war to buy a bunch of opium and just
be flooded with opium. I mean, think about it today, like if a nation wants to have certain drug laws and they think, you know, it's not good for us to have a ton of whatever drug may be in the country, so we outlaw it, and some other countries shows up, goes to war with them, beat their ass, and then goes like, you're gonna buy our drugs or else.
I mean, one could make that parallel, or that one could make a fear mongering parallel and say China's kind of getting its revenge rights ex exactly. And if if we would never do this because there's too much value in painkillers here. But let's just say that the United States banned opiate based painkillers. Again, I can't imagine that were happening, but let's just say we did. And then China comes in and says you're not doing that.
It goes to war with the US, and.
Then and then at the end they own Catalina Island and Los Angeles. It's sort of because the British Empire got Hong Kong absolute and uh, you know, so, yeah, at the end of the day, the British Empire soundly beat China and just completely humiliate that at that point. But the thing is the other angle of imperialism that I'm kind of like I can't not let go of in a way, is one much more systemic at the time, because technically, for people who don't know, China is something
like ninety five percent. Han is the ethnic group that's not even a say a majority. Is like it feels like an understatement of Chinese people are the Han. And at this time the Qing dynasty, they were not Han. They were in Manchu. They're from Manchuria. The Manchu were basically as they were, sort of like a northern step people,
very similar to the Mongols in a way. They were essentially a foreign occupying force that were kind of able to run roughshod over the majority Chinese population for about three hundred and fifty years or so. They took over in sixteen forty four of memory serves, and then they were the ones who forced all Chinese men at least to wear the q hairstyle, which is the hair on the back of the head very long ponytail shaved everywhere else.
It's what was sort of American's first impression of Chinese men, especially in uh, you know, California. They all look like that because of the ching dinosaurs. So you have this sort of like internal imperialism already going on, coupled with this weakening of that imperialistic state by another empire.
Yeah, because that's the problem, right, just like these guys. You don't like them because they are the foreign occupiers if you are Han Chinese, but you put up with them because at least they can defend you and they can't exactly. So it's like, wait, why are you empire again?
So you're humiliating us, You're telling us what to do, and if we step out of line, then you know we're going to face consequences of any kind of any sort. And now we're watching you get taken down a pat or three, and yeah, that's going to cause some problems.
And you mentioned earlier the imperial exams that in my mind, and I want to know what you think about this, that was the best method of social control created by an occupying force every and I should actually let me phrase it differently, because they weren't created by the chain they I believe they started in the previous dynasty, the
Ming dynasty. I might be wrong on that, but the Ching made use of the examination systems, which, like we were saying, one percent acceptance rate as a form of social control, because you could never advance past like a local level without passing these exams. And it just seems to me that whether or I don't even really necessarily
think that these exams necessarily mattered all that much. But at the same time, it's kind of win win because if you are so good at them that you've memorized all this stuff that you were basically bought into the system that they have maintained with these exams, so you're already going to be a loyal servant. But if you don't pass them, then you remain, you know, crushed under the boots. You're not going to get any anywhere, and
therefore they maintain their power. Does that seem like a reasonable explanation for how they were running things.
Yeah, yeah, And of course that puts tremendous pressure because that was your way out of poverty. And again, one percent success rates so not exactly a way of of poverty that was available to most people. So yeah, talk about but yeah, I think I consider the Typing rebellion the most uh, the deadliest f yeh the history of education, because it's like talk about an F that you know, somebody got an F. They are said, whatever, this guy gets an F and twenty million people die pretty much.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's sort of the meme about Hitler and art school.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, Yeah.
It's funny. Yeah, I mean, I one has to wonder if that would have been enough for him. I don't know. I mean that that kind of does get into something though, because I did want and you mentioned poverty, because hang he also should know he was not Han either. He was a Hakka, which is another ethnic minority in China, which there's so there's over fifty, I believe, and that's where a.
Law of his power came from. Was from a bunch of Hakka were heavily discriminated against, and so this guy was providing at least as insane as he was, as a more cohesive message of and also a unity of protection for other Hakka people. Exactly, a ton of Hakka flattered to him because they were because it offers some chance to defend themselves.
Right.
So that's that's one of the factors from which you go from crazy guy on the street corner to an actually serious threat to the empire was because of an ethnic component in this story.
One hundred percent. Yeah, because like I think that when you have and this gets into sort of the theme of populism mixed with the theme of Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, so we can finally get into this a little bit. Because I think his poverty that he could say, I understand to these people, even though he was speaking much more high and mighty about God and the heavens and all this stuff. He was able to relate to these people because he spoke their language.
Literally, he was one of them.
He was one of them exactly. And I think at the same time his poverty was significant for him as a personal motivator because clearly he really wanted to get out of where he of course circumstances. Four times he took that quiz that no, he took it a fourth time, I think he did, if I remember right. It was really strange because he took it three times failed every single time, had his nervous breakdown and time, and then after his breakdown and visions. He still tried again.
It's interesting.
So it says to me that he wasn't fully like in on things yet, but he clearly had come out of that a change.
I'm supposed to defeat the demons rule in China. However, if I do pass Nick Sam, maybe not.
Yeah.
Well, I think it was at that moment there was something conflicting with him, and we're never going to necessarily know what that was. But it's very interesting to think
about how. Let me put it this way. I don't think it was a grift, right, and somebody I wanted to get into a little bit, because it seems like he really did truly believe what he was saying or what he was thinking, or perhaps he saw the taking the test one more time as like a final test, like let me see if this vision I had actually was anything, and if I fail, it was and if I don't, then it was.
Just a And that's Alrey gots tricky about the grief versus true believers part because like, for example, at one point, Hunk makes a gigantic mistake where he gets some other guy who joins the movement. He proclaims it has the voice of God. Right, So that he's inferior to him when he's just the regular this guy. But when he's channeling God, of course, now you are above because you are God's son versus this guy is God. So he you know, he's shooting himself in the foot because he's
creating an obvious competitor for who's the top dog. And after saying that this guy, wheny channel City's truly God's voice speaking, he eventually because of obvious competition, and that's placing a heat on this guy, and that hing whacked in where we have literally we have Jesus younger brother are putting a heat on the voice of God, which is a great story right there. So it's like then you don't really believe it, you know what I mean, But then you kind of do. So it's like it's
a selective I believe it. I'm a true believer versus no, just a straight up grief.
Well, and that's the thing that I think is interesting about it is because I think that he was aware at some level of like of like what he was channeling, Like he was aware of the appeal, he was aware of the earthly appeal, he was aware of the social norm that you spoke about where where. He essentially tried to make it a like a discovered knowledge kind of aspect, which I want to look back to in a minute.
But I just I just I find it really interesting though about his sincerity of his visions, because I guess I have made the mistake of thinking that figures like hung can only be crazy or only be grifters. Yea, And I don't think it's like I actually don't think it's.
No exactly, it's a mix.
It's yeah, what's not even a mix it to something else.
Well, it's going to come off.
As crazy or grift based on the behavior, but within their mind it's I think they don't see a distinction.
It's kind of like Jim Jones, you know, where he did clearly he knew where, he set up a fake assassination against him, He made up all this shit that he must have known that what he was doing, and yet he also probably believed in some of his own weird bullshits. So it's like it's a weird mix of uh, you know, tapping into your own supply while at the same time you are scenically manipulating it, right, And.
There there's not that many people who are only one. I think like I would from what I understand, I would place l Ron Hubbard, the head of Scientology, firmly in the grifter can't.
If you believe the damn what he said, right, it's pretty I don't know, I have no idea about but I haven't studied.
Sure, but yeah, like I mean, I was just thinking about it as like as like an example of like, you know, you have a man who's like suddenly flush with success, and then he's like he's and the success comes from saying things that resonate with an audience and is able to live a life that reflects that success.
That's usually when people start to say that it's a grift, because well, how could he possibly be successful if he or how could he possibly be sincere if he's so successful as it seems to be the contradiction, And.
I think it's like the funny thing is that he most when you look at like most horrible people, whether straight up grifters or whatever, they are almost unfailingly they are the good guys in their own story. Right. It's like they somehow can spin it in a way where there's a reason why I'm doing this. It's for the greater good. It's still there's way to spin it to where somehow you don't have to face the consequence that no, you really are just an ass.
So right, well, and there's a temptation that I mean, I think I've had. And I don't know if I said it in my episode. I didn't go back and listen to that. So if I did, I guess I'm refusing it. If I didn't, then whatever. But I think that there is a temptation, especially for someone who has a more secular bent in their mind, to think that, oh, really, this was just him at the very least subconsciously rejecting the people who rejected him, like you don't fire me,
I quit that kind of mentality. But I've come around to this idea that he could well have actually believed he was Christ's younger brother. Yeah, even if he was also bitter about his failures in the confusion system, Like a big amount of his energy was spent. As you talked about in the second episode especially, it was it wasn't just theology that he was getting into. He wasn't
just trying to create this justification of his visions. He was going out of his way to discredit Confucianism, which at that point still about twenty three hundred years old as far as a social system goes. It's not something you just get rid of. But he is doing something so radical where he is saying the very basis of all of this, even whether you're whether you're the Mongol Yuan dynasty, the Manchu Ching dynasty, or the Han or the Han dynasty, it is like, it doesn't matter because
all of this is bullshit. This is the real deal, and I just so happen to know what the real deal is. That's the part where I think people get a little tripped up that they think that because he puts himself in the main character role, that he has to be either crazy or a grifter. And I would say no, I mean, yeah, you could say he's crazy, sure, but it's more that I think he really does see himself in the way that he presents him they think.
Yeah, And I think that's where the insanity helps, sure, because it's kind of like even when he dies, when they are starving and they are like, dude, we need
to do something, and he's like, don't worry of anybody. Man, that's gonna fall from the sky and everybody's looking at him like what is it talking about now, And it's like these is man and he started eating like random weeds outside the walls, and they think I might have poisoned him, and lately it's poisoned them ny, And so he's like, Okay, well, there's there's an element there where he believed this own stuff.
The cynical bias that I think I maybe used to have a little bit is that my assumption would have just been when I hear that part of the story, Oh, he has a big stockpile of like meat and cheese that he's hoarding right in his concubines. No, No, he really did eat a bunch of weeds on the ground and probably died from poisoning.
Yeah.
I I'm really fascinated by that idea that he sincerely believed it too, because I think that's a big part of why people followed him too.
Of course, it wasn't just, it wasn't just.
I mean, the charisma comes from sincere belief.
Through believers tend to be charismatic. They but yeah, it's also through that grief. There can be charismatic when they are purely scenica, Like if they are good at the grief. But I guess yeah, in some way you can thank
decades of communism. If you want to go back, you can go back to these and to the Oppiu Mare, because the Opu Mare weakening the existing dynasty in creating these desire for revenge against the humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, the wreck that it's created by the Typing creates this power vacuum and desire for revenge that's really not gonna be satisfied until Communism come into place.
That's a good way of putting it. And it is worth noting an interesting little fact that the Communists. It's so weird because they have a very spotty track record with how they treat well all religious people, but Christians in particular. They still don't have a really good track
record on that. And what's funny though, is that in the early years at least, they venerated hongshuch and the Typing Heavenly Kingdom, but only because they were the only people that came even close to toppling the dynasty, of course, and a lot of the rhetoric, not all of it, obviously, but a lot of the rhetoric involving the abolishment of private property and so forth. Of course very much mirrored Maoism, very much mirrored the rhetoric and the communist So it's
very interesting. Like how adaptable that is. That's another thing I want to jump back to in a bit. But you kind of started doing something that I was going to ask you about, so I feel like this is a good way to get into it. I have a broad sort of thesis that one day I want to delve into in some depth, and the Typing rebellion is
sort of the center of it. But really what I think this is a sort of premise about is the last century of dynastic rule in China, sure, and that I think we could probably point to the introduction of Christian missionaries as the catalyst, the basic catalyst of all of that, and they'd been around, as you pointed out, there's the Jesuits who've been there since like the sixteenth century, I believe, right, But the Jesuits don't really make as much of an impact, which I think is interesting to
point out. And that's where I want to kind of fit Protestantism into this. But the way the sort of chain of events as I was thinking about it, is that you have the guys like Edwin Stevens who you talked about, and all the Western Protestant ministers who influenced people like hongep that their work led to the spread of this new extremely malleable belief system from the West, that is Protestant Christianity, and therefore the Tayping Rebellion happens.
I mean putting inside the Opium War, I mean that already was weakening them militarily, but the Taiping Rebellion creates this internal weakness against the Ching that really can't be
overestimated that it was existential at that point. And then that in turn led to a greater hostility towards outsiders, particularly Christians or the rest of the nineteenth century, which then in turn leads to the Boxer Rebellion in nineteen hundred, which was a profoundly xenophobic movement that is interesting of itself. I don't know which one of us is going to get to that story in our podcast first one day, but it fits into both of our turvras, I think.
But we can call that World War zero essentially because all the great powers got together, including Japan, putting China in its place, and they'd already gotten their asses kicked by Japan in eighteen ninety five if I remember the date right, So then flash forward just one decade after the Boxer rebellion it's nineteen eleven, and the Ching dynasty collapses. You get nearly four decades of civil war, more Japanese imperialism, and eventually the triumph of maw and the Communists. So
you have this long chain of events. But I guess what I'm wondering is, what do you think of that as an explanation for how China ended up where it was at the oddst of communism, the introduction of this one singular Western idea known as Protestant Christianity.
Well, I mean, if you wanna look at on the other side of the of the sea in Japan, there's a reason why Japan when on these rutal campaign to wipe out missionaries some couple of underd years earlier.
That's right, courts As is silence exactly, film.
That absolutely, And the thing is it's simple. I mean, it sounds bad to say in a way, but unfailingly like the reason why Japan did it it's because they look at just about every Otherssian country and they saw that first these countries would be visited by Western traders. With the traders, the missionaries would arrive, and after traders and missionary showed up, colonization would come in in full
swing and take over. And Japan looked around inside their country and they see traders and they see missionaries, and they said, we know what happens next. And so that's why they decide to cut off the trade with the West almost entirely and to just wipe out Christianity of Japan has nothing to do with religion because you know, the Japanese and when Buddhism arrived, they mixed with Shintoday sometimes they practiced Into and Buddhism in the same temples.
They didn't give a crap about that. Power. Yeah, is the fact that missionaries where the guys who pride the door open for colonization. And partially also is because Christianity is an exclusive religion, meaning there's only one right way ours, so it kind of creates some competing loyalties because if Buddhism arrives, you can incorporate it because with Buddhism you have okay, you know, we got you can believe Buddhist thing. You can mix them with Shinto. You can pay so
much to the emperor, you can. It doesn't really challenge the political structure. Right with Christianity, where there's only one God, it's ours, it's with this particular set of rules. Well, that's a whole different thing now. It's like it puts a lot more power in the hands of those who control the religion, which should be Europeans in this case, favor in colonization, right.
And the thing that I think is interesting about that, that's you're just giving me so many good things to transition off of here, man, because I really do think you're right, though, I think that there's a distinction there. I'm starting to get the sense. And this is what I wanted to talk to you about primarily because especially in Japan, it was mostly Jesuits were there, correct, which is an offshoot of the Catholic Church.
Correct.
The thing about the Catholic Church and the thing about Islam specifically, those two big monotheisms that are expansionists by their very nature, they're very I guess we could say hierarchical, much more top down, much more associated with empire. And I'm not saying Protestantism isn't. And I'm just saying that the structure of Protestantism is very different, and as far
as I know, Protestantism didn't well. Actually, I don't even think Protestantism was even out of Europe by the time the Jesuits were in Japan.
I think they were still.
Working things out to it my right, So I will have to wonder the counterfactual of what would happen if Protestantism had made it. We'll never know. But Protestantism did make it to China. And this gets into what I've been studying for school, specifically for my thesis about Protestantism in America and more broadly Protestantism as a delivery mechanism for change, because I think what it tended to do, much to the chagrin of a lot of very conservative people to this very day, is it gave us the
creed of individualism. Sure, because if you look at the cycles, and I don't like that word in history, but there's no other way to put it. Of American Christianity through the awakenings as they're known, you have continuous perceptions and
proclamations of institutional failure related to the previous authority. That previous authority is especially early on, inherently religious, and every single time, at least with the First Grade Awakening, but it was also with the second and I would argue all of the other ones that have happened since there was this claim that the real way to return to God, to wholeness, whatever you want to call it, was through personal devotion, and it very much emphasized this idea of yeah,
not personal responsibility, but in a sense that too. Max Wember has talked about that about why Western capitalism succeeded was because of the ties to Protestant Christianity and all that.
I'm throwing a lot at you, but basically what I'm trying to say is there is this sort of constant sense of undermining previous authority that's at the core of every single Protestant movement that has happened, especially that has resulted in major events like every think from the Typing Rebellion all the way down to the first Grade Awakening, and some people if you argue that the American Revolution was a result of the first Grade Awakening, I don't know if I go that far.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I would because then there is definitely a major strand of individualism that comes from the Enlightenment, which anyway breaks with a lot of the organizing was the time it was.
A splinter of Protestants essentially that rejected a lot of a Protestant said. But at the same time, the argument can be made that Protestantism, or rather that the Enlightenment only existed because of the ethos of protestant I.
Mean, in some way, I think it exists because like if we want to make a tie with Protestantism, I think is Protestantism manages to break the Catholic monopoly, yes, over religion and incidentally over politics. Because it does, it opens the doors to other things. Other things means a bunch of variations of Protestantism, but also thinks that reject
Protestantism almost all together, like the more secular seeings that. So, you know, they kick the door open, but what comes through the door is not necessarily because they are ideologically related. It comes through the door because they just kicked it down, and everybody comes through the door themselves, the people opposing them, and all sorts of stuff.
Yeah, though, there is an interesting thing that what the United States at least did, which was at the time it was unique, and I think it is still pretty much unique in all of the world. Which is a legal, a firmly placed legal separation of church and state, right which was I mean, it's part of the gig. It's like, there is no United States without a separation of church and state. Again, much as the chagrin of a lot
of very conservative people. But that's what's interesting is that in a lot of these other examples of Protestant revival, we can call it because I do think the Typing Rebellion was probably the most extreme example of revival gone amok. So what you kind of get with that is a reality check that without that sort of predetermined separation of church and state, there's inevitably going to be a spiral effecture,
you know. So I'm just wondering if, like if maybe that is just sort of an inevitable feature of Protestantism, because as you said, it started as a break from Catholic dogma and domination, and it's not the only one that ever happened or existed, but a lot of the other ones ended up turning into very dogmatic beliefs. And I'm not saying that Protestantism doesn't have its own dogmatizers,
but it's also in some ways the most malleable. Like what other foreign religion could claim that much success in a place like China, like it just like all of the places that turned Catholic or Islamic, most of them did it by the sword. Sure, in most that's the sense I get. I mean maybe I'm wrong with the Catholic part. I don't know enough about Catholic history.
I mean even I it depends on where because in some parents, for sure.
But in places.
Or even even if you look at like a lot of Ystasia, sure he's a little less conquest. There's a lot more trade and ideas. And don't get me wrong, it's not that concrest doesn't play a role, but it's not the single foundational thing. Like you know, Spaniards take over Mexico and now all the mats become Catholic. It's a little less. So I think it's a mix of things.
Sure, yeah, especially with places like Indonesia. Indonesia was the impression. I mean, Islam made inroads there that were related to conquests, but it never really took hold. And then the impression I got, and I just I did a podcast about it. Earlier this year was when Krakatoa exploded. It just it produced this existential crisis in most people down there who realized, oh,
our folk beliefs aren't saving us. And there's all these really angry, compelling people talking about Allah and these evil colonizers, the Dutch. You know where to go with these guys. And then flash forward to today. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. So yeah, I mean a lot of it can be grassroots. I'm just wondering. I guess what I'm sort of trying to untangle here is this sense that Protestantism has this very weird aspect to it. And by weird, I don't mean bad or good,
It just mean weird. It's so tied to individual expression, an individual agency connected with God him her itself. Just this this connection between the individual and God, which I think most religions would agree, is very huboristic. That's going to create tensions in society that I just don't really I just I don't really think can be escaped. But I don't know. I guess I'm asking you to walk me off this ledge because I'm feeling very not fatalistic,
but deterministic about it. And I know that determinism is.
A no no, because I mean, I think the problem is there's always, like any time there's if you're looking for a single cause for any big historical event, a priori are always wrong says that there's never a single cause for a giant historical event. He's always a mix of things. And I mean even in the case of like if you look at the development of the Enlightenment and Protestantism, is like they happen in some way in
spite of each other, related to one another. But you know there's obviously it's not a linear a appen sobs, it's so on and see it's it's grand song kind of thing. You know, it's it's push and pull and all sorts of there are messic components to it. That's right, because there's never even a single way. I mean, even just when we talk about Protestantism, Protestantism is not even
one thing. No, you know, it takes us. So once you say Protestantism is it's like, no, there are a tone of Protestantisms and it's well, that's.
Sort of The thing that I keep getting hung up on is I remind myself of that. But then I think, well, why does Protestantism have so many different variations compared to Catholicism because they know the hierarchy exactly. That's what I'm wondering, is like, this is kind of like looping back to Dan Carlin's all time great episode Profits a Doom where he asked that question, what were the tradeoffs of translating
the Bible making it something that anybody could access? Like the tradeoffs are, you know, like we've been saying the Enlightenment to a degree, individual individualism and all that, but the other trade offs are seem to be lots of violences of conflict, of course, And I mean, I think human conflict is inevitable. We've talked about this. I think you're always going to have reasons.
I mean, it's kind of like remember the movie I think it was called The Hero with Jentlee, Yes, where that movie. You know, the whole premise is that you know, you're trying to kill this emperor who's an asshole, and the emperor toward the end part of the argument is the emperor who's an asshole. It is still guaranteeing a certain degree of peace internally, because otherwise you have all these different kingdoms laughtering each other. And I mean, it's
what every dictator want to be known. Is It's kind of like, you know, if I'm Saddamus saying, it's like, yeah, I will murder a whole bunch of political dissidents, but hey, at least you guys, she and Sonny are not killing each other as much living the courage alone. Yeah, it's like the argument is, I'm keeping it together, whereas, of course the early days of Iraq after Saddam was gone, it was a blad bat because everybody was shooting one another.
You know. It's like, and of course it's not a real justification because there's horrible, but there is a logic to that, to that, I mean, it's even the Mongol thing, right, is like, we will slaughter the living hell out of anybody who resists, but if you join us and they are below us, then we guarantee a certain level of peace and stability about the.
R The Sumerians were just the same. It's the logic for empire, right, and there does seem to be a logic to it. But what I struggle with and I always struggle thinking about this, is like, is there really such a thing as a third way that isn't Saddam or isis or Saddam or the insurgency or in the case of you know what I've been studying for a long time but also doing for school, Tito and Yugoslavia or what happened after Tito died.
And I mean it's kind of like if you think about like Polybius the greater writer, he had this idea about these three systems of government. Sure, and he didn't target that one was good and one was bad. Is that each one could be good and each one could be terrible. Right, you had the in the ideal version, you had the enlightened king, who's brilliant, who smart, to one person who makes the decision, but he's a sweet, smart guy, and society perfectly Thomas Hobbes would call it,
but that in the wrong ends. That's a tyrant, that's a dictator, that's a monster. Okay, So we go instead to the aristockers. You know, one guy, a group of the absolute best people in society, the smartest, the most creative, the most strategic society techno, Well, it depends you have to think that those guys are actually good, okay, Whereas you know most of the people today will look at some of the technicals and say, these guys are fucking crazy,
and I would agree with them. No, here we are assuming a moral goodness to like the aristocrats are the good guys. When they become the bad guy. When the aristocrats are not of good qualities, they are oligarchs. Now they are. It's not a government of the best, is a government of the few. It looks the same, except that one is made of good people and one is made of shitty people. And then same idea with democracy. Oh,
then government for the people. It's good. The people get to have their will express and they do it the way. That's the good version. It becomes absolute mob rule in the hands of an un educated electorate who doesn't know if barely can read, and they are a bunch of idiots, you know. So his argument is, Look, it's not that democracy is better than monarchy, or that is better than aristocracy, or it boils down to who's run in the show.
If the people are good, democracy is amazing. If few people are brilliant, smart, strategic and in the aristocracy can work if one guy is in power and these a genius, and this a monarchy can work, and yet every single one of the systems can turn into a nightmare in the wrong head.
I was going to say, none of those sound ideal to me, but then I remember, and this is obviously my bias as an American, but you probably shared lest to some degree. That is what makes the founders at least thinking when they created the United States brilliant because they created checks in Ballece.
Absolutely, so you're trying to limit the I mean even think about it. He doesn't mention this among the tree. But if you look in a more anarchic viewpoint, the absence of oppressive laws, like an anarchic system in the hand of really smart, sweet, sensitive people who are responsible, discipline, work card and yet they are kind. You can run a partly a small society, but you can run a
society with barely any rules and it can be a paradise. Sure, if the same people, or even if a solid majority of these people are not brilliant, smart, self motivated discipline, it turns into a night market. Yeah, you have a Somalia post. You know, it's like so it's like which one are we and people I think get hang up on the definition is like, anarchy is great, It's no, anarchy's evil. He's like, no, it's both. Yeah, defence always doing it.
You know.
It's like in this is the least democratic sentiment in the history of the world. But the idea is in the hands of person a masterpiece, the same thing in the hands of person B disaster.
It's it's always the story. It's the backbone of the story of the twelve Emperors. I mean, Marcus Aurelius considered top none, right, and he probably was compared to a lot of them, right, you know. Then you I get the feeling that people like Caligula and probably even Nero were a little underrated. Yeah, but they still the point it remains. And then yeah, so I think that that is sort of something that obviously a lot of, if not most, of Western civilization do. I get the feeling.
It's also all civilizations have grappled with these questions in one way or another, and then you just end up having when you get too wrapped up and grappling with these questions. You can see how someone like Hongshu twin will just show up and you just say doesn't matter. I but first of all, I just talked to God. I talked to Jesus is my brother, you know, and just here hear me out for a second, let me
explain to you something. When you're so frustrated with the system as it currently exists, as the Hawka people were, and as obviously a lot of the Han were, and probably even some man Choose who weren't super elite were, like so many people were just very fed up with how things were. So they were willing to just hear this guy out, of course, and he just happened to
be really, really good at convincing them of things. But he was also one of the latter group that you were talking about, and that is the danger I think of adhering to a single person. But as you also said, the other options are no picnic.
I mean, even if you think something like communism, surely you use I mean, it's not really communism. But if you look at small tribal societies, the notion that you're essentially dealing with two hundred people, they are all extended family, they are all friends. So the sharing of resources, the relative equality, all of those things are things that happen somewhat naturally in a system that works fantastically. Now, apply communism to any large scale society, which include a lot
of horrible people. Now includes the jealousy of why should I work harder for this guy who's not doing anything. Now you need a strong central rule to keep everybody in line and squash and now it's a totalitarian monstrosity because it has to be right in order to keep things in line. It's the thinking, and so part of it is that it's some systems are clearly less vulnerable to bullshit than others, but all systems are. And it
really boils down to the quality of individuals involved. It's kind of like that old merely very idea that like, give me an average army in the hands of a brilliant general and he will beat the good army in the hands of a shitty general. Right, you know, it's part of that idea of there's an element of human
quality that you can at legislate. Now you cannot plan for by law, because inevitably you're going to have the same tool that works fantastically one person sense is going to be a nightmare when it gets to somebody else's sense.
And that's always why, you know, not to make it about contemporary politics, but whenever I see people getting really excited about some executive overreach, whether is when Biden was president or president now, I'm basically stealing from Dan Carlan is like once every five years. Epis sort of common sense,
But he is right. Why would anyone who lives in America at least but any kind of democratic or republican system cheer on something that is very clearly going to be used as precedent against you later.
I think part of the logic, if you can claim a logic in something like that, is the idea of we are gonna get screwed over regardless, we might as well get to ours while we can, you know, whereas like the system is unjust and messed up, and there's all this terriblety, So let's when we can use it to our advantage. Yeah, let's cheer and let's do it, sure, even though very clearly it's going to be used against you right afterwards. Oh yeah, but I think you know,
most people don't think long term. B I think there's this it's screwed up anyway, Let's get what we can while we can, you know.
Yeah, And that's something that I understand the impulse of. If you are feeling that much despair at the future.
Yeah, I mean you're already thinking that the system doesn't work right and it's unfixable. Right in a system that doesn't work and it's unfixable, take what you can while you can.
Well.
And I guess maybe my sort of view on things like that and this is now is kind of getting into my views of contemporary life rather than history. But I think it is history too to a degree in terms of like human nature is just that I think people have a tendency, for various reasons, at various times, to.
Expect too much.
They expect too much out of life in general, but they expect too much out of the system in which they live. And it's not to say that they don't deserve some measure of dignity and respect from their sure, the governing classes or anything like that. I mean I would say that they probably do, just from a purely pragmatic sense, like it's not smart for a government to talk down to its people.
But I mean also think about is there any single government in the war today that you would go like, oh my god, these are the best human beings who have my best interest at art. I would love to live under their rule.
My joking answer is Halvier Malelet, but not really because there's yeah, there's always going to be a trade off, as you know, as what you're basically saying, right, like, there's always negative there's always negative trade offs to any positive leader or positive matter.
Of course, as you say, they are not all the same, right, you know, going on, there's somebody that I'm like, this kind of sucks, but you know, it works. It's not what I want. It's not idea. It could be so much better, but you know, it's like it's annoying, like some totalitarian nights. They are not all just because they are not perfect any of them doesn't mean they're all the same.
There is also a very disturbing question at the core of a lot of this. This is getting way more philosophical than I expected, but this is fun. But like there are you can't say that there are places where certain leaders are rather where there are there are people that deserve those leaders, like in the sense that for
reasons badly. But I'm trying to put it, like I jokingly brought up Haavier Malay, and I've heard people say, well, why can't we have more leadership like that in the United States, And I always say, because we're not Argentina. Like Argentina needed somebody like that, clearly because things have changed there and in a lot of cases for the better,
in some cases not. But the point is things were not working there and they pick somebody radical, And I would say that things were not working as badly here when we voted in an obviously radical new administration. They weren't working as badly here. But maybe there's a country where somebody like Donald Trump would would have thrived better than here, is what I'm saying, or operated better as
a leader than here. I don't know what that country would be, but I'm just making the point that it's there. Like I think sometimes there are there's just a general mismatch between people and leaders, and I think like a lot of the time it comes from looking enviously at other countries.
Know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I have a hard time with the concept of anybody looking at any political figure enviously. Well, yeah, to me different degree. And again not that I'm saying just because I think overall political leadership is almost by nature horrible across the globe. That does not mean that they are all the same, because again I'm not into the oh, since they are not all since none of them is great, that means they're all the same.
It's like, no, there's there's gradations.
There's big gradation. You know, the guy who shoots you in the head is bad. The guy who tortures you for a moment before shooting you in the head is a lot worse. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's like, you know, there's but of course, yeah, if you have an expectation of something that's great, good and amazing, yeah, the.
Luck well, and you kind of got into that with your series. But the typing rebellion, that's kind of I think I've been thinking about a lot of this stuff and that that series really didn't like speak to me because of that, And I think like you really kind of hammered that home, especially with the second episode where you talked about well, no, it was all the episodes really, the first two especially, but where you talked about the reality of living in the Qing dynasty, you know, especially
if you're a woman you can't walk, yeah, literally talking about footbinding like foot I mean, and then but then when you talked about how Hong and his follower are sort of running things, specifically with the foot binding example, if they caught you footbinding, they cut your feet off, Like,
it's what kind of trade off is that? And that's the part that I think, really I struggle with is that where I struggle with the determinism again, is that is that really the only options we get do we really only get to choose been getting our feet cut off or our feet bound so to speak, or the shot in the head and dumped in a pit or tortured for a month like Tadam or isis Like, I just don't think that there is like that it should
be bifurcated like that. But I worry sometimes that that's sort of the position that we always find ourselves in.
Yeah, I mean it's kind of like I was lecturing, yeah today in class about like the Chaerokeyes in the eighteen thirty and they are louting front the you know, you can try to resist against the US government You're probably gonna get crushed, yeah, Or you can abandon your homeland, abound everything, you have to travel to Oklahoma on a fleancy promise. They are gonna get to keep what they give you there after they've broken promises about seventy two times before. I mean, obviously they.
Are both horrible choices, war or ethnic cleansing. Which one?
Yeah, it's like, which one do I want it? And of course, inevitably what happens is that when people are off for horrible choices, they will fracture trying to figure out, well, yeah, this is horrible, but it's not as horrible as the other one. And you know, and usually when they are looking at the other one, they are spot on in pointing to all the problems with the other one. But often sometimes they forget about all the problems with the
one that they decide to embrace my default. But it does become a game of you know, rock or hard Place, and which clearly is a terrible game, but the worst game. Yeah, but in some in some situations and in politics, that happens fairly often. That's often the case of what you're looking.
At, Yeah, I mean, and that's why I always end up turning to like dark Humor and Syncess, because you're saying that I'm just imagining that, and I'm just like, well, at least, you know, I can see why characters like John Ross decided, well I get to keep my slaves. Yeah, cleansing.
So yeah, no, totally is I listened to a podcast by our colleague Sebastian Major and R Fake History, and he had this He did this podcast on Joaquin Marietta was this legendary outlaw in California that probably inspires Zorro. And and the thing that he was going into is that one of the early sources of Marietta was this Cherokee guy.
Was the song I Forgot if You the John rosson or.
Was one of them, was one of the guys who signed a treaty to move to Oklahoma. And so he's like, on one end he's a proud Cherokee. On the other endother Cherokees killed his father because he was. So it's one of those that is like he gets complicated.
To say, at least a rock and a hard place is a really good way to put it. And that does always seem to be what it comes down to a lot of the time for the Sophie's choices as I like to call them, you know, in history, and and I do, and I think that at least for me, I mean, I don't want to speak for you, but
I think you use some appreciation for that. Those are the moments of the highest of drama in history, of course, and I think, like, what's funny is that even though we don't get so much of that like on the ground as we could with the story of Hongshou twin, and that just has to do with sources, I think more than anything else.
Uh.
I do think that that's a good example of that because if you look at the status quo of what Chin dynasty shadow was like, it was not ideal.
No, it was ter shit. And I think that's how often we end up in horrible situations, is that nobody takes a perfect great situation and go, you know what, I want to dive headfirst into shit. Usually what happens is you're dealing with problems of various skill and then in order to address this problem, you embrace something that promises to fix them, and that creates problems that are way worse than what you add.
And that seems to me that kind of ties it into what my sort of overall I don't know what you would call it, just sort of vibe check on Protestant Christianity, and it's like before that, before you bring it all.
But it's kind of like, you know, the tridio versaile sucks. Our poor German column is in shambles. This guy seem to have a good plan to get us out of there. Come on, let's give you a chance. Look at the shit we're dealing with.
That is actually probably the most like relevant example the most people who care about history, because it is the ultimate Sophie's choice for them. I mean, well, they.
Don't know where it is going, well, right, I mean well, that was the thing is that they had, you know.
Social democracy, and it was going It was interesting, and it was a very for the time. It was a very new democratic experiment that was very impressive. But they clearly were not happy with it for multiple reasons and what had happened and they had to and then the sophie's choice within that sophie's choice was let's stick with this discomfort, this hyperinflation, or let's go with the Kamis
or these really weird Nazi people. You know, it's like, I don't know, you don't really have a good choice there.
Now.
Clearly when you look at it, originally was the best scenario, but clearly the best scenario still sucked.
Right, And that's what I think was happening maybe with well, there only really seemed to be two choices with China at least, But that's what I'm wondering, Like in terms of like, what I find so fascinate about Protestantism is that it often seems to be the impetus for that kind of thing, that kind of shift, And I think it has to do with how it is structured, like it has that individualism that we love so much baked into it. And whether or not it was necessary for
the Enlightenment to occur is trying to be irrelevant. They came, I mean they were, they came of age together, so to speak. And I think that this appreciation of individualism is this thing that has allowed for change to happen so quickly, so often, and so many different contexts around the world. But at the same time, I think what it has helped us do is notice these Sophie's choices and then force us to make those choices, and that
leads to the problems that come down the line. So the conservative impulse is to say that's not a we just shouldn't be making those choices. We shouldn't be aware of those choices because it's they're too possibly inherently destabilizing. But at the same time, we miss out on a lot of good stuff if we don't have it, So we get that sort of trade off from from it, maybe more than we otherwise would have, and then we.
Get the same trade offs even technologically. Oh yeah, right, is like, hey, Internet is fantastic. It to open all these doors. Oh my god, the level of depressure on suicide is skyrocketing because of social media. It's like it's a mix of things, you know. It's that's what makes it complicated that changes are rarely very clearly identifiable as black or white.
I can't think of a single one that is.
No, it's actually it's usually a mess.
Yeah, it's evolution is a mess. Yeah, that's kind of what we're mirroring for for Yeah, this is the most free, willing conversation I've had in a while, So thank you again for having it with me. I'm sure we'll have something else to talk about that won't necessarily just be video.
Games, but yeah, we'll try even because video games are so good.
Well, yeah, and I'm actually gonna probably at least be talking to you about shadows to see how it is.
Absolutely but yes, that was it for this.
Conversation, guys. Thank you again to Danielle for coming on. And I'm not going to say where can people find you because they all know where they can find you, which is History on Fire. Yes, listen to History on Fire guys, and thank you again. All right, everybody, glad to still have you here. Those of you stuck around for the post credit wrap up. I guess there's not much to say here except I really hope you guys enjoyed the conversation that Danielle and I had before we
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