Aura Farming on the Cross

town centers have like open shops in them. Yeah, and like it's really clean and stuff.

what to do. I wouldn't know what to do with that because I would literally like I would be like the like the medieval peasant thing, like my mind blown every second of every minute just by like tiny things I see, you know it like yeah, yeah, yeah.

don't like it. But also like the reasons why we hear in the UK left that you have nothing to do with how racist it is as an institution, you know, And it's like and it still exists as this terrible racist institution, but at least like they'll give you money for like your roads or like a theater or to like pay for things. And so now we just like don't have any of that, and our government doesn't pay

for anything. So everything is just like falling apart in real time here, and when you go to places where they're still investing in stuff, it's just it makes you so angry, Like it makes me so angry that we just don't have a force of political will to do anything to improve life. It's like the the just like the governing consensus here in the United Kingdom is that this is as good as things can be. Like they just get they can't get better, sorry, Like better things

aren't possible. It has to be exactly like this. And you're like, oh, okay, word, you know, like we've had like all of these riots with like the fascists like again lately, and the government here just keeps being like, wow, they've got really legitimate concerns, damn And you're like, okay, that's crazy. Then meanwhile, over the.

France isn't racist, obviously, it very much is. But also you get to like eat a stick.

the screw, thank you very much. That says we may not officially know what the Corbin and Sultana Party is called yet. Popular suggestions so far include both of the People's Party and Arise, but we do know one thing. They are shaggers. So so far, internal car columns has been full of stories about inner party banging amongst volunteers and junior staffers, and already they've got a slightly surprising

reputation for horniness. Still, though it could be worse, the Carbonicea Sultanas are the least are at least relieved that they don't have the same reputation as junior stafferers in Reform who are becoming known for their phenomenal ghakiness. So yeah, there you go, listening. I'm doing light. I'm doing light

Green Party entryism at the moment. So I joined the Green Party to vote for Zach Polanski and we're going to see how that goes down, because I think I don't know if you've seen any of his campaign materials, but he's really good, Like he's got that thing like, he's really sharp, he's to the point, and he's trying to do socialism over there. And also he's floated at the very least the possibility of a coalition with whatever the Corbon Party is. So I'm trying to push them left.

But if I don't stay in, if I voted for him and I got the outcome I wanted, that's good. So yeah, so I if that doesn't work out, then I'm gonna go for the corbord one. But I don't know.

do away with their old delegate system. And I mean it kind of opened it up to socialist communist entryism into the part to a degree. Uh, And I think that is good. I think they can use the structure that they have to do a lot of good and set themselves up as like a temp post as a party, you know. I uh, I the only you know, the only thing is like they there, there are still some

Zionists in there, and they have to be removed. I you know, there were some votes on stuff, and they did thankfully vote to become a aggressive anti Zionist party, but they you know, some people voted against that for like various reasons, and some people voted against it because they are Zionist. And you know, they have to make those zone in those internal decisions. But you know, any any org at this point, if you are forming it, it is leftists. You're doing leftist entryism. It's already a

Marxist party whatever it is. You know, Israel, like the genocide has to be a red line. You can't like, you can't have any kind of like apologists in therefore, you can't have people doing that like from a messaging standpoint, that's bad and uh, it's you know, counterintuitive to what we're trying to do now. So yeah, that's my thing. Wherever you are, if you're hearing me, I you know, I think it's uh, you gotta remove those people like you know, and each ORG can go through their own

procedures for how to do that. It's not for me to say exactly how that's done. But I mean I think you have to do it or you're not considered a serious ORG.

what I'm talking about. Yeah, uh yeah, it's uh yeah, there's you know, bad stuff but uh but but uh but good good uh some good things. And I don't and I really think that I was talking about this in the discord, but I really think that we have to get away from like saying like everyone feels this way,

everyone feels everyone is like this. Everyone does this not because I don't like not because it's like oh not all whatever, but because I think saying everyone like that just increases like defeatism and nihilism, and it's counterproductive to what we're trying to do here because like, it's not everyone, Like in all of the western countries I know of the people are completely opposed to what the leadership is doing on things like on on like Gaza and stuff.

It's like, so it's not everyone. And I do think that people like make themselves very defeatist and very and and you know, stuff like that. It's you know, Graham, she said it, you know, pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the spirit. But occasionally there you do have to have a little bit of optimism of the intellect because it's not everyone. If it was everyone, you wouldn't see

these poles, you wouldn't see these protests. They wouldn't be trying to arrest eighty five year old people with one leg in you know, New Shropshire, sure to Lund, England or whatever, for if their position in this was secure. It's not. It's a failing position, and you know, it is what it is. So there's there's no reason to seed all of that to it just because annoying and shitty people are in power, you know. Yeah, these political

systems are in are are beyond imperfect. They're corrupt and awful. Of course, bad people are going to get into power in them. That's just I mean, that's that's how it like, that's how it goes, you know. I'm sorry. Uh, and that sucks, but it is. You know, you just got to keep going anyway. Yeah, yeah, let's uh, let's get to talking about this. Uh, get into the show because yeah, we got some stuff to cover here, Yeah, we sure do. Yeah, Hello, and welcome back to We Are Not So Different, a

podcast about how we've always been idiots. My name is Luke and as all as, I'm joined by doctor Eleanor Jennege, and we are here to talk about We actually had a couple of separate things to discuss today, but before we get into it, we got a question from Arcturus, one of our patrons. He said, many times I've heard people compare the Trump administration to a medieval court, in the sense that it's filled with yes men who grovel around him in hopes of gaining power and or money.

But to what extent we're with medieval courts? Actually? Like this, is it to some extent a modern assumption. I imagine a lot would depend on the individual monarch, but in general, would groveling around a medieval monarch actually actually get you much in the way it seems too for republican politicians, or would the monarch and everyone else simply have contempt for such sickophants.

He's like, you know what, you're right, here's twenty thousand ducats and he's like, but sir, there's only nineteen thousand. He's like, keep a little extra for yourself. Yeah, eleanor yeah, anyway. I used to believe that hasn't happened every time anyone's been in powered throughout Oh oh, for.

out all the time. So I'm think you hear like a really good example of sort of like what's going on in when you read Procopius's Secret History, right, and when he's all like, secretly, this is what was going on, it's like, you know, none of that was true, I would wager, But the point is he's still in there kissing ass. You know. Homeboy is like filating the boot on the regular and then going home and writing his

little weird like porn fantasies at the same time. And that just kind of gives you an idea of like an average courtier, right, So that's like he's doing all of that behind the books to like blow off steam, but it just kind of shows us what he's doing in real life actually, And you know, certainly we can see that particular families will be in power, out of power,

or connected to people. And I mean you tend to see more of it with worst kings, right and like you know that, yeah, like and obviously the ones that go down in history like as the worst, most bullshit kings you've ever seen in your life, they're a lot more susceptible to it, right. So the people who simply cannot stop giving away shit to their favorites, those are

the ones we really know about. Like think about here, like Edward the Second and his series of boyfriends, you know, and like the way he did giving the dispensers everything they ever wanted and pissing off the entire kingdom. You know, that goes like above slightly because that's about who you're actually fucking, I guess.

you know. And I guess what you tend to see from like good kings or smart kings is what they are able to do was kind of like turn the people with money who are obviously against them, sort of away from themselves and towards other objects.

you go do this for me? And like it gives them like prestige, and he pays them to do it, and it gets them going out and doing things instead of scheming against him or attempting to sway him to

their will. Right. So it's like he does this good job of deflecting by saying, go out there and do other things, Like he uses them to go around and collect preachers that he likes, and which is why I know about it, right, And then you certainly see in like but then there are all there's always like weird things going on, and it's like sometimes it could be literally the church that is the sycophant, you know, like if we look for example.

And I mean I suppose that this is something, you know, it certainly this doesn't go away in the early modern period. Arguably it only exacerbates. I mean, go look at Louis

the fourteenth Court, like the ultimate snake pit. But you know he's also doing that smart thing, you know, like Versailles is created very specifically because he brings all the nobles there so they can't scheme against him, because if all of your power is dependent on you being at court and wearing a new dress every day, then you don't have any time or money to be out in the countryside scheming. You can only be at Versailles. So

that kind of keeps that stuff. But obviously there's a lot of power plays going on there and a lot of like really strenuously enforced hierarchies as a result of that. But I mean, I guess the other thing too, is like, don't get me wrong, obviously we're seeing like Trump is a terrible example of everything, right, Like he's the worst turned up to eleven most fucked up example of anything that you can ever have. But that it's not like this hasn't been going on the whole time, you know,

with everyone. It's not like you know, it's like it's you don't even necessarily need to be in the White House all the time. You just need to like give enough money. Yeah, too, like various things, because I mean, what what are like campaign donations are super packs if not a form of currying favor, you know, and we

definitely see kickbacks. So I think that the way it's what people are responding to is that with Trump, it's it's just a little more obvious that there are certain people with certain levels of power as opposed to organizations with certain levels of power. So I think it's brought it back down to the individual more, which is why people respond and see it as being more than evil.

how do we market this? How do I advertise it? What kind of propaganda? That's not saying they didn't do good propaganda or anything, but it's just different and it's I'm not trying to say. And so like when you see these people coming in and doing this, and they're just like coming in and it's like a pay for play thing like it there, and and it's been denuded of every everything down down to like this like bare

like farcical representation of government. So like we've just stripped it all the way back to you know, the Middle Ages or even the classical era or something like that, you know, where the scheming vizier, the scheming unit, the empress dowager who has too much influence, you know, like any of these things, any of these tropes that are tropes, but they also have basis in reality they've been happening.

But like with this, it's just so out in the open that like it really is hard to like find like this is like this is like real Banana Republic shit.

And people in America who think themselves better than that and always have and in the West for that matter, see it and they're scandalized by it because you know, even though we've been do administering colonial and post colonial states like this for hundreds of years, people in the Imperial Corps are still dropping monocles, you know, because because Trump's like, yeah, pay for play, which like it's always been all politics has been paid for play, like the

whole time. It's just they're not hiding it, and that bothers people.

And I mean, I do think that it is kind of problematic the way, as you say, people always want to say, Okay, well then it's like it's like a medieval court. I'm like, in what way is it more like a medieval court than I don't know, like the tutors like like look at Honda the eighth Court, Like it's not like that, and if so, look at the.

guys enthralled by this? And they were like he is magic, Like, how is that any different than than any of this?

kind of wild shit happening. And you know, when you look at how we needed World War two or World War one to sort a lot of this shit out here in Europe, that that is just something that is fundamentally true, and it's something that is still in play and certainly you know, for example, here the if you want to look at the government, which I don't, but you know, like the government is completely enthralled to the

royalty here. Like so for example, there was like a big thing, this was years ago now where they kind of like went and looked at who owned all of Scotland and turned most it turned out most of it was the Queen and everyone was like huh, like it seems bad and they were gonna do it with England as well, and basically the Queen stepped in and was like, please don't do this.

There's always going to be like and provided money exists in these contexts, and you know, there isn't massive reform, which I don't know, maybe there will be, you know, where war was going on about it. We always talk about how I think when we started this show, I didn't really think we were in a pre revolutionary moment, and now I do think we are.

people to uh to the left. You know people, people are are moving beyond that.

restrains people a little bit. But that but also I guess I don't know what I'm saying.

Uh changes, But like I mean, you've still got people doing power plays, you got powerful families, you got moneyed interest doing things you gotta, you gotta scheming, Vizier buying his way into the government and then running it as a shadow chancellor, which is, you know, a big you know thing throughout history. Like it's it's not it's I think the reason people feel this way about this, like if I'm if, I'm if, I'm like, okay, fine, Like

maybe they're not being derogatory to the Middle Ages. I just think it's so crass that people just have to reach for like you know, another crass age or something like that, and I don't know why they wouldn't stick to some point in versailla or anything. But you know, hey, uh, I guess there are a lot of There are a lot of gestures around now, folks, so uh, yeah, yeah it's medieval. Hey, I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, I need a mix of yeah, denegatory towards Medieval the Middle Ages, and

then you know, some of it. It's just like I don't fucking know, man, it's real. It's it's a fucking clown show out there, and I gotta be honest, it does kind of remind me of like a medieval like gesture troop rolling through kind of deal.

because I don't think that is true. I don't think people don't know what medieval is, and that's so that's fair. Yeah you know.

You know, it's kind of corny, but okay, fine, you know, but outside of that, you know, would be like, this is no different than the court of any of the debauched Droman emperors, or the debauched French kings, or the debauched nineteenth century or the debauched Ottomans or like or the debauched Clinton's or the debauched Trump's.

money you can spare. There are thousands upon thousands of individual accounts on uh you know, you could see him on Blue Sky people advertising him on Blue Sky, Twitter, wherever you are. You know, usually they're they're being advertised through a place called chuffed dot org, which I've seen people say does sound like kind of a fake thing, but it's not. I promise I've donated through there. It's it's real. It's it's a real thing. These are verified.

But also there's uh and I'll try to include links. There's the Samir Project, which does food and aid and also has like a kid's camp that they try to run so that kids can kind of try to have a normal life there. Uh, Lifeline for Gaza is another one. There are some I'm missing eleanor Medical Aid for Okay, yeah, go ahead.

to do some mutual aid, you know, like grounded. These people can't help us back, but I think we can all agree that their continued survival is good for all of us here on the planet. So yeah, anything that you can spare at the moment, if you can send it towards our friends in Palestine, that would be great.

But you know, these people, you know, especially in the Western countries, these people are being killed in our names with our tax dollars. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that uh, that's what we're doing for today. Folks. Please help those people if you can, just yeah, for the love of whatever God or.

whatever reason. So here we are. First stuff, we got a question about periodization and the Middle Ages and attempts to reform away from well things words like medieval and Middle Ages and and other things like that. Now, before you turn off the episode in a fit of rage that we're covering such a dry topic, at least hear us out. Come on, we can make it fun. Just

give us a chance. But seriously, it's a good question and gives us a chance to go more in depth on periodization and like, you know, oh why, like why is this just a random one thousand year period that doesn't really delineated by like technology on the front end, Like why do we do this, and like, how how do we come up with periods in the first place? If you if you think you come up with a new period, do you just you know, what do you do with it? Do you just write about it and

hope people pick it up? Like you know, so yeah, you know, it's just one of those things like if you're going to do it about technology, that's fine, but then like you can't apply it to the world at all. Like if you go by gunpowder, if that's the marker of modernity, then like China got there in like eight ten, and you know, no, no, it's to China, But I don't think they were really modern in the ninth century, you know. And you know, so where do we draw these lines?

out of hand and we need to address it. We have to talk about what constitutes convert shit for Christians and the growing let's just say ahistorical views on what it meant to be a Christian until I don't know, like nineteen forty five or so. Because if there's one thing Christians have always always loved to do, it's cook up and say new herisies in stupid ways to perceive divinity and the difference between God and Jesus. We've got a lot of problems with you people. You're gonna hear

about them. Yeah, not just yet. One second. First, we got a question from our patron, Horatio hex He said, I have a weird question. Are there any attempts to modernize and quote de westernize end quote the periodization of historical events, especially since we start to have a truly global view of history or is it too early to even and start thinking about that? And before I let eleanor go into it, I just want to briefly give you an example of how hard it is to do

periodization based on the word feudalism. As we understand, it's going to take a second. But you know, as we've discussed several hundred times or so on the show, The Pyramid of feudalism with the neat little hierarchies paying goods, services or marshall prowess up the chain until you get to the king, with reciprocal duties flowing downward and reciprocal military service and the Church enforcing social cohesion is far

far too neat and tidy to reflect reality. China's version of feudalism that happened much earlier between one thousand and two forty BCE didn't fit this mold perfectly. They had advanced political bureaucracy and manorial structures similar to the field systems that Europe would use later that govern peasant life,

but the military dynamic was not even close. Later in the eighth the ninth centuries CE is when you could say Europe got the closest to the popular conception of feudalism under the Martels and the Carolingian Empire, which had the reciprocal military service and manorial relationships, but with a state too decentralized and nation to enforce a lot of these precepts, and the Church's power over the superstructure is not yet total. After that, versions of quasi feudal practices

cropped up all over Europe. And other places other parts of the world for the next thousand years or so, but none of them combined everything together as we understand feudalism. Thus, because the term feudalism is confusing and isn't totally applicable, we mostly use the term manorialism to describe these kinds of social relationships. However, there's always a catch and periodization,

and this is no different. We can't actually say that the popular idea of feudalism never existed in reality because of late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century Japan, which seemed to combine all aspects of feudalism into a rigid social structure overseen by a universal religious entity. They did extreme reciprocal relationships between peasants and nobles and reciprocal military service, wherein vassals were given fiefs in exchange for fighting on

behalf of the lords and the shogunates. You'll no doubt remember this from the book and Show shogun. This is really really close to the popular idea of feudalism, which means when periodizing things, we can't fully toss feudalism out with the bathwater, because it's very sparsely applicable. What's more, this was happening at the turn of the seventeenth century in Japan, which is generally agreed to be the early

modern period. So you've got Chinese feudalism from before the birth of Christ, European feudalism that filtered out in the Middle Ages, and Japanese feudalism well after the age of exploration and colonialism began. And that's a twenty five hundred

year period of history. Oh and before we make any hard and fast recommendations about the use of feudalism, we must remember that it has its own technical definition under Marxism in the form of the quote feudal mode of production end quote, which undergirds our present understanding of how the world works and the dominant modes of production. Everybody now understands that we live under capitalism, and you know that was Marx and Adam Smith to a lesser extent.

You know. So if you're going to toss out feudial there, then we have we're going to have to rework some things. Not only that, if you want to be hypertechnical about it, you could break feudalism down into three component parts. First, the pastoral aspects of the manorial structure, with peasants paying up to lords for housing and protection, second the martial aspects of reciprocal military duties between liege lords, their vassals

and retainers. And third the superstructural aspect of a monarch or emperor at the top with rigid social dynamics enforced by the religious entity. By now, it's pretty obvious why periodization is really difficult when you have to coordinate three different aspects appearing in different places around the world twenty five hundred years apart from one another in some cases, and all of their own little idiosyncrasies based on material conditions.

Eleanor my mouth hurts, What are we to do with this?

Ages is like about five hundred to fifteen hundred. And the reason we think that this is kind of fruitful is that there are there are parallels in in varying places, like so, for example, the way trade networks work, the way that history itself is recorded, the way and even indeed, whether it is literacy rates, the way that taxes are collected, things like this, you know, And what we are attempting to do there is kind of decentralize the idea that like,

you know, Europe is doing the four seventy six to I don't know, fourteen ninety two or fifteen seventeen thing, and then then then that's what the Middle Ages isn't It wasn't happening anywhere else, right, Yeah, so there is so for example, we will look at like the ecology of what's going on in these places or the tech of like how are people building boats. You know, things

like this are very very similar across it. And I think that there there is, of course, like a certain level of anxiety still about using using the term medieval at all in a global context. But I think that the scholars who are doing this work have done a really great job at kind of like highlighting how there

are are these similarities, right. Like, you know, if if we're looking, for example, at like the Incan or Aztec empires stuff like that, then then you could really see a lot of similarities to what's going on, uh you know, for example, I don't know in China, And indeed we certainly see a lot of trait that is kind of

going from the Americas specifically into Asia. What the Global Middle Ages is attempting to do more particularly as a field of study, is like decentralize Eurasia a little bit, right, because like the trouble is that Eurasia does just tend to like push everybody else out of the way, isn't it. Whereas you know, there's tons of stuff that we could be doing down in Africa or you know, certainly within the Americas, and you know, increasingly in Australasia as well.

So but they are. Granted, you know, one of the things that ends up happening in other regions where there hasn't been such an emphasis on literacy is that we are more reliant on archaeological things, or folklore studies or indeed oral histories, which is fundamentally these are different disciplines than history, right because history as a discipline relies on the written record. That's what we're doing. We're taking the

written record and we are interpreting it. Granted that we do that in conjunction alongside of archaeological finds, et cetera, et cetera, but we are trying to kind of like push that out and so that's what Global the Global Middle Ages is trying to do. But it's so young as a field that like people are largely unaware of it, right, Like you know, so this is something like as a I think it was first kind of come up with in sort of like the late nineties is when people

started first looking at it. So it it has really kind of blossomed out of that, like it especially became larger in like the teens. You know, I'm mostly aware of it from the UK side of things, but like Oxford and Birmingham and stuff have been working on the global Middle Ages, like and running huge conferences like twenty twelve they had a really big one. In twenty fifteen

they had a really big one. And so so what they're we're attempting to do here is what they're kind of terming like a combinative studies, so like putting all like put everything in a big dish and shake it up and have a look at it, right instead of like contrasting, which I think is good and useful. And so you know a lot of our friends are doing

really awesome work in these places for sure. Now Here on this show we are a little bit stimy because I'm a Europeanist, right and you know, yeah we do, we do, and and I think that that is that's an important thing to flag up. And you know, like I've got a pretty solid understanding of what's going on in Asia, but you know, if we're talking about subs of hoar in Africa, I get real shaky, real quickly.

So like I defer to my betters in these things that I do, I read these things, yeah, I absolutely do.

But so here, I guess what we're proposing is just kind of doing things based on date, and then what they are proposing even further within the study of the Global Middle Ages is, yeah, we're doing it based on date, but the reason we're doing it based on date is that we can see globally there are certain things that are common across all cultures, and you know, this makes it a useful term and a good way of kind

of like branching out. So yeah, like the work is getting done, but the thing is it's in its infancy, which is why we are still kind of like not aware of it as a society. But yeah, I think like you can check out there is a Past and Present,

which is like one of the big history journals. They did in twenty eighteen, a dedicated art dedicated volume on the Global Middle Ages, and the introduction is indeed free and unlock to read online, So if you want to, if you want to read a little bit more about it, we'll put the link in the show notes there so

that you can check it out. But the answer is everybody's right, this is confusing and it's weird, and we are kind of like groping towards working on periodization, and the way that we do this is by nerding out most nerdally having some conferences, and we start with journal articles and then we move towards books and then you can then hopefully like broaden that out, and but it takes a while, and you know how fucking hard it is for us to even get anyone to take the

concept of medieval history seriously as a discipline that should be studied, like, let alone, when you're trying to broaden it, like a way, we're we're fighting real uphill battle on this one, folks. So yeah, like it's definitely happening, but it's these things happen slowly because you know, intellectual movements often do. So yeah, but whore, we're getting there, We're getting there.

the world is hard. And the reason that dates are used is because it's really the only thing we can kind of agree on. Like I mean, if you look at kind of what we think about as like medieval culture, what represents you know, the Middle Ages in you know, as between after the classical and Ancient era and before the pre the early modern era, you know, like a lot most people say that China entered this when they

started the Three Kingdoms period, which was in the two hundred. See, you know there was the Ghana Empire was quasi medieval, you know, probably in the four or five hundreds like these this is before the fall of the Roman Empire, I mean back in the two hundreds, is before they even split the damn thing. You know, Like so you can't, you know, you have to, like you basically have to give some on the edges in order to make this work.

Because if you say that the global Middle Ages, or is it sometimes called post classical history, the post classical era, if you say it starts in two hundred, like okay, maybe for like one or you know a couple of other places, but for the majority of the world, no, not,

they were not close. The Romans were still all over the Mediterranean, Europe and you know, parts of Africa and Western Asia, and you know they the Persians one of the most important civilizations of this time, the most important civilizations in the history of the world in terms of what they did under the Sasanians and everything. They aren't considered to have reached the Middle Ages until the Arab the Caliphates conquest in like the early six thirties, I

mean the late six thirties. Like you just you can't because like some of these places adopted iron earlier or later. Some of these places had like very like the Chinese had inventions obviously very far in front of other people. They had a lot of inventions earlier in India, and I mean, of course, the Islamic Golden Age is like you can't just base it on this because if you do, you are unable to period a period of size anything like if you want to base it on technology, because

there's no technology. There's no like technological jumping off point around for one hundred to five hundred CE. That like that delineates it from before that, Like gunpowder hadn't been invented and wouldn't be for three hundred or so years. You know, you know, silk production was only in China

at that. You know, it's like these things have you know, there's no way to make it fully global in a way that corresponds to everything, because even if you talk about technological advancements in Afro Eurasia, the America's had completely different things, where like they did not make the same technological advancements and they didn't have a lot of the same forms of writing that we did, but that didn't stop them from having advanced empires. I've talked about the

Inca on here before. They ran an entire system of like quasi like quasi primitive communist type deal where every family got land from the state and they had repositories of grain and food and stuff like that. You know, they also had a lot of patriarchal imperial stuff on top of that. But they did that, and the only writing or counting systems we know that they have were these little not keeping things that we don't understand called cupu and they did all that, like keeping records on knots.

So like that is a political advancement that is insane compared to anyone else in the world at that time, maybe even compared to China. Not that they were advanced beyond China, but like having that advancement so early without writing that we can understand or find is that's like, that's fucking like space age, like it's insane. Also proves that you know, you can, you can have you know you can, you can do land reform and everybody's fine,

you don't have to just be assholes. But you know anyway, point, Yeah, look, periodization is hard. I mean I yeah, yeah, it is eleanor what. What are some successful attempts to reform periodization that you can think of, like just you know, obviously we say ce so that's a big one, even though to me that's just like lipstick on a pig. We haven't reduced.

never existed, so but I think that's really good. I guess, like my from my standpoint as a social historian, I think that using the term the long really helps like just not be like yo, like these things don't just appear overnight, right, So the I think that it is really good because it acknowledges spillover and how these things

are are interconnected. And I think that it's it's really useful even in just a modern sense, because I think that, for example, the term the long nineties is really useful.

like that. But like, yeah, it's you know, like it's it's it's hard, like it really is just fucking difficult to do, and like you like like and like I don't like the term post classic cool because like what the fuck does that even mean?

couple of hundred years. Before that, it was far less homogeneous, and everybody was like kind of going at their own speed, you know, separate and unequal development and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, that that's a lot about periodization. When we say Middle Ages here, we mean global Middle Ages. You know, take your pick four seventy Look, I'll give you four seventy six to fifteen seventeen. There you go. That encompasses the whole thing everybody. I don't want to

hear it. I would normally do fourteen ninety two, but the five hundred to fifteen hundred people can have their cake any I don't want to hear anything else. That's it, though. No, we're not expanding it anymore.

China than medieval Bohemia. But you know it's you know, we got to do it otherwise we're just if we don't have a common way to speak about this, then it all just breaks down and we can't even like, forget doing history podcasts. We don't even have a way to describe history because nobody can agree what anything means. Anyway, folks, that's periodization. And now since you've sat through that, it's

time to talk about stuff that is annoying us. So you sat through the delicious and nutritious dinner, it's time to dive in ice cream Sunday bar that is Christianity. No, really, this one is fun. I promise that Eleanor and I I have looked on with trepidation for quite some time. Growing trend emerges where in some bog standard type of bullshit, christian postulating is labeled as adult convert shit or an

example of the stupidity of quote. American Christianity end quote as a defense against how embarrassing they are, and it simply has to stop. I witness individuals on both Twitter and Blue Sky saying quite openly that calling the Pope the Antichrist is not typical Christian behavior and is something only converts would do. And I don't even know where to begin with that shit, because calling the Pope the Antichrist is so old that it predates the legalization of

the religion itself. You know, none of this is intended to defend the underlying stupid takes being offered. They are insane. It should be mocked, but not like this. And also, I believe that people use terms like American Christianity, America Protestantism, and American Catholicism as ways to deflect from the very real problems of reacttionarias that inhabit all levels, of course,

all Christian institutions across the globe. But we will get there. Also, it's really asinine to think that American Protestantism is a monolithic, monolithic thing. It's like six hundred different sex all arguing about whether the color of the rug is should be green or blue or some shit like. That's not a monolith, people, not in the way that you think. Anyway. Uh, this started because I was I was annoyed, and I got annoyed because I saw something like I sent it to Eleanor and I just I don't.

they be equal or would one be more grave? And somebody responded then said, uh, you know, sodomy would be worse because it's not just the sin of lust, but also in a front of the divine order of creation. In other words, neither an anus nor mouth are meant to be sex organs. One my visualize, uh, and this just goes into like a bunch of bulls and shit like one. I visualize this as a vector in in space where the length of the vector magnitude of the

sin is influenced by all the end dimension. Look, I'm not shut up her, that's not okay. Look I don't care the bit please, the bit that I.

personal isolation, but no interpersonal violence. But part of it, he says, is that, like, so there's lust on natural and interpersonal violence, so heterosexual rape would be equal in magnitude to sodomy, and homosexual rape is worse than the above. Okay, right, So the reason, the reason I've got a fucking problem with this is Saint Augustine literally, not Saint Augustine, Saint

Thomas Aquinas literally did all this shit and you're wrong. Like, I mean, it's just it's crazy to me to watch this person who thinks he's a Catholic, Like ignore Thomas Aquinas.

about regarding trite little like sexual alliances. Oh what if I get a hand job while I'm riding in the carriage to church and by going to heaven father or not, I got the hand job.

and it just depends on various things. That is Christianity. That is Catholic Christianity, that is the history of Christianity. Bar nunn eleanor please uh, Saint Augustine of Hippo or whoever the fuck.

like this, at least not in this respect. But like, it's that's the same thing, Dante, Dante delineating those things is the same goddamn thing, except he doesn't say in space because he's not a fucking dweb.

So the thing is he is actually letting his own modern ideas cloud his thought, if that's really what he wants to do, because he says that, like he says that, oh, you know, like the like sodomy is kind of the same as heterosexual rape and that homosexual rapist words, and it's like that is absolutely not true according to Aquinas, because what Aquinas's thing is is that the logic of sex is only for having children within marital circumstances, right, And so he says that actually rape, but the way

a mad raping of women is not as bad as sodomy because at least someone can get pregnant, which is fucking dire, dude, Like it's so dire, it's so dire. So this guy actually does have modern sensibilities because he's like, oh, yeah, like it's that's bad and it's bad and illogical likexodomy.

It's not fucking illogical likexodomy. If you want to go down, if this is the fucking road you really want to go down, if this is what you actually want to go down, then you need to fucking own it, like eat it, you know, eat the eat the whole thing that belongs to you. Now, don't do this like oh, like guess that, like, oh it's betterly his bad. It's

sort of shut the fuck up, you nerd. And the reason why he is right that the reason why, Well, it's interesting though, because you notice here he's like, sodomy is uh is mouths and amuses. I'm like, what about the hands, bra, You're trying to get away with hand jobs?

for you? Right, And like The reason why the Aquinas is kind of more chill with rape than he should be is he's like, well, at the very least you could have a baby, and also that situation can be made right by forcing the rapists to marry the woman. Yeah,

in which case everything's fine now. Actually, so it's like you, if you want to get into this, this kettle of fish, then you need to realize that someone smarter than you has already done this and it's actually worse and more horrifying that you are willing to deal with.

woman gets you know, if the woman gets pregnant. Then there was that politician in America who was like the last, the last Republican to like, uh get run out for wokeness and never be able to come back to you know, like if if there's a bay if the woman becomes pregnant. Uh, it's not rape. It automatically use like that.

at her on Twitter. And she says, Jesus did not primarily die for you because he loves you. He primarily died for his own glory.

very modern version of dosetism. But like the basically justism was that uh, Jesus is part of God, and the human form of Jesus that came onto the earth and was crucified was just uh an illusion and basically a way to uh to big up the power of God and Jesus essentially, you know, as someone said about the about that tweet, you know, oh, Jesus is or a farm on the cross, and that's what that's what doctism is to, you know, to to to a greater or

lesser extent. Now, with that being said, eleanor please go the fuck off.

heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man for our sake. He was crucified under Patrus Pilot. He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day, he rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures, he has sent it into heaven is seated at the right head of the Father. You like, it is literally in there. He came down from heaven, like you know, for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven, not for his like fucking glory glory form.

whatever extent you believe. But he definitely could have stopped him. So if he could turn water into wine, he could definitely pull himself off the cross and without without an issue. And it's uh, it's like, it's it's also in it. It's it's the it's the fundamental thing. And like to me, like I am not a Christian anymore. I don't care about it. But like to me, like, if you're a Christian,

you think about it. The thing about it has to be that God and Jesus loved you enough to do this, and he loved you enough to go through this horrific pain and take and become the sin eater to do this. That that's the point. If you don't have that.

the whole point. If it was just for his glory, he'd be like, sweet, let me get out there. Yeah, like it it It just denudes the religion of what is there for. I don't I don't even understand why you want this girl, Like.

has to happen. Sometimes know whether that happens because they betray themselves and they they do things that they never should have done and they commit horrific acts a genocide, or if it's that they have all this power but they choose to endure it as a human being would and die without like overawing everyone and and and turning themselves into the God Emperor of earth. That's another way

to do it. If you don't have that, then there's no fucking point in being a Christian like there there there's no there's like just be an ah, like yes, exactly, worship the dollar. Who gives a shit? Hell, just go to one of those prosperity gospel churches where they like at least teach like God's going to give you this

money because he loves you. That it's it's a horrific blasphemy to the Bible and everything, but it's closer than this this like this is yeah, like you're not like you're not a Christian like and this is like this is a problem with like with Christianity. Todays people just say this stuff and like you can't there's no way to tamp any of it down, Like you can't. There are no overarch there there are no real overarching uh

structures to this. And I mean not that it worked in the Middle Age just because you had all the heresies then too, but like once people like when people read things a spiritual import or even just regular stuff, but especially of spiritual import they like their mind imagines them and like in saying in weird different ways, it's not like it's not just like a static thing. And so like somebody's going to see this and be like, oh,

God is or farming on the cross. I know the person's going to see it and be like God and Jesus are like completely and totally separate. And and then you know another person's going to see it another way, and you get into the arianism and all that sort of like you get into all those divinity debates, and so when you don't have that overarching thing and you don't have the superstructure, it all just kind of devolves

into this. And since like all of like the especially all of the western countries, but a lot of countries in the world are just like, well, we're just like marching on into oblivion and we're not going to do anything to stop it. Of course, people who have these like like people who are at the end of their rope are like, yeah, of course, you know, Jesus is

or farming on the cross. I'm you know, I'm gonna die because you know, like because I can't pay for healthcare, like people just I don't and I don't really know how you fix that other than by Christians just being like, look, we just have to like excommunicate all these people, we have to get them out, like we have to do that because like even like even the Catholic Church now doesn't do that. All the fucking reactionaries are in there, and like, uh, none of the woke popes before now

did anything. Like it's just like, I mean, I really don't I really don't know how you you stopped that apart from just like mass excommunicado, I don't fucking know.

on an end access. Get the fuck off off Twitter, log off, Go speak to your priest about this, Like, go tell your priest, Go tell your priest to his face.

fuck are you doing? Man? Like, like go go do something, like you know, go do something with that shit. And you're just like, oh, it's in the in space. Uh God, was are a farming up? Like what the fuck are we doing? What are you doing?

the past. There is nothing like that in America. The Catholic Church is not like that because it's badly riven here between like the you know people who go but they're like nice liberals, the lapse Catholics on they're kind of on one side, and then you have like the crazies, which I mean, it's that's like it pretty much everywhere else in the world too, with Catholicism. But like the people talk about American Protestantism as a monolithic thing, No,

there's no Protestant monolith here in this country. Southern Baptist churches that are members of the Southern Baptist Convention disagree with and split off from them all the time. They're fighting, constantly fighting about everything. There. You know, there are seventy eighty ninety kinds of denominations of like Evangelicals. And then on top of that, you've got like the you've got

like the pluralist religious groups. You know, you're Unitarian Universalists, You're you're Northeastern Protestants, you know that, you know, the kind of more refined they're more accepting of gay people and stuff like that. You've got all that. It's none of this is a monolith and people here are just like giving giving up on church fair faster than they

were before. Like it's not a thing. It's like this vague institutional backing that people have for certain issues like Israel and stuff like that, but there's no religious rigor to it. And most of these people can't like direct their flocks to do anything because they don't have that's not an institutional Like Protestantism in America has fractured so many times that like you've got non denominational groups that

are denominations. You've got non denominational groups that are just like we want to have an electric guitar and let some guy talk about one love and everything like that. That might as well be hippie communes. And then you've got you know, non denominationalists that are like cults that you know, abduct children, like it's you've got all stripes. It's just this weird thing. And I don't I really don't know what they do with it. I have no idea.

I don't know how you. I don't know how you reform it other than like the dune thing where you like, you know, orange Catholic Bible like un ironically, I really don't know.

they do for sports. But on the other hand, I don't really see the point of being Catholic if you're not going to like be Catholic with it, right, Like if you're if you're gonna try to out smart a Quitas, if you're going to like say, the IC in Creed isn't real, then like why are you a Catholic at all? Just like go go be a Protestant. There's lots of them. I don't get it.