51–56 of 56 posts
Another great post by one of the nations best public intellectuals.
It is unfortunate that the Ivory Tower can't recognize it though. His path to tenure is closed at this point. Yet any school would have a gem if they prompted him.
His star really is rising and his reach is widening. I can;t wait until he gives up the ghost and decides to go to some think tank or another and really makes the dough.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, the article contained a lot of speculation and not many historical examples. It was more about what the author thought “made sense” than what reality was. It was also quite long winded. Probably could have been summarized to maybe 3 reasons. Oddly enough I don’t see “money” mentioned, at least not simply, and that should probably be reason #1
> Oddly enough I don’t see “money” mentioned, at least not simply "the entitlement principle (service as the flip-side of the coin for some set of rights or status)" and the employment principle (separate from the vocational principle). We may sum it up with, “recruits show up purely as an economic transaction: service for money” – it’s a job. Close enough. > and that should probably be reason #1 Article goes on to e…
In those periods, people work more on credits and debts, which shade directly into systems of social obligation and caste when extended over time.
(As you note) It's also very historically recent that 'making money' was seen as any kind of reasonable choice for someone with power. The political and merchant classes are typically quite separate (the exceptions prove the rule); the merchants are picking up an under-explored source of power that is mostly uninteresting to the the ruling class.
I'm sorry, this is just sententious bloviation. The sources are so thin, there's no reason to go around imputing all these fantastical ideas that somehow benefit your own beliefs. It's just boring and insipid to watch people fall into this trap over and over.
This is a blog post (not a paper) written for a general audience by an academic summarizing content he has gone into greater detail on in his other blog posts which generally have more links to further reading - and this one also opens with suggestions of three or four books that provide a deeper overview of the topics it goes into. It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion about how fant…
The annoying part of the article is how it very much pretends to be some kind of objective truth and that fictional stories are bad and wrong for not adhering to the author's exact view of historical militaries. Every sentence he writes about fantasy stories diverging from his view is dripping with contempt for the authors, as though they're ignorant at best if not outright mentally challenged for daring to write their fictional worldbuilding in a way that is not congruent with his expectations.
I'm not going to build a catalogue of every one of his irritating statements (it would be about as long as the article), but, take, for instance: "Fans of fictional worlds will have often run into the most egregious examples of the failure to think in these terms". That is not a man sharing his opinion, that is a man asserting that his opinion is objectively correct and that anyone who disagrees are so stupid they must not've thought of all the details he thought of, else they would have come to see his light. Not once does he stop to consider that perhaps an author did do their research, and that their work was informed by a specific piece of research or simply an interpretation that differs from his own, or that they deliberately chose to take liberties because fiction is about crafting a compelling narrative moreso than creating an autistically-perfect simulation of the existing world.
> counteract what he sees as historical misinformation perpetuated by fantasy authors adopting a sheen of ‘based in realistic history’
Ah yes, realistic history like... Star Trek. It seems much less like his agenda has anything to do with counteracting misinformation and everything to do with being the archetypical "AKSHUALLY" nerd who gets off on correcting people in extremely pedantic and not actually meaningful ways.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a blog post (not a paper) written for a general audience by an academic summarizing content he has gone into greater detail on in his other blog posts which generally have more links to further reading - and this one also opens with suggestions of three or four books that provide a deeper overview of the topics it goes into. It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion about how fant…
> It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion The annoying part of the article is how it very much pretends to be some kind of objective truth and that fictional stories are bad and wrong for not adhering to the author's exact view of historical militaries. Every sentence he writes about fantasy stories diverging from his view is dripping with contempt for the authors, as though they're ign…
He's a military historian writing for a popular audience who naturally get much of their intuitions from pop culture. Of course he's going to find unrealistic elements in creative works. I've never seen him dismiss the overall value of a work due to these unrealistic elements. I enjoy having my misapprehensions acquired from pop culture corrected by an expert. I imagine many of his loyal readers first discovered him through one of his critiques of military depictions in The Lord of the Rings like I did. If you don't enjoy that, he's just not for you. No need to yuck my yum.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a blog post (not a paper) written for a general audience by an academic summarizing content he has gone into greater detail on in his other blog posts which generally have more links to further reading - and this one also opens with suggestions of three or four books that provide a deeper overview of the topics it goes into. It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion about how fant…
> It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion The annoying part of the article is how it very much pretends to be some kind of objective truth and that fictional stories are bad and wrong for not adhering to the author's exact view of historical militaries. Every sentence he writes about fantasy stories diverging from his view is dripping with contempt for the authors, as though they're ign…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It also doesn’t pretend to be anything other than the author’s opinion The annoying part of the article is how it very much pretends to be some kind of objective truth and that fictional stories are bad and wrong for not adhering to the author's exact view of historical militaries. Every sentence he writes about fantasy stories diverging from his view is dripping with contempt for the authors, as though they're ign…
Do you read the title? IMHO the article absolutely delivers, and when we are talking about fantasy writing, opinions are facts inside their context. An actual “well founded” opinion about fiction is next level pedantry at its finest.