[Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

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Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

PoontifexMacksimus posted:

Very good post. The fetishization of technology is inextricable from the fetishization of capital. Capital is dead labour, but imagined as existing separately from (above, really) that mere human activity. In the same way technology is imagined not as tool intrinsic to some process of human and social activity, but as a plug-and-play Platonic form that radiates good results by its mere presence like a magic talisman.

Country needs to improve healthcare? Just airdrop some iPhones with CT scanner apps. Need a better army? Hand them some random pieces of the hotest kit. Just like the strength of an economy must obviously be measured in its accumulation and growth of capital regardless of what social good it serves, the strength of an army is obviously measured in how much advanced technology it has piled up regardless of how it performs.

And the denigration of labour into imagined irrelevance before apparently self-sufficient capital will certainly continue to spread into the military as into all spheres of life under Capitalism. It's funny how much American war schools seem to obsess over Prussian ~operational art~ considering the military craftsman will inevitably go the way of the industrial craftsman.

When you really get down to it these liberals just loving conceptualize and think wrong.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 15:54

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# ? May 25, 2024 01:46

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

Orange Devil posted:

Yeah but as soon as you allow the logic that one thing is better-off under state control because it avoids perverse incentives, cartels and conspiracies etc etc or even just plain is a core function of the state ensuring its own continuity, you're going to get people asking difficult questions about other things for which it would then be very difficult to argue the same logic does not hold. Like say, utilities and transport infrastructure.

Oh yeah, deffo. A major reason why military had a historical pass on that because mercenaries, according to some stuff I recall from political economy

Like, once the nation-state comes up, a capitalist looking after their surplus value through procurement contracts and taking every advantage (read: being very competent at what they propose to do), well that looks reaaaaaally bad to everyone. IIRC this has been mentioned as one of the very very rare issues where everyone gets pissed: conservatives, liberals, socialists, reactionaries... Everyone despises mercenaries lmao

# ? Aug 1, 2023 15:55

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

Second Hand Meat Mouth posted:

https://twitter.com/DevanaUkraine/status/1686311993651650562

there were THREE holodomors?? why didn't the forums tell me

What, am I supposed to deny three of them now? Seems like too much work...

# ? Aug 1, 2023 15:58

SplitSoul: Dec 31, 2000

Cuttlefush posted:

the warning signs were there

Well, yeah, he awarded Bandera and Shukhevych the Hero of Ukraine title.

PoontifexMacksimus posted:

What, am I supposed to deny three of them now? Seems like too much work...

He doesn't know how to deny the three Holodomors! :xd:

SplitSoul has issued a correction as of 16:07 on Aug 1, 2023

# ? Aug 1, 2023 15:58

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Then there was the war against the Nazis, in which 10 million Ukrainians died according to official data. Everyone remembers Zhukov's order not to arm the Ukrainians and drive them unarmed first in the ranks, because the more they die, the less they will have to drown in the Dnieper after the war.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 15:59

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

It�s entirely possible that after the strong start, UAF ends up alongside the ARVN and ANA in the pantheon of US success stories. Anything built now (that Soviet equipment is gone and experienced soldiers and officers too) is built on the foundations of the hilariously corrupt state and hollow institutions.

The �NATO trained forces�, as we saw, were trained to defeat the BTG, which itself is a theory that relies entirely on technology overcoming material reality. Their fighting effectiveness was supposed to come from the superior optics and firepower of technologically superior vehicles - which they then drove into minefields. Their �superior small unit leadership� was revealed to be an app.

So, what new military are they going to build with guys literally taken off the streets at gunpoint?

# ? Aug 1, 2023 15:59

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Question for Zodium:

Has cybernetic capitalism killed the nation-state? Or is the ethno-nationalism that is the sole motivating factor left (given that everything else is just about make money for your betters also gently caress you) inside the cybernetic capitalist system its largest contradiction? Like what's the theory here?

And has anyone got any bright ideas about what happens after the fascists inevitably win their elections but, after continuing neoliberal policy but with even more racism and maybe some ethnic cleansing and genocide, the lives of the white hoi polloi in the imperial core still don't materially improve?

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:00

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

Orange Devil posted:

The best part is this kind of poo poo always gets sold by the media as if this means it is the largest defense purchase, in terms of being a huge expansion to the military. The key bullshit word here would be "capability", as in "biggest expansion of military capability", where the assumption just is that more dollars = more capable = more expansion.

If a neoliberal government spent a trillion on a single golf cart (painted green and up-armoured or otherwise) the neoliberal media would proclaim the next day that said golf cart contained more military capability than the entire combined Allied militaries of WW2 or whatever.

Military strength measured like Silicon Valley valuations

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:01

Halser: Aug 24, 2016

surely warfare will be completely automated before it gets to that point

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:01

Hatebag: Jun 17, 2008

Second Hand Meat Mouth posted:

https://twitter.com/DevanaUkraine/status/1686311993651650562

there were THREE holodomors?? why didn't the forums tell me

Commit 3 holodomors labelled 1, 3, and 4,

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:02

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Hatebag posted:

Commit 3 holodomors labelled 1, 3, and 4,

lol

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:06

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

someone edit the [hole left by the Christian dark ages] graph

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:07

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

Frosted Flake posted:

Which is how it turned out the miraculous NATO standard military created in just a few short years really just meant apps. They thought they could skip actual material reality - training, equipment, doctrine, institutions - with technology.

OF-9 Senior Theatre AI Prompt Engineer

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:08

Halser: Aug 24, 2016

Orange Devil posted:

And has anyone got any bright ideas about what happens after the fascists inevitably win their elections but, after continuing neoliberal policy but with even more racism and maybe some ethnic cleansing and genocide, the lives of the white hoi polloi in the imperial core still don't materially improve?

what was life like for romans during the fall of the roman empire?

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:09

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

Orange Devil posted:

Question for Zodium:

Has cybernetic capitalism killed the nation-state? Or is the ethno-nationalism that is the sole motivating factor left (given that everything else is just about make money for your betters also gently caress you) inside the cybernetic capitalist system its largest contradiction? Like what's the theory here?

And has anyone got any bright ideas about what happens after the fascists inevitably win their elections but, after continuing neoliberal policy but with even more racism and maybe some ethnic cleansing and genocide, the lives of the white hoi polloi in the imperial core still don't materially improve?

The former: personally, I disagree. I think Zodium can elaborate far better than me on the peculiar of the cybernetics, but regarding contemporary Marxism, the nation-state is a much tougher beast than present-day dominant capital gives it credit for. Especially the revolutionary nation-state, which forms perhaps the most successful counter to it

As for the latter, I do agree with some Marxist positions that fascist degeneration is consequential from imperialism and colonialism, but not an end-state. As capital eats itself in a former empire, it blasts pieces of its own walls. This is where the new possibilities will lie

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:11

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

All this criticism of Ukrainian war effort stems from the mistaken assumption that they're trying to win this war.

From observing both sides it should become apparent that nobody is trying to win this war. At best they're both simply trying to not lose right now.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:12

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Halser posted:

what was life like for romans during the fall of the roman empire?

How many pages do you want?

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:13

Halser: Aug 24, 2016

Frosted Flake posted:

How many pages do you want?

I suggest keeping it under 16222 lines, but anything under that is fine by me

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:15

Second Hand Meat Mouth: Sep 12, 2001

Halser posted:

I suggest keeping it under 16222 lines, but anything under that is fine by me

lol

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:16

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

dead gay comedy forums posted:

but since it is ideology, the people there don't realize they are taking out the copper wiring, instead they think they are reforming the building and making it better

yep. neoliberalism is the ideology that cybernetic capitalism predominantly produces, not the cause of it. neoliberals could no more think to make an exemption from it for this or that domain than they could think to exempt this or that from gravity unless they were somehow to find themselves outside its core by illness or other misfortune.

edit: ok lmfao I should have read the whole thread and will do a better reply later

Zodium has issued a correction as of 16:20 on Aug 1, 2023

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:18

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

Frosted Flake posted:

Is there a thread to post about Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea pledging to defend Niger?

Is it too soon for the disinformation/immunology/early childhood education/Ukraine experts to pivot to that or will whatever happens receive the same level of attention as the Ethiopian Civil War?

no one cares OP

thats why we have this thread and not one about the ethopia/eritrea war or the civil war in sudan

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:26

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

Halser posted:

what was life like for romans during the fall of the roman empire?

Frosted Flake posted:

My first undergraduate class on Late Antiquity, so way before the specialized material or seminars or anything, the professor introduced it by saying that the V�lkerwanderung was just like the Syrian refugees, and that the Muslims in Europe, like the Goths, would turn on their benevolent hosts for no reason (and yes, this is how he later taught the battle of Adrianople too). That was day one, and was like that for the whole class. He mentioned Islam as the destabilizing force in Late Antiquity in the first lecture, despite... well more stuff than I can get to here, but Greg Fisher has written some really cool stuff on that. In terms of presenting periodization to the class... mentioning Islam before the Crisis of the Third Century is pathological.

What's crazy is this professor had worked with Umberto Eco, Peter Brown and Avril Cameron, the later two basically developed the whole field of Late Antiquity specifically because the barbarians at the gates model was the result of Gibbon's anxieties about Britain becoming an empire (and ruling over racially inferior asiatics) for the "Roman" perspective and sentimental 19th century German nationalism for the "Barbarian" perspective. It's not a coincidence that the best academic in the field, with respect to Brown and Cameron, is Chris Wickham who is a materialist historian with a Marxist bent. His prose is drier and less engaging than Eric Hobsbawm's, unfortunately, but when you read his economic and social histories - and all of his books are at least based on a socio-economic understanding - in my opinion, there's no other way to understand 300-1000. The reason social history and materialist economic history have such strong explanatory power is basically because Marx was right. Which means, basically, that professor I mentioned was so mad about Muslims that it overrode his entire training and career.

At the time Marx was writing, many of the key sites in the discipline hadn't been excavated, hell Ravenna had barely received a study, many texts were untranslated or forgotten, but still Marx's explanation matches the evidence we uncover today. At any conference on Late Antiquity, even if people don't refer to Marx, or subscribe to his theory, or even know much about it, you'll find that the evidence presented conforms to Marx's understanding. That's pretty loving cool, and significant. There are some aristocratic British pop historians trying to push counter-revisionism, and basically it works because the general history paperback buying public thinks that's a better story, but I think Late Antiquity came into its own and secured its place as a discipline when a materialist approach became front and centre - it's through that lens, looking at fibulae, coins, even inscriptions, that you realize "Roman" and "Barbarian" were not at all bound by the geographical definitions and neat borders the old school subscribed to (this is called Frontier Theory and is also very cool), but that the same is true of Arabs, Bulgars, Berbers and many other peoples as well.

The reason is that nationality, race, even religion, took on concrete meanings in the Enlightenment and are central to liberalism and how liberals see the polity.They then project that backwards. That's why I want to blow a gasket at people milking university administrators, the media and publishers by talking about "People of Colour in Antiquity", "Blackness in the Roman Empire". They didn't see it in those terms and you're not learning or explaining anything if you try to frame it in those terms. Quite literally, you're ignoring everything we know about their lived experience to talk about Rome as if it was 21st century America, exactly what we criticize Old White Men for doing in the 19th and 20th centuries. To link it to that news item a while back, even if you think Cleopatra VII Ptolemy was "Black" however you want to define that - but let's be real, in terms of race as understood in contemporary America (she wasn't) - neither she, nor anyone around her would have seen her or interacted with her in those terms. Which means it has no explanatory value.

I could talk about this all day. One thing I'll say, you will often see liberals in other fields dismiss materialist approaches, even get angry, and say "are you saying people didn't believe in things?!" - particularly when you talk about syncretism, Christianization, "Romanitas". It's one thing that is almost guaranteed to come up when you mention it to people who trained in different fields - for example most people I work with have degrees in non-History fields or Canadian History or Military History.

Explaining how people became Christian, does not mean they did not believe in Christianity. In fact, it confirms that they did, by going further to explain how they did. People live their beliefs, that's what you have study. Conversion is an act, a process, it's felt, it's lived. This is one of those things where liberals just don't get it and I can never understand why. It doesn't matter if local folklore passed into their beliefs they still believed. It doesn't matter if the shrine they travelled hundreds of kilometres through the desert to visit was dedicated to Isis before Saint Anthony, they still went there. It doesn't even matter if rising through the ranks of the Roman Army or at court required them to convert, because their conversions were still sincere. I'll put this to the thread: is this because liberals believe beliefs (lol) must be self-contained and perfect or something?

Belief is what you do, that's why it defines who you are. It's active. Historians believe one of the single greatest contributors to Islam was that it brought stability to a region that had seen over a hundred years of unspeakable civil war and sectarian violence over the nature of Christ. The reason the shahada was and is so central to Islam is that it provided a simple, unifying belief, in a region where Icons, the nature of Christ, the substance of Christ, the veneration of saints and the observance of feast days had all led to riots and open warfare. Nobody had been able to work out a simple belief that, for example, "There is no god but God, and Jesus Christ is the Son of God". They had fought about the Trinity, they had fought about the nature of the Holy Spirit, they had fought about Jesus being God, an apparition of God, an aspect of God, ascending to Godhood (I will be here all day trying to list them all). It's not that Islam "put people to the sword", which is what right wing people have been talking about since 2001 and is particularly popular with the history dilettante alt-right. No, the beliefs were adapted, because people were already being put to the sword, had been for hundreds of years, and Islam provided a way to focus on plowshares instead.

That's an infinitely more compelling pitch to people than the fine points of theology, and that material reality, that's where belief lives.

In Africa, pretty much everyone welcomed the Arabs as mediators because there had been a four hundred year civil war between "Orthodox" Christians and Donatists, even after Constantine travelled there to settle it, and even after the "Barbarian" Arian Christian Vandals were in charge. What caused this bloodletting? During the Great Persecution of Diocletian in the 300's, clergy were threatened to surrender Holy books on pain of death. It was agreed upon that the holy office of those who had done so rather than accepting martyrdom, regrettably, was invalid and so any priests ordained by them were invalid also, as Apostolic Succession was broken by apostasy and/or excommunication. That was generally not a problem, and was resolved within a few decades, it was just a matter of finding church records (or forging them...) to see who had consecrated who, and then either giving them the option to be ordained under Catholic auspices or dismissed.

This is kinda-sorta how Anglican priests and bishops can become Catholics even if their Apostolic succession was broken by those who submitted to Henry VIII. Both issues are way more complicated than I'm explaining and involve church records, but what historians like Wickham have identified is that, like the Investiture Controversy that tore the Church apart in religious violence in the Early Middle Ages, this was really about politics. Most of the wheeling and dealing involved power and wealth, rather than belief per se, or the legalistic technicalities dug up in church records. When records were produced showing that the ordination of the person who ordained you was illegitimate because the person who ordained them had surrendered the Gospel to the persecutors - and therefore yours was too - that was about power.

That's what being a bishop was in Roman Africa, which had more Bishops than any other Roman province. Bishops there were the most powerful members of the community by far, because the Roman Army was barely present, there were no Federated Chieftains (until the Vandals showed up), and for reasons I don't have the word count to get into, the estates held by bishops were often larger and more productive than the Latifundia. That meant they were rich and powerful, and that explains their behaviour and the centuries of civil war over control of the bishoprics. Why are historians so confident in this?

I mentioned earlier that everyone agreed that handing Holy books over to the Persecutors could only be forgiven by God. However, the Donatists further believed that anyone who handed over books they pretended were the Holy Gospels to the ignorant Persecutors had also sinned gravely. Because of the wealth and power of the Church in Africa, the bishops often came from the upper class (like St. Augustine of Hippo), which means they also read for pleasure like other Roman aristocrats and had large collections of books on philosophy, poetry, whatever.

Their collecting is part of the reason collection of the Great Library of Alexandria had actually been dispersed centuries before it burned. When it was a pagan temple of Sarapis, the pagan priesthood oversaw the books (actually scrolls), and considered the Platonist (?) works near-holy texts, or whatever pagan nonsense and superstition. They kept the collection together and curated it. When Christians took over possession, they saw them as library books to be leant out, sold or donated, like any others. The knowledge wasn't "lost or destroyed" (another fixation of liberals I don't understand), it was distributed.

Anyway, they handed over those books. The pagans burned them and went home. Now, the first thing social historians say, is that in these narratives we might actually be seeing deals being made. The pagans could read, most of them had an idea of what Christian beliefs were by 300, even what Christian texts looked like. It's quite possible that what we're seeing is closer to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

because, remember, the bishops were rich and powerful aristocrats at the top of local networks of power. So there's an interplay between the local power, the bishops, and the representatives of the distant state, the Persecutors. To reiterate the part liberals have a hard time with, that doesn't mean both parties' beliefs weren't sincere.

They were, but beliefs are lived and what we see here is that the Persecution was the state asserting control over local networks of power that were outside their control. When Constantine later converted, and in his case there really is serious debate over to what degree and when, but regardless, when he converted, that was the Roman State making a deal to integrate the Church instead of trying to dominate it. Not everyone who persecuted was evil and believed all of the pagan fairy tales with all their heart, not everyone who converted was good and virtuous and became a Christian in a way we understand it, with complete orthodox beliefs or whatever. But, in both instances, people are trying to navigate social transformations.

Back in Africa, even after the Christians triumphed (and, again, liberals get tripped up because this was not immediate, universal, or imparted pure, correct beliefs in everyone. That does not make Christianization less real as they lived it), there was trouble. This might come as a surprise (and does to liberals) because there was a Christian/"Christian" Emperor not just calling the great Church Council of Nicaea - even attending - and who personally traveled to Africa to resolve the Donatist controversy.

The reason nobody could resolve it, not the renewed empire under Constantine, not the Vandals, nobody until the coming of Islam with the Arabs, is because there was no distinction between religion and politics - just like belief and material conditions were often the same thing. Religion - particularly what we call heresy - was a sectarian affiliation, which meant it was also political, also economic, and grounded not in belief about the nature of the trinity or, in this case, handing over fake books, but in material conditions. Heresies almost always, were not some wacky thing some group started believing in and that's why they ended up in conflict with society. Heresy was how groups in conflict with the dominant group organized to act in their material interest - while, for the tenth time, also believing it too. Liberals say, but I suspect lol don't have a felt belief, that politics is collective decision making and intergroup conflict over the allocation of resources. That's what religion was.

From primary sources, records of last names, grave stones etc. the Donatists were not just random people who believed handing over books was bad, but competing families within the Province of Africa. They had been kept out of power, and so wealth, by other families that monopolized power. Some scholars further see this as an urban-rural divide, or regional, or "ethnic" but the gist is that, whatever the fault line, there were competing coalitions comprised of what I suppose in Marxist theory were networks of aristocrats and peasants. Clientela was the distinctive relationship in Roman society between the patronus and their cliens, and it was the building block of, well I guess what we would call politics, coordinating activity to determine the allocation of resources within society. You couldn't be a plucky Mayor Pete meritocrat and run for office back then. If your family was perpetually frustrated by the Old Boys club, there's no way to move up.

Remember, in the Province of Africa, the Old Boys are the bishops, so it's not a holy office removed from this, it's the single most important position for steering patronage, forging alliances over long distances, interacting with the central state (and so having Imperial sanction to gently caress over your rivals). If you have a bishop in your family, or are friends with a bishops, it's not a nice, quaint thing. You don't say in hushed tones "it's a shame he's in the closet." "I know! Isn't it strange he went into the priesthood after Georgetown?". No, it's like having an in with Mayor Daly, or Tammany, or, sometimes, the Mafia. It's like having an uncle who's a senator (US senator I mean), or a general in the Army.

So, as the entire structure of Roman society recovers from the Crisis of the Third Century, reorganizes with a new form of Imperial government, dual power with the Church, these huge mix ups, people are optimistic because there's a new social contract being negotiated. And part of a new social contract being negotiated, is the chance for people to cut the right deals and move up in the world. So, they say that their enemies, for obscure religious reasons, should not be in positions of power in local society. That's the conflict. It runs for 600 years, but now, I hope, you can understand why - because there was a world to be won. Donatism provided the ideology, the reason they could wage war within society - nobody likes thinking of themselves as antisocial, right, everybody needs a cause - and of course they did believe it was bad to hand over holy books. Or not holy books. Or, listen, the bishop's family killed your uncle in the decades-long, preexisting vendetta, and isn't that as bad as handing over holy texts? Well, if he killed your uncle, he probably did that too, so better write a letter to the Emperor denouncing him.

And of course the other group is doing the same thing. They become "Orthodox", which is to say the Church adopts the position that handing over fake books is okay, because they are the ones who meet with the Emperor when he comes to Africa. Liberals like to say this is a gotcha - Constantine was a dumb, formerly* pagan soldier, why was he deciding Christian doctrine? "By their own logic XYZ, therefore it is irrational that the Church and Empire supported these people. How could you believe in an irrational religion or belong to an irrational church after learning this?" This is the kind of point missing I mean. It was not, strictly speaking, about doctrine, it was about power. Constantine was the ultimate authority, in terms of state violence, legitimacy, whatever. It did not matter if he was a religious scholar and his ruling did not have to be theologically sound. That doesn't make it less true. See? Who was a heretic and who was orthodox broke down just like Guelph and Ghibellines, the supporters of the Emperor and Pope, in the centuries long civil wars in Italy 500 years later. In both instances, yes the law says this, canon law says that, but these are political conflicts about the allocation of resources.

How did Islam resolve this conflict? They literally changed the ownership of the means of production, with new arrangements of fields and estates, and everybody was Muslim, which meant they were equal - or they were equally not-Muslim. Each sect usually had a clergyman at court, unless one heresy really did believe something far out there and at odds with Islam - they didn't count as People of the Book. Usually Muslim rule sucked the air out of religious conflict, nearly straight away. In Arabia, Egypt, Africa, Syria - hundreds of years of sectarian bloodshed ended in decades. That was because in addition to the above, the Muslims had the required state capacity for violence to keep the peace.

Which is to say, they came to an Africa with a two-way civil war between factions of the aristocracy and their supporters, overseen by a third faction - which was Romanized by then, but - because culture also has material causes - insisted on make-believe Germanic pretensions to underwrite the legitimacy of their exclusive control over all of the aristocratic offices - and the resources those steered - like Manchu Bannermen in Qing China. The Arabs created new social order where the (minuscule) number of Arabs were on top, but there was a new balance between the three other groups, and while they couldn't contest the privileged place of the new Muslim ruling class, they either benefited materially or had security in keeping what they had. Islam ended the conflict not by barbarously converting everyone (there are still Christians throughout the Roman World btw) but by creating a new social order people benefitted from and had a sense of security in. Otherwise a few hundred Arabs could not have ruled over tens of thousands - and this is true everywhere. (I know Mughal India did things differently Tankbuster, don't @ me on this)

You have to see this is materialist terms, for it to make sense. To relate to the discussion above about Islam, materialist historians see Constantine's conversion as a similar sort of deal. Not the same one the Arabs offered first the blood-soaked and exhausted clans of Arabia, then ... everyone else, but a deal nonetheless. The template everywhere is that the King converts and then everybody else does too - Boris I, Stephen I, Wenceslas, Clovis, Constantine. It was a 18th and 19th century preoccupation that they did this with brutality, the mass conversions weren't sincere etc. As you might guess, liberals say the same thing now. Here's the thing "L'�tat, c'est moi". In a monarchy, the ruler converting to a new religion is the opening of a new social contract. People who want to align with the monarch sign on, people who were already in a state of rebellion or were otherwise contesting state authority, don't. The holdouts didn't believe in Odin, Serapis, Sol Invictus more than everyone else, they rejected the "deal" offered by religious conversion because they were in conflict to one degree or another. There are more than a few cases where the first Christian King is martyred, that's what this is. People making grabs for power. So, Constantine's conversion was negotiating a new Rome.

The Church provided an ideology and legitimacy with a strong social base, which the Roman State desperately needed. Not only had the Empire nearly collapsed in the Crisis of the Third Century, felt belief in it (again, there's a lot to be said here) had almost been totally lost in the chaos. To whatever extent people had believed in the official Imperial Cult, after Quintillus reined for 17 days before being murdered, one of perhaps ten or more emperors to be killed and usurped in your lifetime, could you believe in the Emperor in a way that made you feel like you belonged to a community, that the Emperor was a stabilizing force that offered you protection? No.

You might turn to the local Roman general and see his immediate ability to protect you as more important than any sacred office of Emperor, any sacred Empire, and, in some regions, even than being "Roman". That's how empires break up. The Empire doesn't give you a reason to feel allegiance to it, so you turn to people who - in clear materialist, social and economic terms, offer you something - and so you believe in them instead. This is why Constantine needed the Church, and so, you could say in very practical terms he found God. Again, liberals don't like this, but belief is what belief does. He unified the Church, gave it wealth and power it had never had before, gave the Church the ability to save countless souls, I mean, there's a reason he was sainted. The people who lived then could understand how he was so saintly he must have had a divine apparition at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (or dream the night before, which is how pagan gods sent messages. You see, people believed what fit in their existing belief structure).

He was also a terrible person. He killed his son, and that's like one of a dozen equally absolutely awful things. He does not seem to have had particularly Christian personal attributes. He may have continued sacrificing to pagan gods, or maybe just Sol Invictus. He was also involved in Mithraism, the cult of the Roman Army (which was syncretic with Sol Invictus anyway). When he described the Christian God and Jesus, he did not always formulate the orthodox creed. Sometimes it sounded barely Christian, other times, not at all. In other words, it's not clear exactly how much he understood or believed in Christianity, and it is clear he certainly did not live in emulation of Christ and the apostles. So, how on earth could people see him as saintly?

Because his actions unified the Church behind a coherent belief, even if he himself did not believe it (coherently or otherwise). Which is to say, it was his use of power. It might be this is what liberals avoid like the plague. He used power to do good, even if he himself was an awful guy. He fundamentally changed the socio-economic position of the Church, incorporated it into the state in a way that changed Rome forever, and restored the legitimacy of the Roman Empire. This is my final point.

Romans did not feel about Roman history the way we do. They did not see the Augustinian Age as a Golden Age or Marcus Aurelius as particularly important. Virtuous, in the same way as other Virtuous Pagans. A Good Emperor, like the other Good Emperors. They did not see their own time as being worse. They did not perceive decline and fall. In fact, and this is the remarkable thing about the primary sources, they were optimistic in a way that's almost impossible to express. Why?

Because to them, the old empire not only had gone away but should have gone away. They had a different relationship to the past, for one thing. It hadn't been put up on a pinnacle by all of those Enlightenment people. Our "Rome" was not their Rome. There were other cities that were more important. The character of the empire, religiously, culturally, as a polity - how people felt about it and how they believed in it - that had changed. They did not care about the pagan alter in the Senate (for a while they did, along with dozens of other pagan sites, because they were important politically, not religiously. To them, there was no real conflict) or the other symbols and beliefs that undergirded the ideology of previous centuries. It's like when Americans go to London and it feels quant, outdated, like a museum more than a city. On top of that, in real, material, ways, the world had changed, the socio-economic system had changed, and so to them, the new, Christian Empire was something to be incredibly excited about.

When the Imperial court moved to Constantinople, Nicomedia, Sirmium, Milan, Trier, and Ravenna, people were not sad that the city of Rome was being abandoned. First, the pagan senatorial families lost their prominence, and as a result ambitious Christians could now actually move up in Roman society. Think of this like when Brazil or Burma moved their capitals and new cities sprung up over night. If people loved Rio, why were they so eager to move to Brasilia? If they loved Rome, why move to Milan or Ravenna?

Because it offered hope (lol and change). It was an age of optimism. Why would they mourn the old system that boxed them out when, rather than being considered provincial because their family had not been from Rome a thousand years earlier (509 BC - 500 AD), they could actually improve their material conditions in the new court in the new city? Do you see what I mean? New cities were exciting. The court was closer to where most people actually lived. Instead of being at crossroad of the old Etruscan and Greek roads of Italy, the new capitals were astride lines of communication of the Mediterranean-spanning empire, and so government was more responsive.

Play around with ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World

to see this in the terms that mattered to people then, not in the Enlightenment. Their material conditions improved. Why the gently caress would they see that as "decline and fall"?
Ravenna meets their material needs, Rome does not. Therefore the capital moving to Ravenna makes them feel like the Empire is improving, not declining. And the same goes down through all of these changes. When Theodoric rides to Ravenna, people are not running around terrified by "barbarians" because, for all of the reasons listed above, this arrangement better meets their material needs, and so is legitimized. They believe the Ostrogothic Kingdom is the Second Rome because Theodoric does poo poo for them, they're safe, the economy is good, their needs are met. Material conditions. Also, for those same reasons, Theodoric acts like a model Roman. You might even consider Ostrogothic Ravenna the site of the first Renaissance, the first blooming of Roman-inspired culture, after Roman rule. People were loving stoked by all of the positive changes "barbarian" rule brought, people talked about Theodoric as a good king for hundreds of years afterwards.

Liberals never understand this poo poo I swear to God.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:26

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

AnimeIsTrash posted:

no one cares OP

thats why we have this thread and not one about the ethopia/eritrea war or the civil war in sudan

We have this thread because a bunch of people whined and mods kicked us out of the eurasia thread.

Lostconfused has issued a correction as of 16:39 on Aug 1, 2023

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:29

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1686192339428003841?s=20

Council on Foreign Relations calls for Nigeria to lead the war against Wagner

https://www.cfr.org/blog/pax-nigeriana?utm_medium=social_share&utm_source=tw

lol ecowas hasnt threatened any of the other coups in the region, guess that niger is more valuable to the west if theyre trying to pressure them into doing things

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:30

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

broke: double genocide theory

woke: triple holodomor theory

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:38

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hatebag posted:

Commit 3 holodomors labelled 1, 3, and 4,

imagine 4 holodomors on the edge of a cliff

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:40

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

one of the best posts ever hahaha. done on a iPhone.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:41

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

I actually wanted to quote that because I recall really enjoying the one book I read by Chris Wickham�so I should check out more, but on Greg Fisher a recent review I read was quite mixed (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2022/2022.01.38/), so I wasn't sure how enthusiastic to be.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:41

tazjin: Jul 24, 2015

Weka posted:

Oh of course not, just mildly interesting thread about noted weirdo subject of the thread Gonzalo Lira

well, it was the thread that FF could not open in twitter, not a random link

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:43

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

AnimeIsTrash posted:

lol ecowas hasnt threatened any of the other coups in the region, guess that niger is more valuable to the west if theyre trying to pressure them into doing things

by the way, i personally feel like it's kinda on the nose that some economic cooperation organization apparently has given itself the authority to literally start wars against its own member states when they fall out of line with the neoliberal world order

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:44

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

You mean the rules based international order?

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:44

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

did i stutter?

# ? Aug 1, 2023 16:53

Halser: Aug 24, 2016

euphronius posted:

one of the best posts ever hahaha. done on a iPhone.

still hard to parse that bit. Amazing.

so, I guess we can transform the original question into "what groups will have the opportunity to offer better conditions when the US cracks?"

# ? Aug 1, 2023 17:01

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

PoontifexMacksimus posted:

...

Country needs to improve healthcare? Just airdrop some iPhones with CT scanner apps. Need a better army? Hand them some random pieces of the hotest kit. Just like the strength of an economy must obviously be measured in its accumulation and growth of capital regardless of what social good it serves, the strength of an army is obviously measured in how much advanced technology it has piled up regardless of how it performs.

...

Looking forward to when TSMC factories get blown up by mystery yachts and everybody has to go back to use 4 year old iphones.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 17:10

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Well see there you have another problem.

When Constantine allied Church and State, it fundamentally changed how dissent was managed within Christianity. Before there had been church councils of course, and armed mobs on the streets, and debates between bishops, of course, but the limits to these always meant a certain amount of diversity was assumed to exist.

Mostly in the east, where Christianization was early and rapid, which meant it was not a state project and before many key doctrines had been worked out (before Nicaea, for example), which of course meant that it was not uniform or regulated.

Okay, well the Roman Empire fundamentally required regulation, it was a state. Constantine set the precedent that the state oversaw religious conformity by directing Church councils. That created a trap for Eastern emperors that would last until the fall of Constantinople, because heresy was now an issue of state security.

Of course they cracked down violently, using the tools of the state to stamp this out, but beyond spilling rivers of blood over centuries, it also created a problem. It didn�t work. It was a more powerful tool than the earlier debates, councils and riots, but heresy could never be entirely eliminated because it is an internal belief and not just a set of practices. As soon as the wave of state interest and violence passed, and as the Roman state was always busy elsewhere it was just a matter of time in any one area, it would pop back up again. Not only would it reemerge, but understandably, the group, which may has literally only diverged in their understanding on say, if Christ existed before the Holy Spirit or something, were now Public Enemies and so hated the state.

This means that as soon as the Persians, and later Arabs, came through, they�re defecting. Live under Constantinople who will kill you if they get the chance, or pay a tax to the Muslims? Easy choice. In fact, this whole conflict meant that Muslims didn�t feel any more different than any Christian group. I mean, you could hardly talk about one being the same religion as you because of certain theological points and the other not. Even if the theological differences on the nature of Christ were on paper greater with Islam, they weren�t going to kill you over them, so again, why would that seem like a more alien religion?

Alright, so state violence trying to suppress an ideology, to prevent the emergence of alternatives you could say, weakens the Empire - even though they are not opposed to the Empire, as a state, per se.

Well, what happens when organized groups opposed to capitalism emerge in western states? We�ll use the United States. They are not challenging the status of the Emperor, you know constitution, all of that Americana, they are not laying claim to territory or trying to assume functions of the state. They are merely trying to oppose capitalism - or even exist outside of capitalism - within the borders of the state. Let�s say they�re giving poor kids breakfast.

They are treated as a national security risk and cracked down on by the full power of the state. Any groups that offer an alternative to capitalism are perceived more or less as heretics. When they demonstrate alternative social systems are possible, they are suppressed.

Alright, so here�s the hope spot. As American capitalism dissolves all social structures, all elements of social life, in the pursuit of profit, a situation that is not only unpopular but the ultimate expression of which is as much of an impossibility as total religious conformity, they�re trapped too. See, total atomization fundamentally goes against human nature. People will resist it, and organize alternatives - even if they don�t see this as resistance against the state. The state isn�t offering alternatives, it has to defend atomized neoliberal hell, so what�s perceived as a threat, as neoliberalism progresses, would seem to extend to nearly all social life.

Well if they turn people who �want food� and �want to have families� into enemies of the state to defend neoliberalism, they�re going to face the same ultimate problem where people�s loyalties will shift to an alternative. As much as Americans still shake in their boots at Chinese Communism, when they see that people living under the CCP can have kids, and have employment, pensions, whatever, and trying to have those things in America unleashes state violence on them, they are eventually going to realize that their lives are better under the alternative, and since the state has tied itself to a system they hate, their loyalty to the state disappears too.

# ? Aug 1, 2023 17:38