Aura Farming on the Cross

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Finally, helloly, hello, Hey, how's it going. That's all right? Well,
other than that, I'm in a very bad place right now, Okay,
the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, Northern Ireland. Uh.
You know, like you spend a little bit of a
time abroad and you're like, oh, I see, Which is

(00:24):
not to say that like France is not also constantly
teaching on the verge of becoming fascist, but at least
shit works there. Like you go over there and like
their roads are all nice, right, Like all of their
town centers have like open shops in them. Yeah, and
like it's really clean and stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, I sometimes I do. I do think about how
like France was like a couple of a couple of
legislative maneuvers and like fuck ups away from having Marine
lipin right now as or president or whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
I think I think she got done for something now.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Though, so yeah, and now that, but she got done
by people who are like even more reactionary than she
is as far as no, yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Like you know, don't you don't have to like say
like so like I don't want to go so far
as to say that I'm like a Frond's apologist. But
I do think it's good there that like sometimes you
can see like a firefighter throw a flaming garbage bin
at a cop, and also like there's stuff works. That's all.
That's all. Yeahs are probably related to.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Be fair, to be fair, Yeah, I don't I don't
know what I would do if I went to like
going to another place. I really don't know how I
would handle it, because I'd be like this, you just
have you just have buses and trains. They go to

(02:02):
places there aren't like you just I don't even like
I would, I wouldn't even know. I don't even know
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

(02:22):
I see, you know it like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
It's like I mean and granted, like one of the things.
So it is true, like it is a fundamental fact
that one of the things that's going on over there
that makes it better than here is that they're still
in the EU. Now, to be clear, you know, I'm
against Fortress Europe. I think that it's bad and I

(02:47):
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

(03:07):
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

(03:31):
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,

(03:52):
they've got really legitimate concerns, damn And you're like, okay,
that's crazy. Then meanwhile, over the.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Weekend, Oh okay.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
The police arrested like four hundred and fifty old people
yeah again, yeah yeah, for writing two sentences on a
on a poster. So it's like it's so like that
is those concerns are not legitimate. The only concerns that
can be legitimate are the concerns of fascists. And the
only thing that things can do is get more racist.

(04:20):
They can't get better or fairer or anything like that.
And so it's like, I mean, I'm not saying that
France isn't racist, obviously, it very much is. But also
you get to like eat a stick.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
The time tradition there, God damn it.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah yeah, you know, but at least I would get
to eat a stik tartar like on a nice square
that is pretty when you watch trams go by, and
you're like, god damn it. Anyway, yeah, like I'm fine,
everything's fine. It's fine, isn't it. Things are fine?

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Ah oh man.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like seriously, though, like I when I got off the plane,
the first thing that happened was in the airport. One
of the escalators wasn't working, and then I got down
to the train station and my train was delayed, and
I was like, yep, we're definitely back, yep. Oh hm hm.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Ah, I see, uh yeah, I can't. I just like,
it's just it's just sad. I don't even know. Yeah,
it's what are you gonna do?

Speaker 1 (05:40):
You know, what are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, it's like it's it's you know, I don't like,
I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't
even know what to say about it. I don't know
what to say about it because I don't like, I
can't like, I can't get a handle on what's going
on at any point. I you know, I am. I

(06:05):
am heartened by the Corbin Party. However, that name that changed.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Okay, So to be clear, that's the intention, that's the
intention of it, is that they're gonna they're gonna have
a vote on it. Weren't on the street. I don't know.
I don't know who said this through, but uh, Justin
just sent me over a thing right before we started recording.
I don't know where he got it from, but I'm
going to read it out word for word. Anyway, because

(06:35):
we love this like it's at the top of it.
It says the Horny People's Party for the Many, not
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

(06:55):
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

(07:17):
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

(07:38):
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.

(08:00):
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.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, yeah, you know, positive positive developments on both sides
of the pond in that regard. I think I am
not a member of DSA. I was in the past.
I didn't leave because I had problem had huge problems
with them. I left because I moved and they didn't

(08:32):
really have one here anymore. It got disbanded for various
and sundry reasons. But the DSA at their most recent
convention apparently voted as far as I can tell, to
do away with their old delegate system. And I mean

(08:52):
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,

(09:16):
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,

(09:41):
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

(10:04):
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,

(10:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
So yeah, yeah, I feel it.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
I feel to everyone, uh not just DSA. As I said,
I'm very very proud of you guys. Thank you. Uh,
the Mark sister are going to be piling into that thing,
like like the disease is trying to get through the
door and that the episode of The Simpsons where mister
Burns has all the diseases and the guys like pushing

(11:06):
all the little things through a doorway. Anyway, Yeah, this
is a this is an audio medium. Everybody knows exactly
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

(11:27):
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

(11:48):
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

(12:11):
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

(12:33):
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

(12:59):
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.

(13:20):
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,

(13:41):
we got some stuff to cover here, Yeah, we sure do. Yeah, Hello,

(14:20):
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,

(14:43):
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,

(15:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Ah, depends on the monarch, you know, like, and.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
I guess I struggle to think of a time in
history where monarchs haven't been flattered into giving stuff by
sycophants like oh yeah, any like I don't. I might
dare say that any monarch, any emperor who's ever lived,
has been like, has had at least one person like,
even the most straight shooting ones of them all, you know,

(15:43):
have one guy's like, sir, but your sister's cousin lives here,
and they could use a new grain silo or whatever.
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.

(16:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Sure, and it's like, you know, don't get me wrong,
sometimes that's just the homies. But if you think the
homies aren't in there flattering, of course they are. And
you know so that there's always going to be a
certain amount of finangling going on. And you know, we
see the sort of interpersonal and inter palace conflict play

(16:37):
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

(16:58):
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

(17:23):
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

(17:44):
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,

(18:06):
that goes like above slightly because that's about who you're
actually fucking, I guess.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
So that's like, I mean, would that be too dissimilar
from this, Like I'm not saying that Trump is fucking anyone,
but there are people who are getting into these positions
by fucking people, you know, by yeah, oh.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, and I do think that like
sexuality is always like in there in one way or another.
That's just another way of currying favor in theory, you know,
So that that is certainly happening. And I mean you
can always kind of buy your way in. I mean,
it's certainly true that money has always been at play,

(18:52):
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.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
So, for example, like there's an ongoing hate fest in
Bohemia between whoever is fucking king, you know, like usually
the Chevy Slits against the Rosenberks, who are a massively
powerful royal noble family. Sorry, And like what Charles the
Fourth does when he gets in is he'll give them

(19:28):
little missions. M m. Well, he'll be like, why don't
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

(19:50):
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

(20:11):
if we look for example.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
At like anytime, uh the anytime the church was in Avignon,
they were they were they were absolutely sycophantic to to
the French, French monarch every time, like to yeah, to
the point that it would like people people at the
time were like, yeah, they're they're French vassals.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Like that are yeah, And like you certainly see a
lot of that with Saint Louis. That certainly comes up.
You know, you see rather a lot of whispering and
ears at the French court in particular. You know those
groups that are up, there's groups that are down. You know,
we when we were doing our one Hundred Years War episodes,

(20:52):
we saw a lot on on that, right, like when
when the king goes mad, the various parts at play
and the various groups who are kind of in there.
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

(21:13):
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

(21:35):
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

(21:56):
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

(22:18):
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

(22:40):
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.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean I think with like
I mean, I think when they say medieval, it is
partly you know, derogatory, but also partly that like it
was the they they had, so they had trouble with
like subter refused to some degree. So like you can

(23:18):
kind of see the stuff that they're just like doing,
and it just plays out and it's very obvious sometimes
in history, and and you know that's just because you know,
they haven't developed like you know, the advance, like you know,
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

(23:46):
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

(24:08):
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.

(24:29):
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,

(24:53):
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

(25:14):
bothers people.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, I think that I agree with you. I think
that one of the major problems that a lot of
people have with Trump, like especially from the right, you know, like, uh,
is it's about politess. It's about the fact that you're
supposed to do a better job of hiding it than this.
It's supposed to be much more cloak and dagger, you know,

(25:37):
so we were not supposed to kind of see the
seemi underbelly of politics, which certainly exists and has always existed.
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

(25:58):
tutors like like look at Honda the eighth Court, Like
it's not like that, and if so, look at the.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Debauch like look at the debauched courts of you know,
like Louis the fourteenth, Louis the sixth, Like not for
Louis the fourteenth because he was very small, but like
Louis the sixteenth, look at the the the the Tzars
as they wound down towards the end, like they were
getting fooled by like some some He'llbilly mystic who like

(26:28):
because they were so inbred they could like he was
just staring them down. Everybody else's like, why are you
guys enthralled by this? And they were like he is magic, Like,
how is that any different than than any of this?

Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's yeah, it's not. But I mean I do think
that also there is this tendency to kind of roll
every court ever together and call it medieval, and I
think it is. One of these interesting things is that
people people failed to engage with the fact that monarchy
continue for quite some time, right, like, and that it

(27:02):
took the Communist Revolution to bring it down in Russia.
I mean, here it still exists, right and there's still
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

(27:24):
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

(27:45):
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.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well yeah, we remember we did an episode on that
article from I think it was last year about like
how what the king what the King and the Prince
of Wales's own and you know they are in the
hospital bays and shit like that.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah yeah yeah, and so like that is in theory
kind of the other way around. Like in theory, the
government is supposed to be in control here, but you
know you've got the royals who are able to pull
these strings. And okay, so yeah, we're a backwards place,
you know, in that we have a monarchy et cetera,
et cetera. But the point is there are always these interests.

(28:33):
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.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Oh yeah, we Yeah, I definitely think we are. Now
I think we've I think uh, the I think the uh,
the perilous nature, the precarity that people feel, the existential
nature of everything coming together, uh, the situation in Gauza,
the way that immigration is happening, concentration camps popping up,

(29:18):
Government's not really giving a shit about it. This is
this is push. This is pushing people much further uh
as it always has in the past. This is pushing
people to uh to the left. You know people, people
are are moving beyond that.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
I definitely think we are.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So yeah yeah, And I mean I think that that's
really the only thing that can eliminate what we have
at the moment. And I guess, yeah, the point is
that Trump is a really gross, over the top example
of this sort of thing. But actually I think that
really the early modern courts are are worse for it
than the medieval ones. The medieval ones there's lived a

(29:58):
little more I think, I mean, there's a little more God.
I guess there's a little more God, which kind of
restrains people a little bit. But that but also I
guess I don't know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
I would really say that I don't really think there's
much of a difference. I just think it changes, like
technology changes, what you see changes, their ability to like
hide and mask and and politicize and propagandize certain things.
Uh changes, But like I mean, you've still got people
doing power plays, you got powerful families, you got moneyed

(30:28):
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

(30:50):
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

(31:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Oh yeah, And like I mean, for example, I don't
find it that like, I don't find it particularly bad
because it's like I don't know, like John the first
he did ship like this, ever the second dishow like
you know, they're there are all kinds of kings where
I'm like, oh yeah, like I could see them doing
that absolutely, you know, but I guess that I think
VERSI more often. But then, to be fair to the

(31:53):
average person, I think they don't realize that versall isn't medieval,
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.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
I mean yeah, like you know, you got people they're like, yeah,
ever saw that was like what like sixteen hundreds, like
you know, and you're like, well, not really but uh
well kind yeah but not you know, and they're like yeah,
sixteen hundreds and you're like fifteen hundreds is kind of medieval,
and you're like okay, yeah sure, and you're just like
wait what.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, I trying and I
guess that people are trying to voice their displeasure with
a with a fucked up situation. So I'm not here
to be like actually actually but h.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Random people go ahead.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah. I was just gonna say, I guess that this
sort of has just always kind of been around, so
you know, it's maybe we've attempted to control for it,
but we've never been successful at it.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
So yeah, yeah, random people online doing it. You know,
like I might be like, all right, come on now,
but you know, like with journalists and stuff, you got
no excuse fucking like you know, yeah yea, yeah, like
be less Laly, come on, if you you know, if
you're if you're you know, tying it to a specific
medieval thing or something you want to make the Guster's joke.
You know, it's kind of corny, but okay, fine, you know,

(33:08):
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.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Pot the debauched ming you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Exactly, yeah, sorry, yeah, our characterists, thank you very much
for the question. We're only gonna do one today, folks,
because we have We're gonna be talking about another question
in just second. But today I wanted to say, uh,
we're not gonna plug the Pictreon because the situation in

(33:52):
Gauza is desperate. We should have done this a long
time ago, and I just I haven't done it. I
haven't talked about it on here, but please donate any
money you can spare. There are thousands upon thousands of
individual accounts on uh you know, you could see him

(34:13):
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.

(34:33):
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,

(34:56):
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Medical Aid for Palestinians is a real great org as well,
doing a lot of on the ground work, So shout
them out. Yeah, you know, we are all very concerned
about our comrades in Gaza. You know, if you're on
blue Sky, you can see I try to kind of

(35:18):
like big up the various accounts that are attempting to
get some help, and you know, it's a horrifying situation. Obviously,
there's only so much that we can do as individuals,
but you know, let your inner anarchists out and attempt
to do some mutual aid, you know, like grounded. These

(35:38):
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.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
A dollar, two dollars.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Literally, anything like a doll a dollar for them is
a big deal, you know. And if we all kind
of like gave a dollar to someone every day, they'd
all be doing a little better, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, you know, one thing I've seen suggested is like
pick a couple of you know, campaigns, individual campaigns if
you want, and just slide them a couple bucks every month.
Like it. Like, things are tight here for a lot
of people completely everywhere, not not America, not just America,
not just the West. Everywhere in the world. Things are

(36:27):
getting tight for regular people and we're all getting squeezed.
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

(36:52):
whatever God or.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Spiritual humanity or.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Whatever you you hold sacred, just fuck please anything. Yeah. Anyway, folks,
we'll got two topics, and we'll include links for all
that stuff in the show notes. Anyway, onto the main show, folks.
We've got two topics for today. We don't normally do

(37:17):
split episodes that often, but sometimes there are a couple
of things on our minds and hearts and doing a
whole episode on one of them just wouldn't work for
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

(37:38):
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

(37:58):
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,

(38:21):
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

(38:45):
these lines?

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Why?

Speaker 2 (38:46):
And how? And is it really possible to do completely
global universal periodizations? Uh? Yeah, we will, you know, we'll
discuss then. Since you ate all your dinner and those
awful vegetables that tasted really good, but the way, I
don't want to fucking hear any complain about it. It's
time for some dessert. And look, we have to beat

(39:07):
this drum. We've beat the drum before, but it's getting
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

(39:28):
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

(39:52):
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

(40:16):
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

(40:39):
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

(41:03):
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

(41:27):
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

(41:49):
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

(42:12):
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

(42:35):
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

(42:58):
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

(43:19):
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,

(43:41):
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

(44:04):
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?

Speaker 1 (44:19):
How?

Speaker 2 (44:20):
How do academics make sense of this? Like like, where
where do you begin? Where do you even begin?

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Okay? So what I would say is we are trying
to work on this, and so right now there is
a specific move towards what we're calling the global Middle ages, okay,
and we're defining this and what we're attempting to do
in terms of periodization here is we're going by dates. Bitch. Okay, look,

(44:49):
look what what year is it?

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Right?

Speaker 2 (44:51):
That's the only thing you can do here? That's like yep, because.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Because time is like a gratitude, the dating systems aren't
all always the same. And like, of course, there are
arguments to be made here about kind of forcing European
dating on the world, et cetera, et cetera. But what
we are kind of settling on for the global Middle
Ages is like about five hundred to fifteen hundred. And

(45:19):
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,

(45:43):
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

(46:07):
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

(46:31):
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

(46:54):
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,

(47:14):
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

(47:35):
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

(47:56):
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

(48:16):
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

(48:39):
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

(49:01):
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

(49:24):
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.

(49:45):
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,

(50:06):
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,

(50:27):
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

(50:54):
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

(51:16):
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

(51:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to get started on my
paper about how the dating system should be reoriented around
the date of the Trinity nuclear test, and you know,
a year before that should be year zero, and then
everything before that pre modern era, everything after that is
modern era or maybe you know whatever. But like, yeah,

(52:20):
it's like doing this for the Middle Ages, doing it
for for most doing it for most time periods across
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

(52:40):
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

(53:03):
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,

(53:28):
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,

(53:48):
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

(54:09):
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

(54:30):
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

(54:51):
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

(55:15):
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

(55:36):
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

(55:58):
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

(56:18):
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.

(56:40):
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,

(57:02):
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

(57:22):
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.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A thing I like in terms of
periodization is the use of the term the long ye. Yeah,
because I think it's way more useful, like like you know,
the long fourteenth century.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Well, although they never do it for the fucking Middle Ages,
do they, But like you know, it's a can tell
you what the eighteenth century, that's one of the longest motherfuckers. Well,
I know, the century longer than the eighteenth century has
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

(58:14):
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.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Well, yeah, the end of history. Yeah, we're in the law,
We're in the long nineties until the current consensus breaks apart,
and then we're in something else in my opinion, but yeah, yeah,
So I think the long has been a really good one.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
I think that moving towards attempting to do things by
dates is good, but I it's a difficult one. I
suppose also just acknowledging the early modern. That's that's an
important thing I suppose to the modern, because before you

(59:10):
just used to get a lot more like pre Enlightenment. Yeah,
just sort of like, okay, well it's all pre Enlightenment,
isn't it, dude, Like you know, come.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
On, it doesn't mean anything. It's stupid, yeah, not to
men like yeah, and I mean not to mention that
in like you know, I don't know. Whenever they start
periodizing this in like this era, in like two three
hundred years, we're all going to be called postmodern, like yeah, yeah,
we're all going there, and they're gonna date postmodernity probably

(59:40):
to like the beginning of the Cold War or something
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

(01:00:01):
the fuck does that even mean?

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Like yeah, which, oh, I guess that's classical.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Post antiquity, post ancient, like what I.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Like, late antique, that's I find laid a really useful,
laid antic I think is good. I guess I use
that one a lot. Yeah, laid antique.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Yeah, I mean go.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Ahead, hold on, I'll just pause.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah. Yeah. You know, period a periodization is uh tricky
because uh there's a lot of people. Uh, the world
is vast and things haven't become terribly homogenized like they
are now until the nineteen hundreds ish, like maybe the

(01:00:47):
late eighteen hundreds, like we are, you know, we it
seems so set in stone to us, but you know,
like the world's I've only been like this for a
couple of hundred years. Before that, it was far less homogeneous,
and everybody was like kind of going at their own speed,

(01:01:07):
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

(01:01:29):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
But yeah, we don't call it post class school here
because that term sucks to me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
But yeah, when we're I promise when we're talking about
Middle Ages, we do try to delineate and make those delineations.
Although I do use Medieval and Middle Ages to just
any anywhere in the world during this period of time
is medieval to me, even if we're talking about Medieval America,

(01:02:08):
is you know, is a much different place than medieval
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,

(01:02:33):
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,

(01:02:57):
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

(01:03:18):
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

(01:03:39):
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,

(01:04:02):
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,

(01:04:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
It cracked my brain wide open.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
I'll tell you that I do not understand. So it's
a it's a it's a Reddit screenshot, and it says, say, say,
for example, tooth Catholics of equal standing both go to
confession at the same time. Ten minutes later, one engages
in vorn ocation, the other in sodomy. Both die at
the same moment and are judged in heaven. What if any,

(01:05:06):
would be the difference in terms of heavenly consequences? Would
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

(01:05:27):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Think that we need to do right, like ignore all
the vectors bit. But so he's like, he's there's three axes, lust, unnaturalness,
and interpersonal violence and so the but like he gets
down to it and he goes, so you can no, no,
like he says, uh, so you can add more dimensions

(01:06:06):
and look for other factors. For example, you can define
a fourth dimension unitive ends and masturbation becomes us in
since it devolves lust, abuse of sex or organs, and
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

(01:06:27):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Hold on, plea, please just one ticket. Oh that's just
one ticket, because I just have a threshold issue before
we get there, before you before you tear this apart.
And the threshold issue is this, there is nothing more
Christian in history. And if you've heard us talk about
these monks and these nuns and everything like that, there's

(01:07:12):
nothing more Christian in history then devising insane scenarios to
go and hester your priest or your bishop or whoever
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,

(01:07:34):
I got the hand job.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
In the church, but it was but it was on
a Tuesday and my wife did it. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Is that okay? Father? Like what do we need? And dude,
it's like just please just say a Helmary And I
don't care this. Don't do it in the church again,
leave me alone. I don't like you know. That is
that is Christianity. That is look at look at Dante.
Look at the minute that Dante was going through to
like divide these people into different types of sin, different

(01:08:03):
types of sex, like and one sin is greater than
the other sin is greater than the other sin, like,
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.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Okay, well, I guess this is now that you brought up, Dante, though,
Let's just point out to the one thing that also
happens here. All these motherfuckers who just want to obsess.
It's interesting because they always want to obsess about the
sex sins, right, Like, I don't see them going into
this level of like I'm being like, oh, imagine n space. Also,

(01:08:44):
shut the fuck up, your nerd. I will not imagine.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
I'm not imagining.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
I'm not gonna imagine shit.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
I can barely imagine in space when I'm thinking about
cool sci fi stuff. I'm certainly not imagining it here
for you. Ranking and jobs like oh my god, I
got a hand job here. Oh I fingered my Shut
the fuck up. We were all in middle school and

(01:09:11):
I just said this ship to Saint Augustine too. Oh
but like, shut up, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
I don't care about your body. Yeah, like, okay, so
these guys only want to talk about sexual sins like
no one is out here being like okay, like what
about sinning by cheating on your taxes or some ship. Like,
nobody's doing that, right, So they always want to define
it in terms of lust. But if we look at Dante,
what Dante shows us is that lust is kind of

(01:09:39):
like the least worst sin, like, you know, in terms
of the rings. He's like, he's like, well we've all
been there, yeah, like yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Yeah, no Dante, yeah exactly. He like he he's like, yeah,
they sin, and then I mean later of course he's like,
well the homosexuals are you know, a little worse. So
you're like, okay, man, But again, that's the same, Like
it's not the same thing because Dante was doing it
more elegantly and he is not like a weird freak

(01:10:07):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Yeah, and like and Aquinas absolutely does come up with
like a hierarchy of sin based on what whether or
not he perceives the sin to be logical. Yeah, right,
So it's like you don't need end space, because it's
just got What we have instead is this idea of
logic being harmonious with God and in and therefore in
alignment with God. And so therefore the more out of

(01:10:43):
alignment something is the worse it is, right, And so
this guy's saying that, like, oh, specifically he says that.
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,

(01:11:04):
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,

(01:11:29):
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.

(01:11:51):
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,

(01:12:14):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Bra?

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
Who's trying to get away with hand jobs? Right now?
I know, I see your ass. You know. He's kind
of like trying to sort of like do these condemnations right,
And also it doesn't really necessarily make sense because he
also says here that like, like a homosexual rape is

(01:12:44):
worse than all of the above, Well, what about when
women are sodomized, when they're raped by men? That's better?
Like how that would be? It should be the same
for you? Right, And like The reason why the Aquinas
is kind of more chill with rape than he should

(01:13:04):
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

(01:13:25):
horrifying that you are willing to deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Right, Yeah, he's yeah, like somebody has already done this.
He's considered like a genius of the church, and a
literal saint already did this. Yeah, a literal saint already
did this. And he already did it in like a
creepy or a more domineering, in patriarchal way than what

(01:13:49):
you're saying, because he's like, this is fine because a
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,

(01:14:11):
it's not rape. It automatically use like that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Because during real rape, a woman's body has ways of
shutting that whole thing down.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly, because we're actually ducks. Yeah something. Yeah yeah.
So uh, folks, look, if you're going to do it,
you gotta you gotta be at least as depraved and
insane as the masters here. I don't want to hear
about in space or any of that. Uh yeah, I

(01:14:45):
mean I mentioned it earlier, but uh, in the same
thread where they were talking about that Reddit post, people
were like, oh, they called the pope the anti Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Classic classic.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
That is so Catholic. Why why do you think the
anti pope is called an antipope because he's related to
the dude.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
It's like calling the Emperor anti Christ, calling the Pope
anti Christ, calling that guy over there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
At Christ hat.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
This is the number one thing that Christians like to do, is.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
That when you get mad at the pope for anything,
doesn't he looked at you the wrong way? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
But can we talk about that other that other tweet?

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
Oh oh yeah, we're getting there, yeah anyway, Yeah, we'll
get there now. Because this is this is this is.
This is fun and Ellen or I think her brain
is going to explode.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Oh I'm so mad about this.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
You should be. However, we should also is it?

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
Oh God got it? I got it on here somewhere
because I was rantic about it on well, I wasn't
rantic about it. I was hinting that I was going
to rant about it on a blue sky. Where's it going?

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
It's so I can't find it so bad. I want
to be able to like get the exact wording right
because it's so it's so stupid, but it is. This
is great podcasting. We should definitely leave all of this
in for the listening discretion of our viewers. Uh, like,

(01:16:23):
people are just gonna love it. But yeah, I honestly
can't find it. It but it is more or less.
This woman said, Jesus did not he wait, no, here
it is okay. And also I'm going to give her
at her at is toneski t O n E s
k e e E if you want to go yell

(01:16:43):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
All right, hold on hold on, let's I want to
say number one, that there is nothing more Christian in
the history of the world than coming up with insane, stupid, nonsensical,
bullshit reasons to like to to to to figure out
like oh and say, the divinity of God is like

(01:17:19):
special in some way that is the oldest thing in
the world. To the point that this is a version
of an early heresy called docetism. Now it's a very stupid,
very modern version of dosetism. But like the basically justism
was that uh, Jesus is part of God, and the

(01:17:41):
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

(01:18:03):
is to, you know, to to to a greater or
lesser extent. Now, with that being said, eleanor please go
the fuck off.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Okay, so like it no, no, like no, in the
first place, like the entire point of Jesus, the entire
fucking point of Jesus is that he did it for everybody, like.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
The for God so loved the world that he said
He's only begotten son, so that he may die on
the car that like, it is a heresy of the
highest order because it denies that. And I love when
people do heresies that deny the underlying conceptions of the religion.
They're being heretical against. It's like, okay, man, just go

(01:18:46):
do something else. You're not Christian anymore, like I mean,
it just.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
It's the entire point of it is okay. So so
the Nicean creed, the Nicean creed, which you say every Sunday, okay,
includes the lines like we believe in the One Lord
Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of
the Father God, from God, Light from Light, true God,
from true God, begotten and not made one in being

(01:19:15):
with the Father. Through him, all things were made for
us men and for our salvation. He came down from
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,

(01:19:35):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
No, Now, if he wanted to, there are way better
ways to our farm than to get yourself strung up
on a fucking but sticks of wood. Wait, just levitate above.
Everyone speak loud enough for where they can hear you.
That's it. There you go, You've You've proven the whole thing. Yeah,
the point of Christianity is that Jesus could have done that.

(01:20:09):
He could have done all of it. He could have
said no, and it would have ended because he had
the same he had the same power as God to
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.

(01:20:31):
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.

(01:20:55):
That that's the point. If you don't have that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
What's the point? Like, I mean, this shit is in
the Niciene Creed, it's in the Athanasian Creed. It's like one,
it is the central chet tenant of Christianity. It's what
makes you a Christian as opposed to Jewish.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
Right. One of the reasons that Nicee Creed was written
in this way is because they specifically rejected doctism. There.
They were like, no, there was no Ora farming. It
just sucked for him. It sucked. It sucked.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Like I mean, like have you read the Bible. Like
the entire thing is about how much he doesn't want
to do this, like going up to it. It's like,
you know, father, but like take this cut from me,
you know, and you know how how tempted he is,
how he doesn't want to do it, Like you know,
the the lamentations in the garden are all about how
much he doesn't want to do this because it's gonna
suck so badly, but he has to do it for everybody.

(01:21:45):
Yeah right, that's the whole fuck. That's the whole point,
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.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Oh, like I've made this kind of joke before, but
it is true. Like George Lucas and the people who
wrote the Bible had the same idea, which is that
if you have a chosen one, if you have someone
who has all of this power and can like do
whatever they want and is the person of destiny, you
have to fully break them. You have to destroy them.
They cannot be like, it cannot be that they that

(01:22:28):
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

(01:22:49):
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

(01:23:12):
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

(01:23:36):
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

(01:23:59):
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

(01:24:19):
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

(01:24:40):
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,

(01:25:02):
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

(01:25:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Yeah, it's like the entire thing is just incredible to me,
because don't get me wrong, like this shit has always
been around. Many people love to do this as much
as everybody else, Like there are plenty of heresies that
are kicking around. I guess what bothers me is when
people are like, I'm a brain genius who consider this
on like an end access. I will not consider it

(01:25:57):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
If you're mapping sins on an on an in space
access like that, you need to be doing one of
two things. You need to be an advanced uh, like
academic level mathematics so you can figure out like advanced
forms of like quantum like whatever. Or you need to
be a monk and you need to be writing like

(01:26:27):
cryptic monk shit in somewhat like if you're doing that
and you and you could seriously conceptualize that, like what
the fuck you're posting that shit on Reddit? What the
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,

(01:26:49):
was are a farming up? Like what the fuck are
we doing? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
Like like I just don't know what it's for.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
You know I And I mean like but an another
thing is like and this is kind of the thing
I was thinking about with like American Christianity, American Protestantism,
Like there are no overarching church organizations in this country
that have like the kind of that that are rigid,

(01:27:21):
that are set in stone, that have these huge like
backings and everything like that, that have the institutional legitimacy
that the Catholic Church does now or ever did in
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

(01:27:43):
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

(01:28:07):
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

(01:28:27):
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

(01:28:48):
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

(01:29:11):
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

(01:29:33):
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

(01:29:58):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
I mean, I just think it's strange that there is
this desire inside them to invent some new form of Christianity.
Like that's what I don't quite get. Like I suppose
that you know, as we say, this is this is
a deeply held Christian Uh. I guess this is what

(01:30:32):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
Jesus our farming on the cross. Holy fuck, Like I cackled.
I can't like that. Like that's good heresy, right, that
is the hair. If you're gonna do a heresy, that's
the heresy I'm looking for. That is like you're reviving
some like second century bullshit. Okay, Okay, now we're.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
Cooking out, Yeah, like we're cooking Yeah, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
Anyway, Yeah, if you're gonna do a heresy. Don't go
half assed with it anyway, folks. We've been talking for
a while. But but yeah, there's a lot going on
in the world. We'll be back with the something else
next time. I'm not sure what. And also with the
final installment in our series on and Or very sad,

(01:31:35):
we gotta we gotta pass the baton off to Rogue
one and see how many of our faves get got.
But yeah, folks, that's gonna do it for us Today, Eleanor,
what is going on with you?

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
A few things. I went and stopped over on Cancel
Me Daddy to talk about historical cancelations, so you can
check that app out there and over on YouTube, which
you may have heard of. I did an interview with
my good friend Ben Smoke for Ralph World, So if

(01:32:12):
you check out my socials, I'll have the links up there,
and we simply love to see it. So if you
could watch those things and make large magazines that think
they should hire me for shoots, I would appreciate.

Speaker 2 (01:32:25):
That would be cool. Yeah, oh yeah, you can. We
we meet Eleanor. Derek and Danny went on the History
of Philosophy audio Archive podcast to talk about the first
Crusade and all that sort of stuff that we did
with our first Crusades series. So yeah, check that out

(01:32:46):
if you want to hear that, and you know, welcome
to the Welcome to the Crusades dot com if you
want to check that out. But yeah, I'm normalm where
I normally am. I'm not normal. I'm very not normal, but.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
I am normal.

Speaker 2 (01:33:01):
I am not normal. Do not tell the news that
I am normal. But yeah, I'm on the socials where
I normally am. You can find my old show, People's
Sistery of the Old Republic where you are listening to
this anyway, folks, that's going to do it for us today.
Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time.
By

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