The New-Old Misconceptions

folks, we tried to stay out of the game but they keep pulling us back in. we don't want to do episodes where we solely focus on misconceptions about the Middle Ages but the new crop of Christian Nationalists and reactionaries make it unavoidable. there's little they love more than coming up with bullshit narratives about the Middle Ages and, specifically, Medieval Europe. so we take a look at 6 of the these new misconceptions, which are actually just ones that have been around forever but are being reheated. we talk about China's level of technological advancement, whether the Crusades were bad, retvrn, and much more! enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How's it going.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Yeah, that's all right. I think that we need to
start out today with a shout out to the comrades
in LA.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
That's obvious, uh, you know, and my feelings about it.
I simply fucking love to see it. I simply love
to see it, frankly, La.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Also in New York as far as I know, I'm
not sure of anywhere else just yet, but so far.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Let me down, Seattle, let's go, don't.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Mostly mostly in LA and some in New York as well,
So don't want to forget about that. People here losing
their fucking minds. Just you know. Have you noticed how
in the past I don't know, let's say a year
or so. I mean it goes further back than that,

(00:53):
but definitely in the past year so, there have been
a lot of things where people were like that the
public is going to cry this, they're gonna hate this,
they're gonna think this is awful, They're gonna be so upset,
and then the public doesn't care or fully endorses it,
or something along those lines, thinking of like Joe Biden
dropping out because you know, everybody's like this could never happen.

(01:15):
The public would never accept that. People were like, I mean, well,
you know, if she would have broke with Biden on
certain things, you know, we would have elected her. But
you know, and then you get the Trump assassination attempt,
where like, I mean, in the aftermath of that, people
were like, this is gonna lead to the fourth right
ruling America for ten thousand years or something. And it's like, yeah, man,

(01:39):
everybody thought it was funny or did it care except
for the media, and I think, right, yeah, And like
the Luigi you know, the assassination of the United Healthcare guy.
But this is I think another example where like people
are just so convinced that the America public is going

(02:00):
to be like I hate this, this is terrible, this
is awful. You know, kill all these people and let
God sort them out or whatever. And it's like, I mean,
people memory hold it now because you don't like talk
about it. But the Black Lives Matter protest in twenty twenty,

(02:21):
like the American people supported them, like even after that
were going on for like well over a month and
cop cars and police stations have been burned stuff, and
people supported that at like sixty five percent. It's like
people have this like as a very pollyanna ish idea
of like America because of like because because I mean,

(02:44):
and I really don't get this, because nobody does. Nobody
else does this for themselves. Like if I say, all
English people act exactly like Cure Starmer and think exactly
like Cure Starmer, people who listen to this who are
English should be up in arms at me, because I say,
you guys agree with everything labor does, but when an
America politician does it, it's like, oh, yeah, we just

(03:05):
assume that everyone in America agrees with Donald Trump or
Nancy Pelosi on some of these things. And I'm like,
we got a two party system that we've been trying
to get out from under for like several hundred years.
I'm sorry that, you know, our media permeates everything in
the world, but they'ree hundred and fifty million people here, folks. Sorry, Yeah,

(03:26):
and not all of them are suburbanites. And even some
of the suburbanites aren't like that either, So I'm sorry,
it's a vast land. Sorry. Europeans who I have seen
actually very mad that this is happening because it proves
that like America actually can do stuff, and they're like, well,
this should never happen. It's like, okay, cool, Well so
they're doing it. They're out there like just seeing people

(03:50):
get like fucking decimated by like beanbag shotgun bean bags,
and they're like, uh, America would never stand. It's like okay, cool.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, you know, like I gotta say, you know, I've
got a very specific kind of relationship to this being
as you know, your girl, as an elder millennial cut
her teeth in the wto protests and that's when I
understood that like it was going to take this is
what it was going to take, right, you know. And

(04:21):
for me, I don't know, I grew up in a
place where we are absolutely fucking ready to do this,
so let's fucking go, right. And I mean, I can
remember in nineteen ninety nine people being like not the
Nike town, well, oh, I guess that we would all,
but oh the Nike town is sad, and it's like
shut the fuck up, right, like, you know, And I've

(04:43):
seen a lot of people go back to the like
think of the private property thing, and I don't give
shit about your private property. And I mean fundamentally, I'm sorry.
What these people need to get down to, right is
you can either be upset about the quite right protests

(05:04):
that are going on, or you can admit that this
garment are fascists. So which is it right? Because you
don't get to do this like lib shit and be like, oh,
they're fascist so blah blah blah blah blah, and then
be like, now, everybody quiet down and wait to vote
them out right, because you can't vote fascist South. That's
not how it works. They're either fascist or they're fucking

(05:25):
not right.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
They're mad like I like I've had like I've had
like the social nazi libs mad at me for like,
oh god, fifteen sixteen hours. Now I feel like, oh,
I feel like I'm I'm on blue sky. I feel
like I'm on blue sky with the way that the
Libs are screaming at me about everything they you know,

(05:50):
I said that, you know, the optics don't really matter,
and if people want to wave Mexican or Palestinian or
Salvadoran flags or whatever during this protes just people aren't
going to be widely turned off by that, because no
they're not. It don't matter in the way that you
think they do for things like this, And man, I

(06:11):
got bad news for people, But it's not the fifties anymore.
Most Americans do not care that much about the flag.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
No at all, they do not. And okay, so the
ones that care that much about the flag are already
on the other team, bro, Like, I don't know what
to tell you that.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
They're already in power or their hangers on for the
people in power, like.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
And like, I'm sorry after all of this if you
can't fucking get down on seeing a Mexican flag right now,
I don't know what to tell you, bro, Like you're
just playing the wrong sport out the run.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
They're running things better than we have and have been
for for a while. Like, I mean, I don't have
to tell you Shinebom's looking pretty good.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, you know, like fundamentally I am out here on
the side of Larasa and like that ain't gonna change,
That's all I'm saying. And uh, you know, when people
say things like this is also stupid because there is
broad support for Palestine in America, and which is why
everyone is so mad, you know, and why why like
you know, we have them trying to clamp down so

(07:08):
hard on any kind of speech around Palestine. You know,
people are into it, they get it. And you know,
I'm sorry, but people understand that this is like the
first step, right and if you don't, if you do
not physically oppose the first step, when are you going
to do it? When you going to step in? Everyone

(07:30):
keeps saying it, and it sounds trite, but it's true.
You know, if you want to do the what what
do you have done during the rise of fascism in
World War two? Babe? You're doing it right now. That's
just it, because this shit doesn't stop and it's not
going to stop, and this is what capitalism and fascism
are always fucking leading to. And you need to either

(07:52):
just get comfortable with that and say, yeah, okay, well whatever,
I'm an enabler, or you do what it is you
can do. That's all I'm saying. That's it.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, it's you know, and it's like, uh yeah it folks.
Uh you you you should take hope from from what
is happening and l shit, you should take it. You
should take hope from that. You should take hope from
the fact that mom and dad are fighting in the

(08:22):
White House. They appear to have divorced, you know, like
they they like these cracks and these things formed fissures
that uh break that you know, will break these sources apart,
and like it's not people see this. They they see people,
they see Americans being attacked by the military and like,

(08:45):
if you're my age or Eleanor's age, like this is
something that every day on the news you were told
as a kid was like Soviet style tactics and shit
like that. So like everyday people who are just like,
you know, I'm trying to work and you know, raise
my kid or whatever. Uh, they you know, they're like whoa,

(09:07):
what the fuck? Like the militaries going into like stomp
people out like in this what we like hated Khrushchev
for what you know. It's like it's it's insane like
that that you know that this is happening. But like yeah,
it's uh, there's good you know, there's there's good news

(09:28):
uh to be found there. And I mean I think
it's really positive news for like everyone, not just for America,
for everyone, like every everyone needs, you know, everyone everywhere
needs to be doing this, you know, standing up for
the immigrants because I mean, you know they're gonna come.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Like you know, people, they they're human beings, they're your neighbors.
They're worth it. They are us, and uh, do do
it or don't. But and I'm not even saying you
have to do it, but I'm saying that if you
don't want to do it, you can shut your fucking mouth.
That's it.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, pretty much, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah,
let's uh, let's do the main show before we just
end up talking about hell.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, you probably do, I like standard English America America cocka.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's uh, save me a president. G It's
unfortunately we'll have to save ourselves. Uh but uh yeah,
it's it's good to see. We need to be, as
I've said before, forming primary Marxist Marxist party in this country,

(10:43):
even if it cannot immediately or even for a little while,
like even if it could never contend like in an
electoral sense because of the fucked up like constitutional system
we have here, that really doesn't matter. We still got
to do it regardless. Yeah, uh, take a sip of water, do.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
It, you're worth it. We can all have a sip
of water in this trying time.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
That's right. Remember to stay hydrated, kids, folks. Welcome back

(11:48):
to We're Not So Different podcast about how we've always
been idiots. My name is Luke, and I am an
amateur story also apparently the cause of the fall of
Western civilization.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
If that's my boy, though, that's the boy.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Welcome, and there's always I'm joined by doctor Eleanor Yanniga,
who is not yet the cause for the fall of
Western civilization. But there's still time. There's still time.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
I've you know, I've been putting in the hours too.
It's it's real. It's a damn shame, folks, it's a
damn shame. I think that I got. I got a
little bit more. I'm the fall of the Western civilization
from the fascists, and you get it a little bit
more from the Libs. I think that's what tends to
go down. So I really need ub my game, you know, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
No, I think you know, I think we both just
get it. I think the thing with the fascist is
like I just ignore them, uh not like ignore that
they exist, because they obviously exist and we need to
know and think about that. But just like when I
see them, I'm like, you're an idiot. Cool, all right? Well,
you know, yeah, we need we don't need to be

(12:52):
doing you know, we don't need to be doing that okay, cool,
but like the libs just really get it, really grinds,
like really fucking gets on my nerves. Is the reason
I don't stay on it. I'm not trying to fight
this battles, the reason I don't stay in the blue sky.
Oh God, it fucking annoys me. Ah yeah, it annoys
me so much, like anyway, because it's the same they're

(13:15):
just siding. They're siding with them. It's the same principle,
they're siding with them, but with lipstick on the pig.
And I'm like, you fucking suck anyway, folks. They so
you talk about more uh more medieval misconceptions that are
coming back up. They everything old is new again in
some ways. Before you get there, I got a couple

(13:36):
questions first from Ollie, can't what fun medieval insults and
curse words should make a comeback.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I like canker blossom. I think it's a really.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Is that for somebody who's just like a real pill?

Speaker 2 (13:52):
You like, Yeah, it's like it's like calling someone a herpie.
And I like it because it's like so specific as
to make one go what and h. And also I
think it's quite cutting. I think that's a really good one. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, like I'd be so real with you. Most
of the medieval insults are just kind of like calling

(14:16):
women the w sler for sex work and calling men
usually like a cuckold's which kind of come back but
in the wrong way. And like what what else is there?

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Like there's slatterns, Like the slattern is such a good word,
but I can't use that here because it's because it's
an insult. But like if we could do if we
could bring slattering back, is like a general a gender
neutral term for like a boy or whatever.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, like that's really good.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Let's just bring that back. Like just calling some guys
slattering on TV and they're like, what.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
I got. I've got this coat that I've had since
high school, you know, because I'm cool, and it's like,
uh and it's got like all of my old like
punk and ska patches on it. But then also like
people get me one still and I like add it
to them all the time. Uh and uh front of
the show November, Kelly got me one. That's the come

(15:14):
out you cuckled black And I can't wait to put
that bitch on there that I need to actually just
sit down and have some sewing time. But it's hard
to find sewing time what with you know, the incipient fascism.
It is funny, I think, I think very specifically, it's
funny to call people cuck golds, not cooks. It's it's
just funnier. It just is funnier, and that's how it works.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, I'm always saying we need to bring back calling
people the anti christ that.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Oh yeah, that's really good.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of just like calling like,
you know, the biggest uh you know, like and they're like,
you're not even religious, Like, I don't care, it's not
my brother, it's it's a good name. It used to
be like you, like, you used to get real shit
for calling people that, Like the Catholic Church used to

(16:04):
get really mad at you if you called someone.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
I'll tell you what that's. That's the kind of shit
that gets you dragged, avin y'all. You know I've loved
saying yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Oh man, yeah, Ollie, thank you very much for the question.
Remember if you're going to bring back sladder and gender
neutral usage only and not as a slur for sex workers. Next,
we got a question from MG in your Face, who
says I'd love to get more insight on how people
with some money but not the ultra wealthy handled their

(16:37):
money when they were traveling. As in, you're a skilled
mason going from castle job to castle job and you're paid, well,
are you just carrying your accumulated wealth with you all
the time? Do you have a bank at home base
where you send deposits or you know, bury it under
your mattress or whatever? How did how did that work?
What did they do with that? Because money money be

(16:58):
heavy before actual money exist.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, they have strong boxes. They have like these literal,
big ass like strong boxes that they carry around. And
so one of the big things if one was going
to attempt to pull off a heist or whatever is
literally getting away with because like it's heavy.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
You know, we we got to go back. All our
money needs to be heavy, really heavy. Again, Like highest
need to be like big operations, not like stealing some
guys fucking crypto key, USB chain or what.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, yeah exactly, I mean, because like there's absolutely no
there's no style to that, so we can we cannot
embrace it.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
So the big thing is that usually like in one
of one's own home, one has like some big ass box.
But the thing is, like, you know, homes are never empty,
and homes are also if you're the sort of person
who has like lots of money, then like you never
have an empty house. It's very difficult to steal from it.
It does happen, like we have records of it of

(17:58):
like members of one guild stealing from their members of
the guild. You know, they're forced to like hug it
out and stuff like that. It's quite funny. But then
like if you.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Are putting us in our get a long T shirt
which is just a big T shirt with two headholes
into exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
And then like you know, if you are like a
money lender or something, you're going to have a kind
of similar situation. They might have like actual armed people
around the shop. And you know this is why like
kings and stuff like that, they have literal treasuries. You know,
they'll have they're like, this is this is you know
Scrooge McDuck's money bin. This is this is my smog
pit of Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So yeah, because

(18:39):
it is actually physical, it's a really it's a really
different ball game. And yeah, you know there are there
aren't banks. Uh so you can't do that, you know.
But like guilds sometimes have money and you know, things
like this, you know, and we'll pull it. But generally
it's like you've just got a big ass fucking chest
that is in possible to move and it's hard to

(19:02):
get into and things of this nature. Yeah, yeah, it's
like it's just it's it is simply not that complex,
which is amusing to me.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Do we have any idea how easy it would be
defense gold, like that much gold, because like if you're
somebody like who clearly wouldn't really have a gold bar
for instance, Like, is that like you probably have to
travel a ways from home to successfully do that or
get it with like a merchant you could trust implicitly
or something.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, I think that like a lot of the time,
if you've got that kind of cash, what you're going
to have to be looking at is like the nobility
places like that or like really big you know, traders. Again,
merchants would probably be able to do it, people like that.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Ye yeah, yeah yeah, MG in your face, thank you
very much for that's a really great question. Yeah, I've
thought about it, but yeah, it was so funny that
in years like we just couldn't carry like that much
money on us because it's just like gold bars are

(20:07):
fucking heavy, Like they're not. It's it's yeah, we got
to like there's one at like a I don't remember
what it was. It went to some bank thing or
something and like a field trip and they were like,
here's a gold bar and we were like, wait, is
this really go And they're like, yeah, like what are
you going to do? Try and take it from us
right here? And we're like, okay, well, yeah, it's a
good point, I guess. Anyway, they let us hold it.

(20:28):
It was kind of heavy, a lot heavier than I
thought it would be anyway. Yeah, yeah, MG and Ollie
both thank you very much for the questions. If you
want to ask us questions like these, please do subscribe
to our Patreon, Patreon dot com slash w n sd pod.
Uh you can get access to our discord. You get
ad free excuse me, get add free versions of all

(20:50):
our regular episodes and two bonus episodes a month, including
our second episode on and or season two coming on
for Friday. But yeah, check it out five bucks a month.
Patreon dot com slash w Nasty Pod. It's fun. You'll
feel better about yourself or maybe you won't. I don't know, but.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Where to look, you know, I'll feel better about you?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah, yeah, I'll feel how about that?

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Ah?

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Help, oh my gods. Onto the main show. Though it
is long forgotten now, when we first started this show
over four years ago, the whole conceit is going to
be that we just tackled misconceptions about the Middle Ages
every episode. We just set them up and knocked them down. However,
we soon realized, literally within a single episode, that the

(21:38):
show will be much better if it was just about
discrete events in medieval history and we could address any
lingering misconceptions along the way. If I'm being honest, I'd
say that this change has worked out tremendously for us
and the show, so we won't be going back anytime soon. Unfortunately,
time and circumstance are forcing us back into the game.
We tried to get out, start a fresh life in

(21:58):
a nice little cabin out well, and just when we
thought we were safe and could begin to feel at home,
the agency showed up at the door for one last job,
and folks, we really did We really would have declined
if we could. We tried to beg off the assignment.
Have them send it down the line to the next
medieval history podcast. If others actually exist, uh the pole,
but the powers that be would it take note for

(22:20):
an answer. It has to be us, they said, someone
else might make it boring. They entreated, So with reluctant
but dutiful hearts, we must we once more don the
well actually armored, take up the sword of go fuck yourself,
and step once more into the fray our enemies, the
new breed of Christian nationalists and their reactionary fellow travelers

(22:42):
popping up across the globe as neoliberalism continues to be
sublimated into fascism. And oh boy, do they have some
really stupid a historical opinions and theories about the Middle
Ages that we can't let pass by unremarked upon. This
is not because we think we can correct them on
these points or that they care about being actually accurate.
They do not, and we shouldn't kit ourselves into thinking

(23:03):
they're ever acting in good faith. Instead, this is for
people who care about shaping a better world and taking
away a proper materialist understanding of history. For example, you
likely never convince your shitty aunt and uncle that they're
wrong about returning with a v but who knows, maybe
your cousin is much more amenable to the real story.
But also, the Middle Ages is fun, God damn it,

(23:24):
and we have taken a solemn val to defend its
honor against any who would be smirch it. To my mind,
one of the big reasons the Medieval era has been
looked down upon for so long as the sheer mountain
of stupid misconceptions that have been hanging around for centuries.
These ideas of a perfectly homogeneous Christian society of pliants
service happily working for their liege lord and going to

(23:44):
church drains so much of the color and life from
the Medieval era and lops off the most interesting parts
of these narratives in service of a stupid propagand propagandistic lie.
And we simply won't stand for it. So today we're
going to look at some of the old misconceptions about
the Ages and the very early modern period that are
making comeback in twenty twenty five, why they're false, and

(24:05):
what can be done to counter them. Some of these
misconceptions we've discussed a few times, but you know this
will just serve as a quick reference for the future. So, uh,
you know, let's start with one I saw recently, which
is misconception one. China was never technologically, militarily, culturally, or

(24:26):
economically more advanced than Europe. Why is this making a comeback? Well,
China is the new enemy du jour. We're fighting, we're
very very badly fighting at Cold War against them and losing.
Inspector we are we.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Are getting our asses handed to hand.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
The West is taking so many l's and you're like, no,
it's just America. It's like, no, you guys are still
all on the dollar long a dollar you're taking us.
You're on the fucking ride. Sorry, Canada, England, Western Europe,
Australia sucks to suck. Sorry, we all go down together. Anyway.

(25:09):
It's making a comeback because we have to say that,
you know, China is actually bad and evil and has
been for a long time. Uh, eleanor one of the
one of the dumbest questions that has ever been asked
in history? Why is this stupid? Why is this misconception
so stupid? Dude?

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Like, I'm very sorry to break it to you know,
white supremacists, but China is the usual global Legemont.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Right like two thousand ideas, baby, and they took a
break in like the in like fourteen thirty, and they
took a break at the exact fucking wrong time.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Well, yeah, it's like very interestingly they kind of did
then what America is doing now, where they were like ah,
fold in word guys like I don't know, I don't
really I don't feel like it. I don't really want
to look around. And you know, also too, like in

(26:12):
their defense, you know, they didn't really need anything from anyone.
They weren't really you know, like the thing's already came
to them via the Silk Roads. They didn't need to like,
they weren't really looking to expand anymore. You know. Really
from a kind of very early modern perspective, it's like
where you're gonna put the troops on the boats and
then go over there, like for what they're kind of
like for what, right, because they've got everything they already

(26:35):
want already, and unfortunately, see white people, unfortunately white people,
white people didn't have everything they wanted, and so they
got in boats and stole about it. Right, And in
order to take over China, they had to like force
everyone to get addicted to opium at gunpoint, right, like

(26:55):
it is what they did. And you know, essentially the
fortunes of Europe increased just as a direct result of
the massive expropriation of wealth from other places in the world.
So and in particular South America, right like said, South
America is actually like the number one place, and you
know in India as well, in the case of Britain

(27:16):
and things like that. But if you go to Portugal,
for example, in everything that's built in the seventeenth century,
which is like the one time they were like a
globe striding colossus and like everything is like covered in
gold and baroke and like ornate and then and then
they kind of lost it all and it was like opsy.
But yeah, like China, on the other hand, just had

(27:39):
always been there, which is what led to their theoretical downfall.
And even then, if what we're talking about in terms
of downfall is that they didn't boss everyone around globally
and like start a massive slave empire. Like listen to yourself, right,
like this is the thing is like there and I'm
not I do not think under any circumstances. You gotta

(28:01):
hand it to the han. Chinese do not get me wrong,
but like, you know, if your criticism is like, well
they should have been going over to Mexico and enslaving
everyone and like completely importing a bunch of new people,
I'm like, do you hear yourself right? Like, uh, it's
kind of like a monstrous thing that Europe did. So anyway,

(28:23):
my point is it turns out that there's only so
much planet that you can do that too, and eventually
you're gonna run out of planet to do it with.
And that's how you get to where we are. And
China is just going back to its normal position as
the leader of the world. Like for the great majority
of recording to human history, it was China, and you

(28:45):
can you know, like, yeah, we have of the Mesopotanian moment.
You know, we have certainly had like the Assyrian moment.
The Egyptians were really doing it for really fuck a
long time. You know. It's like if Egypt came back,
I'd be like, oh, yeah, normal. But it's sort of
like it's sort of like each in China are the
ones to watch and like, yeah, that's just how these
things are.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
You know, Yeah, I don't it's not really I don't
know how to sufficiently describe the number of things that
China invented over time before everyone else and the way

(29:25):
that they the way that they affect our our world today.
I mean the four great inventions, you know, paper which
they came up with printing both woodblock and immovable type,
gunpowder and the compass, and like from there, like everything

(29:46):
from downstream of the of paper is money, which is
you know, the first monetized economy, something that even in
the time of Marco Polo was just like he flabbergasted
him that that, uh, that that the Chinese had had
you know, paper money for so long, and he didn't understand,
He didn't really understand how they could just say it

(30:08):
was worth something. And I mean you know that from
that you get you know banks and banknotes and you know,
monetized economies and everything like that.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Obviously, basically everything about modern warfare uh started in China
because of gunpowder. And I mean they every invention, uh,
every conventional use of gunpowder. After that, they came up
with first first bombs, handgun, the first rifle, the first

(30:43):
you know uh RPGR you know, rocket power grenade, and
every they they came up with. All of that, they
had cast iron in the eighth century BCE. Europe didn't
get it until the thirteen hundreds. Folks. It's just that's
just the wheel of history. It is just as that
doesn't And I do want to say this, I love

(31:04):
making fun of Europe. However, becoming technologically advanced does not
mean you are a better uh people, more ingenious people,
or anything like that. The people of China who were
doing this in you know, the the twelve hundreds were
not better or more or anything like that to the

(31:25):
people in the Americas who still lived in what we
would consider Stone Age societies at the time. Like, they
all have contributions to human history. It's just because of
how everything's unfolded. And China was connected to the other too,
you know, Asia, Europe and Africa and all of that
passed downstream of them because of the Silk Road. You know,

(31:47):
here we are here, we fucking are yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
I mean, yeah, yeah, I think that. Yeah, this is
a that's a really good point. And I want to
be clear here. I also don't think it's useful to
then say, oh, well, like Europe is was a backwater
for example, and then say, you know, like China had
all these good things to look, look at this tech
that it had and Europe, and Europe sucks and his
dog shit because it didn't have them.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
I think that it sucks and his dogshit for many
other reasons.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, it's like it's just that, well, China was really
good at those things and that doesn't that doesn't make
Europe bad. And I guess my my worry about that
and why I don't like that argument is to an extent,
I think that it's used to justify colonialism. No, like,
well we had to go out and blah blah blah
because you know, things were bad, and I'm like, you

(32:37):
didn't have to do ship, you know, like you could
have you could have acted like a decent human being
the entire time. And yeah, it is one of those
things where like tech is certainly not any indicator of
the morality of a society at all whatsoever. But fundamentally,
I'll tell you one culture had hermetically sealed research laboratories

(33:00):
in the second century BC, and the other one was
feeding Christians to lie for fun. So like I've just
it's yeah, I guess it wasn't Christians. It was just
like whoever at that point.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
It's like, you know and I mean and again like
it's not it's because the it's because the structure that
China had, They were the first like heavily centralized or
even loose or even loosely centralized uh polity really in
the world like of a scale of this size, and

(33:34):
as it keeps growing and encompassing more people, and it
has these like very strict ritualized uh education paths, you know,
to be like a court scribe to get into the
Chinese civil service system, which has been around forever. And
like this encourages invention and stuff like that. And I mean, uh,

(33:56):
they you know, people in Europe or inventing stuff. People
in Africa were inventing stuff. People America, we're inventing stuff.
It may technically, it may be that a pre a
prehistoric Mexican civilization from like you know, like fucking two
thousand BC invented the first compass, if you know, I'm
sorry one thousand BC if if that's if that turns
out to be the case. But like it's you you

(34:20):
you know, you get all of these things, and you
have all of this invention, you have this state centralization. Uh.
They privatize their land like so early, which you would
think like these people would love because like, yeah, they
but they privatized that shit way earlier than most other people.
But yeah, oh god, yeah, yeah, it's a stupid thing

(34:43):
and not worth getting into, you know. But no, like
they just technologically and militarily they were far more advanced
than Europe and Africa and everywhere else at the time
by any dea phinician now and economically now, culturally and socially,

(35:04):
you know, I mean that is I don't really think
comparing like you know, cultural outputs of society like that
is really useful because it's hard to measure them in
like you know, meaningful ways that aren't laden with bias.
But like, you know, for a while, China was on top,
you know, from you know, one thousand BC until thirteen. Well,

(35:29):
I mean at the end of was it was it.
It wasn't the beginning of the ming. The beginning of
the Ming was all right, but it kind of.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, I mean, the Ching is even pretty decent, I
would argue, like for a while, I would still kind
of like take living in Ching, China for quite some time,
like it isn't really you know, for my money, I
think it doesn't like staards of living kind of don't
really go down until like the Opium. This is kind

(35:56):
of my my feeling on the matter.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, yeah, deeply cynical, insane stuff that the West did.
But anyway, yeah, misconception number two, folks, The Crusades were
good and fun and we should do them again. Why
is it making you come back? Gee? Because psychotic Christian

(36:19):
nationalists are in power everywhere and people love to larp
about the fucking Cruisiade.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah yeah, because my heroes are dead and my enemies
are in power basically, but also, you know, fundamentally, because
our enemies are stupid and they want easy narratives, right, so,
I mean, luckily fair listeners from the seventeenth. This month,
you can catch Luke and I with the boys at
American Prestige going on and on and on and on

(36:48):
and on about the First Crusade. And it's nice to
get Derek into play with us, because we do love
to have an Islam expert around. But yeah, you know,
I think that this is one of these ones that
just crops up over and over again, and you know
it's doing so now because like, guess what, there's another
conflagration in the Middle East and it comes up over

(37:10):
and over again, because you know, white people simply love
to start shit in the Middle East. That's the thing
that they.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
We've always loved to do it. White boys have always
loved to go over there, from from Pope Urban the
Second to Polytratees folks, we just love to do it.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
The white boys just love to do it. And they're
they're back on that bullshit once again. And I think
in particular that they're quite emboldened at the moment because
of the genocide happening in Palestine, and they're really wanting
to come down on this side of genocide. And the
way that you do that is by like slapping of

(37:47):
ven nerror of religiosity on it, which is what we've
always done, right, you know, every time we want to
genocide someone, we just like mumble something about Christ and
then we go for it.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
And so also, it's like one of these things because
since there's such poor understanding of the medieval period, you know,
across the world, you know, everybody just believes the only
people who were alive were nights. You know, they're they're
just kind of like, this is a world that is
populated exclusively by night. Somehow, there's like maybe one woman.

(38:20):
She's a fair princess or like a nun possibly, you know,
and or maybe like the Big Books, some chicken from
robin Hood, like.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Oh god, damn, I forgot about her.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Never forget forget.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, Like, man, it's like whoever was drawing this, they
were on some real early furry shit. They're like, oh damn,
oh damn, Like damn they made I'm not even gay
in that fox is hot? Like what the.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Fuck, dude, It's like, that's that proto fray shit. It's
so true. But yeah, you know, and that is what
people think the Middle Ages are. And so as a result,
if they want to larp as the Middle Ages, they
can because they're just like, oh, yeah, this is a
time of like nights and I would be a knight
and I'm here now and like can I do Holy

(39:11):
War please? And so there you go. And it rests
entirely on it not knowing anything about the Crusades, right,
and about how they all fail, you know, like are
you sure you could say the first one succeeds? But
I mean does it It's like is it a successive?
You can't hold it?

Speaker 1 (39:29):
I mean does it succeed long term? No?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I mean it's certainly not long term, right, it's like
that you get in there. But you know that'd be
like saying, oh yeah, well, like the Vietnam War was
a success because initially America landed, right, you know, it's
it's it's just a stupid way of looking at things.
But this is such a seductive one because people just
they like to imagine themselves as like a bold night

(39:52):
and literally it comes down to that. It's incredibly childish
and it is not more complex than that. I don't think.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yep, yep, it's larp. It really is. There's no chance
even if the Pope called it, how it had happened.
Who are you fighting against? What? The Holy Land is
controlled by Israel at this point as far as I know,
so is that who we're going against. You're going against
the entire Muslim world because that's a lot of people
who aren't all in the Middle East, And you know,

(40:21):
so what are what are we doing here? But like,
you know, yeah, like and and I'm gonna say the
craziest thing that's ever been sincerely said on a history podcast.
If you want to take a view of a movie
about the Crusades from a movie you should watch the
director's cut of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, not because

(40:41):
it's historically perfect or anything, but because his point is
that all of this is stupid. This is stupid. White
people should not be here doing this, just like we
shouldn't be in Iraq right now, you know, because the
whole the movie was, you know, a big critique of
the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. And you know, yeah, like
if if you have to take it from someone, take

(41:01):
it from that. The first time it's ever been said,
I do like the movie, but you know.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
It's yeah, yeah, we do.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Like that's the like you know, ignorre. You know, you
can ignore all the historical inaccurate inaccuracies you want. It's fun.
But his point is basically that like Saladin and Baldwin
and you know, all these people, they're human beings, and
like like going in and rooting people from their land

(41:31):
because you know, you have some like cracker ideology about
it is stupid. And if and if an old imperial
brit I don't know if he's imperial, but if an
old Brit like fucking uh Ridley Scott can see that,
I don't know, should be playing with anyone else. But
what do I know if you want to hear more

(41:52):
about us talk about the Crusades, and I do mean
a lot more ten hours. Uh, check out next week.
We're gonna have a lot more about it. Uh and
uh you can get a preview of what we did.
But yeah, misconception number three. Peasants and serfs were docile
and always loved their masters or lords and strictly obeyed
everything the Church said. Why is it making a comeback?

(42:13):
Well because uh, you know, they want to in surface again.
I mean, to be quite honest, a version of that whatever,
you know, whatever it looks like. And they want you
to be uh, they want you to be docile. But uh, yeah,
eleanor uh, you know, peasants and serfs, we we we
are on their side. Uh. They don't always have the

(42:34):
exact right ideas about everything, but uh they are they are.
They are often smart enough to know that my masters
and lords are taking advantage of me and the Church
is being corrupt and stupid.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Yeah, they don't like that ship, yep, like like.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
They famously had some rebellions about it, like China, Europe,
you know, like.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
You know, and I think we covered them really extensively ourselves,
you know, from the peasant uprising here in England to
the Jackerree, you know, up to the Peasants War, and
you do tend to get more of them in the
later medieval period. But that's just because conditions have become
such that it makes it more possible for them to

(43:20):
do so. And I think a thing to always keep
in mind. What I tend to say is they really
do not like their higher ups, and they really are
against how hierarchy works. And you know that everyone feels
this way because all you have to do is go
look at a medieval hell scene and look who is

(43:41):
in hell. Yeah, and it's like the other rich.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
People who are making my life shitty. I do not
understand the wider conception of this. I do not understand
class consciousness. I just woke up. All I know is
that these reach rich people fucking suck.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
They suck, and they make my life awful. And what
they're doing is in more and this is no way
to hold power. And like, whether it's a prince in
there or a bishop or just like priests, they are
burning in hell and that is what people think of them.
And you know, we see this also in kind of

(44:15):
like ghost stories and things like that. It tends to
be like, well, who shows up and is a ghost.
It's always like rich people, you know. It's always like
someone who basically you know, took hold of the property
of their lesser thans in ways that they ought not
to have and things of this nature. So there's a
real understanding on the part of peasants that all this
stuff is like mad, like, you know, immoral and it

(44:40):
fucked right. And like, even if it's it was the
church telling them, oh, yeah, well this is all fine,
they're smart enough to be like, no, it is not. No,
it fucking isn't. And also if they didn't believe that,
there would be no reason for there to be so
many reform preachers who are kind of coming at them
from vectors outside of direct church control. You know, if

(45:01):
there's a reason why you have on going moves to
like cleanse the church, right, you know, there's a reason
the Franciscans were invented, and it's because there's a demand
for this stuff. You know, people really want to hear
about how wealth and things like this are unfair and immoral,
and uh, people were giving it to them.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
You know. Yeah, and I mean, I really do think
we do a disservice to like just people into history
when we talk about like medieval people as being like
just listening to exactly whatever the church said, because I mean,
on some stuff they clearly did and that could be good,

(45:44):
it could be bad, it could be used to you know,
whatever ends. But like it's very clear that like people
all across the world were not ridiculously subservient to their
religion to the point that it blotted out their personalities
as we kind of imagined them to be. That was

(46:04):
you know, it wasn't true of the confusions in China,
wasn't true you know, of the Hindu and India and
and you know the Muslims. And we could tell because
all of these groups have like dozens of heretical sects
that pop up all the time. And like you know,
whether it was you know, ten people doing something and

(46:27):
the religious authority got really mad about it and decided
to make an example of them, or it was like,
you know, ten thousand people who are actually trying to
start like a different thing. Like those are differences, those
and those are going to seep into the overall understanding
of religion and how people view this stuff, because like
the ideas that that formed the Reformation were not things

(46:53):
that like Martin Luther himself just came up with like
the day before, or Yan Houst did, or or any
like anyone before then. They are like centuries of like
accumulated knowledge and understanding and being like, hey, wait a minute,
let me look back at this. Oh shit, things have
been really bad for a long time. Oh shit, the
rich have been doing this. Oh shit, are they hiding

(47:14):
the Bible from us? You know? And it's like, and
when you are these people, when you are in Martin
luther shoes, that's a legitimate question to ask. Because the
Church of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is just rotten,
like oh yeah, oh yeah, a terrible institution. I'll tell you.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
I'll tell you what, Like the rise of nationalism and
the Renaissance is a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing,
and it just makes conditions so much worse and it
really fucks the church up.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Just the new acquissestion of wealth that is possible as
a result of the colonial adventures of the early modern
period is just full on disgusting. It's you know, like,
I got a lot of problems with the medieval Church
as well. But you know, it's just nothing is as

(48:03):
bad as the Church in the Early Water period. It
simply is not. It can't be any worse.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, And I'm not gonna
get into it here because I could talk about it
for a while. But uh, if you listen to our series,
and especially the last episode where we wrap everything up,
the first uh, the first like inklings we have that
people understand that the Crusades have gone wrong and they're

(48:28):
now being used for like ill or nefarious ends to
like take land from people in Europe and stuff like
that is not from like a bunch of haughty nobles
in like a group or a salon. It's like provincial
bards and and you know rubes and you know lower
nobles like thinking and being like why the fuck are

(48:49):
you are you attacking southern France? Why are you attacking Scandinavia.
I thought the Muslims who controlled Jerusalem were the enemy, like,
and this is something they figured out on their own.
They didn't like there was certainly no history book being
like this, and this is when we did the illegal
land grabs. But yeah, check that out because it's really cool,
and it shows you that cognitive distance, even at that time,

(49:11):
is not enough to break people from reality. But yeah,
misconception four. I could feel my skin crawling as I
say this. The black death was an early version of
biological warfare, both by the Mongols throwing infected bodies over
walls and by Jews. He will still say this, really,

(49:35):
I saw it three days ago, and I'm not Jesus
fucking Christ. Three days ago it was uh TikTok video,
and then it was and then it was on Twitter,
and it came from Twitter or TikTok or it doesn't
matter who came.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
It doesn't matter where it came from. Just okay. So yeah,
so in the first place, uh, just to go to
the the spreading of black death via infected bodies probably apocryphal.
There are stories that say Yanni Beg, who was besieging

(50:12):
the Crimean Peninsula at the point in time, catapulted bodies
into the town in order to give everybody black death.
Whether or not that is true, we really don't know,
and we think it's possibly not. This might be one
of those oh the Mongols or so uncouth things. We

(50:33):
just don't know.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
For rats and fleas to spread from an army with
five hundred thousand horses to like, yeah, like I think
people there besieging. That's not really a big jump.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Yeah, Like you think those fleas might like somehow get
off all of those animals and on other people, right,
Like it's it's it's completely possible. I think it would
be interesting if they had, because it just shows how
incredibly doesn't medieval people are of contingent, you know, and
the fact that you can get things from bodies, so
you know, it would it would show how clever medieval

(51:08):
people are. But I mean, just medieval people writing about
it shows that they're clever enough to understand that you
can get diseases off of diseased bodies, right.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Like they whet happened or not, whether.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
It happened or not, but yeah, we think likely that
didn't happen. Now, but it's one of those things where
it makes a really good story, so it's very difficult
to get rid of it. And indeed, it is something
that appears in chronicles. But if we believe every single
thing that appears in chronicles, homie, you know that, then
then Britain was populated by Raci giants that were that

(51:40):
were all killed.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
The giants causeway their stepping stone.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah, and Brutush who escaped the ruins of Troy destroyed
them all right, So like if that's what, if that's
what we're doing, then that's what we're doing, right In
terms of the Jewish people actually poisoning wells Jesus Christ, no, no,
not pour your sinea pass into a well.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Exactly because it doesn't it doesn't spread like that if
you put a dead wret No, no, that's not how
it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
It has.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
These idiots. Is the same thing as trying to explain
it to a medieval person. Actually not because the medieval
person would probably be a little more excited to try
and learn about it. But like, no, it.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, it's like it's it is a bacteria that appears
solely in the guts of fleas. Uh yeah, and then
you can get it from person to person contact after that.
But you know, for the most part, this is where
it comes from. In the first instance. You can't poison
a well with it, Like that's not that's just not
how this works. What would happen if anyone was poisoning
I mean, even if you were doing something like chopping

(52:47):
up bodies, which is not what they're accused of doing,
and putting them in wells, or putting bodies in wells.
What you would just do that is taint the drinking water,
right like and that and that doesn't give you fucking plague. Right,
So it's also impossible. Not only did it not happen,
it's impossible at least the Yannie Beg story is like
theoretically possible. There is no poison that gives you your

(53:08):
city of pastus, Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Right, and they didn't. Why would they do it? They
drink the same water they like. Like. Granted, they don't
understand the they don't understand the spread of disease at
a microscopic level, but they do understand water in ground
reaches all of us, including all of our plants and everything.
If I put the disease in there, all crops die

(53:32):
and I cannot eat. It's not very easy to travel
well and not.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
You see this. You see this same myth in the
Middle Ages play out, you know, because they're they're very
anti Semitic and they love a chance to kill Jewish people.
But you'll also see it blamed on travelers more largely
Roma people.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Sorry, you mean go ahead, yep, yah.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yeah, I mean, but yeah, generalized travelers just like a
guy who was walking I.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Wanted to I wanted to make sure which one we
were cool.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, but but yeah, and that and then also uh roma.
So it is one of these things that basically, if
you are too foreign or or just unfamiliar, people are
afraid of you. And I think part of that probably
comes from the possibility of travelers spreading disease, you know,

(54:19):
just because they've come from a different place so that
they might be able to spread it out. But also
part of it is linked to this myth of you know,
well's being poisoned and if we just go around believing
every single medieval reason for the plague, then it started
because an earthquake left out let matt bad humors out
in Italy. You know, it started because of a conjunction

(54:42):
of like Mars and Scorpio. It starts, you know, like
there there are all stars.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Weren't listening well enough?

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It started because we are not. We
don't like Charles the Fourth enough we should and God
is punishing anything wrong. Yeah exactly. It's it's so you know,
there are there are all kinds of reasons that are
given for the spread of plague, And you know, I
think that that's a particularly insidious one to come back

(55:10):
on this particular time, when you know, we're dealing with
such bad faith anti Semitic arguments to justify the genocide
in Palestine. And so whenever I hear these things, I'm
just disgusted because we're in such a precarious place, and
so yeah, I hate that.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
I can. I can go as far to say that
almost no one throughout history has tainted their own drinking wells.
Who wasn't like, no, in an existential military style situation,
like you don't do that because you want to live.
We need the water to live. Even they understood that.
It's not. Yeah, it's just stupid, Like all the blood

(55:53):
libel shit, all they they did, they they killed these
local kids, they did this, and they're evil Jewish ceremonies.
It's the same stuff. It's the same thing as it
is now. It's the same bullshit anti Semitism dressed up
in concern for like lope for for a local tragedy
or something like that. Same shit. Just fuck it. Misconception five,

(56:13):
go ahead, Nope, God.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
No, I'm I'm just agreeing with you.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Oh okay, I thought I was like, I was just
getting ready to spit.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
No, I was just like, so fucking true, Bustie, that's.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
All they uh. Number five, we got a couple more.
Number five. Europeans didn't commit genocide in the Americas. They
killed a few thousand and took over a rule, and
the diseases actually did all the killing. Furthermore, even if
they did, it was totally justified because the locals were
savages who believed in human sacrifices. Why is it making
a comeback, folks, I would argue, it never left, It

(56:43):
never never left left. Yeah, why is it stupid? Fuck you?
Irresponsible for the deaths of ninety percent of the human
beings on two continents. Probably caused probably was a large
factor that caused the Medieval, the Little Ice Age in
the late Middle Ages and early Modern period because we
created a carbon sink.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
It's just people just killed so many people. And yeah, okay,
diseases did a lot of it. But here is a
case where we absolutely did use biological They were like
intentionally giving people diseases. So it's not like, oh oopsie,
there was a disease when you're intentionally giving people smallpox,
which they were. That's a weapon and you're using it

(57:27):
and not to and not to mention just like the
actual brutal enslavement and killing of people. You know, a
big way, for example, in South America that a lot
of Native people die is that they were just enslaved
and worked to death. So you know, we lose you know,
like we we've lost the Caribs entirely as a result
of their enslavement and brutalization at the hands of colonizers,

(57:52):
which is just disgusting. And yes, you know disease did
for them as well. But you know Europeans kind of
showed up and were like, why don't you work like
Europeans in tropical conditions And the answer is because you'll
fucking die. You'll die, Like it's that's what happens, you die,
And so you know they're there's certainly that and then
I mean, if we extend that on it's it's not

(58:13):
medieval but into the modern period. If you see things
in America like the intentional drive to make the buffalo extinct,
like in order to kill Native Americans, you know, there
are these ongoing distinctly genocidal projects. And also they are
genocidal projects because everyone's going, dudes, we're gonna do a genocide.

(58:33):
It's gonna be awesome. Can't wait to do that genocide.
It's gonna be great, right, Like you can take people's
worst for it. Yeah, it's very open, and.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
They wanted to conquer the whole thing like it's it's
not it's not it's not even it's not.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
A secret, like this is not something where they were
like oopsie, they set out to do this, so like
at least be honest with this one and say, oh, yeah,
I just don't care because I like it. Like that's
what you mean. That's what you mean. You mean that
you're comfortable with it and you don't care, right, yeah,
that is the actual thing that's happening here.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
I mean, like if you if you are looking for
the all time score settling and you're saying, okay, like
the Mongols were the cause of the Black Death because
of X, Y and Z, Fine, Okay, it's spread, it's
spread across there, but you know, after them and you
know all that. Fine, if that is the case, then

(59:33):
America or not America, I'm sorry, then Europeans and Americans
thereafter are responsible for the deaths of all these people.
It's like when you see those you see those victims
of communism things, and like those numbers are bogus anyway,
because they include like all the Nazis who died in
World War II and everything like that. But like even
if they weren't, it's like communists was responsible for like

(59:54):
you know, eighty million deaths across the world or a
hundred million or something like that. It's like Britain walking
behind the cross. The Church of England killed one hundred
and twenty million people in India in thirty years, one
hundred and twenty million people in thirty years. Intentionally wipe

(01:00:16):
them out, like they're like these ledgers are so eternally
fucked that you there's no way you can ever build
up on the one side to meet what to meet
the atrocities that have been birthed by this. Every like
all of the sins of Western civilization come out of this,
like come out of these acts of colonialism. And it's

(01:00:39):
just like they're still doing it now because we still
live in a post colonial world that we've never like
actually reckoned with any of this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
They are so yeah, yeah, it's still happening. And fundamentally,
this is a this is a ridiculous argument that is
being made by people to justify our ongoing actions because
they're still want to take and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
It's like, fucking own it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
You didn't fucking do it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Why do you care?

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Like I mean, who cares? Like I'm not asking you
to personally feel guilty about it. This is one thing
that I think that people don't get there, like, oh, well,
I should be proud of my culture ash And I'm like,
you shouldn't be proud of your culture because that's fucking stupid.
And like you know, there's nothing like you didn't do shit.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
This isn't culture is not yours. It's all syncretic. It
has been since the very beginning. We can't like yeah,
like I can't. We can't. We can't knock culture down
like they that's not how it works. It's not it.
You can't silo it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
And like I mean, I'm not telling you to be
ashamed of your culture either. I'm telling you to just
be honest about about how these things happen. And there's
there's absolutely no reason to defend these guys like you
do not under any circumstance. Have to hand it to
Christopher Columbus. They didn't like him then, right, they thought

(01:01:53):
he was a monster.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
And then so like just call and Isabella didn't like
like they personally disliked it as a human like its.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Like even they were like this guy, the Holly's gone
too far like that. The people doing the Spanish Inquisition
were like, oh, I don't know about that. That's a
little brutal.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
They were like, We're gonna kick out all these Jews,
but I don't know about what Chris is doing over that.
That's a little fucked up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Like it's like if people are like, seems a little
rapie for the sixteenth century. Boy, my brother.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
Just just fucking own it, like he came over here,
like like Christians came over here. They they they wiped
out the continents and like just own it. And then
you like you know, and then you colonize them and
you you christianized them and you did everything like that.
Just why why are you so scared? Like you know,
like you guys, you guys are talking about like a

(01:02:48):
like cultural genocide across the entire world to put everyone
into a homogenized, uh like Christian religious system. And that's
what you're talking about. Why are you scared to be like, yeah,
we you know you you've already said you think these
people are savages who engaged in human sacrifice. Yeah, while

(01:03:11):
not realizing that your religion is based on Sorry sorry,
sorry to be the atheist about that, but like, I
don't think you get to count that when you're like
this guy in uh Oslo has a building, has a
has a piece of land. I really like, I'm gonna
burn him as a heretic. It's the same fucking thing, man.
It doesn't matter if you if you do it on

(01:03:32):
top of a temple or you know, in a provincial town.
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
I don't care if you're doing it for your gods
or if you're doing it because like Jesus Christ, because
you're you are convinced that Jewish people do a weird
black mass with children's bodies, and so you kill them all.
Every single time a dead kid shows up, it's the
same fucking thing. Calmed out, calm the fuck down, Like
that's religious killing And I don't really care how it happens.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
It's the same. Yeah, all right, last one, here we go.
H fan favorite misconception six. Medieval peasants have more time off,
more free time, more vacation time, and more holidays in
their jobs and far as farmers than modern workers do
on their job. Why is it making you come back?
Because it's a really stupid piece of trivia that people
can't let go of. Although I will say one part

(01:04:20):
is true they did have more holidays because they had
the whole holiday calendar. The rest of it total horseshit. Illinois.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah, yeah, I mean they do have more holidays, which
means that you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Just cool, we should have way more holidays.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
We should a great mat agree. But the thing is
about holidays is what a holiday means is that your
boss can't make you work for him, right like you
can't you can't ask for the cor v the labor
tax on holidays. Cow still got to get milked, bread
still has to get baked, fires, wood still needs to

(01:04:51):
be brought in, water still needs to be brought from
the well if it's hot out, Plants still needs to
be watered, like the butter still needs to be made.
These are not things that come from grocery stores at
the time. That is just how this stuff works. And
now it is true that probably peasants have a little

(01:05:14):
more downtime than we do in the winter, but even
then it's like, well then they're mending clothes or fixing
tools or you know, doing things inside that need to
be done, you know, like because they have to make
their own fucking cloth. Right, they're like on the loom
all winter. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
We shouldn't be jealous of medieval people because they have
more free time. They clearly didn't. We should be jealous
about the community that they had and like the close
knit lives that they lived with each other and probably
closer to nature than we are, and try to bring
that into the modern age so we can have the
convenience that we have now and like things like antibiotics

(01:05:53):
and stuff like that, and not like you know, like, oh,
we have to return. It's like, no, just bring that
ship forward. Give people time off and more holidays.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Now, Like I mean, yeah, absolutely likely, and in fact,
there's never been a better time to do it, right,
And and you know, basically the way to think about
their holidays and their time off is like after they're
done with all the chores that are necessary for living,
then they get to have a party, which is cool,
but it's a lot more like a half day than

(01:06:23):
it is anything else. And you know, it's a fundamental
misunderstanding of how the corps V works. And you know,
these are not salaried individuals, right, It's not like these
are people who are being paid by their lord every
day that and then.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Xcept some of what you made or you traded what
you made for other people for food.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Like, yeah, these are people that pay attax to their
lords about things and it has absolutely nothing to do
with like they're not being paid, right, Like I mean
maybe if you're an apprentice or something, it means that
you get the day off. But if you're an apprentice,
you're not a fucking peasant, are you? So yeah, like
at that point is moot.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
And even then if you're an apprentice, you still have
to go find all of the daily necessities. Like it's
it was just like you didn't have the free time
because you didn't have piped in water. You didn't have like,
you didn't have a grocery store, you didn't have this,
you didn't have. Like yeah, although I will say about
this one among alone on this list, I think this
is the one that is like people are well meaning

(01:07:23):
about it. Yeah, they're correct, But they're like, they're like,
we should have more time off, Like, yes, that's absolutely correct,
we should. It's just like this is not But but
I would say that this is not the way to
approach it, because it's not like the reason we should
have more time off is because human dignity is worth
more and our labor. We should be compensated fairly for

(01:07:45):
our labor and and and time and everything like that.
But I too, but you know you can't. Yeah, anyway,
I wonder I often wonder if the woman who I
think her name is like Juliette Shore something like that,
who wrote that artist she wrote like a paper about that,
if she's like Oppenheimer, like thinking about God, no, what

(01:08:08):
have I done? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
I bet she is. Yeah. I mean, I would say
that this is kind of like the one that I'm
least bad about, because at least it portrays some of
the good things about the medieval world, and we do
like people not necessarily thinking of it as all doom
and gloom. So I'll take it. But Jesus Christ, you
do not want to I swear it's annoying, but you
do not want to trade places with at all.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
I don't want to trade places. I like clean I
like air conditioning, I like I like fucking medicine. I
like all of our food. I like the fact I
really love the fact that our food is not hyper
localized to the point where we can't get anything else.
I love that fucking love it. People are like, like, no, I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
Like pasta, you know, yes, bro, the way I like sushi.
You know, there are things that I really enjoy that
it just wouldn't be possible for me as peasants, you know, Yeah,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
Yeah, folks, the new old misconceptions they're making some time.
In some cases they come back, in some cases they
never left. But regardless, they suck and are annoying and
we like them. But yeah, you know, now now it's
all out there, we can talk about it. You know,

(01:09:24):
don't fall for that shit. It's stupid. Not that most
of you would, but you know now, you know, if
you hear somebody talking about it, you'd be like, hey,
you know that guy was an idiot. Don't listen to him.
But yeah, next time, we'll be back, as we said,
with a little bit of a different thing about the
first crusade. But yeah, eleanor what's going on with you?

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Yeah, okay, So things that I've been doing are starting
to come out. So there's a new project by a
journalist that I contributed to. It is called Women Like Sex,
which I was interviewed for. You can check that out.
I've got a trailer up that I've got to put
up over on my so for that if you want
to hear me rantic on that. Last week I recorded

(01:10:05):
for Culture Power Politics with your Big Gilbert, So if
you want to hear why I think the conception of
techno feudalism is fucking stupid. Got covered over there on
the socials, I'm also in the process of putting up
if you have time. At the end of the month,
I am giving a talk online about gender and basically

(01:10:33):
community like a social hygiene and in Prague. There is
a link there that you can register for it. It's free,
I think, so you could just come along if you
wanted to. That's everything that I can think of at
the top of my head. But the best way to
get this stuff is to follow me on the socials
at going Medieval on Blue Sky and Twitter dot com.

(01:10:57):
Because I refuse to say the other name, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Well, at least you do. Because the only people I
know who say the other name are like the people
who were like I love Elon and and Trump They're great.
And then people in Blue Sky who call it X
and I'm like, dog, you're just calling it what he
wants to call it, like it's not an own like
nobody called nobody. I do.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
I do think it's funny when people say X the
everything app. If you don't like that, then that's funny.
Then that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
If you yeah, if you completely do it, you know,
but yeah, don't you know, don't. I was listened to
a podcast and won't call it out, but I was
listening to a podcast and they were like and and
they like, saw something called it Twitter And they're like, well,
I didn't hear anybody call it twitter in a while.
And I'm like, man, I don't know anybody who calls
it X except Elon.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Like you, I don't like group, grow up, grow up?

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Oh you've you've you've you've ironied yourself into this anyway. Yeah,
Luca is amazing on the stuff. You can find me there.
You can find my own show, People's History of the
Old Republic. Wherever you are listening to this. Uh yeah,
I got a couple of things coming out in the future,
but yeah, we'll talk about those when they come out. Anyway,

(01:12:07):
thank y'all for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye.