I have said that I like historical fiction much more than establishment history because it is MUCH more accurate. The writer has several hundred thousands history buffs checking what he says. History students couldn’t care less and they couldn’t KNOW less.
I am going to write one such hisfic writer about an incident in one of his books. The year is 1775. A black walks into an exclusive London club. He says, “Is this because of my COLOR?! Like modern Brits, everybody there goes into fetal position and starts weeing on themselves.
All one Brit in 1775 would have done was say “Well, DUHH!!” or its equivalent.
Real Brits were known for their dry sense of humor, that is, for telling the obvious truth. Other countries didn’t do that an more than modern Englishmen do and for the same reason.
I hope this clown will get more than one criticism of this crap.
This was an exercise in Temporal Provincialism. Sheri described something as Temporal Provincialism but I think she was describing historical DISTORTION, a very different thing. If we cheapen the term Temporal Provincialism as a standard insult it will lose its bite.
Temporal Provincialism is certainly a great EXCUSE for historical distortion and it is A, one, cause of such distortion, but it is one of our special terms in BUGS, so it should be understood very clearly here.
No room full of Englishmen in ANY age before ours would have peed on themselves fro the room going quiet when the first black in its history walked into an exclusive club. In fact historical fiction by definition consists of historical distortion.
We certainly don’t mind if a Bill Jones who never existed is described as walking in London. In 1850 We DO mind if said fictional character is walking across Olde London Bridge in 1850 because by then Olde London Bridge no longer existed.
We don’t mind a fictional black man walking into that club is what is called a work of historical fiction. We DO mind if the room full of eighteenth century Brits goes into the fetal position modern Brits do. A writer of historical fiction is expected to get his fiction and his fasts clearly separate, unlike the BBC or Oxford.
That’s one reason I like it. Margaret Frazer writes about people in the fifteen century following the old wisdom of washing out wounds with wine so they didn’t infect. They only stopped that when Mommy Professor medicos showed that it was not part of the True Roman Theory of Humors.
Vikings didn’t get scurvy. It was not until medicos got the filter-down from Intellectuals that that crap happened. But you won’t see any of the real medicine practices in the Middle Ages mentioned in any Oxford History book. You only see this kind of thing mentioned accidentally by people who actually know something about the time.
Historical provincialism is the Brit who was terrified of Political Correctness. Historical Provincialism is the writer who says nobody ever cured anything until the Renaissance showed them how, as a recent BBC did. Historical provincialism is a BBC showing I Claudius and showing his Yard covered with gray, featureless statues of the kind people dug up after they had been in ground for two thousand years. The Renaissance gave us those.
A person really raised in classical times would laugh his ass off at the US Capitol claiming to be “classical” building. The “Rome” films show would look to him like Spanish Harlem on a bad day.
These publicly financed jerks claim to TEACH us! This is not political distortion. This is silliness. This is IGNORANCE.
Historical distortion can be practiced by knowledgeable people. Temporal Provincialism is NOT.
When in God’s name will we ever get over this crap of portraying our opponents as Evil Geniuses?
We will only get rid of them by laughing at them.
#1 by D. Logsdon on 06/22/2010 - 11:07 am
Bob,
I am very impressed with continued growth of public exposure to the mantra and its effectiveness. Please consider a second one to move things forward; my suggestion would be to spread a similarly crafted mantra to deal a death blow to the concept of “white flight” as a race problem or an obstacle to eliminate (racism) social ills.
Minorities perpetually portray whites as intolerant, unjustifiably and irrationally afraid of blacks (in their minds) and argue that all the social, economic and crime problems are caused because whites just don’t want to live around minorities. They often suggest that if whites weren’t dealing with false assumptions, stereo types and irrational fears all could live together in peace to our mutual economic benefit. It’s just whites small mindedness, lack of exposure to black culture and bigotry that stands in the way of achieving racial harmony eradicating a two tiered society. We all know (instinctually and anecdotally )that people tend to like to live close to or among their own kind regardless of their income bracket, what is never whispered or acknowledged is that white flight is always precipitated by black flight. Black flight is caused by blacks wanting to get away from communities of their own kind by moving into white neighborhoods. Their desires to move away are not based on lack of exposure to black culture or anti-black bigotry rather it’s based on real world exposure to thugs, crime and corruption. If a mantra could expose that fact and drive it home, society at large would finally have to admit that white’s preferences to live in their own communities is understandable and in fact imitated by sophisticated blacks migrating to white areas everywhere every day. With the Mantra forcing acknowledgement of our natural right to have countries of our own this would complement its effect and force many to logically consider we have a right to our own neighborhoods (and freedom of association) as well. At least it would point out the hypocrisy to even the most anti-white advocate that many blacks just can’t stand to live with their own kind why should we?
I have tried to craft my own mantra to that effect but have been unsuccessful. To me the point is an important one to make and one that would logically follow the current or first mantra. Please allow me to offer this point to those better equipped to craft a second mantra and carry the ball to the goal line than myself.
Sincerely
Logsdon
#2 by Simmons on 06/22/2010 - 11:18 am
We are bullied by psychos, its like the family get together where your upstanding parents warn you with stern admonition not to provoke the family crazy, in the name of peace of course.
Laughing at them is fine, but I can guarantee if you use the word “responsibility” and its variants the equation changes.
Its one thing for Conservative Papa and Big Momma Liberal to placate the crazy its another thing for them to be responsible for said crazy.
The polity has fractured into cults, especially the Left, each rigidly segregated from one another, each adherant given one or two sentences to repeat endlessly (doubt me read Kos).
We target the largest perhaps most encompassing cult the “anti-racist” cult, without it the Left-Right political continuim will collapse.
Point being we laugh at the crazies, but we must absolutely place RESPONSIBILIY upon the heads of the Big Mommas and Respectable Papas.
#3 by Dave on 06/22/2010 - 7:28 pm
To me, temporal provincialism is a huge issue.
If you look at architecture and buildings and memorials, the US Capitol’s pretensions of authority are preposterous. IT IS SILLY and it gives itself away as such.
But our Wehrmacht replica military and massively over equipped soldiers and navy are equally as silly. Just as our intelligence agencies are silly. It is rare they get anything right, but enormous sums of money disappear.
Such a military can do nothing but be defeated. And the unsaid story of America’s military is endless defeat. Being defeated, that is what America’s armed forces are really good at. They almost never fail to procure defeat. There are few certainties in life, but you can almost count on America’s military ultimately going down to defeat in anything it undertakes. It is nearly a sure bet.
The governmental bureaucracy does everything totally FUBAR. Whatever they touch turns completely FUBAR and you can count on it as assuredly as you can count on the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
You have to be crazy to take them seriously. Serious THEY ARE NOT.
The only thing they are really good at is making stupendous sums of money disappear with nothing to show for it. Their talent for that is off the charts.
That is academia’s singular talent also.
#4 by Alan B on 06/26/2010 - 6:01 pm
Fantasy is our new Reality
My lefty friend was listening to a local university radio program, the topic was a look at the life of Makmoud a young Iraqi. A female nararator (drama major) gave a nice performance it stired the heart and paralize the mind. Poor Makmoud, he survived 4 car bombings while out shopping or playing with friends, makmoud always managed to stumbled home with a limb missing or some other injury. If that wasen’t bad enough, all his relatives were car bomb victims, some died, some permently mamed, on and on it went. My friend was eating it up, I said it reminded me of one of those childrens books like little red ridding hood it was that childish in content and delivery. I finally spoke up and pointed out a few things.
What are the odds of being in the blast zone of a car bomb that many times, the constant hype on victim hood and that push to make the listener feel guilty. It was obviously a made up story,reminded me of that writer for the NY times that made up fictional story and passed it of as real journalism, it works as long as nobody investigates, etc. As usual, we argued over this, I won the debate, she shut that damn radio off, that was victory as far as I was concerned.
The Left is respectable because the media and mommy professor pray on peoples emotions, open debate would free the mind, thus it is forbidden. She refused to debate.