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fs31it | askengineers_test | 0.96 | After hundreds of interviews I lost my only accepted offer for an internship Hundreds of applications, many rejections, and I finally got one. Then this virus turns everything to crap. sucks even more because I’m a junior graduating next year. Engineers that’ve gone through the recession you got any tips aside from the “keep your head up” general ones? | flzcuru | flzaarr | 1,585,620,691 | 1,585,619,024 | 216 | 23 | My tip would be to at least work. See if you can find something tangentially related to engineering, like drafting, maintenance work, etc. Even working at Amazon looks better than nothing. | At least you're not dying of it. | 1 | 1,667 | 9.391304 |
er3pfo | askengineers_test | 0.92 | How do you respond to "You are an engineer? You must be really smart" I'm not a fan of the remark. Yes I did well in university, yes I work for a big company and do some math every once in a while, yes I'm getting my masters, but personally, I would never say that I'm smart. I believe it's all situational. I could talk to a welder,plumber, machinest, or anybody who picked going for a trade instead of a degree and get schooled by their knowledge regarding their profession. The list is long... I'm not an accountant, I suck at writing, I cant rymn, I'm not great at sports analysis, and good lord I suck understanding the stock market. Basically, if there is only one thing I've learned in my time in engineering is how much I dont know about how anything works, regarding things in my profession or outside of it. Therefore, currently my response to "you must be smart", is "we all are in some way". I dont like that answer and I need a better one. So engineers, how do you respond? | ff1ciuc | ff1ismx | 1,579,477,502 | 1,579,479,884 | 309 | 474 | "if you do something every day eventually the information just sticks its got nothing to do with being smart, I'm sure I'd find it impossible to do your job if I tried tomorrow" | "Nah, driving trains is easy. 'CHOO CHOO!'" - While making the 'Blow the horn chain pull' motion. | 0 | 2,382 | 1.533981 |
4zboum | askengineers_test | 0.88 | How do you keep up to date with your industry? So you've been working in a job for so and so years (Mech eng.), you know all what is needed to be known in your work, all the software they use (old versions cuz of certification), old machines (cuz they work), company procedures and best practices. But this does not mean that your are up to date with the industry and if you are layed off you will be seriously outdated. So how can you keep up to date and improving/acquiring more skills? | d6um75n | d6ukjl0 | 1,472,045,469 | 1,472,042,528 | 8 | 4 | Most industries will have associations that have annual or biannual conferences that will have presentations on the work that people are doing that is on the cutting edge. For example, in the water industry there is the Water and Environment Federation (WEF) with regional offshoots that have conferences several times a year. The presentations at these conferences show the work that people in my field are doing to innovate in water treatment, conveyance and stormwater handling. That's generally how I stay up to date. | In my industry their are blogs and publications and textbooks dedicated to data centers. 24x7, datacenter pulse, data center knowledge, ect. Ill skim those to see whats happening but i understand futurism vs progress. I also branch out a little into other aspects of my particular job. I work as an engineer in a data center, operating metrics and sequence, expansion plans, break fix, root cause analysis, etc. Sometimes ill begin to read up on computer networking, hpc, programming, etc. So that way i can have a full view of the industry and not a focused view of just my job. | 1 | 2,941 | 2 |
zi7zu7 | askengineers_test | 0.9 | What's the general consensus on people having an Engineering title without having an engineering degree? I (37m) recently received a new title at work of 'Applications Engineer'. I'm a long time CNC machinist and programmer that manages our CAD/CAM systems. I implement new processes and train folks on both our CAD and CAM platforms. I also write some scripts from time to time with Python, SQL, VBA, and Fanuc Macro B for task that we either want to simplify, automate, or just happens to be complex and would warrant it. I'm relatively proficient at CAD design, even have a product I helped a friend develop on the side which you can buy in Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, and other big stores of that nature. That being said, I personally asked for this specific title as it's a role in my industry (CNC Machine Tool Programming) that I want to further my career in. Essentially becoming a subject matter expert for a future company. However, some in my group feel that 'Engineer' in the job title is only for those who have degrees and it's a disservice to those who do have them. They also won't call the only person in our group an 'Engineer' because he's fresh out of school(with a BA in EE) and doesn't have the experience. So, I want to pose a question to the community, where do you draw the line between Engineer and non-Engineers with regards to titles and duties? Do you make the distinct line for degree holders and non-degree holders? | izq7d82 | izq7zex | 1,670,719,931 | 1,670,720,235 | 36 | 201 | An engineer is someone who has taken the time to study the fine art of making shit work, either through book study or practical experience. College education used to be a shortcut around spending years on the drafting board or as a technician. It's only in more recent times as technology has advanced, and college became more readily available, that the other paths closed. So let's see, you have studied your desired field, and you make shit work. Welcome fellow engineer. | I've earned such titles, still chipping away at my degree part time though. IMO there is an element of truth to the comment about not being an engineer without the degree. If you don't have the math and science background you're probably not going to approach problems the same way an engineer with a degree would. Those courses really change the way you look at the world. | 0 | 304 | 5.583333 |
3d4pww | askengineers_test | 0.94 | Guys, Weird thing is happening. Whenever I turn on a switch of my bulb, my landline telephone starts ringing. It won't stop ringing until I turn off that switch. What is happening? (Details Inside) Ok, So, My landline company's main line attaches on roof of my house to my house's inbuilt telephone line. This house's line is in wall. It has 4 port in my house. I have 4 telephone on same line in 4 room of my house. There's a switch to LED bulb in 1 room. Whenever I turn on this switch, all 4 landlines start ringing. This ring isn't intermittent like a normal phone call, rather it would be continuous ringing till I turn off that switch. Need help. | ct1uld8 | ct1qzrf | 1,436,805,466 | 1,436,799,627 | 63 | 33 | There are two questions: "What's happening?" and "what should I do about it?" No matter what the answer to the first question is, the answer to the second question is almost guaranteed to be "Get either an electrician or someone from the phone company in there." Basically what /u/knz said. | There is probably an erroneous electrical contact from your switch'es cables to your phone cables. When did you start noticing this problem? Has anything been changed about your phone or electrical setup prior to the problem starting happening? | 1 | 5,839 | 1.909091 |
pz9bir | askengineers_test | 0.91 | Should I leave an entry level engineer job if they’re giving me no technical work I started my first engineering job out of college 3 months ago. As a systems engineering in a big construction and infrastructure consultancy. Something I’ve realised is that they’re so huge, they outsource all their technical work. I find this quite concerning. I have an MEng degree in mechanical. I’ve designed systems and software that can literally simulate the healing process of bone over time. The company have chucked me on asset management and as much as I’ve asked to be moved, they’ve done nothing. It feels like glorified data entry. Even my line manager laughs at it. I’ve gotten so bored of the excel spreadsheets I’ve created my own python code that will automate the whole process for me. It’s that easy. I’m not sure how this will benefit me at all. The company want me to get chartered with the IET but how am I gonna do that if my work hits none of their targets. There’s hardly anything outside of this other than rams that is technical. I’m considering taking a job at a smaller design consultancy. But it’s in a different city. As a lower level engineer I feel I should be learning technical skills. Not this boring data entry and management stuff. Plus also technical work stimulates me so much more. Any advice on this? Thanks | hezge5q | hezgjcy | 1,633,101,769 | 1,633,101,832 | 169 | 170 | Stick around for the paycheck and the "experience" on your resume, but start applying for other jobs now. Yes, you should be looking for more fulfilling work, but no, you shouldn't quit your very easy job until you have something better lined up. Just my opinion, so grains of salt, etc. | >As a systems engineer doing: > data entry and management stuff This i what the position entails, unless you are pretty direct in the "Integration and Test" part of the SEIT structure. You want to be a design engineer. You should leave SysE and get to where you want to be, especially since you already have the MS. | 0 | 63 | 1.005917 |
5bb71o | askengineers_test | 0.92 | What were some "game changing" ideas and innovations in the history of your engineering field? | d9n4fnm | d9n6922 | 1,478,370,192 | 1,478,372,767 | 20 | 65 | that orbital debris is actually a problem and could potentially deny us access to space for centuries if we didn't change our actions (Kessler Syndrome) | People will actually BUY random access memory chips for computer data storage, whose stored bits decay in milliseconds, destroying the information forever. However if you constantly apply "refresh" cycles you can postpone this decay indefinitely. And what you get is "dynamic RAM" which is more than ten times as dense and consumes less than 1/10th as much power per bit, compared to predecessor technologies. | 0 | 2,575 | 3.25 |
b0do9g | askengineers_test | 0.78 | Drug testing in the renewable energy industry? Hi all. I'm about to graduate with my BA in electrical engineering, with the specific goal of working with renewable energy technology (very interested in the energy storage side of things but I really just want to work in the industry so I'm flexible). I have dealt with horrible insomnia since I was a little kid, and the one thing I've found works long-term and consistently is smoking a lil puff an hour or so before bed. I've been doing this for 5 years, held down an engineering internship for the past 2 years, and have a 3.6 in my field, so for those of you who would immediately get high and mighty about how I'm "in the wrong major" and "prioritizing a short term habit over a long term career", I'm really not interested in hearing it so kindly move along. My BF and I (for reasons unrelated to weed) are looking at jobs in CO. I'm just wondering, because I can't find a lot of info online about this: does anyone work in the renewable energy industry, especially in CO, and what is the testing like? Like I said, my use is literally about facilitating sleep, so while I can and have given it up for periods of time before, I'd rather not have to give it up entirely and I'm hoping this field is a little more lenient towards marijuana smoking. Any and all advice is helpful! Thank you! | eie2adr | eiec17x | 1,552,432,757 | 1,552,439,635 | 3 | 7 | If a company has DoE or other USG contracts it’s likely that they are required to maintain a drug testing program. It doesn’t matter if they’d like to not test, they will be required to meet some standard for testing. A prescription is a bad idea because searching for that makes you an easily screenable candidate (I’m pretty sure the fed gets you on a list for that regardless of HIPAA laws). In general, most engineering jobs will test when you’re hired and then only test again if they’re suspicious of you and/or you’re in/near an accident. They WILL piss test you for insurance reasons if there is an accident. | I've been drug tested for every engineering job I've ever had... the non-engineering ones too Stop smoking or use someone elses pee | 0 | 6,878 | 2.333333 |
bbzs2v | askengineers_test | 0.92 | How to create a submersible device that reacts to pressure without electronics? I'm working on a product for the marine industry that dives to a certain depth while being pulled behind a boat. Naturally, the easiest way to tell depth is from pressure. The immediate solution is to use electronics to measure pressure. The electronics then control a hydrofoil or sorts to dive up or down. But that means the device needs to be equipped with batteries, be entirely waterproof, etc. I'm wondering if there's another way to accomplish this. Perhaps a compressible membrane that gradually changes the angle of the hydrofoil as it dives... but this also seems complicated. Would greatly appreciate input! | ekmvs0b | ekmv1lu | 1,554,994,827 | 1,554,994,341 | 74 | 22 | If you can accurately measure vessel speed and how much line is on the deck you can fairly accurately compute depth. It needs to be modeled for your specific drag profile but once that’s done you can extrapolate with a good degree of accuracy. This is how we used to do underwater surveying of on small, low budget jobs but in deep water. I haven’t worked in the industry for a few years now so I don’t know if it’s still done that way. A stiff diaphragm connected to a hydrofoil is brilliant though! | Could you use a calibrated spring system that adjusts the angle of the foil by mechanically reacting to the pressure at depth? Take a piston attached to the foil with a spring system calibrated so the foil is level at the desired depth. When the pressure on the piston is too low the foil descends when too great it ascends. If you use a turnbuckle or similar mechanism between the mounting point and the spring you could adjust the tension until the depth is correct. You could make it simpler than a piston by using flexible, rubbery, material on the exterior that would deform attached to the foil by linkage then control the depth by changing the starting pressure inside the vessel. Each of these approaches requires at least part of the system is air/water tight with fixed starting pressure. | 1 | 486 | 3.363636 |
sgcxas | askengineers_test | 0.95 | How do people just seem to "know" what certain jobs or industries pay in engineering? In my experience in engineering, engineers *love* to talk about what other engineers make. I think the fact that 3/4 of the discussion on this sub boils down to that will attest, and it happens often at the jobs I've had. I've had a variety of jobs in different industries and roles myself over about a decade of working. I come from a blue collar background, so I was never inherently familiar with salary negotiation and white collar career growth. A decade out, I've come to notice that the people who progress faster in their career are the ones who have this sixth sense for career growth, when it's time to move, what industries are hot, and things like that. We've all seen examples of someone clearly disconnected from that sixth sense - "I'm an EE doing embedded systems for 10 years making $65k, is that good"? And I think I'm aware enough to know ballpark numbers of what's reasonable. But I'm interested in the people who seem to be experts at it. Both on this sub, and in real life networking, I'll hear phrases like "Check out Parker Hannifin, they can't hire people fast enough!" or "Try Boeing's electronics division, starting salary $130k, minimum" or "my buddy tells me 3M is starting a new location in Pennsylvania, they're desperate for people, I heard numbers like $120k being thrown around" or "with your experience, you should be getting $150k at least". These phrases are usually worded and said with the utmost confidence. And I've always wondered, where do these people get all this information? I thought the general conclusion was that Glassdoor lowballs salaries, just because it doesn't update for inflation or new market conditions. If they're talking with a friend or professional contact who's an engineer, without being the manager or the one hiring, it's very likely that they don't have the full context of what the personnel ramp up or salary range is. In the end, it seems like these confident proclamations essentially come down to anecdotal hearsay. I did listen to a connection who told me that ASML was ramping up and that it would be a big jump for me. I interviewed and got a job offer from them...and it was within a couple of percent of what I already make. I renegotiated and they said that was the range for the position, and I didn't end up taking it. I'm so fascinated in this subject because as we know, engineers tend not to be the type to be social butterflies, gossiping at parties about who's dating who. But the second salary and career progression comes up at work, I've seen absolute 180s in personalities and everyone seems to have a buddy who's making 150k-175k here or has salary/bonuses that blow us out of the water, and be unusually confident about how correct their "map" of compensation and salaries for engineers are. I'm wondering where do these people get this information? Even after being an engineer for over a decade, I've never given my opinion on this subject because I don't know any of this stuff for sure. I'd feel embarrassed speaking with such certainty about something that I feel should actually come with many caveats. My personal career is winding and unique. People exaggerate or underrepresent what they make. But in any discussion about engineering salary, there's no shortage of people giving their 2 cents. Where do they get this information? Is there some secret Glassdoor alternative I don't know about? Is it just a natural effect where the people who are most self-confident are the ones who are more likely to speak up? Should a certain percentage of my week be spent networking with the goal of getting salary information and building a "map" of what different job functions and industries pay? Is this "sixth sense" BS, or is there a way to develop it? | huvl9bn | huvg92r | 1,643,564,495 | 1,643,562,587 | 37 | 28 | It’s much easier once you’re a hiring manager. I see what the company pay brackets are for the levels I’m hiring at. Then I see who I hire and what industry/company they come from and how that compares to our company bracket. The brackets tend to be pretty wide so it takes a little bit of hiring to start seeing resolution within the brackets themselves. | Places like Levels.fyi , Reddit, etc. etc. Honestly, salaries for other industries (like accounting) are even more transparent, you can literally search up pay structures within companies and the years of experience to hit certain promotions or pay grades. | 1 | 1,908 | 1.321429 |
1vatbe | askhistorians_test | 0.8 | Considering the chronological relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, why is it that Christianity didn't have any dietary restrictions? Or am I wrong believing that? Were there any restrictions at the beginning of Christianity? Even if that would be the case, why they weren't applied as rigorously as its counterparts? | ceqf4zd | ceqf6o3 | 1,389,819,030 | 1,389,819,127 | 3 | 27 | Early Christian's were almost entirely Jewish (as was Jesus himself) and the early Christian "church" considered itself the next step in Judaism. However, many Jews rejected this notion and in many cases persecuted early Christians (see the conversion of Saul to Paul). This did not keep Christianity from spreading to the non-Jewish populations of the Mediterranean. The aforementioned Paul then wrote many letters to these communities in which there were some serious issues of dietary restrictions and male circumcision were very divisive topics between Jewish and Gentile Christians. In what I believe to be a nice political move, it is decided that there should be no pressure for Christians to be circumcised or to have restrictions on food (the once restriction that I remember at all is to not eat of food offered in sacrifice to idols i.e. Roman or other "gods"). This is just one example of the inclusiveness of the early Christian Church. A major part of the "success" of Christianity is/was it's adaptability. | There's evidence of 'factionalism' even among the earliest Christians (in the 1st century) on this very issue. In many cases, much of the tension arose between Jewish and Gentile Christians. But not necessarily. One of the narratives in the New Testament itself that addresses dietary issues (and some of the Christian innovations regarding them) is found in the 10th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: >Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 Then he heard a voice saying, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." 14 But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean." 15 The voice said to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." This is almost certainly more representative of the so-called "supersessionist" branch, which prioritized the coming/sacrifice of Christ and its transformative effects over observance of Jewish law. We can see another narrative that addresses kosher/dietary things, just a few chapters later (in Acts 15). Described here is a "council" in Jerusalem, with many the most important Christian figures present: James, Peter, Paul. In the end, these figures produce a letter which is then sent to Gentiles churches, advising that Gentiles should "abstain . . . from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood." This list is virtually identical to that in Leviticus 17-18: prohibiting meat offered to idols (17.8-9), ingestion of blood (17.10-12) and improperly slaughtered animals (17.15). I've written about this in more detail here - but just to pick out one little section: >there's no real indication from [the council related in Acts 15] that Paul and the Jerusalem church get along anything other than splendidly ("our dear friend" Paul, etc.) . . . Yet the letter that they then send back with Paul (to Antioch, Syria, Cilicia) seems to have "agreements" which, elsewhere, are quite opposed by Paul. While - for the sake of space - skipping over some nuances here, consider Paul's blanket statement in 1 Cor 10:25-26: >>Eat *anything* that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’s sake; "for the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains" ____ Ultimately, as the Christian church became a majority *Gentile* church, the supersessionist 'faction' won out - evidence of which is certainly found in the accounts of Acts themselves (which, as a whole, is a highly fictionalized [quasi-]'history'). It's absolutely fascinating to look at early Islam's relationship with all this. There's some evidence that some of the influence of some of the more primitive Jewish-oriented Christian sects survived, and may have still been around to have influenced Islam (that could be its own thread). But in any case, it all fits in with Islam's portrait of a Christianity which - though still founded by figures that were truly divinely inspired, and worth of reverence - had gone too far in its rejection of the laws and theology of its 'mother' traditions, introducing heretical innovations. | 0 | 97 | 9 |
e6kvox | askhistorians_test | 0.94 | What to do with a US vet's personal WW2 photo collection, which includes photos of WW2 German soldiers (while they were alive) that he got when he captured their camera (after his own tank knocked their Panther out and they were killed) and he then developed their pictures when he got home? A friend's father was a in a Tank Destroyer in Europe in WW2. His operational areas were incredible. D-day, Operation Goodwood, Huertgen Forest, crossing Bridge at Remagen while it stood, Liberating Nordhausen, right up to the Oder River at war's end. Because he was in the vehicle, he took his own photos throughout, throwing exposed rolls in a bag. All were developed when he got home. All beautifully sharp and pristine snapshots now rest in an old album. TLDR: The short question is, the family has asked me, a WW2 enthusiast friend, to make recommendations on what they should do with it? They have made their copies, and want the originals to "go to some museum and be preserved." I applauded their instincts, and now seek input on choices to recommend. So that's the broad question, and thx in advance for input. Now for other detail mentioned in my hopefully attention-getting headline...and a more narrow question, but one I think is more fascinating to consider. About 10 years ago, while this amazing vet was alive, I asked to meet him and talk. I knew he was "in a tank in WW2" but apparently that is most all he really ever said. No details to his family even, as well as my dad, who was his close friend. After some careful prep, he opened up to me and brought out his album. I recorded hours of interviews. The album was incredible. But he didn't understand its significance. It IS significant. All the battles I mentioned are covered, except DDay is light (he was 6th wave, Utah Beach). All pics incredible, but some are jaw-dropping. The scenes at Nordhausen -- his unit was there w/in 24 hours after liberation -- are proof positive of the horrors, and the death, of the slave laborers in that system. The standing bridge at Remagen pics are among the best I have ever seen. But my jaw fell most when, turning a page, I saw four clearly German soldiers posing with smiles in front of an operational Panther tank. They were in their all black wool unis; the Panther's unit insignia is clearly identifiable. Then more photos followed of these same soldiers, in casual and battlefield photos. The men are clearly facially identifiable. I asked the man what are these? In his standard gruff, but totally matter-of-fact way, he said, "Oh just some Krauts." I asked, but why do you have them?? He shrugged, and explained. The next page showed a knocked out Panther. It was the same one. He said he took the camera off a dead crewman. He said he "liked it" and it had film left, so he shot the rest of the roll, then put it in his bag with all his others to be developed when he got home. And that's how these smiling German tankers are in a US Army vet's photo album from 1944. Sadly, literally within weeks of these sessions, after I left to start editing the tapes and thinking of what to recommend happen to this album, the man passed. (A responder I know attended the EMT call to the local senior home. The vet dropped with a heart attack. As he lay on the floor, his last words were: "The f\*\*\*ing Nazis didn't kill me, and this won't either." This, from a man who *never* spoke openly about his service -- after 60+ years, the thing at the top of his mind as he lay dying was the war. Just incredibly telling.) After that, the family -- living distantly -- did not want to take the issue up, and I didn't force it. Now, flash ahead years later. They have reached out and asked the question I posed above. But I have another one. Does anyone have input on whether it would be worth it to try and ID those German soldiers? To try, perhaps, to return them to the families? If so, how would I start that (without going to Germany)? I have the battle diary of the US unit (Tank Destroyer 899). I am fairly certain where the tank kill occurred. The Panther photos are clear. I think the idea has a chance. But I am intimidated on where and how to start. The family does not appear to be interested in this angle. I believe I could get their agreement, but wouldn't want to try to convince them unless I have a realistic plan. So that's it. Another TLDR. Two questions. What org is best to preserve and value an incredible collection of WW2 soldier personal photos of the European theatre from 1944-45? And, is there a legit interest, and path for success, in returning to their families the photos taken by German soldiers, who later died in the war, that were ultimately developed by the soldier who created this album? Thanks for considering!! | f9sr3vb | f9srkxh | 1,575,598,536 | 1,575,598,868 | 6 | 8 | I would also pose this question here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GermanWW2photos/ | Might try The National WWII Museum in New Orleans. they have a phone number you can call to ask about artifact donations 504-528-1944 x 515 Its nice museum I spent a good part of day wandering around in it last time I was in NOLA | 0 | 332 | 1.333333 |
mwi29m | askhistorians_test | 0.82 | A booby-trapped temple is a major set piece in "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark." Were such set-ups actually found in temples in South America or was that poetic license? If they did exist, I'd be curious if any unlucky archeologists, local residents, or explorers discovered one such setup or if they inferred their presence based on context clues. | gvinf2t | gviutmp | 1,619,142,134 | 1,619,145,910 | 8 | 13 | While you wait for newer answers you can check out previous discussions of this topic, such as those from this list of such threads compiled by /u/soulstealer1984. | /u/SecondTalon has previously found answers about booby traps in tombs by /u/kookingpot and /u/toldinstone, among others. EDIT: More answers remain to be written, this is a very popular topic. | 0 | 3,776 | 1.625 |
x2vmwm | askhistorians_test | 0.97 | In the early 14th century, Mansa Musa recounted a story of his predecessor disappearing on an attempt to cross the Atlantic with thousands of ships. If such an expedition did happen, what would the Malian ships have looked like? I'm not so much asking about the veracity of the story here; I understand that we have virtually no records about it and aren't even sure of the identity of the mansa in question. However, I've had a hard time learning much about any West African ships of the time beyond river canoes that seem ill-suited to even think of going out in to open ocean (though that's "seem ill-suited" to my eye, which is very much an ignorant one on the matter of sailing). If any exploration of the Atlantic was conducted by Mali around this time, what would the ships be like? | imnm04r | imnks2c | 1,662,037,944 | 1,662,037,372 | 459 | 52 | The Mali Empire was primarily concentrated along the highlands of Mandeland (located in contemporary Republic of Guinea and southern Republic of Mali) and along the Niger River Valley, with its downstream border being somewhere between the cities of Kawkaw (modern Gao) and Kukiya (modern Bentiya). At its heyday, the Mali reached the distant lands of some saharan cities (like Walata, Essouk/Tadmakka and Takedda) all the way to the Atlantic Coast, between the Senegal and Gambia rivers. With that data in mind, we can proceed to investigate the watercourses the Malians would be familiar with and figure out the boats they used to navigate them. Namely, they were familiar with the slow waters of major rivers (Niger, Senegal and Gambia) and with the coast of modern day Senegambia. Sadly, we lack direct sources about what types of boats were available at that time (14th century) in that particular area (River valleys and Senegambian coast). However, we do have a lot of accounts from european traders from the 16th century onwards, and those are quite useful. European traders, sailing along the Senegambian coast, quickly found africans (wolofs, serers, mandinkas, bizagos and others) using canoes - some quite large, that could transport cattle - to navigate the ocean. Those canoes lacked sails and depended on the strength of rowers to get somewhere. The fact that the Cape Verde islands (about 600 kilometers from the coast) were uninhabited prior to the arrival of european sailors is strong evidence that the local african canoes didn't get very far into the open sea, prefering coastal areas. Those canoes were mostly made out a single tree and quite effective at their purpose (i.e. navigate around the coast and into river estuaries), but sometimes more diverse materials would be used. In the larger and calmer rivers inland, canoes were used as well, but also bigger boats made out of several pieces of wood, capable of carrying lots of people and animals. They, however, also lacked proper sails and relied on people (either rowing or pushing against the riverbed with paddles) or simply the gentle currents of the river. TL;DR: Basically canoes and boats that lacked sails and, despite their occasional large size, lacked the proper resistance to sustain damage caused by waves or fight sea currents. They wouldn't get far and, in the odd occasion that they did, the boats would be at the mercy of the ocean. | This has been asked multiple times, searching for 'mansa musa atlantic' yields for example this topic with a nice answer by /u/MansaMontezuma | 1 | 572 | 8.826923 |
h8lntp | askhistorians_test | 0.96 | I'm a tailor in Regency London and Sir Richard Dastardly, a rakish baronet, is ignoring my bills. How would I as a small business owner deal with this? I've taught a reasonable amount of Victorian and some Regency literature and have casually read a decent amount of non academic history of the Victorian and Regency eras. A common trope I've seen is of a rakish character or a spendthrift couple running up huge debts with various vendors (especially tailors) and basically just not paying. Sometimes the character is shown as dying in penury but at other times they just seem to carry on in the same style as always, just ignoring or stringing along the vendors who provide their goods and services. What's more this seems to be seen as if not typical at least not unusual. Was this sort of casual attitude toward payment for goods and services on the part of the upper classes an actual thing? | fut2x9n | fusyko6 | 1,592,148,516 | 1,592,145,961 | 586 | 111 | As a small business owner, you would have recourse for dealing with deadbeat customers. A guy like Pip or Rawdon Crawley wouldn't be allowed to fleece you forever, unless you let them--and if Sir Richard Dastardly was rich enough, sometimes you would just let it slide for a little bit. If they "paid you in exposure" and sent their (possibly more solvent) friends to you to buy suits or dresses, you might let it slide for a little while, just to be neighborly and keep the peace. But if you were doing House of Worth work for pawnshop pay, you'd eventually get fed up. You'd start sending duns/debt collectors to knock on their door, hoping the annoyance and potential shame would convince them to pony up. At this point, he might contract with a moneylender for a promissory note; the lender would pay you and charge Dastardly interest, and Dastardly would be out of your hair. If your debtor doesn't find a way to pay you, your next step is prosecution. You want Sir Richard to actually show up for the trial, so you bring legal action against him and pay a shilling for an arrest warrant. A sheriff's officer serves the warrant and will take Sir Richard Dastardly to a sponging house. There, you have some time to settle or you'll end up on trial/in jail. If it gets to trial, and Dastardly is found to be a debtor, they stick him in jail. You can't just take his stuff, however, not yet -- he still has to decide to pay you, by selling his own stuff or borrowing money from family and friends. Rawdon Crawley never gets to this point, but a number of Dickens characters did. Usually, if you ended up in debtor's prison, you were already poor--not a Sir Richard Dastardly. Typically, a person with a title would have resources: they could sell land, a horse, beg Auntie for cash, or marry some wealthy heiress. If you were poor and in debtor's prison, you did have some light at the end of the tunnel: you could still ply certain trades from within prison, and you could eventually hope to get out. But it was miserable and difficult to drag oneself out of that debt hole. (Imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1869.) Now, as to your question, "Did they care?" I think they cared about as much as we do. Victorians were a little more moralistic than we are now in that they were generally more likely to judge their neighbors as "bad" than put the circumstance ahead of their judgment -- but a lot of their attitudes are similar to today's. Being a serial debtor was more personal to the Victorians than it is to us, because there were, with the possible exception of the East India Company, no giant faceless monolithic companies to which you would owe money. You'd owe money to Bob the tailor and Joe the greengrocer, guys who lived probably within a few miles' radius of your own house, not to MasterCard. No one goes hungry if you don't pay MasterCard, but a Victorian person refusing to make good on his debts was literally taking money away from his neighbors, which was a bad look. Tongues would start wagging when the debt collectors came knocking, and a Sir Richard type might find himself not invited to as many parties as before. If he had romantic prospects, they could dry up: the father of a young lady isn't going to want his daughter hooking up with a spendthrift who'll end up in prison and will be unable or unwilling to provide for his family. If he's part of a gentleman's club, depending on how bad his money woes are (and whether or not all the other men in his club have similar attitudes towards money), he could find himself kicked out. There were jerks, con men, liars, and people who had "f-you" amounts of money where they could gleefully skip town on Bob the Tailor and not care. There were no credit scores in the time period, but all you had was your name. If you developed a reputation as a sketchball, tailors wouldn't want to do work for you on credit anymore--no matter who you were. Tailors for the most part couldn't afford to give their work away for free. You'd have to pay cash. If you had cash, this wouldn't actually be a big deal, which is why a lot of wealthier people might only care about their debts insofar as their reputation could be affected. If Bob didn't want to play ball anymore, they'd just pay Bob the cash and get credit from some other poor slob. If you didn't have cash, this would be a serious issue for you. Some "wealthy" people didn't actually have "ready money," only large fixed assets like land or houses, which they would then have to mortgage or sell if they'd tanked their reputation/credit, or who were known to be out of money even if they'd never had a debt problem. Like today, a lot of "rich people" were cash-poor, and kept an appearance of wealth by leveraging what they did have to get more. (Sources I looked at to write this: "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew," by Daniel Pool; "The Victorian City" by Judith Flanders; "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray.) EDIT: I corrected the naming. While “Sir Dastardly” sounded like a very interesting person to me, and is more descriptive of his character, the commenter below is right—it’s Sir Richard (Sir Dick if ya nasty). | I answered a similar question (from the debtor's point of view) a while back, which you might find useful: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7hau5e/in\_poldark\_18th\_century\_lenders\_are\_able\_to\_call/dqrq0iw?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x | 1 | 2,555 | 5.279279 |
fdd6ia | askhistorians_test | 0.97 | In ww1, when a trench was hit with mustard gas, did that temporarily solve its lice and rat problems? I figured since everything that breathes and doesnt have a respirator suffocates when trenches are flooded with mustard gas or other chemical weapons, it might kill all the rats and lice in the trench. Was this the case? | fjhk3gh | fjhk4ho | 1,583,349,661 | 1,583,349,677 | 176 | 1,708 | Mustard gas, chlorine, and phosgene were three of the most common gases used. Note that while chlorine and phosgene do have the suffocation effect you mention, mustard gas is actually a blistering agent - and it's actually not even a gas, although inhaling the vapors could cause pulmonary edema in addition to first and second degree burns...the effects of mustard gas, in other words, were not suffocation per se. With regard to the effects of chemical warfare on the rats and lice in the trenches, there's some anecdotes among combat memoires that suggest an overall limited or unnoticeable effect on population (again - this is anecdotal). For example, in *With a Machine Gun to Cambrai* (I use this example in particular because coincidentally, Cambrai marked the first use of a mustard agent by the Allies), George Coppard, serving with the British across several major battles in France during 1916-1917, noted that "What happened to the rats under heavy shell-fire was a mystery, but their powers of survival kept place with each new weapon, including poison gas." It should be noted that the day in, day out dealing with rats could have an effect on the anecdotal observations of soldiers who may have simply not noticed a slight reduction in rat population after a gas attack. With regard to lice, one thing to bear in mind is that any protective equipment meant to entirely cover the body and clothing would have protected the lice as well. This situation applies to a mustard agent, which in part is designed to soak through clothing, blistering and burning the skin and ensuring the victim would inhale noxious vapor from the chemical soaked into his clothes. So...if you protect the clothing, skin and hair, you're protecting the home of the lice. I can speak to the rat issue more than lice, though. Realize that the purpose of mustard gas was not to kill, but incapacitate. Only 1% of exposure cases in WW1 were lethal. But mustard agent settles (heavier than air) and sticks around (for weeks), and continues to cause bad effects if one comes into contact with it after the initial attack. In fact, as the war progressed, higher and higher concentrations of mustard agent were used in combination with aerosols (since, again, mustard agent is not a gas) to cause soldiers to abandon certain areas of line - however, these would not be reoccupied by the attackers...this is an example of area denial. It's very likely that in the areas that were heavily attacked, whether or not the rat population was affected would be unnoticed by soldiers since they'd have evacuated that section of line, and rerouted accordingly. Their new space would look particularly inviting to the rats that evacuated with them. Okay, so what about rats that stuck around after an attack? With regard to a nominal amount of mustard gas in the environment, a 1975 study found that "No deaths attributable to sulfur mustard were noted in mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, or dogs exposed to 0.1 mg/m3 (0.015 ppm) of sulfur mustard vapor, 6.5 hours/day, 5 days/week, for up to 1 year (McNamara et al. 1975)." So simply being around the trenches after most of the chemical dissipated had likely no effect on the rat population. The same study found a small likelihood of chronic keratitis in that population, which would affect rat vision. This study also found some effects in birth rate and mutations, but this is essentially null considering the over all birth rate for rats in the trenches (producing upwards of 900 offspring per year per couple). Again, we're only talking about the impact of low levels of exposure over time. The oral LD50 for rats is 17 mg/kg (LD50 is the median lethal dose). That's what the concentration would need to be if, for example, a rat were to chomp down on a blown off decomposing hand in a trench. Acute exposure (environmental) to 2.5mg per day could take 10 days to death, though...so this should give a bit of a range in understanding how much a rat could take before dying. Also, up to 15.5mg could be applied to the skin according to a 1994 study with only moderate blistering. What does this mean? A rat can withstand a fair amount of environmental exposure that would not affect breeding, but direct ingestion would be more likely to cause death. I'm not going to go much further into the various effects, but here's a CDC source for further research: link. I've taken more of a deep dive into mustard agent, but note that phosgene was the primary killer (85%) of gases used in WWI. Chlorine killed much faster, but phosgene was used primarily. Both would have a severe effect on rats, would would not be able to withstand anywhere close to an LD50 for humans for either gas. In the German attacks on British troops at Hulluch in April 1916, using a mixture of both phosgene and chlorine, rats were seen fleeing German trenches prior to the attack - the assumption was that this was due to leaky cylinders (the Germans had stored nearly 7,500 cylinders along the line to produce two major gas cloud attacks). Bottom line - yes, rats could be affected by all three of the major gases (I'm excluding tear gas, which was used more frequently earlier in the war but is clearly not meant to kill or deny area access). However, the population would not likely be locally affected enough for a noticeable difference by soldiers. The one reason a soldier would notice an immediate dissipation of the local rat population would be during an aerial bombardment, in which rats always seemed to disappear. This is by no means anecdotal, and was observed on a widespread basis throughout the war. | Mustard gas is certainly lethal to rats, not to mention other small critters that inhabited the hellish landscape of the front. Plenty of data exists on *exactly* what mustard gas, not to mention just about any other hazardous chemical, will do to a rat as they of course are often the laboratory subjects for tests to determine exactly that, not to mention countless other unfortunate creatures like mice, pigs, dogs, horses, and so on. The super short summary though if we cut to the chase for the LD50 of mustard gas, as that was the one you mentioned (although I presume you are interested more in WWI chemical warfare than *mustard gas*, so will also speak more generally about the former's impact), it is as follows: Species | Route | LD50 (mg/kg) ---|---|--- Human | Oral | 0.7 Human | Dermal | 100 Rat | Oral | 17 Rat | Dermal | 5 Other gases too, of course, were tested on rats and other animals, both during and long after the war. In a report from 1917 by the British Chemical Warfare Medical Committee, we see several examples of this: >Field experiments have shown that a rat and rabbit placed about five yards from, and to leeward of, a bomb containing phosgene were found dead within eight minutes after its explosion. Control animals similarly situated to windward died after several hours. Other controls, in which shells filled with water instead of toxic substances were used, have shown that the concussion must not be regarded as a cause of death. >Similar results have been obtained in laboratory experiments at Cambridge and elsewhere. Mice exposed to a high concentration of phosgene in a small closed chamber may die during the third minute. The rats knew the danger the gas posed too. One of the warnings of an incoming attack for the soldiers in the trenches would be the fuzzy stampede as the rats which had been inhabiting No Mans Land fled in front of the oncoming clouds that drifted towards the trench, their squeaks of terror amplifying the official alarms. The aftermath would see the carcasses of rats strewn about, as well as other small mammals and avian life that had been eking out a survival there, or was forced into the trench of course, such as horses of dogs. A British study done in the wake of the war noted of one German attack carried out in early 1916, believed to be a mix of chlorine and phosgene: >Grass and other vegetation were turned yellow by the gas as far back as 1 ,200 yds. from the front line. Rats were killed in the trenches in large numbers. Eleven cows, twenty-three calves, one horse, one pig, and fifteen hens were killed in the fields behind the lines by gas, and a number of other cattle and pigs showed signs of being affected by the gas. Speaking of a different attack, a British officer described the image of the rats much more vividly when he wrote of what a gas attack did to them: >The trenches swarmed with rats, big rats, small rats, grey rats, tall rats in every stage of gas poisoning! Some were sucrrying along scarcely affected while others were slowly dragging themselves about trying to find a corner in which to die. A most horrid sight - but very good riddance. Good riddance indeed, as the rats were considered quite a scourge of the trench, and soldiers found that one of the few things that had *any* impact on their presence was the enemy, whether gas as above, or the explosions of artillery or grenades sending them scurrying away. It wasn't exactly a good trade-off, all in all though, since as made clear enough, even a gas attack could hardly be counted on to result in total lethality, and the ever common presence of heavenly conditions was sure to bring new rats in short order, likely a large contribution to literally millions of causalities in the war from the diseases they so easily spread. After the war, men who had gained experience in chemical warfare in the war likely remembered the devastation that their weaponry had wrought on the local fauna, and in the 1920s attempts were made to 'pacify' gas warfare and introduce it as the newest way to protect crops from vermin and pests. The US Chemical Warfare Service conducted several tests in conjunction with the government on the promise that it offered "the quickest and surest method in attacking crop destroying pests, whether ground squirrels, gopher, blackbird, crows, buzzard, rats, or grasshopper". Tests specifically aimed at rats were conducted in 1920 in the Gulf, in hopes of containing bubonic plague, and early reports claimed to be a rousing success with the use of a mixture of phosgene and chlorine gas. But testing in a contained 900 sq. foot area isn't the same as wide application, and the transition never was successfully made. Overall, such attempts to reapply chemical warfare to the civilian world showed that results were at best contained to the test conditions or short-lived, and in some cases quite counterproductive. One attempt at tent caterpillar extermination found that it was killing the plants too. Other gasses were found to be ineffective, and the ones that worked best were of course the ones that were worst for humans as well. And the most desired target, the boll weevil, proved to be impervious to whatever was thrown its way as it simply could survive without breathing. Nevertheless it did help lay the groundwork for research that would eventually lead to more successful pesticides, even if not from the Chemical Warfare Service. Now, as for lice, I would on the whole have to defer to someone else to note if there was any impact. I can make some guesses, but I wouldn't want to speculate. I would simply note that there is some very promising titled material in the National Archives which seem to be undigitized in the Records of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, especially "*Report on Experiments Conducted on October 16, 1918, Testing the Effect of Certain Toxic Gases on Body Lice and Their Eggs*" in Record Group 7. **Sources** Brantz, Dorothee. "Environments of Death" in *War and the Environment: Military Destruction in the Modern Age*, edited by Charles E. Closmann. Texas A&M University Press, 2009. Cook, Tim. *No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War*. UBC Press, 2011. Faith, Thomas. *Behind the Gas Mask: The U.S. Chemical Warfare Service in War and Peace*. University of Illinois Press, 2014. Gupta, Ramesh. *Veterinary Toxicology: Basic and Clinical Principles*. Elsevier, 2011. MacPherson, W.G., Herringham, W.P., Elliott, T.R., & Balfour, A. eds. *Medical Services: Diseases of the War, Vol. II*. His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1923. Medical Research Committee, *Reports of the Chemical Warfare Medical Committee of the Medical Research Committee: No. 1*, Physiology (War) Committee of the Royal Society. 1918. Russell, Edmund. *War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring*. Cambridge University Press, 2001. “War on Rats with Poison Gas.” *Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering* 23, no. 11 (September 15, 1920): 543. Young, Leslie. "Observations on the Effects of Mustard Gas on the Rat". *Canadian Journal of Research*, 1947, 25e (3), 141-151 ETA: A few more quotations to add a bit more color. Also, don't miss /u/voidoid's piece here in the thread which is a nice complement. | 0 | 16 | 9.704545 |
lqn29w | askhistorians_test | 0.93 | Why did the US Government name its states after Native American tribes it was actively trying to wipe out? This has always seemed odd to me that US states (Illinois, Wyoming, Dakota, etc.) were named after the people the government was committing an act of genocide on. What is the reason for that? | gojmpvy | gokwxaa | 1,614,138,225 | 1,614,173,977 | 137 | 315 | Is it possible to get a list of all the boarding schools that took in Native Americans? Also is there any record of what they were taught to “assimilate/kill off” their Indian culture? | This is an interesting question, and I was really hoping to see someone answer it fully. Being a mod, I have the unfortunate privilege of being able to see the removed comments, and while there are attempts to explain 'This is the origin of X state's name', it is unfortunate that no one really made an attempt to engage with what is *being asked*, that is to say, not simply "*Why is Massachusetts called Massachusetts?*" (and for which there are thousands of answers out there for the various locales from state level on down in this country) but more specifically "*What does calling it Massachusetts say about the relationship between the white colonizers and the Massachusett people whose name is used?*" I was hesitant to provide any response, because I don't have a *direct* answer, and was hoping someone would be able to talk specifically about *place* names in the United States in such terms. Thus I didn't post anything yesterday since I didn't want to dissuade someone from giving a deeper answer specifically about the physical geography and the legacy of indigenous place names in the American lexicon. But being the next day and the question dropping off soon still unanswered, I can speak on the next level up about the connection between white American culture and "The Idea of the Indian", as it can be termed, which is in brief sum about how Americans adopted the symbolism of the original peoples and gave it its own meaning, often in a rather perverse way where it quite explicitly is found in ways that are intended to reflect a *white* nativist doctrine which of course entirely separates who is really reflected in those images from how they are being used. This is *not* an uncommon thing to find when looking at the culture of colonizers, something which I've written about before with New Zealand for instance, although of course it is a phenomenon which manifests itself in different ways in different places. In the United States specifically I've written about this a few times previously, which I'll link here and provide some brief annotation on. I would again note that I *don't* talk about place names, and for that I really hope someone is still able to weigh in. But in this first answer I talk extensively about how in colonial period and the early United States indigenous imagery was co-opted into symbols of American liberty. We can see this most famously in the Boston Tea Party, as well as reflected in American coinage which is a large focus of the answer. This trend elevated the *image* of the "Indian" into the heights of the American Idea, but entirely for white purposes. It leaned into certain, specific stereotypes about the native cultures while at the same time decrying them as savages and working to wipe them out. Importantly, and perhaps the best *direct* parallel to *this* question, is that while doing so, they used these concepts taken from the *actual* native peoples to craft a nativist identity for white Americans, an implicit absolving of their crimes to boot. It was now *their* symbols and *their* identity because *they* were "Native". I also pivot to the late 19th and early 20th centuries by which point the native peoples had been subjugated and forced into reservation life, and for most white Americans were an amorphous concept from the history books, or dime-store novels, resulting in a shifting 'Idea of the Indian' which reflected an idealized vision of masculinity, martial prowess, and rugged outdoorsmanship. I build off of that in this second answer which specifically focuses on how those values came to be reflected in white society through the lens of the Scouting movement, and how while there was a *veneer* of respect, it was one which was entirely on white terms, and a respect for a specific stereotype that was in many ways simply a construction of the white imagination, and which saw the ultimate achievement as being the white man who was more "Indian" than the "Indian", the highest pantheon being figures like Davey Crocket or Daniel Boone, who could take those skills and perform them even better due to their supposed superior whiteness. So again, I would caution that I've only offered a partial view here. It speaks to the place that the "Idea of the Indian" held within white American society, and hopefully goes a long way to helping you understand how that society was able to bridge the cognitive dissonance of using indigenous symbolism so extensively while at the same time practicing sustained campaigns of genocide against them for centuries, but there is absolutely more to this story which is beyond by ken, so I would leave it to others to build off that and *specifically* tie in discussion of that discourse with the physical geography itself. | 0 | 35,752 | 2.29927 |
i4fpz9 | askhistorians_test | 0.92 | Victorians were prude by today's standards, yet victorian painters always seemed able to find women willing to pose nude, whether they were in Europe, America, or overseas in Arab-dominated countries. How hard would it have been to find willing nude models? How frowned on was their work? John Singer Sargent found a girl willing to pose nude in Egypt, where one might imagine women were expected to be pretty buttoned up. In The Reading Girl, Théodore Roussel, a Frenchman living in England, painted a popular model from the era, Hetty\_Pettigrew, who apparently earned good money posing for many artists. Would her profession have been seen as highly immoral by the standards of the day? | g0i7d9s | g0iag6j | 1,596,672,802 | 1,596,674,460 | 17 | 115 | Here is a response to a similar question about prudeness in the Victorian era | > "in Arab-dominated countries" I can't say with certainty that this particular model was a prostitute, but it strikes me as the most likely way he would have found a nude model in Egypt in the 19th century. John Singer Sargent apparently was no stranger to brothels, as this page about the painting notes at the top. Prostitutes were basically the typical way that European men gained access to women in the Middle East in the 19th century, with sometimes preposterous results. So for example when Gustave Flaubert was traveling in Egypt he described the erotic "dance of the bee". It was erotic because the performer was a prostitute he had paid and then slept with. This and other descriptions by 19th century European observers writing about how their prostitutes danced for them created a fundamental misunderstanding of what Arab dance consisted of, among other things. There were some exceptions. Edward William Lane writing in the 1830s recruited his sister to report on the goings on in the harems, bath houses, and other women-only spaces that he could not be admitted to. | 0 | 1,658 | 6.764706 |
8y4tl4 | askhistorians_test | 0.93 | Back in Ancient Greece homosexuality was allowed. During the 17th century people had sex quite freely. Why is it that during the Victorian times, that suddenly changed and sex was deemed a very private affair? And why was homosexuality made illegal? Homosexuality was fine, then during the Victorian era it was considered worse than murder. During the 17th century people would have had sex in rooms with children present, whereas Victorians wouldn't even want to look at each other naked even when married. These days you're bigoted for being against homosexuality. What exactly is the reason for these changes? Why were the Victorians so different to previous time periods? Surely if they were told it was okay and natural, that would continue would it not? | e28qbjo | e28nz0f | 1,531,378,732 | 1,531,374,892 | 1,647 | 130 | **Part I: Morality and the Victorian Family** Someone else with expertise in that area will have to address the Ancient Greek side of things, but I can tackle the Victorians. Your question is based on a common misconception about the Victorian period, so I’m going to spend some time debunking that misconception and then try to explain why perfectly reasonable people believe it. The Victorian period did not represent a sudden rupture from the past with regards to sexuality. Same sex desire and homosexuality and sex outside of marriage were taboo to differing degrees in different times and places in Western culture for centuries. The Victorians did not just up and decide that sex was bad outside of nowhere. However, this is not to say that the Victorians didn’t differ from the generations immediately preceding them in some ways. One important development of the Victorian period was its heavy emphasis on domesticity. For the Victorians, the home and the family were paramount, the basis of the superior British civilization. The home was an oasis protected from the harsh outside world, a place of comfort where you can rest with your loved ones. Note that this ideal of the home and the family is not so different from how we as a culture think of homes and families today. However, for the Victorians, this idea of the home carried with it a hierarchy, with the husband and father as the head of house, the wife and mother as caretaker of the home (the "Angel in the House," as one famous poem called it), both working to bring up well-adjusted, successful children. Of course, people before the Victorians had homes and families and valued these things highly. The Victorians didn’t invent the family. What shifted was the importance of the family as a social category that needed to be protected and conceptions of public vs private life. On one hand, the nineteenth century saw, for respectable middle class people, the home was a private sphere, secluded from the world and with significantly more privacy within the home than had been available in previous centuries. Privacy has its own earlier history and development that other users can speak to better than me; for our purposes it’s enough to say that the domestic sphere was supposed to be private. I say this with the caveat that I’m describing middle class people here; the working classes often lived in very different conditions. This cult of domesticity was very much a phenomenon of the middle class, who set themselves up as the upright, respectable contrast to the stereotypical image of the profligate and licentious aristocrat that had been promoted in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century as the rake or the libertine. However, there is a contradiction in the Victorian family in that domesticity was also often the subject of public performance. We can argue that this phenomenon is reflected best at the top of society with Queen Victoria herself. Victoria navigated the contradiction of being a woman monarch. Women are supposed to be the Angel in the House, master of the private sphere, not involved in public life. To reconcile this, Victoria made a public performance of being the nation's exemplary mother—utterly devoted to her husband and many, many children. Victoria and Albert were a model of Victorian domestic life, but this model was also very publicly performed. | Hey there, If you've come to the thread and are wondering why there's no answer yet: we have found that it takes an average of 9 hours for a good answer to appear on a popular thread - properly researching and writing an answer takes time. Additionally, it's late at night on the East Coast of the US at the moment, which means that plenty of the historians interested in this topic might already be asleep. In other words, patience, good people. If you want to be reminded to look at this thread later, please see this really awesome Roundtable post for a list of ways. And if you're wondering why Reddit never shows you an AskHistorians thread with answers, consider sorting your Reddit home feed by 'Hot' rather than 'Best' - 'Best' seems to give precedence to newer posts (which are less likely to have an answer on this subreddit, of course) and threads you haven't already looked at (e.g., it'll show you something else next time you log in, even if this thread is still getting lots of upvotes because there's an actual answer now). If you're wondering what's in the 28 removed comments at the time of writing, the majority of it is people saying things like "I want to know the answer to this question or some other related question, in which case start a new thread!]", "what happened to all the removed comments?" or making a tossed off one sentence answer that doesn't meet our standards, like "CHRISTIANS!". None of this comes close to meeting the standards in [our subreddit rules. There are also three posts we've removed because they're more substantial than these, but largely or entirely focus on sexuality in Ancient Greece (and thus don't answer the question about the Victorian era that OP is clearly interested in). All of these comments get removed on /r/AskHistorians because the huge majority of our subscribers really do want accurate, comprehensive, in-depth historical answers based on good historical practice and high-quality sources. It's amazing how many downvotes and reports an obvious shitpost can attract on a popular thread on /r/AskHistorians within minutes, thanks to our readers (if you see it, report it!) On /r/AskHistorians, we want people answering questions to be able to explain not just what the basic facts are according to academic research, but why we know that these basic facts are right, and to put those basic facts into context. This is why we encourage the use of primary and secondary sources in answering questions, rather than tertiary sources like Wikipedia, podcasts and textbooks. In other words, on /r/AskHistorians, we'd rather have no answer than bad attempts at answers. By removing the short, quick, bad answers that would otherwise crowd them out, the well-researched in-depth answers (that take people time to research and write) are more likely to be seen (see this graph for more detail). The downside to this is that we have to remove a lot of shitposts and comments wondering what happened to the removed comments. The upside is that our contributors consistently post amazing stuff to /r/AskHistorians (which we collate the best of every week in our Sunday Digest), and daily on our Twitter. Alternatively, if you want to discuss history without these constraints, /r/history or /r/askhistory might be more appropriate subreddits for you than /r/AskHistorians. | 1 | 3,840 | 12.669231 |
7ol7t5 | askhistorians_test | 0.87 | Transvestism and especially "Ladyboys" are strongly associated with South-East and East Asian culture and cities like Bangkok and Tokyo. When did this trope start and how old is it? I know it's a stereotype but when and how did it start? Is it primarily a Western viewpoint? What is the relationship between these cultures and gender bending practices like crossdressing in the early and premodern period? | dsaq4i8 | dsarm15 | 1,515,284,558 | 1,515,286,119 | 38 | 1,022 | Hello everyone, If you are a first time visitor, welcome! This thread is trending high right now and getting a lot of attention, but it is important to remember those upvotes represent interest in the question itself, and it can often take time for a good answer to be written. The mission of /r/AskHistorians is to provide users with in-depth and comprehensive responses, and our rules are intended to facilitate that purpose. We remove comments which don't follow them for reasons including unfounded speculation, shallowness, and of course, inaccuracy. Making comments asking about the removed comments simply compounds this issue. So please, before you try your hand at posting, check out the rules, as we don't want to have to warn you further. Of course, we know that it can be frustrating to come in here from your frontpage or /r/all and see only removed], but we ask for your patience and understanding. Great content is produced on this subreddit every day though, and we hope that while you wait, you will check out places they are featured, including [Twitter, the Sunday Digest, the Monthly "Best Of" feature, and now, Facebook. It is very rare that a decent answer doesn't result in due time, so please do come check back on this thread in a few hours. If you think you might forget, send a Private Message to the Remind-Me bot, and it will ensure you don't! Finally, while we always appreciate feedback, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with META conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, we ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you! | Since I'm on break I'll give a go at answering when and how this stereotype started, specifically how Thai cinema has contributed to acceptance of trans individuals in Thailand. However, I'd like to note that I'm not Thai, and I'm sure others have a better understanding of this topic than I do. In Thailand, the most commonly used word to refer for a male-to-female trans person is a kathoey. For the purposes of this post, I'll refer to Thai MTF trans individuals as kathoeys, though in reality this is a broader term that can also refer to effeminate gay men, and also despite the fact that most Thai transwomen refer to themselves simply as "phuying" (women). As in the US (and much of the world) transgenderism has not always been an altogether mainstream topic in Thailand. Still the country is 95% Buddhist, a religion which has no specific laws surrounding transgenderism, and as a result, sex reassignment surgeries had begun being performed in Thailand starting in 1975. However, in the first half of the 20th century, there was still a degree of stigma surrounding kathoeys for a variety of reasons. The first movies surrounding kathoeys were released in the 1980's, and reflected this in their depiction of kathoeys as depressed, tragic characters. Perhaps the first mainstream movie that portrayed kathoeys was *The Last Song,* a 1985 movie about a kathoey cabaret performer who falls in love with a man who eventually leaves her for a biological woman, leading to her suicide. Though in *The Last Song* the kathoey identity is portrayed negatively, the movie began a trend of mainstream sympathy for kathoeys. More 1980's movies centered around kathoeys followed *The Last Song*, generally presenting kathoeys as tragic characters suffering from bad karma. In 1996, a northern Thai volleyball team made up of mainly kathoeys won the Thai national volleyball tournament. Though they were banned from representing Thailand internationally, the 2000 movie *Iron Ladies* dramatizing their journey became the highest grossing domestic Thai movie until that point. This film likely marked a turning point in Thai cinema as kathoeys began stop being viewed solely as sympathetic, tragic characters. This is all relevant because representation of kathoeys in Thai media has helped to socially destigmatize transgenderism in Thailand relative to other Asian countries. Thailand's relaxed stance on both prostitution and SRS has made the country a destination for both trans individuals and sex tourists from the US. It is especially appealing because few other countries allow such easy access to gender affirming surgery, especially at such a low price point. This real influx of tourists has spurred depictions of Thailand in the US media as a destination for individuals seeking the the Thai kathoey community and the medical industry that has supported it. Sources: * Chokrungvaranont, Prayuth et al. “The Development of Sex Reassignment Surgery in Thailand: A Social Perspective.” The Scientific World Journal 2014 (2014): 182981. PMC. Web. * Ünaldi, Serhat. “Back in the Spotlight: The Cinematic Regime of Representation of Kathoeys and Gay Men in Thailand.” Queer Bangkok: 21st Century Markets, Media, and Rights, edited by Peter A. Jackson, Hong Kong University Press, 2011, pp. 59–80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1xwdfx.8. | 0 | 1,561 | 26.894737 |
51l3ck | askhistorians_test | 0.89 | Twenty years ago today, Tupac Shakur was shot and fatally wounded. At the time, it was implicated that the Notorious B.I.G. was involved in his death. What evidence do we have now? Was Biggie to blame? | d7cxefj | d7cxntq | 1,473,264,071 | 1,473,264,422 | 95 | 1,623 | Similarly, was anything ever proven to any degree regarding Eazy E's death, viz. Suge allegedly injecting him with HIV? | The romanticism of the East Coast/West Coast feud makes lots of people want to point at Biggie as responsible, but most of the evidence seems to point to the man 2Pac and Suge jumped in the hotel lobby, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson was responsible. His uncle, Keffe D, said as much in an interview with police] (http://www.laweekly.com/news/the-keffe-d-tapes-10-highlights-of-confession-from-gangster-who-says-sean-combs-hired-him-to-kill-tupac-2395421). According to [LAbyrinth, Anderson was allegedly a member of the South Side Crips who had had issues with Suge Knight's Bloods-affiliated record label dating back to an incident at an LA mall in which Death Row associate Travon Lane had his DR medallion stolen in a Footlocker. Speculation claims that Puffy paid for this, as he wanted to use the chain in a Bad Boy video mocking DR, but if there's evidence that it was more than speculation, I've never seen it. Additionally, it's fairly well documented that in the weeks following 2Pac's death there was a large scale gang war in LA, seeking retaliation for his death. MC Eiht, a longtime Compton rapper, has gone on record] (http://www.ballerstatus.com/2016/02/03/mc-eiht-says-tupacs-gang-affiliations-led-to-his-death/) stating he believes it was 2Pac's gang affiliation (through Suge Knight) that led to his murder. If you comb through his Death Row releases, they're full of references to Bloods, down to his repeated use of "M.O.B.," a common Blood saying (Suge is also a known member of the Mob Pirus) and shout-outs to known Pirus ([Neckbone, Tray,Buntry). That said, LAPD Detective Greg Kading wrote in his book Murder Rap that he believes Puffy commissioned Keffe D for the hit. It is also alleged that Biggie [paid $1 million and provided the gun] (http://www.mtv.com/news/1457346/biggie-paid-gang-to-kill-tupac-report-says/) that took out his rival. There is further speculation that 2Pac was planning on leaving Death Row, which led to Suge Knight to order his death, but remember Knight was in the car when 2Pac was shot. At the end of the day, no one really knows. Everyone involved is either dead or not talking. | 0 | 351 | 17.084211 |
1q0vi2 | askhistorians_test | 0.9 | How did people wake up at set times before the modern day alarm clock? | cd83odk | cd83gnz | 1,383,754,607 | 1,383,754,082 | 196 | 86 | Hooray! this is something I can answer. Partially... In Europe, it was still clocks, belltower clocks. The reason that there were so many belltowers in cities hundreds of years ago was that you couldn't afford a clock and you still needed to be places at a certain time, work, meetings social arrangements, exact time was becoming an issue, so you had clocks with bells on them, directing the pace of the cities. At the more significant times, often more bells would ring. Bells would stay silent during general sleeping hours. Source: Boorstien's The Discoverers. The other big answer, when exact time was less important was sunlight. Leave your shutters, blinds, and curtains open. Check when you wake up. Blue spectrum shifted light occurs around sunrise and sunset, and wakes you up, this is why you may feel a bit drowsy at noon. This is still effective in blind individuals, but not in individuals that have lost their eyes. Source: I am a diagnosed insomniac, and have done a lot of research into this matter. It should be relatively easy to look up. | This is a very specific example that pertains only Muslims during Ramadan, but is an example of a professional acting as an alarm-clock for a whole neighborhood (and they still exist in some parts of the Islamic World today). During Ramadan, Muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sundown, or more specifically, from the prayer at sunrise to the prayer at sunset (I feel the need to clarify this because for many Muslim expats now, particularly in far-northern countries like Scotland, the dawn prayer can be standardized if Ramadan falls during a time that makes its schedule very, very different, especially in places where the sun never *really* sets) Sorry for that long-winded clarification. Anyway, to help Muslims get up before the morning prayer in time to eat the morning meal Suhuur (سحور) the Musaharati roughly meaning the Suhuur-announcer (but really just an active participle of the word Suhuur) would go through the streets of Muslim neighborhoods banging on a drum and yelling to the community various messages, during the first few days of Ramadan one such yell was "Awake, oh faster and praise Allah. Welcome to you Ramadan, month of forgiveness." The Musaharati has disappeared from some communities today unfortunately replaced by alarm-clocks, although apparently in Mecca his role has been taken over by a cannon, which I find quite cool. Though it does get to your Q OP of how people could get up without a modern alarm clock for something as vital as a pre-fast meal, if you missed it, no food till Iftar after sundown. And considering that Suhuur traditionally takes place at 2am, I find a man yelling out my name (though apparently this was only done for the boys/men in the community) would be very helpful. Some reading about Musaharati: http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=2009082848103 http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/misaharaty.htm Also, if this has you at all interested here is a clip from the Egyptian singer Sayed Mekawy who created a character of the Musaharati which was wildly popular at the time and can still be seen during Ramadan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8w_Awta-6M | 1 | 525 | 2.27907 |
u74afm | askhistorians_test | 0.96 | How did Christianity move from a belief that heaven was a holding tank until resurrection to eternal reward in heaven? From this recent thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u68xuh/before_desegregation_did_people_believe_that/ > In the early colonial period, Protestants in America and Europe wondered whether race would even exist in Heaven. They mostly agreed that Heaven was a kind of temporary holding tank for souls, which would receive new, perfected bodies at the end of history. How did that belief change into the modern view that people who die and go to heaven will stay in heaven eternally? | i5dqzyn | i5dw8pu | 1,650,395,704 | 1,650,397,561 | 44 | 343 | A lot could be added to address shifts that have happened in the past five hundred years, but /u/AndrewSshi's responses to a question about the origin of indulgences as a practice covers how beliefs around heaven developed in the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity. That post is here. | >How did that belief change into the modern view that people who die and go to heaven will stay in heaven eternally? Both beliefs have existed simultaneously since ancient times and survive today. Let's start with a look into the origin of the former. When the Israelites were exiled from Palestine by Babylon in the 6th century BCE, returning to that land became a major theme in their scriptures. This is the purpose of Ezekiel's vision of the Valley Of Dry Bones, in which God shows the prophet many dead bodies being returned to their living state and explains that Israel will be restored just so. After the exile, many exilic biblical passages were reinterpreted as Israel's historical context changed, and in the face of oppression many Jews began to view Ezekiel's vision as a prophecy of a literal, bodily resurrection at the end of time, divine justice for the suffering they faced in life. We see this view in the book of 2 Maccabees (which FYI isn't considered canon by protestants) written in the second century BCE. The author recounts the oppression the Jews faced under the brutal Antiochus Epiphanes, who outlawed Jewish practices under pain of death. In the story, a mother and her seven sons bravely choose to be burned alive rather than renounce their faith, comforted by the knowledge that they will be resurrected to eternal life while Antiochus and his men rot in the ground. A few centuries later we see a retelling of the same event in the book of 4 Maccabees, but this time the family is reassured not that they will be bodily resurrected, but that their souls will be immediately gathered to God, and that >We, through this severe suffering and endurance, shall have the prize of virtue and shall be with God, on whose account we suffer; but you, because of your bloodthirstiness toward us, will deservedly undergo from the divine justice eternal torment by fire. (4 Mac 9:8-9) For this author it is the soul that matters rather than the body, and since God is eternal, so is his judgment, immediate and everlasting. (The irony of the influence of Platonic philosophy on this author's account of a resistance against Greek culture is apparently lost on him.) The persecution under Antiochus is the same situation that gave rise to apocalyptic literature like the book of Daniel (2nd century BCE), in which the author assures his reader that God will send "one like a son of man" to bring divine destruction onto the ruler and usher in the bodily resurrection and judgment immediately after his death (Daniel 11:45-12:2). The early Christians adapted this framework to Jesus. They believed he was Daniel's "son of man" who intervened to conquer death and sin and that his resurrection was the "first fruits" of the general resurrection soon to come (1 Corinthians 15:20). Many believers changed their minds from belief in the resurrection to the belief in immediate spiritual judgment simply because God's physical intervention into history (known as the Kingdom Of God) and ushering in of the resurrection never came. We can see this even in the gospel of Luke, when Jesus tells the man being crucified next to him "today you will be with me in Paradise." The evangelist even tells his readers not to expect the Kingdom Of God to come, but rather know that it resides inside them (Luke 17:21). Compare this to the other gospels in which Jesus assures his followers that the earthly Kingdom Of God is soon to come indeed (Matthew 24:30-34). Plenty of Christians today believe in a synthesis of both immediate spiritual judgment and a bodily resurrection at the end of time. This belief goes back to the book of 4 Ezra, in which the eponymous Israelite leader is told by an angel that spiritual torment and paradise begin immediately after death, but that there is also a coming bodily resurrection, at which point the righteous will enjoy everlasting life and the wicked will finally be destroyed forever. Source: Dr. Bart Ehrman's *Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife* | 0 | 1,857 | 7.795455 |
zh3nit | askhistorians_test | 0.89 | I am a viking during the height of Danish raiding in the west, I am a Veteran of several raids and know how to fight well, my neighbours farm appeals to me, I know is not much of a fighter, could I challenge him to a holmgang for it? And would I be assured a victory in such a fight over a weaker opponent, or would he be allowed a champion to fight for him? And how would my peers feel about my blatant grab for more wealth? And my local chieftain? | izo2aho | izq2ers | 1,670,686,875 | 1,670,717,521 | 3 | 14 | You may be interesting in this answer from u/glasgallow. They talk about the social aspects/ repercussions to the sort of scenario you're asking about. From their answer, it seems like there wouldn't be anything to stop you per se, but you might face retaliation from the wider community. | Tl;dr: OP probably overestimates the importance of the alleged practice of *holmgang* (dueling) in the judicial process or the settlement of conflict in general in Viking Age and medieval Scandinavia. +++ Sorry for the really, really late response. >......during the height of Danish raiding in the west Sorry again, I'm not sure about when OP exactly means to specify alone in this sentence. In the late 9th century? Or, around the turn of the millennium (so-called "Late/ Second Viking Age)? If the former is indeed the case, the situation would have been much closer to that of Iceland, discussed by /u/glasgallow and linked by /u/BookQueen13 below. It was not until the middle of the 10th century that now Denmark saw somewhat stable, unified (and supra-local) polity in form of Jelling dynasty after the collapse of the Godfred-Horik dynasty around the middle of the 9th century. On the other hand, if OP ('s supposed war veteran) lived under the reigns of the Jelling rulers like Svend Forkbeard or Cnut the Great, he (as a war veteran, I primarily regard the Dane in question as "him" in order not to go into the details on the woman's legal capacity in Viking Age and Medieval Danish laws) might get interfered by the superior authority beyond the local society level like these kings. Another possibly (and most probably) problematic premise in OP's question is the assumption that he the Dane ex-Viking] could use press his claim by resorting almost solely to the practice of *holmgang* with ease there either in the late 9th century or in the 10/11th centuries. The study of conflict settlement in medieval Europe (including Scandinavia and Iceland) has advanced greatly especially since 1970s, with help of the anthropological approach as well as feud study, initiated early in the 20th century by Otto Brunner. From their point of view, the use of violence and the judicial process were not dichotomous (mutually exclusive), but often complemented each other to reach an agreement between both parties involved with - that now we regard as an primary goal of a series of conflicts. As for the social meaning of not unlimited/ ritual use of violence in early medieval society (though not in Viking Age Scandinavia in a narrow sense), I also recommend you to check /u/EndOfTheWorldGuy's recent post in: [Was the need to go to great lengths to defend ones honor as vain as we perceive it today in our modern times? How important was it to gain and protect honor besides the obvious reasons of ego?. Another trend since 1970s that has affected the alleged importance of *holmgang*, or the legal text recorded later on medieval parchments in general, is a revisionism in the character of medieval Scandinavian law books (codes). These law texts had often been regarded as a residue (or at least including residue layer) of the Viking Age society and sometimes used for the comparative analysis to reconstruct the distant past, but now more and more scholars got used to analyze them primarily as the product of a social change in later times, especially the High Middle Ages when these texts were codified (, though a few scholars has countered this revisionist trend further now). The majority of study on the *holmgang* had been published until 1970s - thus belonged to the older (now dated) approach of conflict settlement as well as the legal culture of the Viking Age Scandinavia. In other words, less and less scholars are now not so sure about the possibility that Viking Age Scandinavians actually practiced *holmgang* to settle the conflict widely, exact as specified in one of High Medieval Swedish lawbooks as well as some sagas of the Icelanders. Aside from these two changing trend of research as well as the essential primary texts, however, we mainly have two more problems to take OP's case into consideration: 1. As Vogt remarks, we have not so ideal- or very limited amount of primary sources for the study on the judicial practice in Medieval Denmark. Almost no court record is extant until the end of the 14th century, and almost no record of judgement for whole the Middle Ages (prior to the Reformation in Denmark in 1536) (Vogt 2014: 185f.). 1. While medieval Danes almost certainly knew the concept of *holmgang* itself, we rely mainly on one specific person - Saxo Grammaticus for Viking Age Denmark. 13th century lawbooks don't explicitly refer to the *holmgang* as a judicial practice at all. +++ Then, what Saxo (about 1200) says about the *holmgang*, or exactly speaking, its abolition? Saxo mentions duels across the first half of his work (legendary pre-history part), but not so much in his latter, history (10th/ 11th century onward) part. He actually mentions its abolition twice, in somewhat contradictory manners: 1. At the time of conversion of King Svend Forkbeard by Poppo's ordeal (around the turn of the millennium) (Saxo, X-xl-4, in: Christiansen trans. 1980: 21): ".....The Danes abolished the custom of judicial duelling, and that decreed that various cases should be settled by this kind of ordeal." 1. For the second time, Saxo ascribes the total eradication of the practice of judicial combats under the reign of King Harald Hen (r. 1074/76-80), as he comments as following (Saxo XI-x-7, in: Christiansen trans. 1980: 72): "For it seems to posterity that law-disputes are better settled by swearing than by steel." For me, these accounts suggest that Saxo certainly regarded the trial "by steel" (judicial combat) somewhat as archaic way of settlement, but we cannot know the details of former practices only based on these accounts alone. +++ Provincial codes from the 13th century generally specify the testimony with oath by the respected person in the district as a means to settle the problem, and I wonder whether similar way could have also been taken before in some cases. To give an example, *The Law of Jutland (1241 CE)* stipulates on the boundaries between the field as following: >"If men disagree about boundaries between fields, then men of truth of the district shall mark it with stakes or with stones and thereafter swear at that place where there is disagreement that they have done it rightly. If it is both on the boundary between fields and between districts that they disagree, then four from one district and four from the other districts, those that live closest, shall decide and swear according to what they know most truthfully they have done it right, and then make it public at the assembly. But if there is any memory that it had been sworn to before, and any man is alive of those who swore, then it shall not be sworn to again. But if there is no memory that it had been sworn to before, and the king will have the boundaries settled by riding, then it will also fully stand; however, he must not come without notice so that it is secret to some of those who are parties in the dispute. It is safer that the boundary between the fields be sworn to than ridden, the those know best who live the closest.....(*The Law of Jutland*, II-21, English translation is taken from: [Tamm & Vogt trans. 2016: 261f.]." If similar system was applied to the conflict settlement for OP's case, the personal connection either with local or with the external political authority must have played an important role - since the king should also appoint "men of truth" (*The Law of Jutland*, II-1~4, Tamm & Vogt trans. 2016: 258). Before the royal appoint became norm, it is also likely that such a role should have been played by the local elders or possibly the chieftain (perhaps on behalf of the king). +++ On the other hand, surprisingly enough, it was not until the almost end of the Middle Ages that not only the nobles, but also the peasants sometimes employ the violence as a means to push their claim against their peers (that is to say, peasant vs peasant) in medieval kingdom of Denmark. Denmark did not have a unified kingdom-wide law code like Norway, and the monopoly of violence by the kingship did not easily achieved in practice, researchars argues. There have been some excellent scholarships on such "bondefejde", so if OP can read Danish, [Fenger 1971] can be recommended as the classic of the topic. References: * Tamm, Ditlev & Helle Vogt (ed. & trans.). *The Danish Medieval Laws: The Laws of Scania, Zealand & Jutland.* London: Routledge, 2016. * Christiansen, Eric (trans.). *Saxo Grammaticus Book X-XVI, vol. 1: Book X, XI, XII, and XIII.* London: BAR International, 1980. +++ * Andersen, Per. *Studier i dansk proceshistorie: Tiden indtil Danske Lov 1683.* København: Jurist- og Økonomiforbundets Forlag, 2010. * Ciklamini, Marlene. “THE OLD ICELANDIC DUEL.” *Scandinavian Studies* 35, no. 3 (1963): 175–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40916463. * Fenger, Ole. *Fejde og mandebod*. København: Lindthardt & Ringhof, 1971. * ________. *Gammeldansk ret.* København: Centrum, 1983. * Ingesman, Per et alii (red.). *Middelalderens Danmark: Kultur og samfund fra trosskifte til reformation.* København: Gad, 2001. * Netterstrøm, Jeppe B. "Bondefejder i Danmark 1450-1650." I: *Feider og fred i nordisk middelalder*, red. Erik Opsahl, ss. 35-72. Oslo: Unipub, 2007. * ________. "Feud in Late Medieval and Early Modern Denmark." In: *Feud in Medieval and Early Modern Europe*, ed. Jeppe B. Netterstrøm & Bjørn Poulsen, pp. 175-87. Aarhus: Aarhus UP, 2010. * Vogt, Helle. "Danish Penal Law in the Middle Ages: Cases of Homicide and Wounding." In: *New Approaches to Early Law in Scandinavia*, ed. Stefan Brink & Lisa Collinson, pp. 185-200. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. | 0 | 30,646 | 4.666667 |
312inc | askhistorians_test | 0.9 | At Noon EDT (1600 UTC), further /r/AskFantasyHistorians submissions will start being removed. Existing threads are still open for posting. Hello everyone, In about ten minutes, we will be cutting any further submissions to /r/AskHistorians that don't conform to our non-April Fools requirements, as we want to start transitioning things back to normal. However, you may continue the festivities in existing threads posted before the deadline! Additionally, for those who have asked, we will be compiling a list of threads and make it available soon. We have been quite in awe of the turn out and enthusiasm for this, so thanks to everyone who has helped make it work, both by asking and answering questions! | cpxwp91 | cpxww30 | 1,427,904,000 | 1,427,904,320 | 37 | 67 | This has been a blast! We'll begin compiling soon. Please direct future inquiries/subscriptions to /r/AskScienceFiction! :) | I went to a date and time map and have discovered that it is midnight April 2 precisely nowhere in the world now--it is currently Thursday April 2 at 6:00 AM in New Zealand and Wednesday April 1 at 5:00 AM on Midway. However, I could not help but notice that I could not find any time zone listing for Illuminati underground bases. I'm just asking questions here. EDIT: Speaking of questions, I appear to have the official last posted fantasy thread, which is probably the proudest achievement of my life. | 0 | 320 | 1.810811 |
33myml | askhistorians_test | 0.93 | Why did Tolkien's work become so influential for the fantasy genre at the time that it did? I know he's influential. I know generally how he influenced the genre, thanks to this thread. But I guess I'm interested in the timing of it. Why *then*, at that very moment? What was the historical climate that enabled him to become so influential? Also, if anyone can suggest rigorous and synthetic academic articles/books to me on the history/development of fantasy literature in the past century (whether around Tolkien or otherwise), I'd very much appreciate it. I've been searching, but everything I've seen either lacks rigor or scale. Thanks in advance! | cqmtz08 | cqmzqn6 | 1,429,848,210 | 1,429,865,679 | 10 | 24 | If you don't get an answer, try /r/AskLiteraryStudies | Tolkien's works were borderline transgressive when they were released. I don't have the time to dig into a lot of the details at the moment, but consider a few things: First, the reasons for popularity. They're good stories with interesting characters, many complex themes, and interesting settings and events. There's a lot of the classic "hero's journey" elements and mythological elements, those stories have always been popular. Tolkien studied the Norse sagas and epics so a lot of those materials and that form of story telling ended up in his books. Second, the romanticism. Tolkien's works harken back to the 19th century romantic period, with a clear favoritism shown for nature and peacefulness over industry and violence. This was out of fashion by the mid 20th century, and even looked down upon. Romantics were viewed as empty headed and fantasy fiction was viewed as escapism. Remember that the society into which Tolkien's works were released was the same one that the counter culture movement rebelled against. In Tolkien's world you have people such as the Hobbits who are not especially industrious and in fact could be regarded as lazy. As Tolkien put it they "valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold", and he lauded them for it fairly explicitly in his books. That very much ran counter to the prevailing zeitgeist in the developed world of the time. But it resonated strongly with the counter culture movement which included elements such as "hippyism" which shared that sentiment. Third, the religious aspects. The mid-20th century in the US and even in Europe was still an era where religion had a supremely powerful place in culture and society. On its face, Tolkien's works are strictly blasphemous against Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They describe a world where there is no God of the bible, a world with a different god, a different creation mythos, a different people, and so on. This is more transgressive than it may seem because it's not just a rejection of, say, Christian orthodoxy along the lines of "hey, here's this world and it doesn't even have God in it, and it's not a big deal that it doesn't". More than that, because it rests on its own creation mythos, its own deep historical narrative (which religions had traditionally taken on as one of their "core competencies"), its own world, its own laws of nature, it serves as a tool for intellectually deconstructing established religions. One can look at the toy mythology of The Lord of the Rings and easily make comparisons to, say, Christianity, and in so doing come to the realization that Christian mythos could just as easily be the work of man rather than divine revealed truth. Again, the counter culture movement of the '60s and '70s were also on the track of deconstructing institutions that relied heavily on dogma and orthodoxy, especially religions, so these ideas resonated strongly with them. Embracing Tolkien's works became not just about the quality of the story, it became a political statement. A rejection of the insistence of "the man" to buckle down, get a boring job, put away toys and escapism, and become a cog in the great socio-economic machine of the times. And a rejection of the power structures that supported (or were perceived to support) petty warfare, inequality, greed, industrialization at the cost of nature, religious doctrine, and so on. During the '60s and '70s graffiti or personal paraphernalia (such as buttons) proclaiming "Frodo Lives!" served as one of many shibboleths for the hippie/counter culture movement. Those simple words were seen as a stirring rejection of establishment ideals and power. And fourth, the detail. Tolkien's world had a depth and complexity that was far beyond the average story. Part of the lure of the stories is their setting, a fully fleshed out world with its own mythos and thousands of years of civilizational history. Tolkien created a deep backstory which creates a palpable richness around every element of the tale. Gandalf's sword, for example, is not just any sword, it's a sword with a name and a six millenia history stretching back to the war against Morgoth (who used to be Sauron's master) when it was wielded by a legendary Elven king. Similarly, Frodo's Phial given to him by Galadriel was filled with water from a fountain that held the light of Earendil's star, a story of incredible depth and complexity which Frodo and Sam allude to in various comments from time to time. And that sort of depth is indicative of the story as a whole. Everything and everyone everywhere has a history, it makes the world feel more interesting and more real, providing a degree of verisimilitude to the characters, peoples, and places. That depth and breadth enabled an entire realm of conversation about Tolkien's works beyond merely the story and its meaning. One could discuss the various races or peoples of the books and delve into the details or minutiae of them. One thing that sets apart great literature from merely good literature is that great literature is typically not just one story tied up in a tidy package, it's a whole gamut of ideas, concepts, events, and creations which serve as the kernel of potentially very open ended discussions and thoughts. In Tolkien's works there were a great many such kernels. As such, it inspired a great many people to tell their own stories using similar themes, elements, or settings. Dungeons & Dragons, for example, was set firmly in a Tolkien-inspired world. A world populated by dragons, elves, dwarves, wizards, hobbits (later renamed halflings), and so on. A world where a typical adventure involves a story line that very closely mirrors either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings (a diverse band of adventurers goes on a grand trip, crawls through ancient caverns and dungeons, fights goblins, trolls, dragons, and evil wizards, and so on). Tolkien's world, characters, story, and themes resonated with a group of people in a way that other contemporary literature did not. And the depth of detail made it a suitable kernel for a great many derivative works as well as helped maintain a momentum of enthusiasm in the work. It also served as a calling card for the counter-culture movement which helped to increase its profile and popularity. | 0 | 17,469 | 2.4 |
jtx04m | askhistorians_test | 0.98 | Some states have legalized marijuana and are now having to make decisions about how to handle people in jail for marijuana convictions. What happened to moonshiners, rum runners & other intemperate folks in jail when Prohibition ended in 1933? | gcac5ck | gcakuj0 | 1,605,386,377 | 1,605,390,444 | 69 | 557 | Ok, trying this again with a little more detail because I think my first answer was removed. The 21st Amendment, passed in December 1933, repealed the 18th Amendment, which mandated nationwide prohibition. By February 1934, all pending cases dealing with prohibition violations were ordered to be wiped from Federal Court dockets. There were roughly 9000 such cases at the time. The Supreme Court ruled that the repeal of the 18th Amendment meant courts could not sentence or inflict penalties based on that amendment in pending cases (*U.S. v. Chambers,* 1934). No general rule was established regarding pardons or commutations of sentences for those who broke dry laws before the repeal of Prohibition, however. U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings recommended leniency for casual offenders, but not those who made careers out of illegal liquor practices. Part of this lack of forgiveness for larger-scale liquor violations (involving bootleggers, rum runners and the like) stems from *revenue* violations. The 21st amendment repealed the 18th, but it did not override specific tax and permit violations incurred in the process of illegally distributing liquor. In 1934, for example, the Justice and Treasury departments expressed a desire to "vigorously to prosecute all forms of liquor-tax evasion and other frauds upon the revenue which have resulted in a tremendous loss to the Government." At a state level, there are examples of larger-scale pardons granted for dry law violators. A New York Times article from Feb. 26, 1933 describes Indiana Governor Paul V. McNutt's decision to repeal the state-level prohibition enforcement law before Prohibition was ended at a federal level. McNutt announced that he planned to pardon or parole roughly 400 people who were serving sentences for liquor charges at the time. "If these men were kept in prison after the liquor law is repealed, they would be political prisoners," McNutt said. He only granted amnesty to people charged with transporting, possessing, or selling liquor. He did not include people who were incarcerated for public intoxication or driving under the influence -- these charges would remain illegal even after prohibition ended. Similarly, in 1932 California Governor James Rolph announced plans to pardon the roughly 1000 liquor law offenders held in California prisons following the state's decision to repeal the California liquor prohibition law. In summary, pardons depended on the specific nature of the crime, especially when it came to prosecution at a Federal level. There are certainly instances of retroactive pardons, some on a large scale. ​ Sources: "INDIANA WILL FREE LIQUOR PRISONERS." *New York Times,* Feb 26, 1933 "Annual Report of the Attorney General of the United States for the fiscal year 1934." Department of Justice, Jan 5, 1935. "GOV ROLPH TO FREE DRY ACT VIOLATORS." *The Baltimore Sun*, Nov 5, 1932. "BIG OFFENDERS NOT TO GAIN BY DRY LAW EDICT." *The Baltimore Sun,* Feb 6, 1934. | PART I To start, unless they were prosecuted after 1929 they probably wouldn't have been there in the first place. Let's go back a decade to explain why this was the case. The Volstead Act - the legislation providing the nominal teeth to provide a method to enforce Prohibition on the federal level - had a structural weakness that essentially doomed it from the start even if everything else surrounding Prohibition had worked: it required jury trials. To say this overwhelmed the Federal Court system and made punishment under Volstead laughable doesn't even come close. From Daniel Okrent: >"One of the nobler aspects of the Volstead Act was its guarantee of the right to a jury trial for anyone charged with a violation. It was a requirement, it soon turned out, that the legal system was incapable of handling...Mabel Willebrandt [one of the most aggressive prosecutors of Prohibition] acknowledged that “juries will not convict if the punishment does not fit the crime,” and she was proven right in city after city, as juries effectively nullified the law because they didn’t think any punishment at all was appropriate for breaking the liquor laws. After Smedley Butler was fired as director of public safety in Philadelphia, he offered a statistic that was simultaneously a boast and an admission of defeat: in two years, his police force had made 227,000 liquor violation arrests. To Old Gimlet Eye, this indicated that his men had nabbed 15 percent of the city’s population; to anyone else, it indicated that they had arrested the same people over and over and over again. Or as one district judge in New York put it to a Prohibition violator in the mid 1920s, "You have been brought before me twelve times in twelve months for violations of the Volstead Act. What do you have to say?" His reply: "Your Honor, I can't help it if you're not promoted." This led to what was essentially chaos in the court system for a decade, especially since Dry advocates used conviction numbers as a brute force yardstick to measure prosecutorial effectiveness; the Southern District US attorney in New York was expected to clear 10,000 cases annually. >"Proceedings were conducted without court stenographers or clerks. Six judges and one magistrate were expected to dispose of fifty thousand cases annually. Even if each had worked full time on nothing but Volstead cases, together they would have been able to handle fewer than four thousand a year—and had they done that, no other federal matter would have been adjudicated anywhere in the district, which stretched all the way to Albany...by one accounting, U.S. attorneys across the country spent, at minimum, 44 percent of their time and resources on Prohibition prosecutions—if that was the word for the pallid efforts they were able to sustain on such limited resources. In North Carolina and West Virginia, the federal prosecutors devoted 70 percent of their time to Prohibition violations; in Minnesota, 60 percent; in southern Alabama—where Mabel Willebrandt would directly supervise one of the most aggressive enforcement efforts in the nation—Volstead prosecutions consumed a staggering 90 percent of the federal docket." What this led to in turn was a shortcut: the vast majority of cases - which were misdemeanors anyway - were plea bargained out for a guilty verdict and a nominal fine, and if you were crazy enough to actually bring something to a jury trial, then as one prosecutor put it, "The fixers, he said, were found even in the men’s rooms, attempting to bribe jurors hearing those few cases that made it to trial. In the courtrooms crooked lawyers encouraged perjury." In addition given the terrible training and miniscule expenditure on Prohibition Agents - presuming they weren't already felons when they signed up, where by 1930 almost 10% had been fired for lying on their applications for previous convictions, which doesn't even begin to cover those taking bribes - the police work was generally terrible and the courts often had field days with fourth amendment violations, and had legal implications that still exist today. Last but not least, at the beginning of the 1920s there were a grand total of three federal prisons throughout the country - so where exactly were you going to put all the miscreants? So this led to such scenes as "thousands of Volstead violators were...(delivered) by the wagonful to the badly degraded Federal Court in downtown Manhattan. This led the (US attorney for the region) to concoct an opportunity that quickly became known as “Bargain Day.” Publicly promising to request light fines in exchange for guilty pleas, he invited defendants to the Old Post Office Building south of City Hall, where his staff, working with two cooperative federal judges, could process five hundred cases at a time and clear up the backlog." While the fines were often small, usually ranging between $5-$250 (the former for consumers, the latter viewed as a cost of doing business by the providers), the numbers added up: in the Northern District of New York, in 1925 and 1926 a single judge assessed $2.5 million in fines for Volstead violations, or the better part of $40 million today. Incidentally, this is one reason my second favorite scene of *Boardwalk Empire* (the first being Nucky Thompson declaring 'that imbicile is going to be the next President of the United States!' when he hears Harding has received the nomination) is the one in which the Mabel Willebrand-inspired prosecutor is shocked to discover she finally has a shot at Nucky in court and attempts to throw the book at him - and the exhausted judge working at 2 am looks for 10 seconds at the evidence he's actually arrested for and fines him something like $5. While the scene is of course entirely fictional, it's also a decently accurate representation of the general futility of Volstead era prosecutions; in fact, one of the few judges who decided to actually try to enforce the law as intended and who had used sightseeing buses to round up prisoners actually went insane after two years of doing so and ended up killing himself. But that was just in Federal Court. One of the nuttier aspects of the Eighteenth Amendment was that it allowed concurrent jurisdiction between the Feds and the States with the expectation by the Drys that State governments would step up. As you'd expect, this didn't quite work out uniformly. From Okrent again: >The peculiar second clause of the Eighteenth Amendment, assigning “concurrent” enforcement power to the federal government and to the states, mandated (or at least encouraged) armies of cops across the nation to stand shoulder to shoulder in the booze wars. The relative strength of the Anti-Saloon League in various parts of the country could be measured by the proliferation of state laws designed to be “concurrent” with the federal strictures. Anyone arrested for insobriety in Vermont was subject to a mandatory jail sentence if he failed to name the person from whom he acquired his liquor. At one point Indiana vested train conductors and bus drivers with the authority to arrest passengers carrying alcohol and made it illegal for retailers to put flasks or cocktail shakers in their shop windows. Mississippi decreed debts related to the acquisition of intoxicating beverages uncollectible. Iowa banned the sale of Sterno, from which alcohol could be extracted by filtering it through a rag or, among drunks with better table manners, through a loaf of bread...only eighteen states bothered to appropriate as much as a dollar for enforcement. In some jurisdictions this reflected a distaste for the whole business; New York repealed its state enforcement code in 1923, and Maryland never even bothered to enact one. One great example of just how even true believers were restricted comes from Pennsylvania, where Gifford Pinchot - the legendary founder of the Park Service - got himself elected Governor on a Dry Platform. >In his first month in office he turned the state police into a commando army. A single week saw raids on illegal liquor operations in eighteen counties. Reminding Republican legislators that he was now head of the party, that he had led them to victory at the top of the ticket in November, and that they had pledged their support to his legislative program, Pinchot got all the laws he wanted. Swollen with the pride of a triumphalist, gleaming with the righteousness of a reformer, Pinchot announced that he had achieved his legislative success without making a single promise in exchange for a vote. “This is an unbought victory,” he proclaimed, “and ten times as valuable on that account.” Unbought, perhaps, but unfunded as well. After Pinchot’s glorious moment had passed, the legislators who had gone along with his program stiffened. It was one thing for the Pennsylvania legislature—any legislature, really—to give militant drys the laws they wanted, but quite another to provide the funds necessary for their enforcement. As a result, the legislators decided that the total appropriation for Pinchot’s ambitious program should amount to precisely...zero. | 0 | 4,067 | 8.072464 |
50za6j | askhistorians_test | 0.92 | In the movie Seven Samurai, a character accuses the samurai (all of them, as a caste of society) of destroying villages, raping women, and stealing from poor farmers. Samurai are usually portrayed as lawful -- is there any legitimacy to this accusation? | d788pa2 | d788fci | 1,472,927,578 | 1,472,927,154 | 3,602 | 32 | Yes, absolutely. To begin with, don't forget that the romanticized Western image of samurai as hyper honor focused warrior monk types is pure exoticism with no real historic backing. More to the point, like with the knights of Europe, while there was an official ideal of honor it was more prescriptive than descriptive and when you have a large group of heavily armed men some are going to be scumbags. Further, "samurai" simply meant "person from the caste permitted to carry weapons", towards the end of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) a great many samurai class men had no real weapon training, a minimal pension from the government, and generally survived by running up debts which were nullified every few years by government edict. The Seven Samurai takes place earlier, in the Sengoku period (aka the Warring States Period), at a time of chaos and general confusion. There was no centralized government, no rule beyond what the local warlord decreed and could enforce, and samurai (again, meaning "people who carried weapons", not "super highly trained and deeply honorable warrior monk types") were thugs enforcing the will of their local warlord, which usually meant stealing whatever they could from the peasants and calling it taxes. Or, worse, they were ronin. When a warlord was defeated his soldiers (samurai) often just wandered off and turned to banditry to survive. There's a lot of mythology and several stories involving deeply honorable ronin seeking adventure and vengeance for the people who betrayed their lords, but mostly in real life they were just armed and trained men who took whatever they could from the people least likely to fight back. You might check out State of War, it's more about the somewhat earlier times than the Sengoku period, but most of what it covers applies to the later periods as well. For an interesting, often funny, first hand, primary source, account of daily life for a poor man of samurai class during the mid Tokugawa period check Musui's Story, it's a very quick read, an autobiography written by Musui himself, who lived a quite disreputable life and busts a lot of myths of the noble honorable samurai. TL;DR: even at the best of times, samurai were just soldiers, and historically soldiers weren't what you'd call very nice. In the worse times they were just bandits. The idea of samurai as super honorable warriors is just a myth. | Ancillary question: I've often heard that during some periods samurai had right of life and death over peasants and could essentially kill them for whatever cause. Was that ever true or is that an exaggeration? | 1 | 424 | 112.5625 |
gntlr8 | askhistorians_test | 0.96 | How did the late Romans just forget how to make concrete?! It’s baffling to me that a civilisation could just forget something so basic and useful, I mean, in an entire empire of millions of people, nobody had an old family recipe from their parents? Nobody had it written down?! Like, I understand it was a time of great upheaval, and people had bigger things to worry about, but still, it’s like if people nowadays forgot how to make plastic, it’s crazy | frc9cc9 | frbx2e0 | 1,590,067,641 | 1,590,058,236 | 3,558 | 398 | I've had the pleasure of talking about Roman concrete several times on AskHistorians. This is an edited and slightly expanded version of an older answer: Building techniques never die. They just become irrelevant... First, some background on Roman concrete. Concrete is best understood as a type of mortar. Mortar (the stuff that holds courses of bricks or blocks together) is typically composed of water, sand, and lime. There are variations - the Chinese, famously, made mortar by mixing lime with sticky rice - but in the Classical Mediterranean, the water, sand, and lime formula was always standard. Roman concrete differed from Roman mortar by virtue of its "secret ingredient" - the volcanic ash known as pozzolana, which was used in place of regular sand. This was really just a case of good geological luck on the Romans' part: Rome happened to be located near large deposits of pozzolana (later, even larger deposits would be discovered on the Bay of Naples). Roman masons quickly discovered that mortar made with pozzolana was much stronger that mortar made with regular sand. And so concrete was born. It should be noted here that not all Roman concrete was made with pozzolana. Most Italian concrete was, and pozzolana was occasionally shipped to (coastal) cities in other parts of the Empire (Herod the Great had a batch brought all the way to Caesarea in modern Israel). But there were deposits of volcanic ash with similar properties in the provinces (above all in the Greek islands). Roman builders eventually discovered, moreover, that a fairly good concrete could be made by using crushed terracotta in place of pozzolana. Contrary to what you might think, the Romans were seldom adventurous builders. Roman architects received no formal training, and had no way of mathematically modeling forces or stresses or other things likely to cause the collapse of buildings and careers. As a result, they tended to be very conservative in their use of building materials. At first, they only used concrete to save time when building thick walls: instead of making the wall of building four or five brick courses thick, they simply built brick facings and filled the interior of the wall with a mixture of rubble and concrete. Sometime in the first century BCE, the Romans discovered that concrete made with pozzolana could harden underwater - in fact, thanks to chemical reactions the Romans knew nothing about, saltwater actually strengthened the material, forming nearly unbreakable mineral bonds. So in the waning days of the Republic, Romans began to build "artificial harbors" like the famous example at Caesarea Maritima. But the great days of concrete architecture still lay ahead. Only in the mid-first century CE, under the stimulus of imperial funding and imperial demands, did concrete begin to be used to create the spectacular vaults and domes that are the greatest achievement of Roman architecture. The revolutionary moment came in the reign of Nero, when the architects Severus and Celer (about whom we know nothing) created an impressive series of concrete rooms for Nero's infamously decadent Golden House. These represented the culmination of nearly a century of experimenting with vaults, primarily in the large, imperially-sponsored bath buildings. Once Severus and Celer showed what concrete could do, the creative floodgates, for the first time in Roman architectural history, were truly open. The next century and a half witnessed the construction of the most famous Roman monuments: the Colosseum (supported by a colossal concrete foundation), the Pantheon (crowned by a spectacular concrete dome), the Baths of Caracalla (roofed by an awesome series of concrete vaults and domes), the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum (likewise vaulted) and so on. Concrete was also used in the provinces, but always on a much smaller scale. The basic reason was simple: the Roman emperors, by an incredible margin the wealthiest men in the Empire, seldom sponsored building projects outside Rome. In large provincial cities like Alexandria or Antioch or Ephesus, very impressive building projects were undertaken. But these were financed by the benefactions of wealthy citizens (often working in concert); and provincial notables, for all their wealth, could never create anything on the scale of the concrete-crowned projects in Rome. As a result, provincial concrete tended to be used more conservatively. This was not solely a matter of scale - in the Greek east, for example, a well-established tradition of fine masonry ensured that stone, not concrete, was often used in domes - but without imperially-sponsored scale or imperially-sponsored funding, the use of concrete had a fairly limited scope. Once the emperors stopped paying for large-scale construction projects, concrete largely reverted to what it had been before the Roman architectural revolution: a useful filler for thick walls. Roman concrete was not forgotten in the early middle ages, at least not in Byzantium: Procopius (*Buildings*, 1.11-18-20) mentions Justinian using Roman hydraulic concrete to build a new harbor in Constantinople. But after this, aside from a few mentions in Isidore of Seville's *Etymologies* (e.g. 15.8.1), concrete virtually vanishes from the literary record. The domes of Justinian's Haghia Sophia, the last great product of Roman engineering, were made of brick bedded in concrete. But after Justinian, the troubles that overtook the Eastern Empire (like those that had destroyed the imperial order in the west a century earlier) virtually ended monumental building for centuries. And in those centuries, concrete vaults and domes became, like so much else across the former Roman world, mementos of a vanished past. On the techniques of laying and modeling Roman concrete, I refer you to my video on the Pantheon. | There's a nice comprehensive answer from u/toldinstone to be found here. | 1 | 9,405 | 8.939698 |
anyb9n | askhistorians_test | 0.95 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt would be hit by repeated accusations of socialism or communist during the implementation of the New Deal . But what did actual Communists and Socialists think of the New Deal? | efxkdbj | efxnl1p | 1,549,527,383 | 1,549,533,045 | 40 | 235 | While we wait for a quality answer that follows the rules, there is a solid answer by /u/kieslowskifan from 11 months ago answering if the USSR (and the Nazis) viewed the New Deal as socialist. | Follow-up question: How did the Soviet Union view the New Deal? Did they see it as a step towards communism? | 0 | 5,662 | 5.875 |
e01esa | askhistorians_test | 0.93 | Given that Pre-Islamic Arabia was a very women-friendly and sexually "liberal" society, what is the source of Islam's extremely puritanical culture? In Robert G. Holyland's Arabia and the Arabs, various historical sources are mentioned that tell us pre-Islamic Arabian culture was one in which women could marry multiple men, advertise for mercenary husbands when they wanted children, had the right to dismiss their husbands when they wanted, enjoyed significant financial independence, with Arab tribes sometimes having matrilinear lineages, female gods, and queens. The Qur'an partially mentions some of this (like the female gods, decrying them) and urges Muslim women not to emulate the women of the time of ignorance in their bedizenment, with the Tafsirs pointing out to pre-Islamic Arabian women dressing in a skimpy manner and without modesty. **How come that Islam, which developed against this backdrop, came to be such a puritanical religion in which any sexual or romantic affection before marriage is heavily frowned upon, and in which women have to cover themselves partially or fully almost all the time?** | f8cr3zo | f8cthsu | 1,574,467,016 | 1,574,468,888 | 406 | 1,116 | I think you're vastly overstating Pre-Islamic Arabia's "very" women-friendly and sexually liberal society. > In Robert G. Holyland's Arabia and the Arabs, various historical sources are mentioned that tell us pre-Islamic Arabian culture was one in which women could marry multiple men, advertise for mercenary husbands when they wanted children, had the right to dismiss their husbands when they wanted, enjoyed significant financial independence, with Arab tribes sometimes having matrilinear lineages, female gods, and queens. Looking back at Hoyland it seems these thing are weren't as ubiquitous as you make it seem. He mostly cites only one or two sources for each claim. How common or prevalent these things were remains unseen. The time period was long enough and pre-Islamic society diverse enough where we cannot take these things as representative. > women could marry multiple men Hoyland says; > Diversity in marriage customs is also evident in the degree to which monogamy, polygyny (one man many wives) and polyandry (one woman many husbands) all crop up in our sources. Hoyland then goes on to quote a source saying polyandry was practiced as fraternal polyandry and brothers would share a wife. > Arab tribes sometimes having matrilinear lineages Hoyland says; > While descent through the male line would seem to have been the norm in pre-Islamic Arabia, we are occasionally given hints of matrilineal arrangements. The problem with discussing pre-Islamic Arabia is that there just aren't that many sources let alone sources about women, to give insight on how most women lived. So it becomes difficult to make any kind of judgment about how "liberal" pre-Islamic society was. Even Hoyland's book only discusses women in society for six pages and mostly only discusses the things you mentioned here. Hoyland's book does not give a rigorous enough discussion to make any kind of judgement on the "liberalness" of pre-Islamic Arabia. The things discussed do not in and of themselves indicate a women-friendly or sexually liberal society. These things can still exist in a patriarchal and misogynist society. Hoyland also mentions that women were encountered "first and foremost as wives and mothers." Not to mention they may not have been as ubiquitous as the book suggests. One of the largest sources for information on pre-Islamic Arabia come from Islamic sources themselves. However Islamic sources are not charitable to the position of women in pre-Islamic Arabia and characterized the time as a time of ignorance and barbarism. For example sources mention things like bride kidnapping, forced marriage, marriage by inheritance, female infanticide, forced prostitution etc. Islamic sources saw Islam as elevating the position of position of women in Arabia and giving them rights like the right to divorce, the right to consent to marriage, right to a bride-price, etc. Early Muslims who had known both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Arabia commented on the positive turn Islam had given women in terms of women's status in society. So we actually don't know very much what it was actually like for women in pre-Islamic Arabia and cannot make judgements about how "liberal" or "women-friendly" it actually was. There simply isn't enough historical information to make this kind of judgment. | Hey! So this has a couple of different parts that I hope to address. I can't give a super specific answer, but will try to touch on a number of facets you could ask follow-up questions about. I'm pulling some from previous answers that I have written, but much of this is also new. A great book on this topic is Leila Ahmed's book *Women and Gender in Islam*, which I will heavily use below. # Part 1 – Quick Note on Veiling Itself Because you specifically mentioned it, I wanted to start with a small section on veiling itself. Veiling was common practice in multiple pre-Islamic societies across the Middle East. In Assyrian culture wearing a veil separated between a 'respectable' woman and those who were 'up for grabs', so to say. Upper class women, concubines accompanying those women, and former "sacred prostitutes" all had to wear it whereas normal prostitutes and slaves were forbidden from veiling themselves, even so far as being under threat of flogging or having their ears cut off. Ahmed then writes that this practice spread throughout the upper-class Mediterranean world - from the Levant through to Persia - and also crossed religious lines appearing in Byzantine Christian societies. Here, Ahmed gives the example of a 10th century Byzantine patriarch who wrote that he only allowed his daughter to go out "veiled and suitable chaperoned". She also notes the reasoning, separating the respectable from the rabble, remains constant even in these other societies. However, that is not to say that veiling was necessarily widespread in Arabia itself. Women of the *jahilyya* pre-Islamic period did not normally don a veil. This of course varied from city to countryside, with cities being more likely to veil. Overall, nowhere was the veil common to the extent of places like neighboring Syria and Palestine. As you noted in your question, sexual relations in Arabia were more open than in those other societies, with both polygamy and polyandry being present. Through Muhammad's entire life, the only women who were regularly veiled or secluded were his wives. Through successful revelations received by Muhammad, the practice of veiling and seclusion took hold among them, getting to the point where the phrasing "she took the veil" became synonymous to "she became a wife of Muhammad". Various impetuses pushed Muhammad towards these rulings. For example, it was after he became annoyed with guests staying too long chatting with his wives after dinner that the Sura 33 was revealed, within which verse 54 details that one should only speak to Muhammad's wives from behind a curtain. The word he uses for curtain is *ḥijāb*. Most westerners associate the word *hijab* with some sort of head-wrap of veil, but it also literally can mean 'veil' in the sense of a curtain. Verse 59 then gives the commandment to women to "bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused." This is allegedly in response to the "hypocrites", mere nominal converts to Islam, harassing Muslim women and claiming to have thought they were slaves. Finally, I should note that the later second Caliph, Omar, was a proponent of seclusion of women and veiling and actively pushed Muhammad towards this position. # Part 2 – The evolution of the Woman’s place This is what I suspect to be the more interesting section – why did Islam develop the way it did, when women played such major roles in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times? In the *jahilyya*, and within early Islam, women contributed in a number of facets of life. Women were soothsayers and prophetesses such as Sajah, a Christian woman of the Banū Tamīm who led a force of over 4,000 along with Musaylimah, “The Liar”, in rebellion against the nascent Muslim state. Like the previous sentence indicates, they were also involved in warfare. They were not only poets, telling stories of the battles and engaging in ritualistic pre-battle exchanges of insults, but also warriors themselves. Umm ‘Umara fought at a number of battles alongside men, eventually losing her hand at the Battle of ‘Uqraba in 634. Women were heavily involved in early Islamic religious life, providing the many of the *hadith* that came to guide religious life. It was common for them to remarry, showing there to be a lack of stigma against non-virgins, and often they brought significant wealth to these relationships (Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, was one such widow. 15 years his senior, she was rich enough to allow Muhammad to not have to work, allowing him to instead focus on his spiritual teachings). #**So why did this begin to change?** The changes actually started before the spread of Islam, as merchants in urban Arabian cities were increasingly exposed to the norms and cultures of lands with much more rigid gender roles. This can be seen as an explanation as to why it was the cities, not the countryside, that first adopted veiling. However, what brought the changes into hyperdrive was the rapid expansion of the early Islamic Empire. Not only did this bring increased contact with these foreign cultures, but it also brought an influx of slaves, diminishing the bargaining power of even Arab-born women. The conquests brought untold wealth to the Arabs. Even regular soldiers were able to afford slaves, houses, and concubines. Accordingly, women lost one of their original bargaining chips – the wealth they brought to marriages. Further, as a condition for surrendering and keeping their place, many Persian and Sassanian nobles converted to Islam. They kept, however, their original cultures. One of the features that developed around this time was the harem, with a multitude of women being walled off for rich and powerful men, guarded only by Eunuchs. With easy access to sex slaves, Ahmed argues that the line between “woman” and “object” started to blur. Men did not need to put up with the demands stipulated by Arab women’s wedding contracts when they had access to sex elsewhere. Women faced increasingly strict restrictions and were treated increasingly poorly. Some elite men even went so far as to lament the fact that they had to marry their daughters, as their standards of living would so dramatically fall. Ahmed included the following poem in her book, written from one noble man to another on the occasion of his daughter’s death. This did not come from a sense of general misogyny, that daughters were worthless, but rather from the degradations and humiliations their daughters were liable to face. > To Abu Hasan I offer condolences. > At times of disaster and catastrophe > God multiplies rewards for the patient. > To be patient in misery > Is equivalent to giving thanks for a gift. > Among the blessings of God undoubtedly > Is the preservation of sons > And the death of daughters. But cultural and economic changes are only a portion of the story. Also in play was the religious framework that marriage operated within. Islamic law works through a local judge, a *Qadi*, issuing a ruling on a specific case so that it is in line with religious teachings (we have to note that there was no separation between the illegal and the immoral, but rather they were the one and the same). However, while the Qur’an protected women’s rights in a number of areas, judges often interpreted these not as legally binding rules, but rather as binding only upon the individual’s conscience. So, a man would not be legally bound to treat his 4 wives fairly, even if that is a stipulation within the Qur’an itself. There was, in essence, the loss of many Qur’anic provisions that could protect women. The 11th century also brought the *Closing of the Gates of Ijtihad*. That is, Islamic jurisprudence reached a point where they (allegedly) decided that there had been sufficient rulings in the past that any questions which need an answer were answerable, and it is was longer necessary to use independent reasoning to come to new solutions (for more on this, see my answere [here]( https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7vynzv/when_and_why_did_muslim_countries_stop_using_the/dtwak37/)) This in essence froze many Islamic teachings. There are 4 main schools of Sunni Islamic thought, and at the point of the closing of the gates of Ijtihad, only the Maliki school allowed for women to obtain a divorce on the grounds of desertion or cruelty. Meanwhile, only the Hanafi school fully enforced marriage contracts that would bind a man to monogamy. While before the closing of these gates a judge could, theoretically, use his own reasoning to analogize and come to a new ruling, they were now largely bound to *taqlid*, imitation of the past. So, these doctrines, along with countless others controlling women’s lives, ceased to develop at the same speed as before. That is not to say that women were completely locked out, as one could effectively “shop” between the different schools of thought for the most favorable ruling. There is much, much more one could write on this topic, but I unfortunately have work that I have to do. I hope this can help begin to answer your question, and if you have follow-ups I’ll try to respond if possible. | 0 | 1,872 | 2.748768 |
a0fg7a | askhistorians_test | 0.96 | After playing a ton of Red Dead Redemption, I began to wonder; how often did "outlaws" in the "Wild West" commit murder without being caught or, more specifically, without being identified? | eai0iit | eai9p86 | 1,543,238,690 | 1,543,247,478 | 328 | 788 | "Mr Elm11, In your four years as AskHistorians moderator, how many comments have you removed?" "Removed, or killed?" "Let us restrict it to killed so that we may have a manageable figure." Alrghty folks, y'all know the drill. Or, well, most of you. And these parts don't take too kindly to slow learners, for y'all who are new in town. To make it out here on /r/AskHistorians, you've gotta be tough. You've gotta be the best of the best. You'll be dusting up with sources, shooting it out with citations. You'll be doing... tbh you'll be doing a whole bunch of stuff a lot less cool than actual Red Dead Redemption stuff 'cause as awesome as history is I'll never be Clint Eastwood or John Wayne ~~except the alcoholism~~. Good answers take time to arrive, folks. Please be patient and respect that a volunteer is giving up their expertise and hours of their day to educate y'all for free out of the goodness of their heart. Answers here are a privilege, not an entitlement. Popular questions [almost always get one](/r/AskHistorians/comments/7s66yf/a_statistical_look_at_askhistorians_in_2017_part_i/), and we don't tolerate commentors who whinge or shitpost about removed comments and create the very problem they're griping about. Consider yourselves warned. In the meantime, save the thread or ask the RemindMe Bot to check on it in 24 hours. Sit back, relax, and go back to playing video-games while you wait. | So there are two answers to this, of a sort. The first is that the idea of violence in the American West is very different in reality than it is as portrayed in popular media. I've written elsewhere about the most popular visual representation of this, the 'duel at high noon', which is almost entirely absent from the historical record despite being the climactic showdown of countless dime novels and films, but looking more broadly too, while that isn't to say the West *wasn't* violent, it certainly wasn't lawless. Historiography since the 1970s or so has mostly pushed back against the idea of the "Wild, Wild West", even if the public mind hasn't, and continues to relish the image. In any case though, body counts get exaggerated in the retelling, and that is assuming the best of intentions. Much of Dodge City's infamous reputation was created from whole cloth by Stuart Lake who did a supposedly "as-told-to" autiobiography of Wyatt Earp which quotes liberally from primary sources that never existed to describe dozens of deaths that never happened, while in reality its "wild days" were limited to the first year or so of settlement. Similarly Montana Territory was claimed to have over 100 murders by the editor Thomas Dimsdale, but the reality is often much duller. Scholarly assessment of the period substantiates eight in that time frame. Similarly, take a place such as Deadwood, a well known locale for its lack of any actual law enforcement during its initial settlement and most famously represented in the show of the same name... which only experienced 4 murders in that first year of settlement-without-law enforcement - possibly less than a single episode of the show, although it has been ages since I watched it. Returning to Dodge city though, when one year the city experienced a total of 5 murders, this was heralded as a "civic disaster", the highest total the city experienced aside from its first year of habitation in 1872 when the entirety of its wild reputation was earned, with slightly over a dozen homicides of all types (murder, self-defense, manslaughter). Now to be sure, looking at raw numbers tells only half the tale, and it is homicide rates can tell us another side. 5 deaths in a population of 600 is a much bigger deal than a population of 6 million, after all, but as they say, it is pretty easy to lie with statistics. If I told you that the homicide rate in Dodge City was 100.4 per 100,000 (the US was 5.3 per 100,000 in 2016 for comparison) in 1880, that would seem shocking... but if I told you a single person was murdered that year, it would seem considerably less so! The population that year was only 996, and the death of Henry Heck at the hands of John Gill was the sole difference between a murder rate of 0 and 100. This is quite important in understanding how murder was viewed in the period, as the difference in *rates* seems high, but was likely quite unconcerning to the population when it was a difference of only one, two, or maybe three people. Now to be sure, this doesn't exactly answer your question, but I preface all of this to say that when we are talking about murder in the American West, we're talking about very small numbers. A sheriff in many towns might never even have to draw his gun in his career, and even in a "violent" place like Dodge City, the coroner was being called out a few times per year. Lawmen would be much more likely to be hunting down horse thieves and cattle rustlers, which happened at a great deal high rate. Dykstra's "Quantifying the Wild West" and "To Live and Die in Dodge City" are both useful for a good deal more statistical analysis stuff, which is interesting, but not what we need to dive into here. Now, let us say that someone has been murdered. The location isn't terribly important, but let's follow the case of Lincoln County, Nebraska as that is what I have sources on, although this is really quite equally applicable to most settled areas, lawmen and legal systems being present and generally followed in any town or city of any noticeable size. Anyways, for starters, often the sheriff or his deputies needed to do next to nothing when someone was killed, not because of the evidence, but because they would turn themselves in. Claims of justification or self-defense were fairly common, the law about it permissive, and assuming prosecutors even thought to go through with it, juries were not unsympathetic. In the strange perspective of the West, murder wasn't even seen as the worst crime - horse thieves often enjoyed worse sentences - and *how* one dealt with the killing, presenting their actions as honorable and correct, could go a long way. Will Hale, for instance, murdered several people in 1870s Texas, the first a man who hat been cheating at cards, and then following that his brothers when they attempted to exact their revenge. The first killing was likely unjustified by the law, but prosecutors didn't feel it worth going after, and the latter ones were considered self-defense so given a pass as well. Especially if there were no witnesses, a homicide committed in private could be presented as the killer was able to justify it, but even with several, if the victim 'had it coming' prosecutorial discretion would often let it slide and leave many murders unindicted. Only a total of four murders in Lincoln County during the 1870-1900 period actually proved to require real investigation by law enforcement, lacking witnesses to name a suspect, and these perhaps speak to the core of your question here. The most interesting case is that of the murder of Kate Manning, killed at her land claim in 1871, a very clear execution by single gunshot. A sheriff and deputy were called and found footprints which they took plaster molds of. Comparison with suspects showed that her own brother, Peter, matched due to a deformity of the foot and he was brought to trial. What is important here is that he was found not guilty. Maintaining his innocence, we can easily presume that the jury didn't find a brother visiting his sister to be compelling enough evidence to go beyond 'reasonable doubt', although my efforts to find the trial documents for State v. Manning failed so we can't say for certain (Records are here just presumably not digitized). In 1871, Loyal Bly was found murdered but a lack of an clues at the scene meant there was nothing to go on. A more successful case, regarding the death of a cowboy, was solved when the murderer turned out to be a fellow cowboy he had worked with and not gotten along with. To in short there, how would you get away with murder in the "Wild West"? Don't have any witnesses, and don't be the person with the most motive. Circumstantial evidence could, at least in the case of Manning, be explained away, and if there was nothing at the scene of the crime at all, it would likely be a dead end for investigation, especially lacking modern forensics. Lacking clues the only real avenue was checking to see "Who might have wanted them dead?" and if you weren't that person, you probably could get away with it scott free. A side note of course can be made here, namely that the courts themselves and the court of public opinion were different beasts. Attempts to lynch suspects before trials were not unheard of, especially if the victim was popular, young, or female. Manning was nearly subjected to one for instance, and it was common to move the venue of a trial, both for the safety of the accused lest a mob conspire to take him, and also to ensure a more impartial jury. So in any case, the point here is that even if you might be "Not Guilty" by standards of the court, being caught at all could have its dangers no matter your confidence in acquittal. But the larger picture, really, should be that murders weren't that common, and real "Who Dunnits" were quite few and far between. **Sources** Dykstra, Robert R. "Quantifying the Wild West: The Problematic Statistics of Frontier Violence" *Western Historical Quarterly* 40 (Autumn 2009): 321-347 -- "To Live and Die in Dodge City: Body Counts, Law and Order, and the Case of Kansas v. Gill". in *Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History*, edited by Michael Bellesiles. NYU Press, 1999. Ellis, Mark R.. *Law and Order in Buffalo Bill's Country: Legal Culture and Community on the Great Plains, 1867-1910.* University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Moore, Jacqueline. "“Them's Fighting Words”: Violence, Masculinity, and the Texas Cowboy in the Late Nineteenth Century" *The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era* 13:1 (Jan. 2014) 28-55 Slotkin, Richard. *Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America* (New York, 1992): *An incredible work which looks at the myth of the American West and how it hs been perpetuated and reshaped through the generations relative to what is going on *then*. Udall S., Dykstra R., Bellesiles M., Marks P., Nobles G., "How the West Got Wild: American Media and Frontier Violence - A Roundtable" *Western Historical Quarterly* 31:3, 2000. 277-295 | 0 | 8,788 | 2.402439 |
bxi6a9 | askhistorians_test | 0.96 | How did Joan of Arc -- an illiterate 16 year old woman -- convince an army to follow her? | eq77j97 | eq7woes | 1,559,841,878 | 1,559,854,551 | 486 | 958 | This reply by /u/sunagainstgold is a start while we wait for an answer. | With much thanks to /u/Pytheastic (go upvote!), I'd like to write an answer more focused on this specific question. :) The simple answer is that Joan had the support of the king, but that's pretty much running a shell company on my part. If I had to sum things up, I would say "religion and prophecy," but that also is not very interesting in and of itself. **Joan as Holy Woman** From Joan's own testimony at her trial, it is easily apparent that she was deeply immersed in the religious culture of her time. The saints most important to her are the most popular ones, she's right with the new trend in angels, she's sold on the rising importance of devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. This is important because Joan fits firmly in the context of the early 15th century as a holy woman and prophet. Her visions and auditions anchor her in a tradition going back to the mid-12th century of women who used the message that they spoke and acted based on direct revelation from God. In Joan's time, *some* people are starting to question the validity of holy women's claims. The initial questions themselves, though in some ways the culmination of a longer trend, are highly political as a result of the Avignon papacy and (especially) the Great Schism (ca1378-1415). In other words, they are very much tied to ecclesiastical politics. On the ground level, what we find is much more ongoing confidence in women's revelations. 14th century saints and visionaries Catherine of Siena and especially Birgitta of Sweden are *all the rage*. People even start attributing to Birgitta texts that she didn't write; she's that famous and popular even among the literate classes. Birgitta (and Pseudo-Birgitta) becomes especially well-known for two things that transcend the literacy barrier: prophecy and a set of prayers. Not everyone, but a whole lot of people, took Joan absolutely seriously as conveying divine messages directly. In very particular, Charles VII was raised in an environment where his parents firmly believed in the prophetic powers of holy women. Charles VI had given audience to Jeanne-Marie de Maillé; and Isabeau, to Marie Robine (a peasant, by the way). And this was, of course, the key issue at her initial and nullification (rehabilitation) trials: were Joan's fake or real; demonic or divine...according to the political beliefs of the judge or witness. For a demonstration, turn to no less a contemporary authority than French "theologian &c" Jean Gerson (uh...he was Really Important; roll with it), who is infamously on the record as opposing the legitimacy of holy women...but wrote dramatically in support of Joan. **Joan and Wonders** Kelly DeVries, who is basically *the* authority on Joan as a soldier and commander, stresses the importance of religion in the accounts of Joan's contemporary supporters as well as her own (*Joan of Arc: A Military Leader*, but especially "A Woman as a Leader of Men" in *Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc*, which is, well, about this question's precise topic). He's right, although his account is based on Joan's full career, including her victories. Which, again, is a liiiittle bit of a cop-out. I want to go back to the 15th century mindset again, to look at the overall supernatural cosmology of the era. Well into the early modern era, there's no real divide between what we would call "religion" and "magic." (Indeed, "religion" doesn't even have our meaning until the 15th century.) As with belief in revelations from God, people live in a world of wonders and miracles and saints and supernatural creatures. But as seen with growing concern with witchcraft and questions about holy women's sincerity, the boundaries are just starting to be sketched out by some people. This is especially apparent in Joan's case. The wonders associated with her don't really have a division in what she relates about other people's support of her. They *do* have a divide in the mindset of her interrogators--and, because Joan is frakking *awesome*, she knows exactly what they're doing and keeps pace. (Seriously, read Dan Hobbins' translation *The Trial of Joan of Arc*. She's great.) A big one is Joan's knowledge of and then the discovery of "her sword" in a church dedicated to one of France's most important saints. The finding of a blessed object has major precursors in the Middle Ages, especially associated with the Crusades. In the 15th century, that was more important than ever. The *physical reality* of objects was critical to how people saw the world and religion in a way it wasn't earlier. Second, the cult of relics and saints was, you guessed it, critical in a way it hadn't been earlier. (Think of Mark Twain's remark about there being more shards of the Holy Cross in the world--in the 19th century still!--than there could have been in the actual cross.) According to Joan herself, people also told stories about a prophecy they associated with her and a tree/forest near her home in Domremy. But in her own words, what people said to her about this was just linked to her performing wonders. This probably included a miraculous power to heal, which was also heavily tied to holy women/living saints in late Middle Ages. (There are stories about men, women, and children all trying to touch Joan, which seems suspiciously, I don't know, *biblical*. And yes, at a time when there was much more preaching of the Bible directly.) The tree was associated with fairies and local children performed May Crowning-type playing/ritual activities around it, although Joan insists she never believed any of it and never engaged in a lot of the behaviors her judges asked her about. Of course, they lie WILDLY when they write up the articles of condemnation. On one hand, they say Joan admitted to various things when she categorically had not. On the other, though, they exaggerate the various behaviors and beliefs they had asked her about earlier. And, unsurprisingly, they exaggerate according to particular patterns that align with the question of fake or real, demonic or divine. So people associated Joan with the general performance of miracles and wonders. **Hans Böhm** Okay, obviously a man, obviously German, and not obviously a few decades after Joan. However, Böhm is a crucial parallel for a few reasons. Even venturing further into the very slowly increasing fear of witches, Böhm--a shepherd from Baden-Württemberg--essentially launched an entire revolt against unjust conditions based on his own prophecies and visions of Mary. People were ready to heed prophecy that called to them--and did. **Conclusion** Joan was awesome; she promoted her awesomeness; she did so in a way that grew out of the religious culture in which she lived and believed. | 0 | 12,673 | 1.971193 |
kvjoji | askhistorians_test | 0.97 | Why did pizza have the entire delivery market locked down for so long before everyone else jumped on? | giznr4x | gizgopw | 1,610,450,698 | 1,610,443,559 | 4,639 | 450 | there are two major facts that led to pizza becoming THE dish to be ordered via telephone and delivered to the home. After World War II, the telephone networks saw rapid expansion and more efficient telephone sets, such as the model 500 telephone in the United States, were developed that permitted larger local networks centered around central offices. A breakthrough new technology was the introduction of Touch-Tone signaling using push-button telephones by American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1963. While, at the same time an estimated 600,000 of Italians arrived in America in the decades following the war. As was, and still is a regular occurrence for immigrants, a large number of them ended up working in the food industry, often opening inexpensive restaurants serving Italian food. Which was a fortuitous choice, because not long before, the American veterans of campaigns in Italy returned home, with a taste for Italian food already developed. As it were, first inexpensive and proliferated telephones, and the influx of cheap, tasty Italian food was a match made in heaven. The startup family restaurants ran by Italian immigrants could not compete with established food industry, could not afford rent on big floors required for a major restaurant to sit enough clients to support themselves, But they could deliver the food to the homes of their patrons; both to other Italian-Americans, as well as a growing number of other ethnicities as well. This, in turn, worked well with an increased demand for ready-made food, required due to an increasing percentage of women joining the workforce and thus unable to cook at home. Now, this part was easy to answer, but why PIZZA of all the possible Italian dishes? There is no definite answer, as usual for matters of taste and preference. I would approach it from a perspective on not a historian, but an archaeologist of technology. Pizza, at its most basic, is simply a flat-bread with cheap toppings. Flat bread is by far the most popular dish in the world, eaten in various forms by virtually every culture known to historians, but especially popular among Mediterranean cultures. It is very cheap, calories-dense, does not spoil easily, easy to transport, share and cut, and can be eaten with anything. We know it as pita, naan, flatcakes, or chatapouri, but its pizza that manages to be both cheap, and "luxurious" looking enough to be sellable to strangers who might be not familiar with it. It requires no rare ingredients, the procedure of making it is easy, and about the only non standard piece of equipment needed is a wide oven. It is also easily stackable and transportable, which was a non trivial matter to delivery men in 1950s automobiles and bike delivery. Candeloro, Dominic. "Suburban Italians" in; *Ethnic Chicago* Fischer, Claude *America calling: A social history of the telephone* Liz Barrett , Pizza, A Slice of American History" Turim, Gayle. "A Slice of History: Pizza Through the Ages | This requires agreement that Pizza is indeed the "primary" delivery food. I'm really not sure that it is outside certain cultures and I think we'd have to frame the question in recent US history to make that premise true. Historically we know that Roman towns would often have numerous thermopolia, places that served hot food, and there's no reason to think that food wasn't being delivered to customers from them. Indeed it would be harder to think of reasons why food *wouldn't* be delivered from them. You might say "*Aha! Pizza!*" at this point but unfortunately it seems that what we Moderns think of as a pizza probably wasn't something you could buy 2,000 years ago. Maybe even 200 years ago (*Mattozi 2015*). We know that within those last 200 years the number of food deliveries has burgeoned across the world. On the Indian subcontinent the system of *dabawallahs*, fully organised since the end of the 19th century, delivery an eye-watering number of meal tins per day (*Roncaglia 2013*). We know that Korea has a history of noodle delivery dating back to the mid-1700s (*Hwang Yun-seok* *c. 1768*), something which became widespread during the 19th century (*Dae Young Kwon, 2019*) So although we can't definitively pin the first food deliveries on the Romans we know that widespread food deliveries were happening long *long* before a pizza that we'd recognise existed (*Alcock 2006*), we know that long before Pizza delivery became common in the USA food delivery was widespread in India and Korea (and likely many more places), and we can be pretty sure that the majority of those foodstuffs weren't pizza - although Korea has embraced Western food quite robustly in the last 40 years. All this leads to an entirely different question: what makes you think that "*pizza had the entire delivery market locked down*"? ​ *Alcock JP, 2006 Food in the Ancient World* *Dae Young Kwon, 2019, Diet in Korea* *Mattozzi A, 2015, Inventing the Pizzeria: A History of Pizza Making in Naples* *Roncaglia S, 2013, Feeding the City: Work and Food Culture of the Mumbai Dabbawalas* ​ *Edited to remove reference to another answer which has since been removed* | 1 | 7,139 | 10.308889 |
4t854d | askhistorians_test | 0.84 | There are huge gaps between islands in the Pacific, what methods did the Polynesians/Islanders use to discover them and to stay on course in a trip between two islands they already knew existed? Do we know how many/what percentage were lost at sea? | d5fsrxg | d5g7oxx | 1,468,776,241 | 1,468,800,667 | 6 | 22 | This is a question that has always fascinated me and is close to my heart. According to the exhibits and guides at The National Museum of Vanuatu, voyages were guided by the stars, trade winds, clouds and sea life. The "maps" consisted of songs, poems and lore that gave mariners an idea of what stars and constellations to use, when to embark, animals that may serve as navigation aids and crucial food sources, architectural considerations for the vessel and cloud formations that may be relevant. The secrets of navigation in the South Pacific are deceptively simple. It's only when you examine the question in detail that you realize it isn't just songs, stars and islanders with a death wish. Ben Finney (author, historian and rebel) had built a traditional Polynesian sailing canoe christened the "Hokulea". He used it to travel from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976 using only traditional methods. His exploits contributed to a large extent in elevating the traditional navigational methods of the South Pacific While I am a fan of Ben Finney and his work, I do want to point out that the islands of the South Pacific are not homogenous. Navigational methods and lore vary considerably between regions and islands. It's very easy to paint the South Pacific islands with a broad brush. In reality the cultures and methods exist in a colorful tapestry. If this is a topic that interests you, I recommend reading "Ben R. Finney; Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging". There are many other books that cover the topic but I feel that Ben's book is a good way of getting your feet wet. I visited Vanuatu in 2007 for my honeymoon, certainly the trip of a lifetime! During my voyage I spent time in New Caledonia and Fiji as well. Vanuatu in my opinion had done the best job preserving their cultural and religious practices. The National Museum of Vanuatu really highlights how much oral tradition and navigation varies from tribe to tribe, island to island and "nation to nation". This is my first substantial post to this sub, I can provide more references, details or photographs substantiate my response should they be required. | The Pacific Islands are wonderfully diverse and yet there is also a growing and unified cultural concept of what it means to be a Pacific Islander in the modern world and contexts, this identity being formed not only by modern political experiences and attitudes, but also by genetic links- between Micronesians and Polynesians- and certain shared histories, largely in the context of colonisation and independence, with the area the islands are spread across being so large as to leave it difficult to find simply a shared identity on the basis of geography, when some live in the highlands of Papua, and others on small atolls. Traditionally, the Pacific Islands have been divided into Micronesia (small), Polynesia (many) and Melanesia (black), however these boundaries are not so easily drawn, not just as a result of geography, but as a result of culture, ethnic and genetic heritage and even language. Even within the classical divisions of the Pacific Islands, there is conflict over identity, such as with the Bougainville independence movement. Many Islanders and academics now prefer to use geographical divisions, North, East, South, West, and being more specific by naming individual places, whether countries, atolls or islands, instead of identifying places by concepts which were driven and created by Western colonists, as a result of the growing movement within the Pacific Islander communities, to drive academic understandings and literature, although today, the vast majority of historians and archaeologists of the Pacific Islands are still not of indigenous Islander heritage. Although, as with every place, there is a long history of, well, learning and constructing history, across Islander societies and cultures, only recently have Islanders' constructions and narratives entered, or been allowed to enter, academia, and only recently have Islanders significantly been able to contribute to the academic understandings of Pacific history, to be the writers of their own history for non-Islanders, whereas even in the 20th century, they were often restricted to being the subjects, but not the authors, and in any writing of history, they were often equally restricted to being the one acted on, instead of being active in history themselves. Outside of academia, historically Islanders have seen the history of their ancestors or heritage, as part of a greater understanding of the world, with legend and history being deeply intertwined pre-European contact, in a similar way to the Romulus and Remus origins of Rome, Torres Strait Islanders- sometimes seen as Pacific Islanders- had the story of a woman making a tunnel from the sky in order to save her children from being killed. Oral traditions such as this are still central and important to many Islanders' politics and to many Pacific structures and communities, as well as to the faith of many Islanders, and their expressions of their identity, be it as someone from Hawai'i, from Polynesia, or from the Pacific Islands, as an example. Post-European contact, many Islanders' understanding of history changed, with histories being written down, or being expressed in the traditional forms of Western settlers and coloniser, or to include settler ideals and ideas of history. This means that there is no one genre of Pacific history, there is no one lens it has traditionally been looked at through. Across the islands, genealogy has been a important and central part of society, identity and culture, and this continues today, for example. How Islanders have viewed and understood history changed and developed pre-European contact, during colonisation and into the modern era, with no one singular idea of history or methods of interpretation or recording, although genealogy remains a central and important part of identity for many Islanders, as it was pre-European contact. It was only in the 1960s that Islanders' agency and viewpoints became a central part of Pacific history, and early reports by Europeans of technology which could reasonably be expected to have existed pre-European contact is therefore clouded by assumptions and by the contexts of the understanding of Islanders, of seafaring and also of record keeping, anthropology, society and history that they carried with them, and indigenous writers of Pacific history in Western academic tradition have only become common in the last few decades, notably from what is classically identified as Polynesia. With the large number of inhabited islands, and an even larger number of islands when including those, such as Caroline Island in Kiribati, which had previously been inhabited, it is to be expected that there will be vastly different relations to the ocean, allowing movement between the atolls and islands, which have been of central importance to Pacific Islanders throughout history, excluding parts of what is now New Zealand, West Papua and Papua New Guinea. With some islanders living in closely linked island chains, such as in the Marshall Islands, and others living thousands of miles from the nearest small settlement, the technology and techniques allowing for exploration, colonisation and general transport have vastly differed, and changed throughout history, including pre-European contact. Evidence for the earliest seafaring technology in the Pacific Islands is sparse, and even for later history, oral tradition is an important part of understanding Pacific Islanders' oceanic history and heritage. The extent of archaeological evidence that remains from the earliest centuries or even millennia of settlement in multiple islands, is small, with, for example, no Lapita boats existing, and the only Lapita material culture found having little or no relation to the ocean, instead, any oceanic exploration and travel by the Lapita must be worked out far more indirectly, through genetic heritage of existing populations, material culture unrelated to transport, such as pottery, and even language. We know parts of New Guinea were settled some 30-40,000 years ago, through radiocarbon dating of a rock shelter, and although outside of the Pacific Islands, in Australia, there is evidence of settlement across Australia, down to Tasmania, from a similar period, or some very uncertain evidence of settlement dating back over 50,000 years, when it was, at the time, still connected to what is now Papua New Guinea. We don't know, however, if a rising ocean swallowed earlier evidence elsewhere, whether there are island settlements submerged showing earlier settlement, or at least exploration. The ever changing shape of the Pacific Ocean has created the ever changing shapes of the Pacific Islands, with evidence obscured and uncovered with changing ocean currents and sea levels, any older settlements may never be found, and therefore it is possible that humanity came to the Pacific Islands past 40,000 years ago. The dates are important because land bridges have since disappeared as connections between islands and settlements, and therefore our concepts of the process of settlement will also be affected. Settlers undoubtedly came from South East Asia, where similar dates of settlement, 30-40,000 years ago, are shown, including areas of Indonesia, although early *homo* settlement in SE Asia, dating perhaps a million years or older, is found in Java, relatively close to parts of what is classically defined as Melanesia. To reach New Guinea, water would indeed have to have been crossed, even if there were some disappearing land bridges which allowed travel from what continues to be mainland SE Asia to much of Malaysia and even much of Indonesia. Settlement would have reached the Solomon Islands just under 30,000 years ago, and again, ocean had to have been travelled. The craft used, and any losses when attempting to find inhabitable land, are unknown. The later settlers of the Pacific Islands saw multiple different paths of heritage and development for their seafaring technology, oral traditions not appearing to relate to these settlers or at least not their crafts, and even those who are not Pacific Islanders, who trace descent back to these Pleistocene settlers and who saw little or no impact from further waves of settlement, for example, by the Lapita, namely Australian Aborigines, have craft which are either frankly unable to make any sea crossings or do not appear to have developed from thousands of years old technology, or have developed so far away as to be of little use to tracing these Pleistocene vessels, as a result of thousands of years of change, refinement and transforming needs, cultures and societies. | 0 | 24,426 | 3.666667 |
2e3dwt | askhistorians_test | 0.91 | suppose I live in Boston in 1717. How far would have to travel to find a Native American tribe who have had no direct contact with white people in living memory? | cjvt2uh | cjw33wi | 1,408,562,590 | 1,408,582,560 | 212 | 761 | This is an interesting question, and I'd like to tack on a follow-up question. How likely would it be to find native peoples living in Boston at the time? Would there be any? If there were, would they be discriminated against? | I'll assume living memory to be a nice round number like 60, so we are looking for the closest Native American nation that did not have direct contact with Europeans between 1657 and 1717. I'll also assume that not all members of the group interacted with Europeans, just that somewhat regular contact/influence existed some time between 1657 and 1717. The closest nations to Boston, the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Narragansett and Nashaway, were swept up in the hostilities with King Phillip's War from 1675-1678. Any Native American belligerents not killed in the conflict and not professing Christians were sold into slavery in Bermuda. Praying Indians settled in towns like Natick, Grafton and Marlborough, and refugees fled inland to join other nations. Expanding out of the direct Boston/Providence Plantation area, we have the nations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. Coastal populations in Maine would have regular trading contact with white merchants and fisherman, so those nations are out. Further inland many nations possibly contacted a European during King William's War (look, a map] during the 1680s and 1690s. I am not as familiar with the small nations of northern Maine, but I assume the constant tension between the French and English colonial enterprises, and the Maine Amerindians strategic importance as allies, meant they were courted extensively during the period. Further north into Canada the Wendat/Huron were strongly allied with the French, and during the diaspora caused by the Beaver Wars (to be explained shortly) fled west to the Great Lakes. Looking west, here is a generalized map so we can keep our bearings. The Mahican and the Delaware definitely encountered Europeans in the period of interest. First contact along the Mohawk River occurred in 1609 and these groups were intimately involved in the game of colonial expansion with New York/New England/New France. 1657-1717 is a very interesting time for the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois. Hostilities related to the fur trade and disease mortality brought about a series of mourning wars that increased the Haudenosaunee territory, and wrought destruction over a huge swath of the U.S. Midwest. The Beaver Wars turned the Great Lakes into a war zone. Iroquois raids depopulated much of the U.S. Midwest and sent refugees fleeing to the lands bordering the Great Plains. French missionaries fled west with their Huron flock, establishing missions on Lake Michigan by 1652 and the western tip of Lake Superior by 1661. As they moved west, the Huron diaspora opened up the fur trade to nations previously beyond the frontier outposts. Heading directly west of Boston we are basically on the Great Plains before we consider a nation without European contact. Next, lets dive south. English colonial enterprises in Pennsylvania contacted the Erie, Shawnee and previously mentioned Iroquois. Jamestown was established in 1607, and English influence continued to grow among the Algonquian nations living in the tidewater. To the west of the tidewater we start to run into the area of Iroquois expansion during the Beaver Wars so I will dive further south. Between 1657 and 1717, traders operating out of Virginia and Carolina colonies united the greater U.S. Southeast based on the trade of Indian slaves and deerskins. Though actual "white guy presence" was limited, the repercussions of the Indian slave trade destabilized the south. Pressure from the French and English spurred the rise of confederacies like the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw to deal with the encroachment of the French to the west (operating from Louisiana and the Mississippi River) and the English (with their native, slave-raiding allies) to the east. As an aside, from 1696-1700 a devastating smallpox epidemic spread through the southeast causing tremendous mortality in the region. Epidemics, combined with refugees fleeing the Yamasee War from 1715-1717, shattered the existing lifeways in the south. The interior southeastern nations, as well as the petite nations along the Gulf Coast, all felt the repercussions of contact with Europeans between 1657 and 1717. So, we are at the Mississippi and we have yet to encounter a Native American nation without contact with/significant influence from Europeans between 1657 and 1717. Obviously, the nations of New Mexico and Texas near Spanish missions are out of consideration. In New Mexico the Spanish presence along the Rio Grande ensures the Pueblos, Apaches, Utes, Dine, Comanche and many smaller Southwestern nations could contact a white guy. The first mission in Spanish Texas, San Francisco de los Tejas, was established in 1690. The Spanish presence in Texas was not influential, long-lived, or particularly productive during our time period, but it does mean we need to look north of the Red River for a nation that fits our criteria (Edit: The first mission founded in the geographic region that we know as Texas was San Angelo, founded in 1632. Thanks to /u/_choupette for clarifying.) Where does this leave us? In 1717 you would need to be on the Great Plains, likely north of the Red River, and west of French influence along the Mississippi River/Great Lakes to encounter a Native American nation that had yet to contact a white person. Even then, contact was imminent. For example, the first European encounter with the Mandan occurred with the arrival of a French Canadian trader, Sieur de la Verendrye, in 1738. **Sources** Calloway *Once Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark* Kelton *Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast 1492-1715* Gallay *The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717* Bragdon *Native Peoples of Southern New England, 1650-1775* Trigger *The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660* Weber *The Spanish Frontier in North America* | 0 | 19,970 | 3.589623 |
ahiz1y | askhistorians_test | 0.95 | If Christian kingdoms sent missionaries to the New World to spread Christianity there in the post-Columbus era, why didn't Muslim nations like the Ottoman Empire do the same to spread Islam? To build upon that question, why did only a handful of European kingdoms attempt colonization of the New World? Why didn't other nations do so, especially ones outside of Europe like those in Asia and the Middle East? What factors motivated that handful of nations (Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Russia) to colonize that wasn't present for other nations? | eefbrpa | eefj2wj | 1,547,887,841 | 1,547,896,635 | 92 | 526 | Hi, until we get more answers, I want to point out we have a pretty big FAQ section on Why didn't X colonize which has links to many old questions pertaining to this topic EDIT: some users have notified us that some of the links don't work on mobile apps (it does on desktop). We tried to correct the issue and hopefully it will work better now | I think for most of us in the West, it's easy to slip into seeing "colonize and evangelize" as the default setting. Our Western Civ II/World Civ II class *starts* with that as the foundational principle in its triumphant Story Of Civilization. In fact, with a variety of exceptions, Christianity and Islam had spent a solid number of centuries quite comfortably expanding through attrition in conquered territories. The ideal of evangelizing militancy in what John O'Malley has dubbed "Early Modern Catholicism" is exceptional--not the other way around. And to a much greater extent than our textbooks like to admit, *successful* militant evangelization was an even further exception. Christian Europeans had spent the fifteenth century making, well, European Christianity. It was the Church's first full-court press to teach *everyone* in Christian society the basic fundamentals of what now had a name: "the Christian faith." That's not to overblow the 14th century as "pagan" or whatever, just to stress how *dedicated* large swathes of the 15th century Church were to religious instruction of the laity. The Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, the meaning of the sacraments, how to die a good death so you go to heaven, reading the Bible (in the vernacular...except in England) to your family after a post-Mass meal, &c. Individual-level religious enthusiasm is a big part of this in many cases, from leaders on down. It was especially aided by an utterly ubiquitous belief that the world was going to end RIGHT NOW...no, NOW...no, but that's *definitely* the Antichrist over there. It makes the looming Day of Judgment very real and very soon. It's easy to bleed this over into *collective* religious enthusiasm--the desire to save other people's souls, too. There are other factors in play, especially the inexorable onward march of the medieval push towards order in society. Sumptuary laws regulating what people of different social statuses are and aren't allowed to wear is a very visible example. Religion is another big one, though. You'll recall that other thing that happened in 1492--Isabella and Ferdinand forced all Jewish Spaniards to choose between conversion to Christianity or immediate exile. This isn't *just* anti-Semitism for the sake of anti-Semitism, although it's that too; subsequent actions of Spanish inquisitors put in action the often-stated paranoia that Jewish people will sneakily de-convert New Christians. A big threat to Church and state authority! So we head into the sixteenth century with Western Europe tipping into *internal* militant evangelization. You can then think of Martin Luther and his rinkadink regional Reformation as one among many contemporary reform movements. Several of those being, as traditional in medieval Christianity, *reformacio* of monastic life. Most relevantly here, that means the creation of the Jesuits and Ursulines, and the streamlining and outward turn of Observant mendicant orders. In addition to personal, internal spiritual renewal, the new and revived orders aimed to really, REALLY get Christians to be, well, Christian, and in a more sober and knowledgeable way than some of the more colorful aspects of late medieval devotion. *Now* we can pitch this into wider context. The Church had long seen itself as an international government, operating within and beyond secular ones. Participation in colonialist expansion to the west and south and very east was important to it for mundane reasons as well as spiritual ones. One strategy absolutely was to plant convents of European nuns (especially) and monks as a way of claiming territory. But the other was to try to convert Indigenous populations to Christianity as an extension of the way Europe was being "converted." And that's the happy triumphant success narrative, and we point to modern Mexican Catholicism and the recent canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha and say, "Sounds plausible." In reality, there were a whole lot of jagged steps forwards and backwards. You're probably familiar with That Ugly Time Europeans Decided To Formally Debate Whether Indigenous Americans Are Human, a question intimately wrapped up with whether they should be targets for conversion or not. In some cases, Christianity blended into native religion and native religion blended into Christianity. Sometimes this *didn't* happen, and colonialist Inquisitors thought it had anyway and persecuted Americans for witchcraft. In Catholic Europe, meanwhile, the Inquisition was frequently targeting people it identified as "crypto-Jews"--essentially, people they believed were adopting a veneer of Christianity while retaining their non-Christian religion for keeps. We're talking about an Early Modern Catholicism here, not mission versus home Christianity. And sometimes, friars kind of just shrugged and said maybe mission wasn't really that important to the Church in the first place. European imperialist expansion happened at a very specific time in western religious history. To be a Christian had become *defined as* more than just baptism and reciting the right words at your godchildren's baptisms; making a territory Christian needed to mean more than mass baptism or even baptism of the leaders. Whether imperialist conquest, diplomatic encounter (hi, China!), or cleaning up one's own backyard, the making of Christians was of primary importance to large segments of the Catholic Church. They had the money, the power, and the government support in the interests of order and control to back up their mission of saving souls with the apocalypse just over the horizon. | 0 | 8,794 | 5.717391 |
lpeeqs | askhistorians_test | 0.94 | Why do Communist societies that we've seen tend toward authoritarianism and dictatorial-style arrangements? First off, I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge on this topic, and want to note that I almost asked this in /r/NoStupidQuestions but decided an educated answer would be better than a flamewar. And before anyone says it, sure, maybe prehistoric tribes can be labelled "communist" and maybe didn't operate this way, but I am referring to the myriad 20th century communist countries that made up the "second World". It's hard to get a clear answer without devolving into "communism bad" "no, communism good". From what I can tell, it's not necessarily required for a communist state to have a single authoritarian leader, yet all real-world examples I can think of had very consolidated power arrangements into a single position? There are free-market dictatorships and free-market republics, but it seems that any Communist state went down an authoritarian route of some kind-- Stalin, Tito, Mao, Castro? I'm familiar with the concept of the Vanguard of the Revolution, but surely this is not the only way to proceed forward? Some hypotheses I've had on the matter include: * Maybe I'm saturated in propaganda from an American public school system and actually the dictatorish nature of Communist societies I'd heard about is exaggerated/didn't hear about the examples where this didn't happen? * Or, if it was accurate, it was a "fruit of the poisoned tree" situation, where since the Soviets went down a dictatorial Stalinist path and assisted the other communist countries in setting up, they imprinted this system onto them as well? * There's also an issue of post-revolution political disarray generally giving rise to tyrants, which, when combined with Communism often being instated via revolution, yields a high risk of a tyrant seizing power. Am I feeling around on the right path, or am I way off the mark? | gobm6jf | gobv2ft | 1,613,983,839 | 1,613,992,186 | 548 | 2,270 | Hello! This question has been asked before. /u/Finger_Trapz answered Why did Communism almost always lead to dictatorships? This does not preclude anyone from adding more. | There is no single accepted answer among academic historians or even among leftists. As one might expect, for such a politically charged and relevant question it becomes *really* difficult to separate history proper from politics. One reasonable way to approach the question is to look at what the leaders of the revolution thought and how they preceived or justified authoritarianism. It's also important to understand their political experience and context. A good starting point I think is the late 19th century, when the Second International, an association of primarily Marxist parties across Europe, suffered an internal crisis between *reformists* and *revolutionists*. At that point, the revolutionary character of Marxism was not yet agreed upon among its followers, and within the parties reformist Marxists tended to hold sway. Unlike modern social democrats, these reformists still (if only nominally) held the ultimate goal of overcoming capitalism; the major disagreement was if this could be achieved by working entirely within the bourgeois state. This question of reform or revolution is discussed with some more historical context in the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg's eponymous pamphlet, written at the height of this conflict. Eduard Bernstein's works give the reformist perspective. (As an aside, Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionist in Germany and Poland who collaborated extensively with Lenin. She would later disagree tactically with Lenin during the Russian revolution but, as I believe, they had no fundamental doctrinal differences-- one can expect that Luxemburg's comments about reform and revolution are broadly the same as Lenin's) As Europe approached the First World War, the reformist tendency within socialist parties would deepen and even take on a nationalistic character. By then, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) had become the dominant socialist party within Europe, having achieved significant labor reforms and boasting a membership in the millions. This, combined with the threat of invasion from a deeply reactionary Russia, compelled German reformists to associate socialism with German patriotism, and national defense with the defense of socialism (ironically, a similar trend would occur in France *against* Germany, which many Frenchmen perceived as a reactionary threat against their republic). Revolutionists, on the other hand, tended to have an internationalist outlook, believing that only an international revolution against imperialist warfare could defend socialism. When WW1 broke out at last, the SPD (and most other European parties) voted in favor of war, beginning a period of *Burgfriedenspolitik* wherein the SPD abstained from strikes and other subversive activities against the war effort. The revolutionists and few reformists who disagreed with this policy splintered away from the SPD into the Independent SPD, the Spartacist League, and eventually the German Communist Party. Notably, Lenin's party in Russia also opposed war by majority, foreshadowing the dominance of revolutionists in the upcoming struggle. This is all to say that the events leading up to WW1 and the Russian revolution precipitated huge, seemingly irreconciliable divisions between the reformist and revolutionist factions of the European socialists. This conflict would take on its most bloody form in the 1918-19 Spartacus uprising at the end of the German revolution: once in power, the now wholly reformist SPD would brutally crush their revolutionist counterparts as they attempted to establish worker's states. Remember again that these were former comrades who, decades ago, would have relied on each other's cooperation. So what does this have to do with authoritarianism in Russia? The leaders of the Russian revolution were internationalists, and had counted on the victory of the German revolutionaries and, hence, the victory of a sweeping revolution across the world. The hope was that, since Germany was among the foremost industrial powers of the world, it could provide material necessities and alleviate the stresses of war, in turn allowing for demilitarization and democratization across both Germany and Russia. This didn't happen-- again, the German revolutionaries were massacred by reformists. It's possible that the Bolsheviks miscalculated, or simply that the Bolsheviks had no other choice but to push forward and *hope* that Germany would turn around. Probably both. In any case, the ascendant Bolsheviks were left in a very, *very* difficult situation: they were in charge of a war-weary nation with hostile states (particularly now Germany) on all sides and powerful counterrevolutionaries within. Realistically there was only one thing they could do besides capitulate-- dig in, and use the full power of the state to survive for as long as possible. Rosa Luxemburg summarizes this impasse pretty well in The Russian Tragedy (which is short but extremely useful in understanding the attitudes of communists at the time -- a must read!): > The awkward position that the Bolsheviks are in today, however, is, together with most of their mistakes, a consequence of basic insolubility of the problem posed to them by the international, above all the *German*, proletariat. To carry out the dictatorship of the proletariat and a socialist revolution in a single country surrounded by reactionary imperialist rule and in the fury of the bloodiest world war in human history – that is squaring the circle. Any socialist party would have to fail in this task and perish – whether or not it made self-renunciation the guiding star of its policies. ... **Such is the false logic of the objective situation: any socialist party that came to power in Russia today must pursue the wrong tactics so long as it, as part of the international proletarian army, is left in the lurch by the main body of this army.** As an example of "wrong tactics," Trotsky discusses in a report that the early Soviet worker's militia could not confront the vastly better-equipped and better-trained German army, nor even the relatively more experienced armies under White control. As a result, Trotsky was compelled to professionalize the army, institute harsh drafts, and even incorporate captured White officers at gunpoint just to win the civil war. Both he and Lenin recognized that these measures were counter to the principles of the revolution but were nonetheless necessary if the revolution were to survive at all. As we now know, neither Germany nor any comparably industrialized country underwent a successful communist revolution. The Soviets would remain isolated long after Lenin's death, and Stalin would further entrench authoritarianism-- what started as emergency measures became standard procedure when the emergency never went away. (EDIT: This part feels a bit insufficient. I don't want to attribute the entrenchment of authoritarianism as something unique to Stalin as a person -- it was likely a combination of broad social forces and personality. I might point to the rising nationalism in Marxist reformists are an analogous process, but this would require a more detailed treatment of Stalin I am not really prepared to make.) For subsequent revolutions, the "fruit from a poisoned tree" situation you described is sort of right-- these revolutions drew explicitly from Lenin's revolutionary measures and, sometimes less explicitly, from Stalin's entrenchment. One might even say that they were all part of a single, broader revolution, and can't be treated as isolated cases. Later on certain countries like Cambodia and North Korea would spin off on their own and abandon communism even in name, but since they faced the same problems of political isolation, they had at least an excuse to remain authoritarian. It's probably not true that failure was inevitable, which would ignore the later history of Trotskyism and other oppositional forces in, most notably, the USSR and the China. But I don't want to spin off into counterfactuals-- things *could* have happened differently, but they didn't, and that's the question you're asking. In summary: * Pre-WW1 politics caused a deep rift between reformist and revolutionary factions in European socialism * This led to the (short-term) success of the Russian revolution and the failure of the German revolution, as reformists were much more powerful in the latter country * Without German support, the Russian Bolsheviks had to enact emergency authoritarian measures to remain afloat * Later, the static international situation allowed authoritarianism to be entrenched * Future revolutions would emulate the Bolsheviks and in turn face the same problems of political isolation Note again that this is just a single perspective, taking into account mostly primary sources from the leaders of the Russian and German revolutions. Still, this is an important point of view I think, and the one I'm most familiar with. Further reading: * Luxemburg's The Russian Tragedy, which discusses the Bolsheviks' policies in relation to the German socialists * Luxemburg's The Crisis of German Social Democracy which goes in depth about the division and irreconciliability of factions within the SPD * The Military Writings of Trotsky, for a deeper look into the Russian Civil War * Lenin's The State and Revolution, key to understanding the place of democracy in Lenin's ideology | 0 | 8,347 | 4.142336 |
g3xezf | askhistorians_test | 0.93 | How do we know that ancient Greeks/Scandinavians/Egyptians/etc. believed in their gods, and that it wasn't just a collection of universally known fictional characters a la the Looney Tunes, with poems and theme parks dedicated to them? | fnuuosl | fnupbuh | 1,587,271,563 | 1,587,267,646 | 1,724 | 153 | How do we know what people in the ancient world believed? We read their literature, as well as we know how, and so far as it still exists. We excavate their cities and sanctuaries, and interpret them as carefully as we can. And then we try to shore the literary fragments against the ruins, and extrapolate a world. Can we know what individuals thought? Unless they were kind enough to write it down for us (and their jottings survived), no. But to the extent that the literature and the archaeological remains seem to agree, and to the extent that our cross-cultural models allow us to understand them, we can usually form a picture, however hazy, of practice and belief in an ancient society. As devoted readers of this sub, you know all this already. I just felt like pontificating. For a little more substance, let's turn, all too briefly, to the Greeks and Romans. Two blanket statements. First, virtually all Greeks and Romans believed in their gods. Second, belief in the gods did not necessarily translate to a literal understanding of the traditional myths about those gods. Greek religion and Roman religion - to use conventional shorthands for what were actually loose families of affiliated but distinctive local practices - were focused on practice, rather than belief. The gods, in other words, were assumed to be much more interested in what their worshipers did for them than in what their worshipers thought them. This meant, in effect, that the act of sacrifice was the ultimate statement of belief: gratifying the gods with burnt offerings (or libations, etc.) was at once a prudent insurance policy and an effective profession of faith. It might be tempting to imagine (by analogy with modern religious holidays) that traditional religious festivals in the classical world eventually became more or less formalities - a chance for everybody to kick back, watch a little drama, and enjoy a bit of barbecued ox. For some Greeks and Romans, they may well have become so. But the mere fact that sacrifices continued regularly, century after century, in so many ancient cities suggests that the great majority took them quite seriously: the gods were real, and had to be placated. To this can be added the vast body of evidence for personal devotion to the gods - family altars, ex voto offerings, dedications at shrines, etc., etc. And to that we may add the testimonials provided by our literary sources, which establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the great majority of Greeks and Romans assumed that the gods were very real. None of this means, of course, that they took the myths seriously. As early as the sixth century BC, Greek philosophers and public intellectuals began to criticize the myths. Some of the more radical thinkers of the Classical period theorized that the myths were actually dimly-remembered episodes from ancient history, and that the gods had originally been human kings and inventors. Others speculated that the gods and the myths had been deliberately invented in the distant past as a means of political control. Similar strands of criticism are visible in Stoic philosophy (which treated the myths as allegories), in Epicurean philosophy (which treated the myths as dangerous fables), and in the general intellectual milieu of the Roman imperial era (see, for example, the splendid satires of Lucian). It seems clear that most educated Greeks and Romans really did regard the myths as a matter of cultural literacy, not literal truth. But their disdain for the myths was motivated largely by a desire to disassociate them from the gods, in whom most of them still believed. The myths, it was thought, were unworthy of the gods, and the gods undeserving of the myths foisted upon them by tradition. I could cite various passages from ancient authors in support of all this; but frankly, I'm tired. The point, in any case, needs no belaboring. In certain contexts, many Greeks and Romans were perfectly comfortable mocking the gods of myth - take Dionysus in Aristophanes' Frogs, or Zeus in any of Lucian's dialogues. There were even "theme parks" of a sort, in the case of Ilium, a major tourist destination on what was thought to be the site of Homer's Troy (more on such tourism here). But for most Greeks and Romans (with the exception of those wretched atheistic Epicureans), the gods were real. Take the emperor Julian's heartfelt (if tedious) hymn to Cybele, or Apuleius' paean to Isis, or Aelius Aristides' praises of Ascelpius, or even - at the beginning of classical literature - Odysseus' relationship with Athena. The Greeks and Romans didn't always take their gods seriously. But they never - quite - reduced them to cartoon characters. | While there is always more to learn on this topic and we welcome new answers, in the meantime, you can check out this answer by u/DarthPositus, these answers by u/mythoplokos and u/Astrogator, and this answer by u/EdmundAgonistes, which addressed similar questions and may include useful information. | 1 | 3,917 | 11.267974 |
6l6jjr | askhistorians_test | 0.86 | Announcing Best of June Awards The votes are in! For the third month in a row, we again have a unanimous vote from both flairs and users. This month the top spot goes to /u/bloodswan for answering "What is the origin and development of the footnote(1)?". The combined votes of flairs and users for second place then goes to /u/ancienthistory for "When looking for pulp publications on the Nazis, almost all magazines make a point about being "for men" – does that mean they were merely pornographic or is there a deeper significance (in genre e.g.) behind that?". And finally, the Dark Horse Award, for the highest voted contribution from a non-flair had a clear edge to /u/kayelar, for "Why has Country Music remained so white? What cultural and industry forces kept the genre that so willingly borrowed from blues, gospel, norteño, and mariachi so completely dominated by white artists and tied to white identity?". So as always, a big congratulations to the winners, and a big thanks to everyone who contributed to the subreddit in the past month! Also a reminder, if you want to nominate answers for the monthly awards, the best way to do so is to submit your favorite posts every week to the Sunday Digest! For a list of past winners, check out this Wiki page! | djrqh5a | djrufr0 | 1,499,184,708 | 1,499,189,593 | 4 | 7 | Congrats! I liked all of those answers, especially the footnote one by /u/bloodswan . | Wow, thank you all so much! Was pretty surprised to see this notification this morning. And congratulations to the other winners and nominees. There were some very impressive answers this past month. | 0 | 4,885 | 1.75 |
uyijj5 | askhr_test | 0.97 | [CA] Coworker is telling people I'm a murderer, leaving out the important "falsely accused of murder" part Hi, AskHR. I was falsely accused of murder about 10-years ago. I successfully sued the newspaper that made the accusation and they were forced to print a retraction and apology. Despite this, the damage to my reputation persevered and I decided to change my name. Recently, a new hire recognized me and has been sharing online where I work, my new identity, and photos he's taken of me at work. Based on his social media, he believes he's a vigilante by exposing me, but seems unaware I was proven not guilty, nor that I sued the newspaper that made the original accusation. **Is this an HR issue? And, if it is, how do I even talk about it?** I have all my documents and newspaper clippings, the apology, and some other supporting documents. Or do I keep to myself, see what happens? Should I try talking to this person? Thanks in advance, \-- No\_Meringue\_6145 | ia4uege | ia5cx5k | 1,653,611,193 | 1,653,620,281 | 73 | 185 | Sounds like a defamation case. Lawyer up imo | I would express to HR that this employee has taken pictures of you at work, is posting them on social media, and declaring you a murderer. Don’t over-offer on the “I’m not a murderer”, but have your documentation ready for when the employee goes “I’ve caught them, they’re a murderer.” You would pass a background check, you have a newspaper apology. The story is 10 years old. If your employer fires you because of this story, you could file suit with the new hire due to the damages of financially losing your job. This is why you want to lawyer up. Also, your lawyer could serve the new hire with a cease & desist, which is a piece of paper saying “We encourage you not to continue in this action, or we will be filing suit.” Because them getting fired isn’t going to stop them from being a nuisance and spreading the story. Calling people murderers becomes a lot less enticing when you realize you face legal consequences for doing so, that this person may be forced to pay for the damages they are causing. | 0 | 9,088 | 2.534247 |
v0fadv | askhr_test | 0.91 | [CA] Terrified. What will the long-term impacts of a Performance Improvement Plan be on my career? Hi, I will be put on a PIP next week. I'm in marketing and I am TERRIFIED about what this might do to my long-term earning potential. Context: I'm Indian and working for a Californian company remotely. As an HR professional, what do you think I should do in order to continue to grow my career beyond this setback? | iagkzg2 | iah3zu2 | 1,653,852,265 | 1,653,861,474 | 7 | 8 | Assuming you have a good HR dept. and manager, this is an opportunity for you to correct specific issues, and this is often done, to avoid terminating you involuntary. The reason why I said ‘good’ is because giving them the benefit of the doubt, they don’t want to terminate you but rather they want to correct issues, so they don’t have to. Do you expect to meet the goals, tasks that are outlined within PIP, have you met with your manager/ HR yet? Hopefully you will have weekly meetings on the progress. It also sounds like you are blindsided by this, are you unaware of performance issues? | PIPs don’t carry over to your next company and an HR rep wouldn’t disclose that when a new company does an employment check. However, PIPs could be a sign that you’re about to be fired and HR is documenting a case that they tried to help you before firing you. If you’ve only worked for this company for a little while, it will look bad on your resume if you get fired and have a short duration of time listed there. That’s the only thing I can think of as an HR professional myself and from my experience. My advice is to get a new job asap and quit rather than wait to get fired over performance. | 0 | 9,209 | 1.142857 |
otmjt1 | askhr_test | 0.78 | [AZ] Do you have to get permission to contact former employer for job applicant? As the title says. I've asked candidates for references, but sometimes I can't really tell for sure if the references from their old job are real or not. It can be easy to weed out fake references with good questions, but sometimes it's not as easy. I wanted to know if employers or hiring managers have to get permission before calling a former employee listed on the candidate's resume. I wouldn't consider calling employers that they list as ones they currently work for because that could get them into trouble, but I'm talking about ones they've left or let go from based on their resume. | h6wdbpk | h6wi2e6 | 1,627,519,027 | 1,627,521,345 | 7 | 19 | When they apply through the ATS the fine print says we can contact anyone to verify their credentials. They by default agree by submitting the application. *edit* By the time references are verified the hiring manager has made the selection, and an offer has gone out and been accepted. But if you look at this reddit you will see tons of people lie, conceal or misrepresent their credentials to get to that point. I would guess “what will they find?” Is the most common question in here. | I just learned about blind references this week, and I have to say I am NOT a fan, but this is what some companies are doing to solve this and some other retention-related issues (because they think a more candid/blind response will help them find someone who “gets it”, whatever it is). What I learned is that in most states, these are not illegal. However they are shady and fraught with potential liability - see the linked article. Tread very very carefully! | 0 | 2,318 | 2.714286 |
c3h1h2 | askhr_test | 0.97 | Does anything really happen after exit interviews? I recently left a job and scheduled an exit interview. The lady I met with was very polite and professional. She took notes as we talked. I made sure to not sound like a disgruntled employee. I stated things I liked about the company, such as the benefits and policies. I named several employees who I found to be kind, polite and helpful. I made sure to say several times that I Wasn't a perfect employee and noted when I had made a mistake at work. Then we got into why we quit. I told her of a recent meeting. Boss 1 (admin) and boss 2 (scientist) were both there. I mentioned there was shouting and name calling. I mentioned higher up 3 and higher up 4 were there. She asked who was leading and I said boss 2. Her narrowed, she stopped typing and she said "are you sure?" then explained that boss 1 was supposed to lead these types of meetings. This made sense, Boss 2's job requirements don't seem like they'd involve any training in business or hr matters. I explained that they'd offered some criticisms about "A,B,C, and D", she looked back over a paper and said that they'd only been approved to discuss "A,B, and D" at the meetings, and should have gotten approval to discuss C with an employee. I mentioned Higher 3 saying something regarding my mental health and she immediately stop typing and asked me to repeat, then said "he shouldn't have discussed that." with a disgusted look on her face. To give Boss 1 credit, I said that at this point she seemed to be trying to "reign in" the meeting by piping in but wasn't saying much. She then said "that meeting sounded awful.". I made it clear that I found no fault with the job, the company, and most of my coworkers. I said that if they'd been a bit kinder at the meeting, if they hadn't shouted, or if they'd said anything kind (for example the large project I had pulled together) I wouldn't have resigned. She assured me that someone starting like I was is expected to make mistakes and they shouldn't have reacted like that. She said they expected better of employees and was sorry to see me go. I was told that these exit interviews are usually a formality, but I was surprised at how concerned she was. Is there a chance anything will come from this internally? I was lead to believe it all tends to be a show. | err1f67 | erqxzct | 1,561,157,576 | 1,561,154,930 | 43 | 9 | I just conducted an exit interview about 2 hours ago - we absolutely use the feedback that employees give us. My department will not typically act on outliers - ex. 1 or 2 people giving us negative feedback about something. If we start to see trends, especially trends that are independent of the performance, type of employee, etc., then we will report back and take action on it. An example - I did about 15 exit interviews for one specific type of position over the course of 6 months. Over the course of those interviews, 7 mentioned a lack of training and a further 5 mentioned the lack of time dedicated to training. We are now in a process to improve our training, have designated training hours, and will be reporting back to the business on progress. Without those exit interviews, there is a likelihood that we'd still be using our old training and we wouldn't be aware of the issue. | It depends on the HR Dept and depends on the company leadership, but yes, in my experience we take exit interviews very seriously and quite often turn responses into data points to demonstrate potential issues in departments, subgroups, sections of employees and so forth. Data trends, especially around employee satisfaction, or potential liability issues, are given special attention and action is taken, often immediately. We also give month-to-date/quarter-to-date/year-to-date updates on feedback we are getting during the exit interviews and any takeaways or follow ups that may be necessary. When applicable, HR or HR and direct supervisor will sit down with managers that may need some coaching on issues that have been raised. Our managers and employees know this, to the point that one of my department heads tried to send one of his employees home the moment he turned in his 2-week’s notice and told him it wasn’t necessary to talk to HR for his exit interview. Luckily that employee knew better and came by after he cleaned out his office. We learned quite a bit. Part of why we turn the responses into data points is so that we don’t divulge identities unless absolutely necessary. | 1 | 2,646 | 4.777778 |
d1z5uy | askhr_test | 0.98 | HR wants proof of my other job offer. Is this legal? NYC media conglomerate. TLDR: would you take this deal? Sounds fishy to me So they said they only way to expedite my promotion is to become a flight risk. Strange and unfair I thought but fine. I got an offer that pays $22k more than my current salary with a $16k signing bonus, plus all sorts of other lucrative perks. I’m proud of myself! Let my current employer know, and now suddenly they’re offering me the promotion I’d been promised for 3 years. The catch is a) they want proof of my offer b) they don’t have a timeline (yet) as to when it is official Is asking for proof legal? I feel like this is confidential info. What should I say in my mtg tomorrow with my leadership team? | ezrx2e7 | ezrxdzx | 1,568,079,955 | 1,568,080,075 | 30 | 49 | I think it’s legal to ask, put pretty trashy. They’ve been towing the line for 3 years promising you a promotion, and now that you have another offer they’re suddenly magically ready to promote you? Especially with the part about them having no timeline, this sounds like they’re going to lead you on for another 3 years. Take the new, higher paying job and enjoy that sign on bonus 🥂 | I think you should take the new job! Don't be silly. | 0 | 120 | 1.633333 |
x1tr9x | askhr_test | 0.94 | [MA] Girlfriend requested PTO this Friday and afterwards her work announced everyone will be given a half day. They're still making her use 8 hours of PTO instead of 4 hours. Basically the title. - It feels unfair that she is having to use 4 hours of PTO on the second half of a day when no one will be there. Is this normal / legal? Any advice for her? | imfodfk | imfyigk | 1,661,892,123 | 1,661,896,095 | 90 | 166 | Half day off is reward for coming in. | I’ll give the AAM answer. Using PTO for the whole day is the cost of your gf getting the benefit of having the entire day off planned. Everyone else got a surprise but she was able to make plans for the whole day ahead of time. | 0 | 3,972 | 1.844444 |
y1o3x2 | askhr_test | 0.81 | [MS] Can I get reprimanded for not meeting the standards of a job I didn’t want nor qualified for? During my interview with my current job, they told me what some of my duties would be which included user testing and technical writing. They already had my resume and I gave them examples of my web design work and more. The minimum qualifications didn’t require any programming, coding, etc. During the first week, I wasn’t really told about my duties but soon realized they placed me in a web development position; front-end to be specific. I spoke to my supervisor and she was confused with my placement too since she wasn’t included in the interview process to ask any technical questions. Basically, they confused web design with web development even though they planned on placing me in a technical writing position but when they heard web design, they decided I’d be best in the production area even though my skills were listed on my resume. When they realized what happened, they offered me a vacancy in a different division doing something I wasn’t interested in nor could physically do so then they told me they’d book classes for me to learn programming. A few weeks later, they said the classes weren’t in the budget so I tried learning from Google, YouTube, and other free resources. I just received my 6mo performance review and failed. Everything I was given that I could do wasn’t up to par due to lack of instructions and details even though I asked multiple times in person, email, and Teams. I did what I could with what I had. My supervisor said to get used to it because that’s how they unfortunately operate there. I added comments in my PR to make sure it was documented that this wasn’t the position I applied for and was not qualified for the position I was placed in. I’ve been applying for new jobs but I also don’t want to get fired or written up for insubordination for not grasping JavaScript because of someone else’s mistake. Advice? | irygskf | iryl8io | 1,665,531,885 | 1,665,533,960 | 14 | 23 | Jesus. | Find another job, quickly. The bad news is that what they've done is shittily incompetent, but legal. | 0 | 2,075 | 1.642857 |
nj7dk3 | askhr_test | 0.97 | [AU] Manager wants me out of role. Continues to isolate. I don't know how to manager the situation. Do i quit and sue? Do i go to HR? What should i do? I'm in Sydney Australia. I posted a month ago, that my manager told me he wanted me out of my role, which i have successfully performed for several years, no disciplinary actions, etc. Said its for my benefit and his own philosophy that you should not be in a role for more than x years. That he would help me look for new opportunities and that if i did not take another role within next 4 months, it would be different conversation, with the end result I would no longer have a role in the company. I replied that, while I am happy to look for new opportunities, I was happy performing my current role until then. I also expect to be able to continue in my role without being undermined. Manager raised his eyebrows and said "of course". Since then, Manager has done everything he can to isolate me. He has tasked someone out of my department to run large project, that sits with the scope of my role. He refuses to talk to me or acknowledge me outside of meeting where others attend and mostly not even then. In 1:1 discussions, I have to sit while he tells me how he is doing this tfor my benefit. In our last 1:1, I was upset and he demanded to know why. When I said I was not comfortable discussing why I was upset with him (6 times), he kept demanding to know - i then found out a manager at his level called out how upset I was and wanted to know what my manager was doing to support me. I asked my manager, why he was asking, as its the first time he has ever asked how i am, do i need support; that he told me he wanted me out of my role, and offered no support HR Or any of the company support programs. I said that in the last year, he has not once reached out while I was working from home (due to covid) or since, to ask how i am, etc, and when i have reached out, has said I dont want to deal with (me). Managers reply (literally), I'll take that feedback on the chin. Since then he has not spoken to me once, not online, not in meetings, not in corridor. Not even when another team member recognised me in a team meeting for excellent work. I have started to document this behaviour, how isolated he has made me in the team, etc. I am not a confrontational person, I genuinely dont know how to reply to what feels like a personal attack about me personally and professionally. I also have a witness who has directly observed managers behaviours and the behaviours of his leadership team towards me, who has said he will go to HR if I need to. It feels like constructive dismissal and bullying, but i dont know, I've not been in this position before. I always figured, work hard in my job, perform well, and as long as the company is not restructuring, you get to keep your job you know? At this point, I feel so isolated, depressed and physically sick every day, that I have thought about going on long term stress leave, or just quitting and hiring an employment lawyer and suing the company. I am getting medical attention for the stress. I need to know if i should be reporting this to my companies HR? And how to I phrase this conversation, as i've previously been told going to HR i may as well leave the company as they are just going to support my manager? | gz5xxxh | gz5wgp4 | 1,621,780,664 | 1,621,779,885 | 58 | 2 | How many employees does your company have? You should've spoken to HR the first time he said "I want to get rid of you because I don't think employees should be in a role for longer than X years" and asked HR if this is company policy. I suspect it's not. It's also poor management and opens the company to all kinds of risk. | I’m sorry this is happening to you. I’ve worked for a horribly toxic manager before too, so I feel your pain. I’m not familiar with AU law, so I can’t comment on that. But I do think it would be in your best interest to let someone know what’s going on, whether that be HR or someone higher up your leadership chain that you trust. Your manager isn’t being a good leader. Sometimes HR can help, with leadership training and some course correction for this person. But unless a company policy or law is being broken, they tend to stay out of it. Depends on your company culture. In the meantime, please be looking for another role. IME in the US, if your manager wants you gone, you’ll be gone. | 1 | 779 | 29 |
xarq62 | askhr_test | 0.92 | [WA]Employer failed to notify my husband of FMLA eligibility and now he may lose his health insurance In February of this year my husband developed a heart condition and needed a month off while it was being diagnosed. He submitted multiple doctor notes to cover the mostly unpaid leave. His employer did not notify him that he was eligible for FMLA and he just went back to work when he was able to. At this point he had sufficient worked hours to be eligible for FMLA. In August, he needed an additional two weeks off to have a defibrillator implanted. We had become knowledgeable about FMLA at this point and asked his employer about it, per their direction, he contacted the third-party benefits company Leave of Absence dept and followed their instructions to file for the leave. He was denied FMLA due to insufficient hours worked in the last year and they instead provided ADA leave forms for his doctor to fill out. His doctor did so and the ADA leave was approved. However, this employer determines eligibility for each year’s insurance based on how many hours have been worked in the previous year and he will not have the required hours. Given his medical condition losing his insurance at this juncture would be disastrous. Open enrollment is in November for coverage starting in January. They have not specifically stated he will lose insurance but they keep repeating the number of hours that are required and he falls well short of it. We have talked to his employer and to the third-party benefits department about the fact that he was not notified of FMLA eligibility in February and his right to continued health insurance would have been protected if FMLA had been provided to him at the appropriate time. His manager tried to retroactively put in his FMLA for February but the third-party company refused it, saying it should’ve been done in February. Neither his manager nor the benefits company seem to acknowledge that it was their responsibility to notify him of his rights under FMLA back in February. Is the only recourse here contacting the Department of labor? I’m leaving out many details about how slow, unhelpful and cumbersome the processes are in this 3rd party company. We have kept all records of phone calls, conversations, paperwork etc. etc. Thanks for any assistance or guidance. | invtroj | invrt7e | 1,662,833,159 | 1,662,832,351 | 14 | 11 | Assuming he was eligible, your husband has all of the protections of FMLA in February, because his manager knew that he needed time off for a serious health condition and the company was therefore required to offer FMLA. By refusing to retroactively provide FMLA coverage, the company (via the third party) is engaging in FMLA interference which is not lawful. If they then revoke your husband's benefits because of it, then it is also FMLA retaliation which is equally unlawful. Contact L&I and file a claim. It's free, easy, requires no attorney, and you can do it online. This is all assuming that you are correct that the missed time in February would make the difference in hours between maintaining and losing benefits. | Labor & Employment lawyer here. What you describe sounds like a potential violation of FMLA. Your husband should consult an attorney. | 1 | 808 | 1.272727 |
oxd262 | askhr_test | 0.96 | [SC] is this sexual harassment? Discrimination? In South carolina... My boss told me I'm no longer allowed to sit next to coworkers of the opposite sex while at work because people tell my boss I'm sleeping with everyone, but I'm not sleeping with anyone. I get along very well with members of the opposite sex, but I work well with all the other employees no matter their sex. Is this sexual harassment? Discrimination? Can anything be done? | h7mi5ii | h7mjoc9 | 1,628,040,065 | 1,628,040,806 | 10 | 21 | Harassment, and you should say to the boss why are you moving ME instead of dealing with the harassers? | ERROR: type should be string, got "https://schac.sc.gov/employment-discrimination/prohibited-practices-discrimination-types Specifically, under Terms and Conditions of Employment \" It also means an employer may not discriminate, for example, when granting breaks, approving leave, **assigning work stations**, or setting any other term or condition of employment\" Honestly, I'm not 100% sure if your boss violated this provision because the rule is about discriminating based on protected classes (ie: you can't set terms of employment based on race, sex, age etc.) and he said he was doing it because of the rumors but he's definitely playing jumprope with the line and I'm kind of amazed that anyone who made it into even lower management would think this was appropriate. You mention in your comments that the conversation happened verbally. Personally, I'd get him to put it in writing. I'd send him an email to clarify details or something along those lines \"Boss, Just wanted to touch base following our conversation. Based on what you told me, as a result of unfounded rumors you have heard, I'm no longer allowed to sit next to anyone of the opposite sex while working. Is there a specific desk you would like me to use? Are there other restrictions I should be aware of?\" At this point one of four things will happen: 1. He will see what you're doing, realize he screwed up and you can sit wherever you want again 2. He will respond with some correction along the lines of \"it was because of disruption in the office\" or something similar 3. He will acknowledge and confirm what's in your email. If he does this, take that email straight to HR. 4. He won't answer. There's a chance that he'll get the email and try to come have another in person conversation(no paper trail). I'd head this off by sending the email a few minutes before I clock out for the day, especially if he works later than me or if he's out of the office and mention that I want to make sure I know what the new rules are before my next shift. If he called me after I clocked out, I'd let it go to voicemail. He can leave a voicemail or text me with his answer." | 0 | 741 | 2.1 |
kvyk3n | askhr_test | 0.93 | [NJ] is it appropriate to ask about salary during first interview? I had a screening call yesterday with an internal recruiter. We both decided it was a good fit and we have a full formal interview tomorrow to discuss my background. Is it appropriate to ask about salary at this initial interview? She didn’t mention it in the screening call and I don’t want to waste everyone’s time moving through the entire interview process if it’s way off target. | gj17tqr | gj1eiab | 1,610,480,970 | 1,610,484,027 | 3 | 36 | Yes | Absolutely. If it's not brought up during the phone screen, I bring it up at the end to make sure we're aligned. I'd hate to have to meet with multiple folks to find out that the comp is too low. | 0 | 3,057 | 12 |
lq4tly | askhr_test | 0.97 | [CAN] Lowering title at previous job on resume I had a VP title at small company (80 empl) where titles came like candy. I did have a senior role with a staff of 12, but the VP title was a bit much. I'm now trying to find work that is likely more in the Snr. Manager possibly Director role - I'd even be happy with some autonomy and just doing my own thing within a dept. I feel like my VP title is making me seem a like a bad fit for some roles that I would love to have. Is it a bad idea if I were to lower my title from VP to something like Director? Even though I'm going down in title it certainly is not 100% above board so I'm pretty iffy on it. I'm not worried once I have an interview being able to talk about the situation, but I'm afraid my resume is being passed over before I even get that chance. Am I over thinking this? | goew0za | goevfvb | 1,614,046,173 | 1,614,045,878 | 20 | 15 | Internal titles don't always correlate with external titles because you are changing between companies, this is especially true if you are changing industries or roles. "Majiggy fidgeter" might be completely appropriate in your company, but you might have to translate it to something like "technical operator" so outsiders can understand. In this case people would understand your previous title, but for worse they would understand it wrong, because VP has different meanings across companies. So there's even more reasons to translate your title to something more appropriate. | Staff of 12 sounds like at least Director... at a lot of companies that'd be VP. But I understand the feeling. | 1 | 295 | 1.333333 |
vivtr4 | askhr_test | 0.83 | [MI] Can a manager fire their employee just because they don't like them? | idg3tbd | idg7tam | 1,656,001,282 | 1,656,002,862 | 5 | 10 | Can you date someone you feel compatibility with and stop dating them after realizing you're not? Yes. The same is true for employers. | At will employment means anyone can be separated or leave for any particular reason barring it is a protected classification, sexual orientation race, etc. | 0 | 1,580 | 2 |
z4pqg2 | askhr_test | 0.84 | [CA] Example of conversation between HR and management after employee initiates case of work sabotage / retaliation by manager I’ve heard generalizations about how HR “only exists to protect the company” and “advise leadership” on how to handle cases. Would anyone be willing to provide a (general) example of what goes on after HR interviews an employee bringing up (for example) their manager abusing them via harassment and work / metrics sabotage? What is common feedback from management / leadership that HR then takes to the follow up interview with the employee? To be clear, I’m not judging people who work in HR whatsoever-I just genuinely want to understand what happens between initial and follow up interviews; I’ve seen many peers become upset over their case outcomes involving serious issues (including those involving protected categories) backed by an extensive paper trail of concrete supporting evidence. | ixsrjap | ixsbk2t | 1,669,425,961 | 1,669,417,838 | 6 | 4 | The discussion isn’t just about what the claim is. It is about the appearance in how the claim is handled, the key issues in the claim in terms of legal, policy and process considerations, and the issues around documentation. Some claims are worth investigating, some are not. Generally if someone comes to HR without going to their boss first and with no evidence about something which is in the managers discretion to do, an educational posture is taken. If documentation is provided about something against internal policy/procedure/regulation then things are considered more seriously. If the documented behavior puts the organization at risk of a lawsuit, then a defensive posture is taken in that things are documented carefully in case things go to court. | Self preservation. Many companies rightly realize that it is a wise strategy in the long run to act considerably toward employees when their interests seem to conflict with each other | 1 | 8,123 | 1.5 |
vqs1eg | askhr_test | 0.93 | [CA]Accepted Formal Written Job offer with specific salary range. Now HR said they made a mistake regarding the pay. What should I do? Recently received and accepted a formal offer of employment via email from HR. This position has four pay scale ranges A,B,C,D. Based on my qualifications the HR department placed me in range C which was stated in the official offer. While attempting to negotiate where in range C my pay would actually land, the HR rep stated that upon further review of my application I actually am to be placed in Range B now but that I would be eligible for range C after 5 months. She apologized for the mistake. However, I have the formal offer saying range C and that is what I originally accepted. Im not sure what to do. Do they have to honor their original offer? Also , lets say I do accept range B now, is an email enough proof for "getting it in writing" from the employer that in 5 months I will be move up to range C? | ieqxsd3 | ier2rf7 | 1,656,885,520 | 1,656,887,862 | 14 | 66 | No. Pay can be altered going forward, but not for work that has been done. Unless the letter is signed by an Officer, I struggle to see anything contractually binding. | If you haven’t already resigned from your most recent job, I would just decline this offer and keep looking. This stinks of bad faith. | 0 | 2,342 | 4.714286 |
upm2ly | askhr_test | 0.81 | [OH] HR employee interview My employer has had a huge turnover recently. It’s so bad, corporate HR is coming to interview everyone. Should I tell the truth that it’s largely because of corporate policies (mandatory vaccines, sub-market pay and lack of accountability)? I’m concerned about retaliation even if my criticism is completely constructive and supported by facts. | i8lpga9 | i8loabr | 1,652,552,020 | 1,652,551,492 | 28 | 23 | YES!!! Tell the truth. I wouldn't think the vaccine complaint will do any good, but the other stuff is super important for HR to hear. We give feedback impartially and if what you are saying are representative of large trends amongst staff, the only way to start to address issues is to know they exist! | You think constructive criticism about mandatory vaccinations is…constructive? | 1 | 528 | 1.217391 |
vpu2y1 | askhr_test | 0.86 | [WA] My Microsoft interview went really amazing. After the interview, I honestly told my recruiter that I have a deadline of tomorrow for another offer, and a few minutes later he said they can't offer me this time. What could be the reason for rejection? | iel50pq | iel5wsi | 1,656,775,843 | 1,656,776,236 | 198 | 452 | You played chicken and lost. | You're expecting a very large company to make a snap decision about a position where you're likely one of several candidates. If you have a deadline they can't meet, it's easier for them to walk away than to speed up their process. | 0 | 393 | 2.282828 |
jta84c | askhr_test | 0.87 | [AK] Boss is chronically absent. Should I talk to him about it or go to his boss? So, my boss has had an ongoing problem for the three years I've worked for this company: he is never around. Some times have been better than others, but regardless he is constantly away for one excuse or another. COVID has been a perfect excuse for him to be around even less. All of my work needs his approval for next steps so I'm unable to get anything done because everything stops with him. A few months ago, it got to the point where he was coming in for 1-2 hours a week, while still claiming his $120K salary no problem. Since we were all working remotely, his boss didn't notice as he had his own work to handle. My coworker complained to the boss's boss and said this is a huge problem. Our boss is not around, doesn't respond to emails, and we can't get anything done. Big boss then spoke with our boss. The good thing is the our boss actually started working! Not his 40 hours a week, but a whole lot better than the max 10 he was putting in before. The bad thing is he sent this super unprofessional email to his staff saying basically "I did nothing wrong, and you should have spoken with me before speaking to my boss." We were all pretty annoyed, but were happy that our boss was at least working a bit more. A few weeks ago, our boss's boss left to a new job and our boss was left without a supervisor. We might get an interim big boss soon, but for the moment my boss is at the top. Since the big boss left, my boss went back to his under 10 hours a week schedule. Every single thing I've been working on for the past 1-2 years is now with him and I am sitting here waiting, despite quite a few matters being extremely time sensitive. So I ask, what do I do? How do you go to your boss, the person who controls the reviews you get and what work you do, and say "Hey man, you're literally never here. I can't do my job when you're away. I don't think it's okay." Should I wait until we get a new big boss and go to them? Should I go to HR? Please, please help. | gc4iz9s | gc5i6um | 1,605,243,564 | 1,605,276,115 | 6 | 8 | Go to HR. And document everything. | How does it go over when you tell your boss you need him to review the things with upcoming deadlines/time sensitivity? | 0 | 32,551 | 1.333333 |
ey1ntl | askhr_test | 0.88 | What do hiring managers think when they receive the same job candidate application from 2 different recruitment staffing agencies? Applying to over 200 applications, I made the dumb mistake of repeating my application to the same position. Now both agencies have said they submitted my application to the hiring manager. Will the hiring manager see me as a joke and dump my application trying to apply to the same position or still consider it? I'm a bit worried now I lost my chance for a good job position. Location: Central Florida | fgetg1d | fgetz9f | 1,580,709,374 | 1,580,709,928 | 2 | 29 | I've never been a hiring manager but I don't think they would give a second thought to this. It's probably very common for them to get the same application from multiple channels. | I am a hiring manager. I don’t think anything. I realize that they are trying to find a job and that they are using all the resources available to them. It doesn’t make a difference to me in hiring. It actually is quite common. We use multiple accounting professional firms and therefore, accounting professionals are likely going to be using as many as they can to land a spot. | 0 | 554 | 14.5 |
x7j3x2 | askhr_test | 0.86 | [KS] Asking candidate to fill out job application on clipboard on their knee in the waiting room immediately before interview a 4 hour interview? I'm referring more to white collar jobs that require a lot of experience, as opposed to a high-schooler filling out a job app in person for a summer cashier position. **More specifically**: you apply to job via resume, get an interview, go to interview in your suit and tie, and the receptionist hands you a clipboard with a paper job application and a pen and asks you to fill it out, PRIOR to interview. So you're stuck trying to write out everything while referring to whatever addresses/phone #'s you remembered to bring if you were lucky, having to write on a little clipboard balanced on your knee cap, already anxious about the interview, conflicted with writing in great detail to be thorough vs. hurrying up to get started with the interview. **Did there used to be a good reason for doing this?** Only happens about 10% of the time, and I've noticed it usually only happens when the HR person is a bit older. I think it's extremely rude to have an applicant do this, and leaves me with a bad impression of the company. **Is it OK to ask to bring it home? Act like you hurt your finger or something?** Heck, I may not even want the job after the interview, and if that's the case, I don't want the company to have all of my personal info (along with my SS#). | incp2cn | incueq7 | 1,662,492,122 | 1,662,494,143 | 20 | 21 | You pretty much answered your own question…some places are old school. But then you know that they’re not doing it to be extremely rude, they just don’t see the problem with the way they’re doing it. | Where are you applying, 1985? Sometimes companies use this as a tactic to see if you can read and write in English. Sometimes assholes us it as a tactic to see if you can think on your feet, came prepared, or whatever idiotic bullshit Michael Scott crap they think has been working for 30 years. If this has happened to you 10% of the time then you've been on 10 interviews at least **in person during covid**. That's a lot of interviews to not get a single offer. | 0 | 2,021 | 1.05 |
dbb555 | askhr_test | 0.93 | Not disclosing a job during interview. Hi everyone, I am currently working 2 part time jobs and I have an upcoming interview for a full-time position that would basically be a dream job for me. I have been at one of my positions for over 2 years but I just started the other job less then a month ago. My question is would it hurt me to not disclose this position? It's a job I only took to add some extra income. It is not on my resume and I am worried if I do mention this position, it may hurt my chances. I am looking for some honest input since I had started the job a few weeks ago. I do not want the potential future employer to think I'm a liar or a bad employee for leaving a position after a few weeks or failing to mention it. Thanks everyone! Bob Florida Age 29 | f1zuktm | f1zxeak | 1,569,850,220 | 1,569,851,776 | 3 | 10 | Why do you think it would hurt your chances? | not on your resume, but if you do a background check or application where it asks for ALL jobs within x years, yes i would put it on there. | 0 | 1,556 | 3.333333 |
m8huhc | askhr_test | 0.96 | [IL] I applied for two separate job descriptions at the company I work for then they merged both requiring me to take on two separate job descriptions. Was I wrong for advocating for myself? I just want to understand my options. When I initially applied for the positions of patient care technician and medical scribe, I did so under the guise that I’d become a PCT. I mentioned to the recruiter that I have er tech experience, an EMT license, and a bachelors degree in biology. This is a corporate urgent care with multiple locations based in NY. I got into this role because I have plans of getting into medical school and I wanted hands on patient care experience. I was previously a scribe for 1.5 years and wanted to make that transition. Anyhow, the recruiter told me that I’d be a PCT after I explained my background. Upon checking indeed, I noticed that both job descriptions were removed after I accepted the offer. When I started, on orientation day and subsequent training days, the manager had me training for both roles + reception. I rose my concerns as the weeks went on and I was still solely acting as a scribe. I tried to be nice at first but I ended up emailing upper management to understand what was going on. The recruiter told my manager that she told me that I would be cross trained across the board if I wanted to even be PCT. I was perplexed?? In that moment, I refused to scribe again because I absolutely felt lied to. I have since been working as PCT and everyone is impressed by my skills. Now, I’m getting a lot of pushback from management and one physician assistant to be a scribe in addition to being a PCT and reception for $16 per hour. Since a lot of my coworkers aren’t as skilled as me (the providers only trust me with everything so they don’t bother asking other employees for help), a lot of the workload gets dumped on me. I should mention that this place has a high turnover rate and people are constantly leaving. We do have enough staff for now. In this case, how should I approach this? | grhnt75 | grhu2uq | 1,616,168,419 | 1,616,171,130 | 10 | 11 | Does the job description for PCT say anything like “other duties as assigned?” | No you’re not wrong at all. But sadly this is becoming the norm as organizations face the need to do stiff cost cutting | 0 | 2,711 | 1.1 |
j4tpn5 | askhr_test | 0.87 | [TX] Caught coworker allowing underage coworker to purchase alcohol First off, yes I reported it. Coworker came in to our store in their time off and asked if I could ring them up. I saw they had alcohol so I said yeah let me just see your ID because I don’t know your age. They said well I’m not of age but please can you do it. I told them no that it wasn’t worth losing my job. They said ok and went to another person who allowed them to ( we were super busy so I was ringing up another customer and just glanced and saw them leave w said alcohol). I reported what happened, one because it’s illegal! And two I wouldn’t want this to come back to me eventually and get in trouble for knowing they tried with me. I was told I had to write a statement and I turned it in to supervisor. Anyone know what most likely would happen next? Would anyone else get involved? Like law enforcement or licensing? | g7nwhpg | g7o0ag0 | 1,601,810,179 | 1,601,811,725 | 20 | 29 | My simple thought is this - what if an off duty cop witnessed you turn down the sale, then saw your coworker sell the alcohol then reported that to the state? By you speaking up, you limit the problem to the two people involved - now both likely former employees. They're not going to jeopardize their liquor license over two idiots. | To you? Nothing. To the two employees: termination and what ever else Alcohol Law Enforcement decides their punishments should be. Your employer: that depends on Alcohol Law Enforcement. | 0 | 1,546 | 1.45 |
5xb25f | askhr_test | 1 | OK to decline answering intrusive exit interview questions? Hi -- today is my last day of work and I'm grappling with a weird HR issue. Last night, an HR rep emailed me an exit interview questionnaire that contains questions that, in my opinion, seem pretty intrusive, such as: --If you are leaving to join another company, what is the name of your new employer? --How did you come into contact with this employer? --Comparing your pay at this company and your starting pay at your new employer, does your new position offer a salary increase? --In comparing the benefits of your new firm with those of your company, are: not as good, equal, somewhat better, substantially better? --Would you consider returning to this company? Then it goes into the more traditional exit interview questions like what did you like and not like about our company, etc. I work in California for a Colorado-based company. I understand it can seem unprofessional to decline an exit interview, but I seriously don't feel comfortable answering the questions I listed above, or giving my honest input, period. For context, the company has been hemorrhaging employees in the last year due to low pay and poor management, among other things. So I can only assume the company just desperately wants to find out precisely why people are bolting. At the same time, I'm not obligated to answer these questions, and if they were to decide to punish me by, say, withholding my pay, then well, that's just illegal. And even if I did offer my input, I doubt any serious improvements would be made. I've voiced my opinions before and time and time again have been swiftly shut down. What would you do in my situation? Just suck it up and answer everything honestly, or ignore the process completely? Thanks. | deguysb | degsgy7 | 1,488,565,284 | 1,488,562,515 | 3 | 2 | This also depends on the size of the company. I work in Colorado for a California-based company . My team may have heard your thoughts, but didn't get traction. However, any exit we handle goes to a completely different team that shares overall responses to our HR exec and team. Your honest answer will hopefully benefit the colleagues you leave behind. For example, if everybody leaves for another company, it's time to research why they're better on S&B. Our recent studies showed it dealt with work/life integration and we're pushing hard in that area today. Our test site has been able to refurbish building A, sell building B, and allow employees to work from home more frequently. A win for the company and the employee. Think of the exit as serving that person you used to send PM's to during boring all hands meetings. Do a little bit in hopes of their life getting better. | Very standard questions. I typically preface the question about who their new employer is with "if you feel comfortable sharing" because I understand some people don't like to give that out. But, the benefits and salary question are really helpful to the employer. If everyone is leaving because we're not paying what the market dictates or we're not offering a competitive benefits package, I want to know about that so I can make recommendations on how we can improve. | 1 | 2,769 | 1.5 |
qmtnb6 | askhr_test | 0.94 | [MN] My Employer Is Taking Away My Company Car Benefit . . . what now? Hi. Twelve years ago, when I was hired by my new employer, I was provided with a company car to visit customers within a tristate region. The car was an important element of my negotiated hiring package. I have also been allowed to use the car for personal use. A few years ago, my employer was purchased by a larger competitor and I was still provided a company car. It's been a great benefit: I pay $50 per paycheck for the use of the car and that includes a fleet gas card (free gas!), no costs to me for maintenance or auto insurance, etc. And, about every three years or so, I am provided with a new replacement vehicle. This wonderful benefit is going to end within the next couple of months. Question: Should I ask my employer for some additional compensation to help compensate for the loss of the car going forward as the initial car was part of my hiring package? If yes, how should I proceed? My business travel needs haven't changed, and, in fact, my business travel will increase in 2022 and going forward. I don't have my tax info in front of me, but I'm certain my employer-provided tax docs somehow report the car as some benefit. All thoughts are appreciated! TIA! | hjctr7s | hjcvgsb | 1,636,072,643 | 1,636,073,384 | 10 | 36 | This happens sometimes. I was working for a large auto parts retailer and they took away the sales vehicles to about 750 people. In return they received a $300 a month stipend and a free gas card. Talk with them and see what your options are | if they want you to visit customers across 3 states, they should provide the way to get there. They don't want to own a big fleet, fine, but your job requires getting to the customers- but they should provide you with one because of the nature of the job duties. They're gonna be renting you a lot of cars, because you should refuse to be making customer visits across 3 states in your personal vehicle and wearing it out. | 0 | 741 | 3.6 |
q8eupf | askhr_test | 0.89 | [TX] Question about bathroom breaks? I loathe having to ask this, it feels like the most petty situation on the planet, but it’s becoming a major point of contention among my staff, and as a manager I don’t know how to handle it. Background: Small non-profit, 10 person staff. Of those 10 staff 9 are females and we share a women’s restroom. It’s a private one toilet with a door restroom. We have a newer staff member who will go into the restroom for 15-20 minutes at a time 3+ times a day. To the point every time someone else tries to use the restroom she is in there. At first we though, maybe it’s a temporary thing, not feeling well, etc. However it has not improved, if anything it’s more frequent/longer times. Other staff members have come to me complaining and more recently started gossiping and complaining to each other about it. Every time we go to look for her to ask her to start a different task she’s in the restroom, and she’ll be in there for extended periods while others need to use it. They could use the men’s, they’re essentially unisex bathrooms, but they don’t want to use it after our male employee(understandably). It’s turning into a major issue with staff and there is growing animosity. Today the employee in question and I were the only ones in office and I had to manage our front deskthat’s within eyeshot of the bathroom, so I started a log. She spent 1:27 minutes of her 8hr shift in the restroom today. It’s certainly at the top of my list that this could/likely be a medical problem. The LAST thing I want to do is manage someone’s restroom breaks. We’re grown adults, go when you need to, blow it up (and clean it) if you need to. I have bigger fish to fry, but we’re past the point of being able to ignore it. Please, please help me out here. I’ve no professional training on the human side of my job (manage an animal shelter), so I don’t even know where to start with this. It’s driving me insane. | hgoy18f | hgoxn4o | 1,634,266,173 | 1,634,265,995 | 43 | 9 | 1. Make both your bathrooms unisex. It is not understandable that your female employees won’t use the same restroom as a male. Don’t become part of the problem by gossiping with the other employees. Create the solution and help the other employee maintain dignity. 2. I have had this exact situation. It’s not a comfortable topic but when it’s taking that much of their time, it has to be addressed. I would log the time spent for a week at least. Then tell them your observation and ask if they what’s going on. For my employee, they said it was an anxiety issue, but refused to see a doctor for the medical documentation and the breaks reduced to normal times once we had that initial conversation and they realized that they weren’t hiding anymore. | I know this will sound flippant, but I mean it genuinely: just put up gender-neutral restroom signs. Seriously. | 1 | 178 | 4.777778 |
sgg1y6 | askhr_test | 0.99 | [MD] Conflicted about firing someone at the end of a PIP I manage a team of close to a dozen IT analysts at a large organization. A few months ago, I had to put one of my employees -- let's call them Francis -- on a PIP after repeated attempts to help them improve their job skills were fruitless. I tried coaching Francis intensively for months to no avail and it had gotten to a point where their lack of technical aptitude, inability to follow procedures, poor grasp of professional boundaries/workplace etiquette, and abysmal communication skills were taking a serious toll on team morale and my own mental health. I should have taken action much earlier, but I had never dealt with a PIP before and stupidly hoped my coaching and frequent, specific feedback would suffice. It did not, so at the end of their negative annual review I told Francis I was initiating a 90 day PIP. I have been meeting with them for an hour or more every week since then, and while they have made some small improvements here and there, they have been minimal and inconsistent, and only after extreme hand-holding by coworkers or me. Multiple team members have expressed their frustration at having to pick up Francis's slack; they were all eager to help them at first, but everyone has eventually given up on teaching them anything because nothing sticks. I know they have been trying, but I've suspected for a while that they have some kind of cognitive impairment based on their behavior, lack of listening or reading comprehension, work output, and poor judgement. When they divulged some medical history that could possibly be pertinent (without prompting), I tried encouraging them to pursue reasonable accommodations, but they declined. And yet several times during PIP check-ins, Francis cited their medical history as an explanation for poor performance. I've been as clear and candid as possible with them throughout the PIP about how they still haven't demonstrated an ability to meet expectations for the position and that they need to show much more significant improvement on a consistent basis to succeed in the PIP, but they don't appear to understand what that means. I've tried everything I can think of to get through to them, but it just feels like talking to a wall, and I have concluded that they simply are not capable of doing this job. About 60 days into the PIP, Francis had a unexpected medical emergency resulting in a month long absence, so I had to extend the PIP period. To be honest, prior to this I'd been counting down the days to the end of the PIP because I couldn't handle the intense frustration of managing them anymore. My job is extremely stressful even without Francis, and I've been struggling with burnout for the last year, so I felt resentful about having to prolong this misery even further. But I also felt really sorry for them and the idea of firing someone right after they returned to work from a serious medical crisis just felt gross, so I tried to give them a fair chance. So now we are approaching the end of the extended PIP and Francis still hasn't proven they can meet the basic requirements of this job. I have no doubt I'm justified in terminating them and I have tons of documentation to back me up. Here's the problem: based on what they have disclosed about their current medical condition, it's pretty dire. They haven't shared a diagnosis (and I would never ask) but recently they have mentioned several details in passing that indicate a grim prognosis. They have also disclosed in past conversations that they have some mental health issues in addition to this condition, and I've gotten the sense (from their chronic, intractable oversharing) that they don't have much going for them outside of this job. From a professional standpoint, I know letting them go is the right call for my team, and personally, it would do wonders for my own stress level to have Francis out of my life. But morally, I feel sick about terminating someone in their position, especially knowing that they almost definitely have astronomical medical bills (with more in the future), even with insurance. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle the conclusion of the PIP? Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? If so, how did it work out? I would appreciate any words of wisdom. | huw4bdi | huw94ps | 1,643,571,730 | 1,643,573,608 | 14 | 36 | You've shared it with HR, but it's Frances who has to make a claim for disability accommodation. And provide proof. Accommodation doesn't mean that you keep a job that you'll never be able to do. It means that you can do the entire job with some relatively minor modifications. It's a hard lesson to learn, but as someone who was fired more than once before succeeding, I learned from it and straightened up. In Frances's case, there's probably a job out there they're better suited for and that won't exacerbate their physical and mental symptoms. | I work in a professional office. We had a "Francis" for 1.5 years. Covering her position and meeting the complex needs of my clients at the same has given me full blown resentment for my firm and my work, at large. It'll be a year in June that she's been gone and I still haven't recovered from the mental torment that was Debbie. Do this for yourself and your team and don't ever regret it, no looking back. | 0 | 1,878 | 2.571429 |
qisw6j | askhr_test | 0.75 | [NJ] HR asked what are your salary expectation, I said 85k which is what I make. She emailed me back sayings thanks, we are targeting 90k. I will send you the full details of the offer once everything is approved. Can I counteroffer? What should I do, truthfully I just didnt want to be greedy but I know I shot myself in the foot. Does it look bad to counteroffer? If so should I wait to get the full offer letter or reply back now? | hilz3a9 | himvxsj | 1,635,571,637 | 1,635,596,757 | 30 | 50 | Are you willing to lose the job over $5000? | If you would be happy with $85k, why would you be unhappy with $90k? It sounds like a great employer. If you tried to make a counter offer, you will look foolish. | 0 | 25,120 | 1.666667 |
z1ax5g | askhr_test | 0.7 | [NM] Can an employer not pay approved PTO? I work for one of the worlds largest corporations, my most recent pay check will be shorted 32 hours because after timesheets we’re submitted and approved my leadership told me I did not have the vacation time despite the time being approved for several months by different managers as management has changed a lot. Since I was informed of this after the time was taken off will be shorted 32 hours. What recourse if any do I have? I live in New Mexico. | ix9zwob | ixa0dl8 | 1,669,067,255 | 1,669,067,450 | 18 | 67 | Why do you "not have the vacation time"? Are you not eligible or have you used some already this year? | Being approved to take time off and using paid time off are two different things. People take unpaid time off all the time. Is your boss saying that you've already used all your PTO/vacation? Is that true? | 0 | 195 | 3.722222 |
fj4bcp | askhr_test | 0.81 | Is this Coronavirus Work from Home Policy Normal? I work for a large consulting company and have two kids. They just sent out this WFH policy that I find tone deaf in the current climate. Is this even reasonable? **Tips and Guidance for Working from Home** 1. Unless your office is officially closed, be aware that you can still work from the office. If doing so does not increase your risk of exposure to COVID-19, you may choose this option because of activities at your house, a lack of dedicated work space, or you just need a change in environment. 2. Daily check-in calls may be beneficial, especially for those that aren’t accustomed to working from home. However, this should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, because the downside is that these calls may interrupt the flow and concentration of working on projects, and may add to an already busy meeting schedule for many of us. 3. Maintain an accurate calendar, especially involving time out of the office. 4. When you receive an email from another employee, acknowledge its receipt in a timely manner and provide a time estimate as to when you can provide the information or action requested. 5. If you have a critical deadline or time-sensitive issue requiring another team member’s response, consider placing a follow-up voice call to ensure that the email will be seen quickly and that the deadline is understood. 6. **Use the seven-day week to your advantage. What can you accomplish on Saturday or a Sunday?** 7. **Leverage early morning and evenings.** 8. **Swap babysitting responsibilities with other parents in the same situation.** 9. **What if the daycare closes? Consider hiring the teacher who now can’t work! Or college and high school students who may be similarly impacted.** 10. It is essential that you adhere to all data security protocols. | fkku2hn | fkkt6e5 | 1,584,291,948 | 1,584,291,413 | 139 | 38 | Just sounds like they are offering flex-time arrangements for parents who have kids that are now out of school and have to be cared for. At most companies, work-from-home policies usually prohibit taking care of your kids at home while telecommuting, as it's a huge distraction and would no doubt have a negative impact on productivity. Seems like they're giving you suggestions to work around that if you do have kids that need taking care of; you can spend time during the week minding the kids during work hours and make up any of that missed time or unfinished work during your evenings and weekends. | Which parts do you find tone deaf/unreasonable- the items in bold? What leads you to that conclusion? It all seems pretty standard to me. | 1 | 535 | 3.657895 |
pr0eh6 | askphilosophy_test | 0.97 | Why is Nietzsche such a big deal (as far as western philosophers go)? | hdhi6sj | hdhvtwi | 1,632,072,379 | 1,632,077,719 | 3 | 9 | Michael Sugrue also has a very digestable lecture on importance if Nietzche here. He argues that Nietzche was not necessarily the first person to critique Christianity and drive the Western philosophy away from metaphysics but definitely the first one to do it with such vigour that had a long term effect on future philosophers as well as 20th century Germany. | I think the main reason he was such a big deal is because he was an engaging and accessible writer at a time when impenetrable self-contained vocabularies, such as those of Hegel, were the norm. His ideas were interesting but I think the reason he was popular wasn’t so much because of that as because they were so well-*expressed*. His 10 tips for writers, which are funny as hell, illustrate the point. | 0 | 5,340 | 3 |
pa583y | askphilosophy_test | 0.92 | /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 23, 2021 Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules. For example, these threads are great places for: * Personal opinion questions, e.g. "who is your favourite philosopher?" * "Test My Theory" discussions and argument/paper editing * Discussion not necessarily related to any particular question, e.g. about what you're currently reading * Questions about the profession This thread is **not** a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads. Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here or at the Wiki archive here. | ha5zc33 | ha2uobg | 1,629,815,612 | 1,629,751,862 | 7 | 3 | Jean-Luc Nancy died :( | Two questions, A. Why are people doing homework in August? B. Where are all these antivaxxers coming from? | 1 | 63,750 | 2.333333 |
n3q60t | askphilosophy_test | 0.96 | Doesn't the existence of mental illness, anesthetics and psychedelics make a good argument for materialism? Hopefully not too ignorant of a question, I'm pretty new to reading about theories of consciousness. Maybe I'm missing something? I understand materialism as consciousness being based on matter, some kind of result of physical reactions to inputs. Someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, which might be related to dopamine problems in the brain, means that there's physical difference that effects their conscious experience. Similar for drugs, a new chemical is introduced and the conscious experience of the person receiving the drug changes significantly. With anesthetics consciousness seems to go away completely and psychedelics alter it. It seems like the fact that when chemicals in the brain are modified, conscious experience changes would be a strong piece of evidence for materialism? I'm asking because I haven't read about these scenarios in anything I read so far, I'm wondering if I'm off somewhere in my misunderstanding or if I"m not good at searching and if i could get some ideas to track down or anything good to read. | gwrcng6 | gwrl4yl | 1,620,029,837 | 1,620,037,312 | 24 | 28 | Good question but it may not be a simple relationship between consciousness and brain activity. We know chemical changes in the brain cause neurological changes in how the brain operates. If this includes changes in the perceptual system, then the information our consciousness is receiving and processing is different. On that basis maybe consciousness has remained the same, it is simply working with different input. Like switching from reading a serious book to watching a comedy tv show. Same consciousness, different content. We also know different people can experience the same things very differently. So, we can show some correlation between consciousness and brain operations. But that correlation can vary even when everything else remains the same. But we cannot show brain function is the cause of consciousness, and certainly not show that it is the sole cause of consciousness. The best we can say is the brain is necessary for consciousness. We cannot say it is sufficient. And none of this proves materialism, or disproves it. We're just talking about conscious experience.To prove materialism, you would have to also show it is impossible for any physical thing to have any non-physical properties. Not just that they don't, but that they cannot. This is not my area, but I think the most profitable approach to that is through logic, not observation. Such as trying to show the idea of non-physical is logically incoherent, or self-contradictory. | It is true that some materialists point to this sort of phenomenon to justify their materialism. For instance, Lucretius does this. But it is too hasty. Every dualist has something to say about this. Sometimes their explanations are lacklustre. For example, Descartes in his correspondences happily accepts that there is a connection between mind and body such that this sort of thing makes perfect sense. But he also believes that it is not within the scope of philosophy to explain how this sort of everyday occurrence happens. Philosophy discovers that the mind and body are distinct from each other, but it is left to other things to discover how they act on each other and interact. (Perhaps Descartes is right but I think that his concession that philosophy simply can’t explain this turns some people off.) But other dualists gave a much more systematic explanation. Check out Plato’s *Timaeus* for an example, especially the last ten or fifteen pages. That part of the dialogue is a careful analysis of bodily and mental illnesses, understand as interactions between the soul and the body’s chemicals. | 0 | 7,475 | 1.166667 |
8sphgh | askphilosophy_test | 0.88 | Vegans do not eat honey. Is there a good argument for the consumption of honey being unethical? Arguments for veganism from the perspective of normative systems like utilitarianism and Kantianism are very well-developed and serious. For example, if you are a utilitarian vegan, you ought not contribute to unnecessary suffering of beings that are capable of suffering, and by consuming factory farmed meat where animal suffering is present you are contributing to the demand for such farms and consequently such suffering. Is there a good utilitarian argument for the eating of honey being unethical however? Can bees and insects experience utility? Can a bee suffer? If a good utilitarian argument can't be made, can arguments from other normative systems be made for the moral impermissibility of honey consumption? | e11ub94 | e11o4fx | 1,529,592,593 | 1,529,586,548 | 4 | 2 | As a vegan, I don't eat honey not because I'm certain that bees can suffer but because it's not obvious that they can't. A strong case can be made that you act in a morally objectionable way when you take unnecessary risks which may or may not actually cause real suffering. This moral wrongdoing would likely be amplified the more trivial the reason for taking said risk. An example of this idea that I find persuasive is imagining a pilot who, because he is running a few minutes behind schedule, neglects to have the proper safety inspections done in his plane. By doing this, he's able to get on route at the time scheduled so he doesn't face any repercussions for his tardiness (Whether this relates to how pilots really work is something I have no clue of. This example, as it was explained to me, is just about the principle). Now, say we discover that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the plane. All the equipment is stacked appropriately, the oxygen masks come down correctly, ect. Did the pilot do something wrong? I think so. The potential negative consequences were high enough and the benefit low enough that it seems to me that he has made a morally objectionable risk. It could turn out that bees are simply incapable of suffering, in which case our current practices (absent ecological concerns) are acceptable, but it's at least plausible that they do. The benefit I receive from eating honey, which is actually fairly easy to avoid, doesn't, to me, seem to offset the risk of contributing to industrialized harms. | >Is there a good utilitarian argument for the eating of honey being unethical however? Eating honey may or may not have a negative impact on bees. It seems most folks argue that some amount of honey consumption is harmless, even good, insofar as it supports beekeepers and crops. Our consumption of honey does not seem to be a driver of the present decline in honeybees. >Among the most important drivers are land-use change with the consequent loss and fragmentation of habitats \15,21,42,43\]; increasing pesticide application and environmental pollution \[44,45\]; decreased resource diversity \[18\]; alien species \[46,47\]; the spread of pathogens \[48,49\]; and climate change \[50,51\] This supports the comment u/uinviel linked to ([here). This doesn't mean that utilitarians shouldn't worry about bees at all. Serious disruptions to ecosystems can reduce the well-being of large populations of sentient creatures. By some estimates, 80 - 90% of our food depends on bee pollination, and we can expect the impact on plants to similarly disrupt the eating habits of other animals. Because so many plants rely on pollinators like bees, any disruptions to the bees could result in negative cascade effects. >Can bees and insects experience utility? Given the speculative nature of consciousness-related research, it isn't surprising that some folks have argued that bees can suffer. See this piece, for example: >The scientists at Newcastle wanted to know if stress would affect the bees’ mood, so they vigorously shook one group of bees to simulate an invasion into the hive. The bees, it turns out, were not just physically but also psychologically shaken. Not only did they exhibit lower levels of serotonin and dopamine, they also became pessimistic in their responses, anticipating that samples would be bitter instead of sweet, amounting to punishment, as indicated by expression of the face. > >The pessimistic reaction, seen as an emotional response to stress, thrilled the researchers. ‘We show that the bees’ response to a negatively valenced event has more in common with that of vertebrates than previously thought,’ the team wrote in *Current Biology* in 2011. The finding suggests ‘that honeybees could be regarded as exhibiting emotions’. | 1 | 6,045 | 2 |
5gujqi | askphilosophy_test | 0.89 | If Albert Camus' Sisyphus was happy, does this mean he wasn't really punished, or is he lying to himself? The idea of Sisyphus being punished and being happy at the same time, seems contradicting to me. If he was happy with the task, it wouldn't be a punishment to him. | dav5au5 | dav8cql | 1,481,049,544 | 1,481,053,086 | 13 | 15 | The whole "punishment" aspect of the myth isn't super relevant to the point Camus is making. | The punishment part is only relevant within his interpretation of the myth. Camus assumes that for the rock-rolling to be a punishment at all, Sisyphus needs to know the rock-rolling will never succeed. Otherwise, Camus thinks, Sisyphus would be, at worst, frustrated. So, what you say is exactly the point. By taking joy in the task itself it ceases to be a punishment and Sisyphus demonstrates that Zeus' actions are self-defeating. He cannot punish Sisyphus in the way he wishes. Thus, "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." | 0 | 3,542 | 1.153846 |
u6ermg | askphilosophy_test | 0.98 | Is there a “Muslim Nietzsche”? That is, a philosopher who grew up in a Muslim society and criticized Muslim values like Nietzsche criticized Christian values? | i58a751 | i57wp4y | 1,650,301,356 | 1,650,295,949 | 158 | 127 | As a history teacher, I thought of Zaki al-Arsuzi, the main philosopher behind the Ba'athist Movement. He outlined a pan-Arab nationalism based on socialism and similar to Nietzsche's idea of "Europeans." At least, that is how I used to teach it back during the Gulf War. | That depends on what one means by criticising Islam like Nietzsche did Christianity. I guess there are some parallels between Nietzsche and Al-Ma'arri, e.g. ideas on the lack of inherent meaning and a contempt for religious dogma. But there are stark differences as well: I don't think Nietzsche was explicitly anti-natalist (the idea that procreation is immoral), and as far as I know Nietzsche never argued for something akin to Al-Ma'arri's proto-veganism. | 1 | 5,407 | 1.244094 |
r10awt | askphilosophy_test | 0.94 | Is Kant a compatibilist in terms of the problem of free will? I was reading Alenka Zupancic's "Ethics of the real: Kant, Lacan" in which she writes that Kant is adamant upon his stand that each and every action of ours is determined through causality but still the subject remains free since it is upon the subject to freely choose his categorical imperative, since there is no Cause of the causal chains other than subject itself, i.e. in Lacanian terms, there is no Other of the Other but the subject of freedom, since though the subject is the effect of the other but because the other is inconsistent the cause of the subject doesn't exist in the other, and the subject of freedom is the effect of the absence of this cause, i.e. a lack in the other. Do other philosophers agree with her interpretation of Kant as a compatibilist? | hlwy0yu | hlwfjwv | 1,637,770,241 | 1,637,762,244 | 6 | 4 | The way it's sometimes put -- I believe this paper by Allen Wood is responsible for this formulation -- is that Kant was a compatibilist about compatibilism and incompatibilism. | I’m not sure Zupabcic thinks Kant is a compatibilist, at least from what you’ve said here! Whether you think Kant is a compatibilist, libertarian, or something else entirely is going to dependent on how you interpret Kant on this matter, and Kant is, well, difficult to interpret. I’m not a Kant scholar, but the (very rough) interpretation that I accept is that according to Kant we necessary perceived and conceive of events, including our own actions as being a part of the causal series of events, and determined by their causes. But, we cannot know why events occur in themselves, independently of how we perceive and conceive them. So, with respect to the world as we experience it, Kant is a determinist. But, Kant thinks that it’s possible that our actions in themselves, independent of how we perceive and conceive them, are not determined, and so, libertarian free will is at least possible — we can hope we have it, but we can’t actually know. I said I think Kant is a determinist about the world insofar as we perceive and conceive it. But is he a compatibilist? Well, he calls the account of free will according to which you act freely when your action is the result of your choice as opposed to external coercion a “wretched subterfuge”. So he clearly rejects at least one version of compatibilism. Whether he might accept a more sophisticated version (at least for the world as we perceive and conceive it) is probably impossible to say before, since we don’t know how Kant would have responded to developments in philosophy after he died. | 1 | 7,997 | 1.5 |
vccffr | askphilosophy_test | 1 | Leibniz (via Deleuze): why is the best possible world the one that contains the most continuity? (Context: I come at this from Deleuze, and thus am asking from a position of great ignorance about Leibniz.) In Deleuze's lectures on Leibniz, he outlines the concepts of continuity and compossibility, then says this: >So, you see, the definition at which we’ve arrived, and where I want to stop, here we grasp something, a specific relation that is compossibility or incompossibility. I would say yet again that compossibility is when series of ordinaries converge, series of regular points that derive from two singularities and when their values coincide, otherwise there is discontinuity. In one case, you have the definition of compossibility, in the other case, the definition of incompossibility. Question, once again: **why did God choose this world rather than another, when another was possible?** Leibniz’s answer which, in my view, becomes splendid: **it’s because it is the world that mathematically implicates the maximum of continuity, and it’s uniquely in this sense that it is the best, that is the best of possible worlds.** So my question is simply this: Why does Leibniz argue that the best possible world realised by God is the one with the maximum of continuity (if he indeed does argue this)? | icfpy7g | icfycht | 1,655,286,211 | 1,655,292,655 | 2 | 3 | In short terms, though having a similar background of understanding as you (with Deleuze and only a little Leibniz), I believe ‘maximum of continuity’ to simply mean that this world is one in which all potential of becoming is brought to its utter limit or possibility insofar as there is no ‘actual’ limit (yet it is immanent). In other words, this is the best of all possible worlds because it is seen to be clearly possible (pointing to why mathematical implication is so important)—and one can, in practice, see that via recognizing said immanent limit/possibility (which is really an opening for Deleuze). | >(if he indeed does argue this)? Well, Leibniz doesn't. He doesn't even use such mathematical language (divergence, convergence, continuity) in his discussion of compossibility or Theodicy. He gives reasons why our actual world is the best possible world (e.g., because it has the simplest laws yet is the richest in phenomena), but they have nothing to do with continuity or mathematical maximality. I guess it's possible to (overly) charitably interpret the terms Deleuze uses as loosely corresponding to something Leibniz actually said, but I think it's easier to accept that at some point Deleuze just starts making up his own stuff. | 0 | 6,444 | 1.5 |
oj2zf0 | askphilosophy_test | 0.93 | good books to read to start getting into philosophy ‘properly’? so far i’ve only read bits and pieces of different philosophers books-as i’m waiting for a couple to arrive-and mini thesis’/ essays on different philosophies. i’m pretty young so i know that it’s gonna be pretty difficult for me to understand the majority of the wording (already finding the first paragraphs of aristotle’s ‘the complete works’ slightly difficult lol) but i want to give it a shot. at the moment, i only have: -*exploring philosophy: faking nature* - the open university -*Aristotle; the complete works* - aristotle (obviously lol) -*an introduction to philosophy* - George stuart fullerton -*philosophy: the nature of persons* - the open university -*between psychology and philosophy, palgrave studies in comparative east-west philosophy* - michael slote these are ones my mum previously had, i didn’t actively go out and looks for these so i’m not sure on what philosophy a lot of these look into. are any of these good reads? i’m aiming to at least try read all of these as much as i can anyways, but i think having a priority list would be beneficial. i know there’s not a way to properly be into philosophy but i am genuinely interested and want to try find a way to best figure things out. for reference, the books ordered are the myth of sisyphus, the stranger and i’m planning on getting sartre’s work, nietzsche’s work, some things on metaphysics, and i’m not too sure what else. it’s possible i’m getting ahead of myself, but who knows? but yeah, any recommendations or advice? | h4zo83b | h4zspfh | 1,626,141,167 | 1,626,143,598 | 5 | 10 | how to be a philosopher by gary cox is a good introduction because it walks you through the main areas of philosophy. once you've finished that (or really, ANY pop-philosophy book), take u/Philosopher013's advice and follow up on what was most interesting in that book. | “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.” Alfred North Whitehead Start with Plato’s Dialogues and branch off from there. Then, when you find the search for meaning waning, read the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing) and follow the Eastern branches of philosophy. This is a semi-autobiographical response. That’s what helped me through my philosophical journey and I found the contrast between East and West the most fruitful. In the West, the idea is that truth is out there somewhere and we must find it, isolate it, capture it. In the East, the idea is that you already possess the truth and must search within. An obvious oversimplification | 0 | 2,431 | 2 |
ck1yds | askphilosophy_test | 0.93 | Why is it that Eastern and Western philosophy don't appear to have interacted much, even in the ancient world, until the 19th century? Is there any evidence of cross pollination of ideas? | eviv28a | evjx7cu | 1,564,549,980 | 1,564,571,582 | 7 | 14 | I would put this down to two main factors: (1) Cultural elitism (for lack of a better word). Each culture had its ideas of the classics, and of the classical civilizations worthy of study. In the West, Greek thought was considered the foundation of all philosophy, so it was Plato and Aristotle who were studied and referenced. Despite the move toward less Eurocentric thought, I would argue that this is still the case today as the majority of philosophers are working in a tradition that goes from Greece through medieval thought and on to Kant, Hegel, etc... There were influences such as Buddhism on Schopenhauer, but most philosophy departments still offer limited classes on Eastern thinkers. The idea of a Western Canon is still there, even if not referenced by name. Look to music for a similar phenomenon. For East Asia, the cultural influence was China itself (especially Confucianism and Taoism), as well as Buddhist thought from India. Philosophers from these regions, such as the neo-Confucians (e.g. Zhuxi) and the many strands of Buddhist thought referenced earlier Eastern works. They didn't feel the need to look elsewhere. Canon was a key concept here too. However, it should be noted that India and China were certainly different civilizations, and Chinese thought did become profoundly influenced by the Indian thought via Buddhism. Had this not occurred, the idea of "Eastern" philosophy would not exist; we'd talk separately of Indian and Chinese thought instead and perhaps would be asking why they didn't mix. They "mixed" due to particular historical events (and mainly in one direction from India to China and on to Korea and Japan). (2) Translation. Most works in Eastern philosophy were not translated until very late, often beginning with the Jesuits in China. The strongest influence was probably the Sacred Books of the East series in the 19thC. This was for many in the West the first access they had to Eastern texts, and they did end up being quite influential in philosophy but also in the arts. Still, these translations were limited; they were only of the most common texts. Similarly, China didn't have (to my knowledge) access to translations of Plato. The translation of Buddhist texts into Chinese was an enormous and costly project led by Xuanzang and others. This project led to Buddhist texts (in Sanskrit and Pali) being available to Chinese scholars, and through them to Japan and Korea. The project was possible due to support by the the imperial state. There wasn't a corresponding project for philosophies from other regions, so anything that did make its way to China would have been obscure. In fact, I would argue that this is still the case today, though to a lesser extent. The majority of works in the Chinese Buddhist canon (which is largely the same as Korean and Japanese) are not available in English. On the other hand, even fairly obscure philosophical texts from the West are usually available in multiple European languages. There are today far more Western scholars who can read Sanskrit or classical Chinese than there were in the 1800's, but it's still not a level playing field. | There was actually substantial interaction between those we call Western and Eastern philosophers. This article gives a thorough analysis of the influence of Greek philosophers on Islamic philosophers: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-greek/ This article gives an analysis of the influence of Arabic philosophers on mediaeval Christian philosophers writing in Latin: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-influence/ This article gives an account of Byzantine philosophy. The Byzantine Empire was peculiarly located between the Latin West and the Arabic East, and continued writing in Greek and grappling with problems inherited from the ancient Greeks while the Latin West had mostly left the language and ideas behind: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/byzantine-philosophy/ I'm going to simplify this explanation grossly, but hopefully you get the idea: the reason we tend not to think there was any interaction is partly due to the prevalence of colonialism. The European intellectuals who studied Asian languages and culture at the time of colonial expansion took a peculiar view of the object studied as inherently 'other'. They tended to reduce what they called The Orient to a particular historical picture that the West itself had built of the East. The project of colonial powers wasn't to learn from these cultures, but to manage them. The ideas that filtered through to the west were generally geared towards administration rather than understanding. So the people doing the translating weren't interested in preserving the richness of Eastern thought, and often edited out significant aspects. One example is that the British translated Islamic law texts, but left out all discussion of Islamic jurisprudence, meaning the result was that the British used these Westernised translations to teach Islamic law both in England and to the colonial subjects themselves, substituting Western jurisprudence instead. The idea that there was such a thing as Islamic philosophy of law was therefore inaccessible to the British in general. But as you can see from the articles above, there is an exchange of ideas between the so-called East and the so-called West, if we're prepared to look for it. If you're interested, look into postcolonialism. The seminal work is Orientalism by Edward Said. It's a huge field. | 0 | 21,602 | 2 |
jbtjrx | askphilosophy_test | 0.98 | How exactly does spinoza bridge the is-ought gap? I'm having a hard time seeing how he goes from all things having a conatus to this conatus implying certain virtues we need to follow. | g8y8y7t | g8xy8gr | 1,602,805,353 | 1,602,799,323 | 21 | 8 | It depends a lot on what you mean, which is why you have received so many different correct answers. Strictly speaking, the is-ought problem as articulated by Hume in book III, part I, section I of A Treatise of Human Nature is > In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; **when of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.** This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, **for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.** But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason. The is-ought problem, as articulated by Hume, is when a philosophical treatise moves from making "is" claims to making "ought" claims, without explaining how the shift is made. Spinoza solves that problem by not making the shift from "is" to "ought". Spinoza's ethical claims are based on statements of what things *are*. 3P6: Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavours to persist in its own being. 3P7 The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question. Spinoza does not make prescriptive claims that a thing *ought* to strive to endeavor to persist in being. He just says that is what things do. Another good example is 4P14: Every man, by the laws of his nature, necessarily desires or shrinks from that which he deems to be good or bad. > The knowledge of good and evil is (IV. viii.) the emotion of pleasure or pain, in so far as we are conscious thereof; therefore, every man necessarily desires what he thinks good, and shrinks from what he thinks bad. Now this appetite is nothing else but man's nature or essence (cf. the Definition of Appetite, III. ix. note, and Def. of the Emotions, i.). Therefore, every man, solely by the laws of his nature, desires the one, and shrinks from the other, &c. Q.E.D. In Spinoza's system, it is not that one *ought to* desire what one thinks good, or *ought to* shrink from the bad. But rather "every man, solely by the laws of his nature, desires the one, and shrinks from the other." That's just what man is, and that's just what man does. Hume's articulation of the is-ought gap would only apply to Spinoza if, say, Books 1 through 2 contained is claims about how God works and how Humans, work, and then suddenly in Books 3 through 5 Spinoza shifted to how Humans ought to live given the claims in the first two books. Spinoza never makes that shift, so far as I recall. Spinoza is is claims all the way down, so to speak. Which either means that * Spinoza bridges the is-ought gap by making reconfiguring prescriptive ethical claims as "is" claims. * Spinoza does not bridge the gap because he never hops from "is" speak to "ought" speak. I think it's more the first than the second, but both are probably right. | I don't think he does, Spinoza criticizes the ideas of good and evil (see the appendice to the first part of *Ethics*, for instance) and replace them with the idea of the 'useful'. It is most useful to you to be virtuous, but it's not an obligation. In chapter XVI of the *TTP*, he defines the right of nature as the power of individuals. The extent of what you're allowed to do is just the extent of what you can do. It's in a beautiful passage : >By the right and order of nature I merely mean the rules determining the nature of each individual thing by which we conceive it is determined naturally to exist and to behave in a certain way. For example fish are determined by nature to swim and big fish to eat little ones, and therefore it is by sovereign natural right that fish have possession of the water and that big fish eat small fish. For it is certain that nature, considered wholly in itself, has a sovereign right to do everything that it can do, i.e., the right of nature extends as far as its power extends…since the universal power of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individual things together, it follows that each individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything that it can do, or the right of each thing extends so far as its determined power extends. | 1 | 6,030 | 2.625 |
s6zvdb | askphilosophy_test | 1 | Who or what is the god of Spinoza? I've been reading his "Ethics", but i cannot really comprehend who he calls god. Is it a metaphor, or does he really believe in a higher force that "rules the world"? | ht7fmez | ht7rs6v | 1,642,529,348 | 1,642,533,839 | 4 | 12 | For Spinoza, God does not rule the world because God is not a person with a will or desires. Rather, God just is the world. I forget exactly where in the Ethics this occurs, but I seem to recall him referring to his concept of God as “God, or Nature.” | God is not a who, in Spinoza. The Appendix to Book 1 has a good overview of what Spinoza tries to say about God, written in a manner that is more approachable to most readers. > All such opinions spring from the notion commonly entertained, that all things in nature act as men themselves act, namely, with an end in view. It is accepted as certain, that God himself directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first why it obtains general credence, and why all men are naturally so prone to adopt it ? secondly, I will point out its falsity; and, lastly, I will show how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like. God, in Spinoza, is not an invisible man living in the sky. God is Nature: "For the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists." Once you understand that bit, you should go back and re-read Book 1. It will likely make much more sense. | 0 | 4,491 | 3 |
39a0a0 | askphilosophy_test | 0.92 | I used to read a lot of the standard "new" atheist stuff a few years ago. I haven't really thought about it in a while but I see /r/badphilosophy mock that kind of stuff. What's wrong with "new atheist"-ish thinking? What should I know? | cs1r768 | cs1nlvs | 1,433,944,284 | 1,433,935,142 | 35 | 24 | Some of the main points I've found: * New atheist subculture is very insular and protects itself from self-correction or new information getting in. To take an example, I'll often present various versions of cosmological arguments in forums, and the utter ignorance about them is breathtaking. Even more breathtaking is the feeling that they generally *don't want* to learn about them, as they will instantly dive in trying to "refute" it before I'm even finished explaining, almost as if they've already decided the arguments don't work before even hearing them. In this way they are, IMO, very similar to religious fundamentalists. * They have a strange definition of atheism as meaning "lack of belief," which generally isn't used anywhere outside their insular subculture. The best response to this behavior is here. * As reallynicole pointed out, they tend be what I would call "naive positivists." The view that science is the only way to know anything. Nicole pointed to her own comment on this topic, but another viewpoint is that positivism died out in the mid-20th Century. To use the terminology of new atheism, I might say that it was *"utterly destroyed!!1!!!"*, even though the reality is more nuanced than that. * Related to the above, they generally have a disdain for "philosophy," which, as someone once pointed out, is like saying you hate thinking. They'll say things like "philosophy didn't give you the laptop you are using right now!!!" The silliness of this can be exposed by avoiding use of the word "philosophy" and instead using words like "epistemology" and "ethics" and "logic." "Logic didn't give you your laptop!!1!!!" * Also related to the above, they tend to be extremist empiricists. They'll sometimes insist that even math is empirically discovered by counting apples. Even the most extreme empiricists in history like Hume and Berkeley didn't go that far. | I'm often struck by how unscientific they are, for example I've heard them claim (or allude to the 'fact') that the world would be less violent without religion. How on Earth do they know? For bonus irony points, they sometimes then criticise theologians for wading in on debates about molecular biology without the requisite understanding... | 1 | 9,142 | 1.458333 |
5qphj9 | askphilosophy_test | 0.89 | Is there a term for one sentence or phrase that is intended by the author to have two different meanings, both of which are true, even in the same context? Take for example the sentence, "Hegel had the right idea." And the author of this sentence cleverly intends to mean both that "Hegel's thinking was correct" and that "Hegel had the idea of right in his Philosophy of Right". I think it would be an interesting project to construct a list of all possible sentences that one could intend to have multiple meanings that do not contradict one another. diaskopic (dia, skopos, ic) sentences? | dd142e2 | dd12iev | 1,485,637,512 | 1,485,635,369 | 15 | 7 | It's *ambiguity*. It was something of great interest around Hegel's time, and it was something of direct interest and importance for Hegel's philosophy and its presentation. | Hegel often employs what he calls "speculative words," words that have two contradictory meanings. The most famous example is *aufheben* which means "to preserve and negate." | 1 | 2,143 | 2.142857 |
je94j0 | askphilosophy_test | 0.84 | Is there a concept to describe the fact that our understanding of the world and the type of experience we have is highly dependent on our identity (gender, race, etc) ? As an example, many women experience sexual harassment at work. However, men seem oblivious to this, and even deny that it happens at their workplace, because they almost never experience this themselves, or it does not take place in front of them. Both gender cannot exactly relate to each other on this topic because their experience of the world is incompatible. | g9d9rts | g9d6x1d | 1,603,141,761 | 1,603,140,349 | 38 | 12 | Standpoint epistemology | https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/ | 1 | 1,412 | 3.166667 |
zqh6oy | askphilosophy_test | 0.91 | as a teenager interested in philosophy, how do i start in exploring it and then branch out to more complex ideas? i've always like the idea of questioning abstract concepts and have read up on a couple branches of philosophy but now i thought about learning the basics. does anyone know where i start as a high schooler (especially since i can't study philosophy in college due to financial reasons) | j0yas06 | j1090jo | 1,671,525,640 | 1,671,562,373 | 3 | 5 | I would find a fairly recent book on a subject you are most interested in that isnt too long. I had a couple false starts by trying to get directly into Spinoza or Heidegger or whatever when I barely read as it was. Chalmers' The Conscious Mind really lit a fire and got me going. Pretty much have been continuously reading since then. But that book may not speak to you. Find one that seems very interesting and is kinda recent and not very long (so maybe find one less than 400 pages, maybe even less than 300). | I’ve seen a lot of very good replies so far, but here’s my take on it: What matters the most is that you enjoy the process; don’t force yourself to get into the most abstract ideas as soon as you can, don’t read the edgy philosophers before understanding who they were replying to, the period they were writing in, etc., because you’ll miss subtlety which you will have to go over in the future to actually understand their deeper points. Honestly, you don’t even have to start by reading philosophy, you can go on YouTube and watch lectures there instead, to get introductions to specific philosophers and their core concepts. I very strongly recommend you watch Michael Sugure’s channel on YouTube, he was a historian of ideas teaching in Princeton in the 70s and 80s I believe, and he uploaded all of his lectures regarding introductions to core philosophers on his channel. They’re all amazing, and brilliant place to get into different thinkers. Also, another important point: wether we like it or not, we live in time, and everything has a history, including philosophy; so, as much as you can, read philosophy in historical order, and also very importantly, try to understand the historical era in which philosophers were writing in: for instance, you cannot and shouldn’t try to read philosophers from the 17-19th century without understanding more broadly what was going on in Western Europe during that time, namely, the Enlightnemt. Same applies to all the eras- to separate a philosopher from the era in which they were writing would be a big mistake in your path in understanding what exactly they meant: you might, for instance, find some philosophers to be bigots if you don’t take into consideration how revolutionary their ideas were relative to the social context in which they were writing in, because, at the end of the day, a great many of them also had ethical motivations in mind when writing their philosophy, and therefore their writings were meant for the people of their age, not for us, x many centuries later. As for where to start precisely with reading actual philosophy, I’m sure others have told you this already, but I believe Plato’s Republic is by far the best place to get into philosophy; pay particular attention to the allegory of the cave, and try to understand it as deeply as you can (use your intuition, not just your reason to do so); try to put it into your context as hard as you can. I guarantee that when you understand it properly, your outlook on all of philosophy and its purpose from that point onwards will change forever. Other than that, I’d tell you to prepare yourself mentally before going into non-rational 20th century enlightenment and American philosophy, because philosophy before the 20th century in America and England was, for lack of a better expression, trippin balls compared to what people in the anglophone world believe nowadays. So yeah, prepare yourself mentally, find people to talk about your thoughts if you can, and be sure to have a stable emotional support system around you, especially once you get to Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson, the existentialists, the post structuralists, etc., because, although they have the most amazing and beautiful ideas, they’re also the most kind shattering ones too, so be prepared for when your structure of the world will change. Good luck 🫡; you won’t regret it | 0 | 36,733 | 1.666667 |
1qdz3r | askphilosophy_test | 0.9 | What is in your opinion the most interesting Philosophy lecture/discussion/talk on YouTube? | cdbv6db | cdbxlst | 1,384,193,004 | 1,384,198,375 | 6 | 18 | I like the 'Philosophy of Death' lecture/class on AcademicEarth / Youtube. | The ones I've enjoyed the most are the Bryan Magee interviews, uploaded by some saintly figure called flame0430. They're a series of interviews with major philosophers of the time. Magee and his guests discuss another philosopher or a philosophical tradition or subject. Seemingly they were recorded for a TV show in the 70s (? early 80s maybe?). As such, they are aimed at a general audience, but they are certainly not dumbed down. Besides the quality of the interviews, which is very high, they're interesting because the interviewees are often philosophers you'll inevitably encounter by the end of an undergrad degree, and you'll probably have read at least a couple of them. These are Big Deal guys - Quine, Putnam, Searle, Singer, Ayer, Nussbaum, Derrida, etc. It's one of those weird little TV ideas that occasionally slips past everyone and actually gets made. It's the closest thing in philosophy to finding old concert footage of the Beatles or Hendrix. You might have heard the tunes before, but not like this, and didn't they dress funny?! There are a couple of other videos on the channel which aren't part of that series, in particular a couple of panels with Quine, one mostly biographical (very unusual) and another more philosophical in its focus. edit: I should clarify that it's not Quine's biography which is unusual. It's actually quite dull, and doubly so the way Quine tells it. I was talking about the biographical interview format. Thought I should point that out in case anyone gets excited. | 0 | 5,371 | 3 |
elginy | askphilosophy_test | 0.95 | What are the problems of Stoicism? | fdiaav0 | fdi5r1x | 1,578,438,576 | 1,578,436,217 | 41 | 12 | At the very beginning of his book, 'Beyond Good and Evil', Nietzsche tears down many philosophical viewpoints, including stoicism. He writes: You want to *live* 'according to nature'? O you noble Stoics, what fraudulent words! Think of a being such as nature is, prodigal beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without aims or intentions, without mercy or justice, at once faithful and barren and uncertain; think of indifference itself as a power - how *could* you live according to such indifference? To live - is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is living not valuating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? And even if your imperative 'live according to nature' meant at bottom the same thing as 'live according to life' - how could you *not* do that? Why make a principle of what you yourselves are and must be?- The truth of it is, however, quite different: while you rapturously pose as deriving the canon of your law from nature, you want something quite the reverse of that, you strange actors and self-decievers! Your pride wants to prescribe your morality, your ideal, to nature, yes to nature itself, and incorporate them in it; you demand that nature should be nature 'according to the Stoa' and would like to make all existence exist only after your own image - as a tremendous eternal glorification and universalisation of Stoicism! All your love of truth notwithstanding, you have compelled yourselves for so long and with such persistence and hypnotic rigidity to view nature *falsely*, namely Stoically, you are no longer capable of viewing it in any other way - and some abysmal arrogance infects you at last with the Bedlamite hope that, *because* you know how to tyrannize over yourselves - Stoicism is self-tyranny - nature too can be tyrannized over: for is the Stoic not a *piece* of nature?... But this is and old never-ending story: what formerly happened with the Stoics still happens today as a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image, it cannot do anything otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical drive itself, the most spiritual will to power, to 'creation of the world', to *causa prima* | I think one of the biggest problems that Stoicism encounters is defining what “nature” or “natural” actually is. | 1 | 2,359 | 3.416667 |
e8142j | askphilosophy_test | 0.97 | What would Nietzsche think if we pitied him or had compassion for his life (or any life for that matter) It's well known that Nietzsche despises pity--much from Spinoza's proposition that pity is a denial of power and a limitation rather than a strength. Furthermore, at the end of Zarathustra, Nietzsche considers his final temptation and cries out "Pity, pity for the higher man!" Pity for the higher man, his suffering, his project--this is worthless according to Nietzsche, for man does not aspire after happiness, but after his work. ​ But still, Zarathustra struggles with pity throughout the work so what can we make of this? If I feel pity for Nietzsche, what would he respond with? Is it due to the limitation of perspectives that I could never understand someone else's suffering, or is it because its a denial of power and fails to see the necessity of suffering for the higher man? | fa988mc | fa91ry2 | 1,575,865,061 | 1,575,860,212 | 22 | 19 | For Nietzsche, what makes pity especially detestable is that it robs the sufferer of their individuality. In Book 4 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche makes this especially clear: “What we most deeply and personally suffer from is incomprehensible and inaccessible to nearly everyone else; here we are hidden from our nearest, even if we eat at the same pot. But whenever we are noticed to be suffering, our suffering is superficially construed; it is the essence of compassion that it strips the suffering of what is truly personal: our ‘benefactors’ diminish our worth and our will more than our enemies do.” (The Gay Science, Bk. 4: Section 338) Nietzsche is arguing that our suffering and personal issues are so personal that they, necessarily, can not be fully understood by most others. Any attempt by the vast majority of people to comment on our issues results in shallow words. Even in his discussion of compassion, Nietzsche’s radical individualism can’t help but leak out. However, Nietzsche is not altogether dismissive of the suffering of others. Rather, Nietzsche extols us to lend a hand to those whose suffering is closest to our own. He continues: “You will also want to help, but only those whose distress you entirely understand, because they have one sorrow and one hope in common with you—your friends: and only in the way that you help yourself:—I want to make them more courageous, more enduring, more simple, more joyful! I want to teach them that which at present so few understand, and the preachers of fellowship in sorrow least of all:—namely, fellowship in joy!” (The Gay Science, Bk. 4: Section 338) Again, Nietzsche believes compassion is virtuous only when it is shown to those whose suffering is most similar to yours. In cases like this, the compassion shown won’t be like the empty words of pity that serve only to diminish the individuality of the suffer. The purpose of compassion is to uplift those who suffer like you, and you should aim to uplift them in the way you uplift yourself. In this way, compassion is more likely to reach the individual and become beneficial. | I think his position is that pity doesn't help the person and in fact it can hurt you and the other person you pity because what you are doing when you feel pity is bringing yourself down on account of another person and the other person does not need your sorrow but strength. I think it's important to note the difference between empathy and pity. Empathy can help you see what the other person sees and feels and if digested properly it can give you a clearer sense of the persons situation *without* the self hurt and sorrow that accompanies pity. Thus you can still empathize with people without feeling pity and hurting yourself emotionally over other peoples problems. | 1 | 4,849 | 1.157895 |
4lurrc | askphilosophy_test | 1 | How is Stanley Cavell regarded in the world of philosophy? | d3qejra | d3qbudb | 1,464,705,018 | 1,464,700,371 | 9 | 8 | He's one of a very, very small number of serious philosophers who have managed to also do meaningful work in literary criticism, which is a testament to the breadth of his learning. | His work on Wittgenstein is very good. So much so, that 3 of my colleagues heavily borrow from it for their PhD dissertations. | 1 | 4,647 | 1.125 |
a1dzwx | askphilosophy_test | 0.91 | What makes a work of art 'good' by contemporary philosophy of art standards? | eapd49k | eapbk4a | 1,543,479,776 | 1,543,477,908 | 37 | 13 | I’m an undergraduate taking an Aesthetics course. Gordon Graham provides three normative theories for evaluating art: expressivism, cognitivism, and hedonism. Graham is a cognitivist, meaning he thinks what the extent to which art helps us understand truths about the world and our place in it is the metric by which we (should) judge the value of art. | While I feel beauty may not be the best standard of art, thus making a beautiful painting not necessarily good art, here is a place to start: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/ To give one example of why I would say beauty may not be the best standard of art, I would list a couple of side debates. For example, there is also a side debate on if a piece of art endorses something immoral that it would then be a worse piece of art, and I think this may call into question the standard of beauty for what good art is. Here is an IEP article on this debate: https://www.iep.utm.edu/art-eth/ Another side debate would actual be more general, which is sort of asking what is art. A reason this would matter is the fact that if a video game claims to be a work of art, yet video games by the definition of art cannot be art, the video game would fail to be a good piece of art. Here is an sep article on that issue: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/ My point is that your question is implying that there is an answer to a lot of little other questions that we just don’t really have an answer for. Which fucking sucks. | 1 | 1,868 | 2.846154 |
6lihti | askphilosophy_test | 0.83 | Do I need to like Analytic/Contemporary Philosophy? I'm not a Philosophy major (I'm majoring in Econ and History) but I study Philosophy in my spare time. Mainly I focus on the Ancients and Moderns, like the Pre-socratics, Kant, Nietzsche etc. However, do I need to like/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. Usually if I want an analysis of the mind-body problem I'll turn to Descartes or Spinoza, not Fodor or Putnam! Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers? | djub4ql | dju4yac | 1,499,316,657 | 1,499,307,380 | 16 | 9 | > I honestly despise Russell, Wittgenstein, and a majority of Analytic/ Contemporary philosophers: they write quite poorly (in my opinion), use overly complex terminology, and lack in style in comparison to the ancients. I'll register some wariness about this particular motivation for avoiding analytic philosophy. Philosophy is generally thought to be a scientific pursuit in the broad sense: it is defined by an attempt to figure out how things actually are, rather than give expression to a certain sentiment or *Weltanschauung*. In light of this, disregarding a certain class of philosophers for stylistic reasons is suspect: it would be very strange to say that one prefers reading Newton to contemporary textbooks on the theory of relativity simply because they lack Newton's stylistic verve. The same goes for work in sociology, history, mathematics, or other broadly-scientifically-minded disciplines. Lord knows there are plenty of philosophers who do work outside of the analytic tradition (the poor souls), but make sure that your inclination in this direction is grounded more in substance than in prose style. If you're looking for good stylists, anyway, philosophy is probably the wrong place for you. | >However, do I need to like/know extensively Contemporary or Analytic philosophy? No, not really. There are plenty of respectable philosophers who think that post-Nietzschean philosophy isn't worth studying and prefer ancient approaches instead. It's a phenomenon very similar to the medieval revival in the early 20th century. Plenty of them are tenured professors at respectable universities. You say: >Would this be considered unphilosophical to reject most contemporary/analytic philosophy and would I be seen as being ignorant if I preferred and cited the pre-moderns as opposed to contemporary philosophers? There is a professor at my university who goes to almost every conference or speaker event, raises his hand after they speak, and asks them questions only in terms of Plato's dialogues (typically to show that they haven't added any worthwhile contributions to the problem not already covered in Plato or Plotinus). Although I'm interested in contemporary (continental) philosophy, I agree with you about the appeal of ancient and modern philosophy. I would much prefer to be reading Plato over anything else; the only reason I'm not is because I'm not really interested in doing ancient scholarship (and dealing with ancient scholars). It also seems undeniable, as you rightly point out, that ancient and early modern philosophy is much more rigorous (*edit:* understanding "rigor" as being able to integrate all of the knowledge of its time) than most contemporary works. I would much rather hear what Plato has to say about something than anyone writing today. | 1 | 9,277 | 1.777778 |
x8h1sz | askphilosophy_test | 0.88 | What exactly is the issue with Utilitarianism? It seems pretty logically sensible Given that I’m presented with a certain situation (say like a trolley problem), is it not morally correct to choose the action that maximizes the number of lives saved? If I absolutely *had* to choose between killing two groups of people, is not better to kill off the group with the lesser number, since that leads to more people living in the end? Yet I’ve seen people reject utilitarianism even though, at least at first glance, it seems to be the moral position that makes the most sense. What exactly is wrong with it? | ini8q64 | ini82m3 | 1,662,586,284 | 1,662,586,030 | 192 | 2 | Here is a comment I've made before. The below is meant to just highlight some areas that different objections can be pursued; it's not meant to be some standalone "final word" on the matter. I put this disclaimer at the beginning because I am not interested in "debating" responses to the below (as some people *really* want to when they read the below, though I'm happy to try and clarify things); I'm merely highlighting different avenues that have been pursued. So: Much of this will certainly depend on exactly how utilitarianism is cashed out. So, first, let's get a general statement of utilitarianism on the board. How about this: "an act is right if and only if it maximizes happiness in the world." Now, we could get more precise, but we can use that as a working understanding. As you note, things might change if we move to preference-utilitarianism, or rule utilitarianism Here are some of the issues that the utilitarian has to contend with: 1. Utilitarianism looks to make the notion of "rights" obsolete. For instance, tossing Christians to the lions in ancient Rome is bad for the Christian, but good for the Colosseum of Romans who are in ecstasy at the spectacle. If you have enough ecstatic Romans, then it looks like it's good, given utilitarianism, to toss the Christian to the lions. 2. Utilitarianism is too demanding. It seems to demand that that we always are to maximize happiness, in every action, at all times. And that's very, very, hard-- and hard in a way that seem to be too much of a cost for a moral theory. 3. Utilitarianism tries to put a single metric on value, and that's incoherent. Can we really compare the sort of value you assign to the life of your wife, with the value you assign to eating a Twinkie, with the value you assign to relieving yourself, with the value you assign to living the life of monk? For many people, it does not seem that all things that we value in life can be compared. e.g. I value twinkies. I also value my wife. How many twinkies is my wife worth to me? Utilitarianism asks questions like that all the time; for many people the question is ridiculous as a comparison is impossible. Some things differ in kind, not just in quantity. The point to be made is that the utilitarian assigns a single metric to all value, and that seem incoherent. The utilitarian says that the type of value got from scratching an itch is commensurable with the value of my wife. So, there will exist a relationship, such that some number times the value of itching a scratch equals the value of my wife. But, we might say, any equation looks wrong here. As Kant says, life has a dignity, and not just a price. The sorts of value involved here are incommensurable, if comparable. 4. Utilitarianism is under-specified, and when it is specified, those specifications are largely arbitrary. For instance, do we maximize aggregate happiness, or average happiness? Who is included? People, animals, future generations? How do we weigh "high probability of little pleasure" vs "low probability of high pleasure"? Here's another problem: assuming we can calculate the relevant utils, how do we deal with time? Do we look a second ahead, a year ahead or a century ahead? But why stop at a century? Why not 101 years, or 500 years or 865.324 years, or the second before all sentient beings are extinct? The normative prescription provided by utilitarianism can change from instant to instant. So what do you make of a theory that tells you that a certain action will produce a net +10 utils at time t, a net -5 utils at t+1, a net +100 utils at t+2, a net -1000 utils at t+3, etc, etc? If net utility can change from instant to instant (and it obviously can), then utilitarianism is of no service to moral agents in deciding how to act or how to value an action. 5. Utilitarianism seems to be a self-effacing theory in that there seem to be situations where making utilitarianism the publicly accepted moral system would actually produce less utility. So, utilitarianism might very well be a theory that works best if no one is thinking about it....very odd. 6. Related to 5. Utilitarianism tells us that an act is right if and only if it is optimific in regard to pleasure and pain. But you can't embody this reason in your motive for acting, and still have friends, loved-ones, etc. Under utilitarianism, you don't value your friends as *friends*, you value them as sources of pleasure; they are replaceable -- anything with the same effects on us will suffice. So, when you try to embody utilitarianism in your motives, you find that the person you supposedly love engages your thought not for him/her but as a source of pleasure. To embody in one's motives the values of utilitarianism is to treat people externally and to preclude love, affection, community. To get *these* goods while holding utilitarianism requires a schizophrenia between reason and motive. To the extent that you live utilitarianism, you will fail to achieve goods like friendship, love, inquiry -- and these are goods that the utilitarian himself recognizes as good. The objection is that you cannot embody your reason in your motives, as a utilitarian. The utilitarian says that friends, and love are goods. But you can't achieve these goods, while simultaneously embodying your reason in your motive. Compare to the egoist: egoists take their own pleasure as the sole justification. From this, they should recognize the love, etc as among personal pleasures; so they have good reason on their own grounds to enter such relations. But when they act on their motive of pleasure-for-self they can't get those pleasures; to achieve these pleasures they have to abandon their egoistical motive; the egoist can't get the pleasures of love and friendship. For it is essential to the very concept of love that one care for the beloved, and be prepared to act for the sake of the beloved as a final goal. But to the extent that my consideration for you comes from my desire to lead a life that is personally pleasing, I do not act for your sake. So their motive and reasons pull apart. So, to get these goods they have to lead a sort of schizophrenic life. Here's sort of how Susan Wolf understands the point: the utilitarian values these things only because of and insofar as they are a part of the general happiness. He values them under the description, “a contribution to the general happiness.” In contrast, real people might love, say, literature, because of the insights into human nature, or, growing roses because they are beautiful. Sure this may contribute to happiness, but this isn't the point to the non-utilitarian. For if one values these activities in more direct ways, one may not be willing to exchange them for others that produce an equal, or even greater amount of happiness. From that point of view, it is not because they produce happiness that these activities are valuable; it is because these activities are valuable in more direct and specific ways that they produce happiness. So, the utilitarian can't value things in the right way. So, those are some basic problems. I should note, though, that utilitarians are smart people, and can give responses-- indeed, utilitarians have given responses, but the above is just supposed to be the basic sorts of issues that lead to needed refinement/argument. One of the big responses you'll see is that "utilitarianism is not a decision procedure!" By this, the utilitarian means that you should take the theory as reporting when actions are "good" and when they are "bad." So, on this reading, we shouldn't use the theory of utilitarianism to decide how to act on particular occasions. (Indeed, many utilitarians grant that, in deciding how to act, it is counterproductive to consult the theory of utilitarianism). Moreover, just because it's difficult to determine what action maximizes happiness isn't a mark against the theory -- it just shows we are limited in our knowledge. Moreover, utilitarians will be utilitarian about how they assign praise and blame. So, for instance, say I jump in the water and, unbeknownst to me, save Hitler Jr., who goes to murder a bunch of people. Well, utilitarians might still praise my act as the right one (since, they want to promote saving drowning folk), even though my action was actually "bad" (since it led to a decrease in utility). Another way to see the same point: just because I do a bad action, doesn't mean I should be blamed for it, since whether or not I'm to be blamed is something we have to think about along utilitarian lines. Some of the more spelled out versions of utilitarianism are interesting and deep. But, the sort of utilitarianism you sometimes see in economics, law, public policy, may be "too quick." It may have a certain air of "spurious rigour," where we mistake quantification and calculation for cogency of thought. It might be a great moral theory for omniscient beings (though even this is in question). But for those of us who lack that quality, utilitarianism may be seen as just a device to cloak moral bias with the guise of mathematical certainty. There's definitely more to be said, but I'll end there for now. | Welcome to /r/askphilosophy. **Please read our rules before commenting** and understand that your comments will be removed if they are not up to standard or otherwise break the rules. While we do not require citations in answers (but do encourage them), answers need to be reasonably substantive and well-researched, accurately portray the state of the research, and come only from those with relevant knowledge. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askphilosophy) if you have any questions or concerns.* | 1 | 254 | 96 |
v2d5de | askphilosophy_test | 0.95 | Philosophy of science book recommendations? Hello, I am beginning a PhD in physics, and decided I should have a deeper knowledge on the workings of the scientific method and how knowledge is produced in science. Things/people like popper, Kuhn, positivism, inductivism, etc. Something more on the accessible side would also be nice, since I normally find philosophy texts pretty tough to digest. Thanks in advance! | ias1ruw | iasezgb | 1,654,086,501 | 1,654,093,126 | 2 | 7 | A textbook is your best bet for a start. If you love the topic then you can delve deeper. Chalmers' What is this thing called science? is still the best. The only thing it misses out on is the recent trend to include moral education as part of what is means to be a good scientist. | Helen Longino is great, I'm a big fan of *Science as Social Knowledge*. | 0 | 6,625 | 3.5 |
cmjkon | askphilosophy_test | 0.94 | Are there any examples of famous philosophers grossly misinterpreting/misunderstanding other philosophers? I haven’t read it myself, but I’ve heard that Bertrand Russell’s characterisation of Hegel’s philosophy in his *History of Western Philosophy* is quite bad. I was wondering if there are any other examples of philosophers misunderstanding other philosophers in a big way. | ew3frwx | ew32ts5 | 1,565,076,688 | 1,565,062,488 | 7 | 2 | Any time Searle has ever represented another philosopher. My favorite is his representation of Hume on causation in *Intentionality*. | In my view Marx misunderstood Hegel pretty badly. He references some of the different *shapes of consciousness* which appear in Hegel's history of natural consciousness sort of like they're recurring structures which show themselves over and over in the course of human interactions and politics, where many of them, such as the master slave dialectic, are really meant to be historical relics of how consciousness had come to develop up until it reached a position where a phenomenology of spirit (or at least a phenomenology of consciousness and self-consciousness) was possible. In other words I believe he mistakes the stages that consciousness must have gone through in the past for a description of consciousness and position it finds itself in from the time of the modern era. | 1 | 14,200 | 3.5 |
us7qdh | askphilosophy_test | 0.95 | About African Philosophy This might be a reach, but does anyone know anything about African continental philosophy? Like what kinds of fields did/ does ancient/ medieval era philosophy did African philosophy cover? I'm thinking more about sub Saharan, seeing how northern Africa was basically part of the Western world and influenced by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophy. Also, by chance, would anyone know any good introduction or anthology of sub Saharan philosophies. Thank! I'm asking mostly out of curiosity. | i91ttee | i91teyj | 1,652,861,779 | 1,652,861,409 | 89 | 33 | I got my undergrad and honours at an African university and have tutored undergrads there for nearly 6 years. Especially in the last 4 years or so we’ve been pushing to include more philosophy from Africa in the syllabus. Though we don’t yet have any course dedicated to a complete historical overview of African philosophy, we’ve been including more and more in other courses. In our ethics course we talk about the Ubuntu moral theory, in our intros and metaphysics courses we talk about African conceptions of personhood, also in our intros courses we talk about decolonising knowledge and it’s effects on epistemology. While I’m certainly no expert in these fields I’ve read them and taught them a couple of times so if any of that sounds interesting let me know what you’d like to hear about and I’ll try and respond when I have time in between marking papers. | As a general source, you could refer to Peter Adamson's (of The History of Philosophy without any Gaps) podcast, History of Africana Philosophy. It's a fun and informative way to get going, and they have a couple dozen episodes on pre-colonial African Philosophy. Hope this helps! | 1 | 370 | 2.69697 |
gzflpn | askphilosophy_test | 0.98 | Hell is Other People When Jean-Paul Sartre says "Hell is Other People", what does he mean? I understand it's taken from his play No Exit, but what exactly does it mean given its context? Does it just mean other people spoil everything, but that doesn't seem like something he would say as he has a humanist view of the world? | ftgue7x | fthziv3 | 1,591,703,688 | 1,591,725,736 | 3 | 9 | This video should help! The YouTube channel as a whole is a great and offers a sort of crash course, cartoonish approach to philosophical topics. “Hell is Other People” - Sisyphus 55 https://youtu.be/hEg2gOOqBj0 | Neither Tycho nor /u/Redpuppet11 have given a fully helpful answer here. Certainly Tycho is right that, in the first instance, this is a quote from a piece of fiction and, in a certain sense, Tycho is right that *from Garcin's view* the meaning of the line is rather thin because, frankly, Garcin is a vicious garbage person. When Garcin says this, he is making a dramatic observation about what it means to be in hell. It's an a-ha moment. Oh, wait, I get it - hell *just is being here with others like you two*. In particular, Garcin is being psychologically tortured by his reliance on the rather unreliable Estelle for freedom from his guilt, and all the while he is thwarted by Inèz's mocking (which, really, is just saying what Garcin already knows). Certainly Redpuppet11 is right that what is going on in the play is related to Sartre's concept of "the look" and the way in which we find ourselves objectified by the mere idea of being held by a gaze. Because of this, we are able to imagine ourselves as being looked at and, in turn, observed, judged, etc. Thankfully, Sartre himself has a nice answer to this question: > I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because. . . when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, . . . we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. . . In the play, a big deal is made about the fact that there are two things missing from Hell: (1) eyelids and (2) mirrors. Well, the connection is pretty blunt - the only way to see yourself in hell is through the eyes of others. Our sense of ourselves is always already mediated by "the look." | 0 | 22,048 | 3 |
p9hlpj | askphilosophy_test | 0.94 | What is a "favorite color"? Title. What does it mean to have a "favorite color"? How does the preference relate to qualia, precisely speaking? What meaningful information do I gain from knowing that someone "likes color x more than color y"? Is it even possible to reduce to a single favorite color, with no index to context? I've never heard anyone question this notion before. I've always just taken its meaning for granted, as have other people, from what I gather. Everyone I've ever asked has been able to label a color or a couple of colors as their "favorites". I've always been able to do the same. But upon reflection, I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what information I gained from their answers. Other questions relating to preferences provide answers with much clearer and easily tracable meaning. "What is your favorite dish?", though ostensibly similar to the question of color seems to me to give me a far more meaningful insight into one's mental state. Perhaps an analogous question for the gustatory sense would be "what is your favorite taste?". But this question seems much more silly for some reason, which I can only ascribe to the greater intensity, and by extension clarity in communication, of visual over gustatory stimuli. Is this concept of one's "favorite color" specific to western culture? I ask because upon reflection, I don't even know how I would begin to find out what my favorite color is, were the concept not cemented inside my brain as a child. I can easily describe what colors I think I look good in, or what colors I prefer my bathroom's walls to be. But even the answers to these questions differ from one another. So how can I know what my favorite color is "overall"? Tl;dr: (1) What meaning (if any) does one's "favorite color" convey about their mind and experience? (2) Why doesn't an analogous concept appear to exist for any other senses (gustatory, auditory, etc.)? (3) To what extent is the idea of a "favorite color" cultural? | h9xssb1 | h9yitm4 | 1,629,657,135 | 1,629,668,658 | 7 | 47 | A very interesting question you asked there. It brings on the question of what words actually mean and if they have some kind of true meaning hiding in itself. Schopenhauer wrote about the difficulties one might have when translating or explaining words to someone else as they can mean totally different things to different people. I think his point was that things like translations of poems for example where useless as the meaning of the words in one language can not be translated to another one. He argued that some words might not have a meaning to some people at all which might explain why there is no apparent meaning or information to some words to some people as they all perceive them individually. Another interesting grasp on the meaning of words is the science of Ethymologie which Plato also wrote about. You might find more answers there I don’t now mich about that. | What a wonderfully interesting question. Never heard this discussed before. I'll take a stab at your second question. >(2) Why doesn't an analogous concept appear to exist for any other senses (gustatory, auditory, etc.)? I think they do exist for those people who have stronger senses of smell and taste, at least. I consider myself to have a really robust sense of smell and taste. And I realize this is anecdotal but I have intense memories of certain smells and tastes to the point that I can vividly recall them at will. I suspect this catalog of smells allows me to rank them and have intuitions on my favorites kinds, analogous to also having a favorite color. For example, I think my favorite smell might be Hibiscus concentrate. And I really love Fruity and floral smells in general. The smell of a just ripened enough banana is heaven to me. I wonder if some of the problem of it seeming if people in general have no favorite smell but having a favorite color might stem from: (1) lacking the language for naming types of smells; (2) some people have really weak senses of taste and smell; and (3) no one ever seems to ask you time and time again what's your favorite smell like they do with what's your favorite color throughout nearly your entire life. Try it yourself and see if by looking through ten major types of smells you are then better able to rank them, if not outright pick a favorite(s). **Note:** this is not a perfectly scientific list but it should have the desired effect regardless of its astuteness. **Olfactory Space** * Fragrant (e.g. florals and perfumes) * Fruity (all non-citrus fruits) * Citrus (e.g. lemon, lime, orange) * Woody and resinous (e.g. pine or fresh cut grass) * Chemical (e.g. ammonia, bleach) * Sweet (e.g. chocolate, vanilla, caramel) * Minty and peppermint (e.g. eucalyptus and camphor) * Toasted and nutty (e.g popcorn, peanut butter, almonds) * Pungent (e.g. blue cheese, cigar smoke) * Decayed (e.g. rotting meat, sour milk) | 0 | 11,523 | 6.714286 |
334axn | askphilosophy_test | 0.83 | In Western Political Philosophy textbooks, why is there such a huge gap between Augustine and Aquinas? A number of textbooks I've encountered usually skip everyone after Augustine and jump directly into Aquinas when narrating the development and/or varieties of western political philosophies through the ages. Why is it so? Why are Orthodox Christians (Eastern/Oriental) like Michael Psellos or Severus not included? Was there really no prominent political philosophers in the tumultous late antique period? | cqhmeg6 | cqhkeyj | 1,429,465,437 | 1,429,461,724 | 4 | 2 | This roughly covers the period when philosophy in Europe and the Middle East was dominated by neo-Platonism (a period starting a little before Augustine and ending a little before Aquinas).Part of what is happening is that the author of the textbook is sparing themselves from covering a thousand years of complex philosophy that is somewhat out of step with what we do today and very few people now pursue in any detail, and which is certainly out of the purview of most any undergrad curriculum. Ditto for the shorter period also being skipped over, being medieval Islamic philosophy, with only 400 years of progress being ignored in this case. Just be glad they didn't for the same reason also skip over scholasticism, or Hellenistic philosophy, or the Church Fathers. As has been mentioned in the thread, it's easy to find textbooks that go straight from Aristotle to early modern philosophy, jumping over about 2000 years without a word. I don't think it's an especially good thing that enormous traditions get ignored in this way, but (a) God knows that not many people are likely to assign neo-Platonist political philosophy in their undergrad classes, meaning that almost nobody would read it, and (b) God knows it's hard enough to get students to engage even with stuff that's of immediate contemporary relevance, or the direct ancestors of stuff that's of immediate contemporary relevance, or damn-near anything at all, never mind stuff as unfamiliar as neo-Platonism. | This is not unique to political philosophy. Late antiquity is generally poorly represented in most areas of contemporary academic philosophy. I'm not qualified to say whether this is because the philosophy was bad or unimportant, or because we just forgot about it. | 1 | 3,713 | 2 |
9bdmju | askphilosophy_test | 0.95 | What Is the Generally Accepted Definition of Free-Will in Contemporary Philosophy? Greetings - I come here wondering what the (generally) accepted definition of "free-will" is in the context of modern philosophy; perhaps someone can outline this for me? I understand that most present-day philosophers accept that free-will exists (at least to some notable capacity?). I'd find it especially helpful if I knew exactly how the concept of "free-will" is being taken into account when contemplating the topic. Cheers. | e52f6zv | e528iii | 1,535,586,287 | 1,535,579,966 | 8 | 7 | Most contemporary philosophers on the subject are compatibilists which means they believe that free will (or moral responsibility as derived from free will) and determinism are compatible. However, within that range there are still many different ways philosophers go about defining the conception of free will that fits into their system. Someone like Harry Frankfurt, for example, will have a conception of free will involving levels of desires, where second-order desires (wanting to want x) imply autonomy in some sense. Others might say that free will has to do with autonomy over the available choices one has open to them, etc. As with most contentious concepts in philosophy, there are definitely commonly accepted issues that need be addressed to give a definition, and a number of plausible ways to address said issues that have been put forth and gained some traction, but no commonly accepted answers insofar as philosophy as a whole can be said to have generally “settled on” them. | The kind of freedom necessary for moral (and/or other sorts of) responsibility is probably the most neutral you can get. However that's only the concept of free will, in contrast to the conception (or the nominal definition as opposed to the real definition) of free will which will be something that intends to explain what allows a will to have this freedom. That will be something like 'the ability to do otherwise' or 'rational self-mastery'. | 1 | 6,321 | 1.142857 |
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