Funny thing is that the movie can't commit to being modern. Spoilers, obviously.
Instead of the "modern" view of the Bronze Age collapse (i.e. complicated confluence of material factors like drought, loss of tin supply, etc. - people are still debating) it's a straightforwardly moralist tale (humans break gods' law and suffer) except that the morals are themselves very modern. We hear nothing of Troy suffering for Paris' violation of sacred law.
Instead the entire Bronze Age ends because Odysseus didn't apply "do unto others" to his grand ploy in the middle of a war. The rules-based international order sustained by xenia collapses because it cannot bear the betrayal.
There's a sort of divine hiddenness that's also a bit strange given how the movie preserves other supernatural elements.
This leads to the most ironic coda possible for this whole thing: Emily Wilson, who became the scapegoat for this movie's deliberately modern dialogue and themes online, criticized it for being too modern
The movie does posit that the Sea Peoples are returning Greeks for that reason.
But that isn't even the main problem. The movie outright states that the thing that caused the collapse of the entire civilization was the breaking of xenia/Zeus's law because of the Trojan horse gambit and the attendant sack (no mention is made of the much more unambiguous violation of hospitality that kicked off the war).
The movie makes an outcome whose cause so uncertain we debate the causes today into a pretty straightforward monocausal event.
Funnily enough, reviewers whose tastes often align with mine (we all agree Rings of Power is terrible) saw the movie and really liked it, so it must come across way better on the big screen when you watch the entire movie, because the trailers were dogshit.
It's much better than I thought from the trailers. Trailers were awful and bland and I suspect that's part of why the antiwoke stuff was able to dominate. The PR just didn't give you much.
TBF they didn't have to. The story is the story and Nolan is at the peak of his powers in terms of box office draw.
I saw one good review say it was “Bracingly modern”. With that, I agree.
Are all Nolan movies this bad? I know he’s got some detractors out there, but I recall telling people I liked Oppenheimer.
This movie kinda was Oppenheimer. Matt Damon single-handedly caused the
Tanista
5d ago
Anybody trying to claim Epstein was sacrificing 4 year olds to Satan is clearly on some galaxy-brain nonsense and is going to float into the air sharting themselves if a civilized discussion emerges.
It feels like the entire internet has been taken over by the sorts of people who used to make videos on Illuminati conspiracy theories.
Tanista
6d ago
The underclass is gonna underclass.
And that's why the entire planet and every major religion has imposed strict social conditions on our sovereignty everywhere people have lived. Plenty of people ruined their lives via drugs, gambling and so on, but there was enough friction and existing social structures to save the rest. If it was only that you had to go somewhere and do something, that saved a lot of lazy, scared people.
People are actively destroying those speedbumps in the name of an absurd, bankrupt idea that's basically "well, they'd do it anyway"
I have low impulse control. But I watch TV and see the gambling ads and just thank my lucky stars my addictive personality is seemingly too busy gorging on other things to care. It's obscene that someone with a problem is incapable of following major sports without immediately being told how much they could be winning or losing if they just jumped off the wagon.
My cousin told me he saw Jedi gambling for slaves so the whole order was a corrupt organ of the Deep Galactic State.
I mean, it's nothing new: they let slaves fight their war...No peep from the vaunted moral authorities of the Republic as thousands* of beings were made to wage war and die for them
The one point Karen Traviss made in her Jedi rants that couldn't be denied .
* The scale is all fucked up.
Tanista
6d ago
When Arab countries say this, they are not sincere.
This is perfectly compatible with Westerners absorbing their position uncritically.
I find this hard to square with the success of Game of Thrones, whose many departures from real history pretty much always land on the "darker and edgier" side rather than sanitizing. I guess the secret ingredient is tits?
Game of Thrones totally modernizes and makes sympathetic a bunch of viewpoint characters ( Tyrion is a snarky agnostic and his abusive relationship with Shae who he uses as a sex toy due to her low status is erased, rendering her end nonsensical, Varys has a strange, modern conception of how wars should be waged, etc.)
In other cases they take sympathetic characters -e.g. the Sparrows revolting against noble degeneracy through religion - and basically fit them into the mold of the modern Taliban so the audience can cheer as they die. Stannis is portrayed negatively for most of the show, precisely because he buys into his new religion.
The general theme seems to be that Westeros is awful so darker and edgier things have to happen. But the main characters we root for tend to avoid being politically incorrect and are made moreso by the show.
This (or the expectation that it should be this way) seems to have only gotten worse with House of the Dragons for reasons I'm unsure about (probably a generation that grew up entirely online).
Gilley's The Case for Colonialism, which I'm finding tedious. I've spent too much time in spaces like this, there's only so much examination of the culture of free speech, or lackthereof, on campus that I care about compared to the object level question.
Tanista
9d ago
A certain sort of leftist would argue that the "real" (read: Marxist) left was killed by the end of the Cold War.
For the rest of us, nobody would argue the academy has been anti-actually-existing-left in our lifetime. But they could at least claim that the prudes were running the culture when people were going after rap and rock and roll, or that evangelicals and neocons were in charge in the Oughties. In the long run all of those battles were lost decisively by those groups and for a bit only the left-wing position stood as legitimate.
So, let's start with some of the most obvious differences. Climate change is a truly global problem in the sense that it's literally impossible to fix locally. This is the reason why the EU/german-style Energiewende is so insanely myopic and short-sighted; Even if it worked relatively fine on its own merits (i.e. reducing emissions to near-zero with minimal damage to the economy) AND if everyone on the entire globe did the same, it still requires adaptions to the already-changed climate. Instead it not only is sold as an alternative to adaption, the rest of the world isn't doing the same anyway, and of course it isn't working well on its own merits, either.
Speaking of my experience in Canada: it never seems to matter that we can't even get the "other people get along". The argument seems to boil down to "we have to do something!" and the idea that if Canada did do something, it would inspire the Gentiles . After they have been so converted, I suppose you can then direct them towards whatever policy makes sense but you must first lead by example.
The inherent arrogance in the argument is not commented on.
Also, from the article:
And in a similar manner, demographic decline must be approached - if we can’t fundamentally change it, we must diminish its negative impacts where possible. Pension systems must be redesigned to rely less on pay-as-you-go transfers and more on funded, individual savings — raising retirement ages, tying them to life expectancy rather than a fixed retirement age.
What does he think has been happening in developed countries over the last few years? They have all been trying and failing to adapt. Yes, everyone can get together and do this. But it's a collective action problem precisely because everyone will not just vote themselves less right at the moment they're most vulnerable so they can die alone in their hot, AC-free bed in a hellish nursing home. Adapting is subject to the same political constraints as attempting a serious fix of the issue.
Isn't it based on the experience with Feinstein? Her staffers and family didn't cover up her death but did everything but to act as if she was still a functional bit of Senate machinery. This may have been her wish but it was also the last hurrah for the people on her coattails.
Between that and Biden it's not a shock that people don't trust the inner circles of these people to be forthright.
Tanista
9d ago
The left's inability to accept that they aren't the rebels anymore predates Trump, though his victory has likely allowed them to continue to live in denial.
Tanista
9d ago
With respect to Ukraine he seems to think this isn't really any of America's business and that our involvement is unnecessary, with a side helping of "Europe needs to solve their own fucking problems." American military support has become necessary because That Is What We Do but he doesn't seem to care about it, and in contrast with Iran because the hostage crisis was a formative thing for men of a certain generation.
The hostage crisis was formative but not the Cold War?
I think a reading of Trump that's compatible with all of this is that he's a flat-track bully who wants easy wins. Or, more charitably, holds his allies to a higher standard based on the view that they're either more malleable or already possess a large enough collection of military and economic power as to solve regional problems if they would but apply it.
This is why he's so harsh towards allies, including in ways that are unprecedented, but willing to find some deal with people he understands he cannot only coerce. It's easier to coerce Ukraine to sign unto a deal than Russia. At least, that was the theory of the case when he ganged up on Zelensky.
Iran was in a liminal zone: an uppity Third World pissant that did things like kidnap US staff, but a dangerous one as pissants go. So no attack, until it looked incredibly weak.
I don't think Trump wants or expects to be in anything like the sort of generation-defining conflict a war with Iran or the reprisal for the assassination of a US Senator would demand. He wants Venezuela-wins (not a surprise the attack on Iran was after that)
Tanista
9d ago
- Because a representative democracy cannot function if your opponents (who are themselves not democracies and don't have this weakness) can assassinate your representatives at will.
- Because Russia doesn't get to do that to America.
But I guess I think claims of racialist spoils are overstated, too. Shit’s still politically toxic.
Which is why there's an entire industry to manufacture consent for it - the entire battle against "systemic racism" is a justification to provide racial spoils even when it doesn't make sense. It's why "white supremacy" never ends even as white hegemony is ending and there's always a new calumny - like the claim that black babies are more likely to die under/because of white doctors, which was then cited by KBJ in a SCOTUS judgment on affirmative action - to allow calls for more "justice"
That or deny it's happening. I suspect this is part of the reason affirmative action is both pervasive and polls very badly: the public dislikes it, and they don't know enough to know how much of a finger is on the scale (so they take claims like "it's a tie-breaker" seriously). As a result, they don't think it's necessary. Admins know better.
Tanista
12d ago
I have to wonder if they were looking at the numbers in the background and felt they had to find a new anchor ASAP to keep people in their jobs.
I don't think it would have mattered. More than one appearance sobbing would have gotten a similar reaction. Kirk's murder was just too much. And, in a partisan environment, that actually means people are less likely to back down. Backing down on the dehumanizing rhetoric and mockery implies you have something to be guilty for and nobody wants to pull on that thread, especially if it means rounds of right wing cancel culture.
Tanista
15d ago
But how can you call a man that achieved tremendous success in things he didn't care about, and failed in everything he desired.
A tragedy.
Tanista
20d ago
One can say that the US was not obligated to continue funding forever but should have been more responsible about disentangling itself from its commitments.
You don't have to jump into a car wreck to save someone but taking that space and then walking off abruptly when others who could have jumped in have left because you had it is pretty fucked up.
It's not a thing I've ever heard. The Canadian government uses it the exact same way as in America
Never heard anyone actually call Middle-Easterners West Asian but TIL I guess.
Tanista
23d ago
Yes, I know. That's the point: you don't actually need immigration to compete economically or have a vibrant culture. So I'm not sure the relevance. Seems like a false dilemma. You can learn how to make a croissant without importing Paris.
Tanista
23d ago
People who intrinsically dislike immigrants
They don't have to intrinsically dislike immigrants. They can just dislike mass migration. Or mass migration from certain groups. "Immigrants" flattens things too much. Many nations took Ukrainian refugees with much less noise than would come from taking Somali refugees. I assume there're reasons for this.
even prominent anti-immigrant politicians have immigrant friends/family (e.g. the AfD leader’s Sri Lankan wife).
I mean, case in point.
Although as you mention, small-scale immigration may not happen, in that case I doubt remigration would either.
Fair. I don't think so either. But it's not that I don't think, if the government was magically replaced by Stephen Millers, it wouldn't work.
But:
- It can’t compete with cultures that take the best advancements from others
- It can’t focus too much on nostalgia. Some is OK, but it must experiment and evolve new characteristics. Otherwise it’s the nation equivalent of “peaked in high school”, guaranteed to become incompatible with the rest of the changing world
How would you rate the East Asian countries like Japan on these criteria?
Even putting aside that not everyone is the US with a ton of materiel sitting around*, why would you do this? This risks destroying already fragile states, and then there's nobody to negotiate with. There are ways to pressure nations like Somalia - no aid, cutting off remittances - that don't rise to this level.
And, of course, if you are cutting out human rights law (the real problem) there's nothing stopping you from dumping them in whatever third country will have them (e.g. Rwanda) and then turning a blind eye to how they handle them (most likely drive them back home with "incentives").
* Remember Libya? And those were countries that maintained some military capacity.
Tanista
23d ago
Well, the worst drop in Israel's approval happened following an attack that was serious so I wouldn't say "barely". But, in any case, that's because Israel has the misfortune of being plopped right amongst the very nations Palestinians can inflame the most and depends on foreign support to survive there. And the foreign support it depends upon is now suspect because of ,in part, Muslim migration into many of those European countries.
The situation is different for America and even for a hypothetical low-migration Europe. There would still be important levers - like the oil embargoes of the past - but we can question if we'd see the same impact.
Does nationalism thus contradict liberal principles, as many progressives claim? After all, nations privilege citizens. I am just as American as any native-born, in terms of believing the creed! Why should someone else be favored above me, especially if it means I lose the right to freedom from want, fear, etc. ?
If so, there's nothing to do but bite the bullet and say that liberalism was always in a marriage of compromise with nationalism and other particularist ideologies for the vast majority of its history and that sort of liberalism is...fine, actually. It worked for everyone until recently. So what?
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