I audited a class back in university that was about Central Asian history, and what made it different is it was being told from a Central Asian perspective. The professor was a dude from Uzbekistan and the whole thing made me address a lot of Euro-centric narratives I had been taught about history.
This is not to say that it was unbiased, or even that it was somehow less biased. It was just a completely different set of biases. It was their history, told by their people. And sometimes that's worth it's own kind of perspective.
Like, one of the things that I learned that was really fascinating was how differently the Mongol Empire is viewed in different parts of the world versus the European and American view on it. Like, the popular Western conception of the Mongol Empire is of these raiding barbarian hordes on horseback, who pillaged and ransacked and murdered wantonly and so on. And while there's an extent to which that is true, they did do those things, that sort of begins and ends the Western conception of the Mongols because for the most part, Western Europe never really fell to Mongol conquest so to Westerners that's what the Mongol Empire was.
Whereas, in Central Asia, it's a little different. Like, one of the things I learned was how the Mongol Empire actually really fucking loved taxes. They actually had a pretty complex taxation system and took taxation deathly seriously and would murder the shit out of people for fucking around with their taxes. Taxes formed the backbone of their empire's economy and supporting their war machine (ain't like the Mongols themselves wanted to engage in much, if any, agriculture or trade) so they made a point of like, acknowledging which people in their vassal states were really good at bureaucracy and managing their taxation system and like, moving them around to manage the day-to-day paperwork of the empire.
They also loved trade (because it was a fantastic source of tax revenue) and as a result took banditry really seriously, and that meant if you were a trader travelling in the Mongol Empire life was actually quite safe and secure for you. If some bandit tried to fuck with you, you could hold up a seal of the warlord who your goods are being taxed by (and thus, who this bandit would be fucking over) and the bandit would be like "naw man I don't want none of that shit". It was like robbing a mob bank, nobody did that shit because the retribution would've been swift, brutal, and disproportionate to serve as a warning to others.
They didn't care much about gender roles (steppe folk and other nomadic cultures tend not to, as a rule, when you live like that everyone has to bust their ass and gender roles and the resultant patriarchal establishments tend to become things you can't care about), and they allowed quite a lot of freedom of religion under their empire, because they were animists who revered the gods of their land and considered the faiths of other peoples to be inferior and lacking and go on, pray to your god, ain't like he saved yo bitch ass from being conquered anyway.
Like basically the Mongol attitude towards much of the culture and people they encountered west of them was to look at their gender division, racism, classism, religious strife, and generally just find their entire culture kind of quaint or barbaric. The hilarious irony of it all is the Mongols, like all empires, considered themselves a civilizing force on a world that couldn't get its shit together.
One nation's heroes are always another's villains.
I doubt Central Asia would call them heroes per se, they still butchered hundreds of thousands of them on the way in as well as taxing the shit out of them
granted, though, Turkestan itself was the source of many pre-Mongol nomadic invasions so they were probably cooler with it
It's crazy just how close Europe came to being conquered by the Mongols. They were knocking on the doors of Eastern Europe at one point.
It's a matter of some contention among historians whether the Mongols could have actually conquered Europe proper, and how far they could have gotten/how long they could have held it
Mongol Cavalry kicked the shit out of Polish and Hungarian knights just like everyone else they fought, but past the Polish frontiers they'd start hitting more dense forest terrain, which is much less suitable for large-scale cavalry maneuver warfare than steppe and desert is.
Personally I expect, had they launched a sustained invasion it would have turned out like the Mongol Invasions of Vietnam and Java - they would have overrun the North German Plain and beaten the Holy Roman Emperor's armies in the initial fighting and forced the Eastern German principalities into vassaldom, but it would require a series of additional campaigns to deal with continued Central European disobedience and invasions from the Western and Southern European kingdoms.
Like Vietnam, the sheer distance of Europe from Mongol power centers and the unfavorable terrain would make it ultimately too costly to hold onto, resulting in Mongol withdrawal, although the Europeans would accept a relatively unfavorable peace treaty in order to avoid further fighting. If the Holy Roman Empire survived, it would probably agree to pay tribute to the Mongols while preserving political independence.
Of course, Hohenstaufen power would have been completely broken and the HRE itself might have ceased to exist by that point, leaving a massive power vacuum at the heart of Christendom.
I audited a class back in university that was about Central Asian history, and what made it different is it was being told from a Central Asian perspective. The professor was a dude from Uzbekistan and the whole thing made me address a lot of Euro-centric narratives I had been taught about history.
This is not to say that it was unbiased, or even that it was somehow less biased. It was just a completely different set of biases. It was their history, told by their people. And sometimes that's worth it's own kind of perspective.
Like, one of the things that I learned that was really fascinating was how differently the Mongol Empire is viewed in different parts of the world versus the European and American view on it. Like, the popular Western conception of the Mongol Empire is of these raiding barbarian hordes on horseback, who pillaged and ransacked and murdered wantonly and so on. And while there's an extent to which that is true, they did do those things, that sort of begins and ends the Western conception of the Mongols because for the most part, Western Europe never really fell to Mongol conquest so to Westerners that's what the Mongol Empire was.
Whereas, in Central Asia, it's a little different. Like, one of the things I learned was how the Mongol Empire actually really fucking loved taxes. They actually had a pretty complex taxation system and took taxation deathly seriously and would murder the shit out of people for fucking around with their taxes. Taxes formed the backbone of their empire's economy and supporting their war machine (ain't like the Mongols themselves wanted to engage in much, if any, agriculture or trade) so they made a point of like, acknowledging which people in their vassal states were really good at bureaucracy and managing their taxation system and like, moving them around to manage the day-to-day paperwork of the empire.
They also loved trade (because it was a fantastic source of tax revenue) and as a result took banditry really seriously, and that meant if you were a trader travelling in the Mongol Empire life was actually quite safe and secure for you. If some bandit tried to fuck with you, you could hold up a seal of the warlord who your goods are being taxed by (and thus, who this bandit would be fucking over) and the bandit would be like "naw man I don't want none of that shit". It was like robbing a mob bank, nobody did that shit because the retribution would've been swift, brutal, and disproportionate to serve as a warning to others.
They didn't care much about gender roles (steppe folk and other nomadic cultures tend not to, as a rule, when you live like that everyone has to bust their ass and gender roles and the resultant patriarchal establishments tend to become things you can't care about), and they allowed quite a lot of freedom of religion under their empire, because they were animists who revered the gods of their land and considered the faiths of other peoples to be inferior and lacking and go on, pray to your god, ain't like he saved yo bitch ass from being conquered anyway.
Like basically the Mongol attitude towards much of the culture and people they encountered west of them was to look at their gender division, racism, classism, religious strife, and generally just find their entire culture kind of quaint or barbaric. The hilarious irony of it all is the Mongols, like all empires, considered themselves a civilizing force on a world that couldn't get its shit together.
One nation's heroes are always another's villains.
I doubt Central Asia would call them heroes per se, they still butchered hundreds of thousands of them on the way in as well as taxing the shit out of them
granted, though, Turkestan itself was the source of many pre-Mongol nomadic invasions so they were probably cooler with it
In the country which calls itself Mongolia today (Outer Mongolia to go by Chinese and Russian naming conventions) Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khaan in Mongolian) is ostensibly seen as a national hero akin to George Washington.
A lot of noise is made about how he was/is a symbol of resistance to Russian communist rule, and there are a number of monuments (particularly in the the more heavily pogrom-ed eastern steppes) that were constructed or maintained against the orders of party officials, who saw the Empire as a glorification of the feudal/religious class system that had reigned there pre-revolution. On the day to day, you see a lot of businesses (cigarette manufacturers, banks, restaurants, resorts etc.) using Genghis' image to sell crap, though a number of Mongol artists have used him as the subject of giant sculptures meant to stir patriotic spirit. He is a big deal among the shaman and animist revival taking place there since entering the Western market.
I know there are a ton of competing claims from a couple Central Asian countries, parts of China, and various Russian republics to be the "Birthplace of Temuujin." Majority Muslim countries tend to not be stoked on him, while still seeing him as a culture hero, from my understanding.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
ey Pony I probably wouldn't hold up mongols as a paragon of gender roles when taking the wives of conquered peoples was even more of a significant part of their culture than most at the time
ey Pony I probably wouldn't hold up mongols as a paragon of gender roles when taking the wives of conquered peoples was even more of a significant part of their culture than most at the time
Like I said, the class wasn't unbiased, they presented a different set of biases, from a different perspective. That doesn't mean it was "the true story", it meant it was their story.
They weren't a paragon of gender roles in that sense, no, because that behavior was a general extension of their imperial view that non-Mongols were lesser peoples who kinda didn't matter so much. But, for example, if you tried to come to your local Mongol lord with a complaint about how this woman in town wanted to become a blacksmith, the Mongol lord's response would basically be "Is she paying her taxes?" and if your response was "Yes?" he'd be like "Then man don't fucking bother me with your piss-ant lesser culture problems, who gives a shit if she's a woman and a blacksmith, let her be if she makes me money."
They basically took a laissez-faire attitude towards a lot of that kind of stuff. It wasn't egalitarianism per se, it was more like a form of arrogance, like they were above such things and y'all conquered people need to get your shit together and stop bothering me with this.
Basically the picture this class painted of the Mongol Empire was like it was being ruled by a giant, continent-spanning mafia
as long as you paid your protection money and kept your head down and your shit together, they generally left you alone to do whatever and asked very little of you, and if someone messed with your shit they would come fucking wreck them because they essentially considered you their property
if you were a trader, this wasn't too bad, you could move about unmolested by banditry (which, for traders, is pretty swank) although taxation was a big issue. if you were a farmer and someone like, burned down your farm, you could beseech your Mongol lord about it and because he gets tax revenue from your farm he'd be pissed about it and he'd do something.
but if for example you came to your Mongol lord because you thought the Jews were getting too uppity or women weren't knowing their place, they'd be like "I do not care about this shit, dude, this is your weird inferior culture problems. Get your shit together, barbarian."
Which is why they get a reputation for being egalitarian and being cool with religious expression and so on. They just didn't really care about these things because they didn't affect their bottom line. Which also meant they didn't really care about stopping these things from being a problem either, unless they affected their bottom line. If you were a woman in the Mongol empire and you were raped and your rapist demanded that you marry him, and your family demanded that you do so to reclaim your "honor" or whatever, and you went to your local Mongol lord to beseech him to intervene, he'd be like "Woman I ain't got time for this, none of this affects me, in fact your new husband's family is going to give me a kickback on the wedding so, tough shit. Get married."
The Mongols themselves, within their own people, could be fairly egalitarian because that's pretty commonplace among nomadic cultures for practical reasons. But they only applied those kind of standards to non-Mongols insofar as it suited them to do so.
I've always liked how differently other civilizations dealt with the Mongols
Turkestan was just like "oh okay new nomadic invaders" and acclimated right in
Russia resisted desperately, lost, and spent centuries suffering under alien rule
Catholic Europe spent several decades pissing themselves, then dispatched a bunch of missionaries to Mongolia, gained influence at the Mongol Court and started milking that sweet sweet Silk Trade
Islamic civilization fought them tooth and nail, eventually won, and convinced the Ilkhanate to become Muslim and just waited for them to collapse
Vietnam kicked the shit out of them and then agreed to pay tribute just so they'd fuck off
Japan got impossibly lucky and developed a cultural fascination with divine typhoons
China accepted Kublai Khan as their new Emperor, submitted entirely to Mongol rule, and proceeded to assimilate the new Yuan Dynasty into regular Chinese culture until they forgot they were supposed to be Mongols
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
This seems like the right place to ask this... but I really don't want to resurrect this thread. Am I right to enjoy characters like Spirit Iron-Knife in GI Joe? He was always one of the coolest characters to me growing up. His characterization is admittedly a "little" stereotypical, but he just struck me as a really good Joe who could accomplish the mission. Most media are lambasted for not including other cultures. GI Joe has it in good measure, but are the depictions considered bad? I love GI Joe and don't really want to consider anything about it bad. Cheesy, maybe...
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
This seems like the right place to ask this... but I really don't want to resurrect this thread. Am I right to enjoy characters like Spirit Iron-Knife in GI Joe? He was always one of the coolest characters to me growing up. His characterization is admittedly a "little" stereotypical, but he just struck me as a really good Joe who could accomplish the mission. Most media are lambasted for not including other cultures. GI Joe has it in good measure, but are the depictions considered bad? I love GI Joe and don't really want to consider anything about it bad. Cheesy, maybe...
the speedy gonzalez dilemma
short answer, no you are not a bad person assuming you recognize potential issues regarding stereotypes
longer answer, I'm gay
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
The good thing about GI Joe was that for every over the top guy in a costume, there was another guy who just wore a military uniform. Another Native American soldier was Crazy Legs. I thought they were both cool. I generally went in for the snow troopers or divers though. And it was the 80's, I have to admit a love of the ninjas too. When it was just Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.
It's something that came up earlier in the thread, and these interviews provide some good insight, if you wonder what term is "right" for referring to Indians. (Spoiler: There isn't one. Everyone's got their own views.)
It's definitely interesting to see the varied opinions on that, and it makes sense considering that they're overarching terms used to refer to such a varied range of cultures, as well as the origins of the terms.
Here in Nova Scotia, I've heard a lot of people in the Mi'kmaq community voice approval of the term 'First Nations', which has become a widely used less specific term for most indigenous groups in Canada (along side the Inuit and Metis). Of course, even more so, they like being referred to as Mi'kmaq.
Avril Lavigne may be old news in America, but she still fills stadiums in Japan.
Last year, her self-titled album hit No. 2 on Japan’s Billboard chart. Its lead single, “Hello Kitty,” is about her love for the country. While American critics thought it was cultural appropriation, Japan didn’t seem to care.
The country has the world’s second-largest music market, after the United States. In Japan, albums cost around $US30, which is a lot more than in the US, yet piracy is uncommon.
Posts
I doubt Central Asia would call them heroes per se, they still butchered hundreds of thousands of them on the way in as well as taxing the shit out of them
granted, though, Turkestan itself was the source of many pre-Mongol nomadic invasions so they were probably cooler with it
It's a matter of some contention among historians whether the Mongols could have actually conquered Europe proper, and how far they could have gotten/how long they could have held it
Mongol Cavalry kicked the shit out of Polish and Hungarian knights just like everyone else they fought, but past the Polish frontiers they'd start hitting more dense forest terrain, which is much less suitable for large-scale cavalry maneuver warfare than steppe and desert is.
Personally I expect, had they launched a sustained invasion it would have turned out like the Mongol Invasions of Vietnam and Java - they would have overrun the North German Plain and beaten the Holy Roman Emperor's armies in the initial fighting and forced the Eastern German principalities into vassaldom, but it would require a series of additional campaigns to deal with continued Central European disobedience and invasions from the Western and Southern European kingdoms.
Like Vietnam, the sheer distance of Europe from Mongol power centers and the unfavorable terrain would make it ultimately too costly to hold onto, resulting in Mongol withdrawal, although the Europeans would accept a relatively unfavorable peace treaty in order to avoid further fighting. If the Holy Roman Empire survived, it would probably agree to pay tribute to the Mongols while preserving political independence.
Of course, Hohenstaufen power would have been completely broken and the HRE itself might have ceased to exist by that point, leaving a massive power vacuum at the heart of Christendom.
Linking this tumblr because this is a shit ton of tweets
http://mattfraction.com/post/96547893754/postracialcomments
also twitter is the worst for long thoughts, etc etc
For a comic book author tumblr its a pretty good place to follow for stuff like this
Matt Fraction has the best tumblr handles though
Or somebody at an actual publication sees the tweets and writes up an actual article
because that sure is some shit to think about
In the country which calls itself Mongolia today (Outer Mongolia to go by Chinese and Russian naming conventions) Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khaan in Mongolian) is ostensibly seen as a national hero akin to George Washington.
A lot of noise is made about how he was/is a symbol of resistance to Russian communist rule, and there are a number of monuments (particularly in the the more heavily pogrom-ed eastern steppes) that were constructed or maintained against the orders of party officials, who saw the Empire as a glorification of the feudal/religious class system that had reigned there pre-revolution. On the day to day, you see a lot of businesses (cigarette manufacturers, banks, restaurants, resorts etc.) using Genghis' image to sell crap, though a number of Mongol artists have used him as the subject of giant sculptures meant to stir patriotic spirit. He is a big deal among the shaman and animist revival taking place there since entering the Western market.
I know there are a ton of competing claims from a couple Central Asian countries, parts of China, and various Russian republics to be the "Birthplace of Temuujin." Majority Muslim countries tend to not be stoked on him, while still seeing him as a culture hero, from my understanding.
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I was referring to jumping to what was a status symbol for a given culture at a given time.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Like I said, the class wasn't unbiased, they presented a different set of biases, from a different perspective. That doesn't mean it was "the true story", it meant it was their story.
They weren't a paragon of gender roles in that sense, no, because that behavior was a general extension of their imperial view that non-Mongols were lesser peoples who kinda didn't matter so much. But, for example, if you tried to come to your local Mongol lord with a complaint about how this woman in town wanted to become a blacksmith, the Mongol lord's response would basically be "Is she paying her taxes?" and if your response was "Yes?" he'd be like "Then man don't fucking bother me with your piss-ant lesser culture problems, who gives a shit if she's a woman and a blacksmith, let her be if she makes me money."
They basically took a laissez-faire attitude towards a lot of that kind of stuff. It wasn't egalitarianism per se, it was more like a form of arrogance, like they were above such things and y'all conquered people need to get your shit together and stop bothering me with this.
as long as you paid your protection money and kept your head down and your shit together, they generally left you alone to do whatever and asked very little of you, and if someone messed with your shit they would come fucking wreck them because they essentially considered you their property
if you were a trader, this wasn't too bad, you could move about unmolested by banditry (which, for traders, is pretty swank) although taxation was a big issue. if you were a farmer and someone like, burned down your farm, you could beseech your Mongol lord about it and because he gets tax revenue from your farm he'd be pissed about it and he'd do something.
but if for example you came to your Mongol lord because you thought the Jews were getting too uppity or women weren't knowing their place, they'd be like "I do not care about this shit, dude, this is your weird inferior culture problems. Get your shit together, barbarian."
Which is why they get a reputation for being egalitarian and being cool with religious expression and so on. They just didn't really care about these things because they didn't affect their bottom line. Which also meant they didn't really care about stopping these things from being a problem either, unless they affected their bottom line. If you were a woman in the Mongol empire and you were raped and your rapist demanded that you marry him, and your family demanded that you do so to reclaim your "honor" or whatever, and you went to your local Mongol lord to beseech him to intervene, he'd be like "Woman I ain't got time for this, none of this affects me, in fact your new husband's family is going to give me a kickback on the wedding so, tough shit. Get married."
The Mongols themselves, within their own people, could be fairly egalitarian because that's pretty commonplace among nomadic cultures for practical reasons. But they only applied those kind of standards to non-Mongols insofar as it suited them to do so.
Turkestan was just like "oh okay new nomadic invaders" and acclimated right in
Russia resisted desperately, lost, and spent centuries suffering under alien rule
Catholic Europe spent several decades pissing themselves, then dispatched a bunch of missionaries to Mongolia, gained influence at the Mongol Court and started milking that sweet sweet Silk Trade
Islamic civilization fought them tooth and nail, eventually won, and convinced the Ilkhanate to become Muslim and just waited for them to collapse
Vietnam kicked the shit out of them and then agreed to pay tribute just so they'd fuck off
Japan got impossibly lucky and developed a cultural fascination with divine typhoons
China accepted Kublai Khan as their new Emperor, submitted entirely to Mongol rule, and proceeded to assimilate the new Yuan Dynasty into regular Chinese culture until they forgot they were supposed to be Mongols
the speedy gonzalez dilemma
short answer, no you are not a bad person assuming you recognize potential issues regarding stereotypes
longer answer, I'm gay
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/21/blackhorse-do-you-prefer-native-american-or-american-indian-6-prominent-voices-respond
It's something that came up earlier in the thread, and these interviews provide some good insight, if you wonder what term is "right" for referring to Indians. (Spoiler: There isn't one. Everyone's got their own views.)
Here in Nova Scotia, I've heard a lot of people in the Mi'kmaq community voice approval of the term 'First Nations', which has become a widely used less specific term for most indigenous groups in Canada (along side the Inuit and Metis). Of course, even more so, they like being referred to as Mi'kmaq.