The Good News and Some Thoughts On Current Events

Had a couple of things I thought about writing here. This article, from a conservative perspective, brought up quite a few thoughts on my end...

But now that it's time to post, I'm just not feeling it.

It just feels like... I dunno. Like there are forces at work that are determined to take us down the worst path, and they don't want to listen. Nobody wants to hear it.

So I'll write about the other thing.

Anyone who has been reading my blog has probably picked up on my interest in history (among many others, but those are less relevant to this post.) It's interesting to try and imagine what life was really like in the past, because we have a tendency to project onto it our own experiences... so it's hard to really understand what life was really like back then. Like Rome - most of us know Roman myths and legends, but our understanding is not the same. Romans apparently took their religion seriously, were devout in their own way, and it's hard for us to think about their beliefs that way. To us, legends of Jupiter, Minerva, and the like (more commonly, to me at least, known by their Greek counterparts Zeus and Athena) are more like folktales. Myths and legends. Ancient stories that have been passed down for centuries, but not beings that we believe in.

I never claim to be an expert, of course, but I filter various things I've read through my own understanding of people, and one of the things that has struck me is... how do I put it?

In the Old Testament, Abraham (or Abram at the time) asked his wife Sara (later Sarah) to say she was his sister in order to avoid trouble.

Think about that. Think about a world where someone was likely to murder you in order to take your wife. A threat that was commonplace enough that Abraham expected it and came up with a plan to avoid it. (A plan that involved letting a powerful man claim his wife for his own.)

It reminds me of all the strategizing and calculating that we think we need to do in order to make it in this imperfect world. Machiavellianism. Realpolitik. The attitude that "I got mine, how you do?" and "If you were in their position, you'd do it too."

So for Christians, Jesus came and overturned all that. He said that "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first."

He didn't succeed in a conventional and worldly way. He didn't make himself rich, or overthrow Roman rule and become a worldly King of the Jews (though apparently that's what some of his followers at the time expected, and our religion was shaped by some of the reconciliation we went through when it didn't happen).

He died like a criminal. Crucified on a cross.

And then you get the resurrection... and suddenly his disciples (who had mostly seemed interested in that worldly success, and kept missing the point of his sermons; who just a few days earlier had all fled, with Peter denying Jesus three times... ) were going around spreading the Good News.

From a historical perspective, there's no real evidence of what happened back then. It does make me think, though, of Napolean alleged quote that -

I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me . . . but to do this is was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lightened up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts. . . . Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. 

Something mysterious happened, something that turned ordinary men and women into apostles willing to risk their lives... and their message was welcomed, was greeted joyously....

And I know all the Christian ways of saying what that message was, but I think at the heart of it was this:

Nice guys don't finish last.

Okay, that's the catchy way of summarizing it, drawing on the rather familiar saying that "Nice guys finish last", and it's meant to be far more inclusive than that.

And perhaps 'heart' isn't the right word, since the commandments Jesus said were most important were

Thou shalt love thy Lord, thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind

And

 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

But important though that is, it's not the part that made people go crazy for the story. (I mentioned early Christianity and fanfiction, and if you want a sense of that... look up the stories that never made it into the Bible. People were sharing and telling Jesus stories like crazy, though only a few were accepted into the Bible.)

So yes, we should all strive to love our neighbors as ourselves (and heal the sick, and hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors. You know, like Jesus did.)

But we're supposed to remember to be good people, to strive for that... and when the real world rears it's ugly head, when it seems like we just have to do wrong in order to survive - to practice realpolitick, or do whatever it is we're trying to justify because 'those evil _____ are winning and we have to do this  or all is lost' we're supposed to remember that Jesus won despite 'losing' and dying like a criminal.

We're supposed to have faith, and resist worldly temptation.


Which is why I find the current state of affairs so horrifying, as the article I linked to above touches on.

When you think the battle "must be fought by any means necessary", when they are willing to overlook all the signs that someone isn't a good Christian because they think that's what it takes to win...

They've pretty much missed the entire point of the Book they claim to revere.

Women in the Bible

This seems in keeping with some of my earlier posts.

Enough

B"when The recent house vote in North Carolina is like a game of football where one team calls a timeout, then takes the ball and runs to the endzone while the other team is huddling together...

And they dare call it a touchdown.

One of the foolish Republicans responsible even said this quote - apparently without any awareness of the irony - that "when we stop being a beacon of freedom, hope and democracy then the terrorists win"

Yes, and you're so focused on getting your 'touchdown' that you don't care that YOU ARE DESTROYING DEMOCRACY.

It especially disturbs me that so many people in power either don't get that, or don't care.

I hope North Carolina voters send a clear message, and refuse to vote for anyone who was party to this.

A Side-Note

A fanfic idea haunted me, so I actually tried my hand at writing one.

Okay, more than one, technically.

I guess I've had some modest success at it? I mean, I've got 851 kudos (for all my fics combined, few though they are) and a number of positive comments. It's a far cry from the most popular stories, which have something like 18,000 kudos... though those stories were generally written a couple of years ago, so they've also had more time to build up.

Anyways, in the sense of 'I blog to help clarify thoughts in my head', I've written all the stuff I had plotted out for my current fic...

And I've gotten comments like "I can't wait to see what happens next." Or "I wonder what will happen next."

Yeah... so do I.  So do I.

I'm not sure I'll continue it, but I also hate leaving it like that when I apparently have engaged readers wanting more.

So idk. Maybe I'll have to figure out what the changes I made to the official story will mean for the characters in my fic.

Ugh. I might have to throw a bit of Naruto stuff in here just to brainstorm that out.

On Story-Telling, Fan Fiction, and My Own Experiences...

I read something on social media, which in all too typical fashion has proven impossible to find again, where someone claimed that fanfiction is the modern version of telling fairy tales. (Or folk tales, idk. Makes it hard to search for the article when I can't even remember the exact wording).

This... this makes a surprising amount of sense to me. Like, back when most people centered their lives around agriculture, and the seasons, winter was a time when... well, there wasn't much else to do. The crops had been harvested, it was too cold to plant, and a family spent quite a bit of time hunkered around whatever heat source they had...

And told each other stories.

To pass the time. To entertain.

We get this notion nowadays, with books and movies and tv shows that have an official plot, that stories are... solid. Immutable. The author wrote it however they wanted, and that was that.

But folk tales were living, breathing things. They changed as society changed, as someone decided to tell it a little differently.

I have been around the fanfiction community for a long time, though I hadn't realized that for a long time. That is, one of my close friends in college is a writer.

Not professionally, but she's always had some sort of story on her mind. Original characters, world-building...

And she writes fanfic.

The somewhat recent attempt by Tumblr to restrict pornography brought out posts on fanfic history that made me realize that I'd been influenced by it for a while.

See, my friend tended to move to whatever social media fanfic was on. She was on LiveJournal back when that was a primary site for it, and during one of our regular visits she basically sat me down and had me create an account. (I remember wondering when the heck I'd ever use it, since I hated journaling assignments in school and didn't think I'd ever use it. Wow, did that change!)

And when LiveJournal became a more hostile place for fandom communities, many of them migrated to Tumblr. So I followed my friend there, to stay in touch. Found another friend there, as well (she also writes fanfiction.)

It's interesting to me, as a *mostly* outsider, because I've never really thought of myself as a fiction writer. I enjoy reading. I devour books. And sometimes, I'll admit, I've come across a rather poorly written book and thought I could do better.

But creating worlds? Wanting to explore a particular character? Wanting to write?

Mostly I write to help clarify my own thinking, as various ideas swirl around in my head.

I suppose there's another element to this, as well. That I, for the most part, have never felt as though I needed something more than the official story.

This all changed when Naruto got it's claws in me, and hasn't really let go.

I don't tend to write about that much here. Maybe it's because it still seems... silly? Not nearly as important or interesting as Roman history, or fighting terrorism, or computer security.

But that's all background info, a bit of a prelude... Because I can't really talk about the topic I want to if that's not understood.

Reading fanfiction is interesting, because fans create their own explanations for things. 'Fanon', as in 'fan canon', instead of the official canon. They'll fill in the blanks of a story. Create in-depth character analysis of characters that only showed up once or twice.

Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but the way the story changes in fandom is... fascinating.  Like, in Naruto they talk about how he was isolated and treated badly, but they don't really go into a lot of detail. I mostly go with "isolation is harmful in it's own way, consider that exile is considered a horrible punishment, and that's enough"... but fanon has interpreted that as "merchants raise prices and give him shoddy goods on a regular basis" and some even go so far to have him chased by lynch mobs. Like, I don't think he'd be as loyal to the village as he was in canon if that happened on a regular basis, and as I said isolation is pretty damaging in it's own right, but whatever. Write what you want to write, and I'll read what I want to read. (Quite a few seem to like using Naruto to write stories of abuse, and I can see that it can be cathartic and helpful to the people writing it.)

Everyone's free to disagree with any sort of character analysis, and write their own stories differently. (I am also glossing over some of the heated arguments, particularly when it comes to pairing various characters with each other. Fandom is not all sweetness and light. Oh, and fandom is also apparently a smutty, smutty place. Far smuttier than what we tend to see in normal story telling. Which is also why so many anti-pornography moves tend to hurt fandom communities, thus leading to their exodus when poorly designed attempts to reduce pornography start destroying fandom communities.)

Anyways. That post about fanfiction as modern folklore changed my thinking on a few things. Because, you see, that's what a lot of writing was like back in Roman times.

It was fairly common to write something and attribute it to a better, more well-known public figure... or take a story you like and modify it.

It's not like they had the notion of copyrights and plagiarism, not in the modern sense.

And when stories are fluid like that, the way they grow and change says something about the society telling them.

Hence why the discussion of Romulus and Remus was so interesting. Given how bloody Roman politics became, was the fratricidal murder saying something about Roman society?

And - on a topic that, well, Bible literalists will truly hate - this is also how a lot of early Christianity worked.

Like, they so loved the story that they expanded on it, built on it. Created lore about minor characters that only showed up once or twice. Wrote things that they attributed to famous names (like St. Peter) and circulated it.

And the stories that gained widespread acceptance said something - about society, about human nature, about (if you're religious) our relationship with God.

Not because it was word-for-word written by whoever it was alleged to be written by, but because these stories resonated with people. To use fandom terms - when someone comes up with an idea that fans really, really like, they often say that they 'accept it as headcanon'.

The stories, letters, and writings that grew into 'official canon' became canon because so many people accepted it as headcanon.

Which I think makes for a far more interesting discussion than taking it literally.

An Interlude (Or, I Picked Up a History Book and Have Thoughts)

"Violence was increasingly taken for granted as a political tool. Traditional restraints and conventions broke down, one y one, until swords, clubs and rioting more or less replaced the ballot box. At the same time... a very few individuals of enormous power, wealth, and military backing came to dominate the state..."

I picked up SPQR, yet another book on the history of Rome, and I'm really enjoying it.

I've read various books on the Roman empire, off and on over the years, though I by no means claim any real expertise. The similarities (and differences) to today are compelling, as well as the way events from so very long ago can still shape the world as we know it today.

But I will admit, most of my previous reading was more focused on... well, the fall of Rome. Or with a more militaristic focus (like the Ghosts of Cannae, though iirc it covered far more than just a battlefield analysis. As the title implies, it also talked about the impact of that battle on the Roman society as a whole, and especially the veterans.)

I have to admit, we get so focused on why such a large and powerful empire fell apart that we don't always ask "how did it grow so powerful in the first place?"

And, again, the differences and similarities to our own history are... just fascinating. Like, I vaguely knew the myth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome who were suckled as babes by a wolf. I never really looked into it in detail, so I didn't know that Romulus apparently killed his brother nor did I consider the meaning of such a founding story... and it's implications for fratricidal violence. The author seems to do a good job of explaining some of the dissenting historical opinions on various topics, and what evidence is and isn't available, so for the most part this is treated as a story.

And still has interesting implications, in the sense of... "why include that in the story?" Like... stories change to meet the needs of their particular time and place (I've got some interesting thoughts on that, but that's for another time. Maybe.)

So they could easily have dropped Remus altogether - which apparently some Romans did.

or they could have focused on the brothers, and dropped the fratricide... and just indicated that Remus died early. Which, again, some Romans apparently did.

If it was based on any sort of historical incident, (which might have been, but we don't have any evidence for it and can't really say for sure what did or didn't happen) then one would almost expect the victor - Romulus - to try to make the whole thing sound better than it did. After all, victors write the history.

It's interesting, though, because even though the founding stories are completely different, I can see parallels to the way we interact with our own founding story. That is, Romans apparently debated what it meant. Not just the Romulus-Remus event, but the two brothers were apparently outsiders who moved to Rome? So, like, it raised questions about what it means to be Roman, and who is an outsider... much like our own history of immigration, and the questions that raises about what it means to be an American.

I'll admit, though, that this story dovetails quite nicely with some of my own... hmmm... biases? Headcanons? Heuristics about human behavior?

That is - as I've mentioned before, I was raised Catholic. And 'catholic' means universal. So I notice differing trends between exclusion (often tied with a sense of elitism and specialness) and inclusion.

Like, everyone likes to feel like we're somehow better than everyone else. And various organizations tap into that, whether it's secret societies with messages saying "you can be one of the few that really know!", or "you've proven you're smarter", or whatever.

And then there's other organizations that gain power by appealing to the everybody. They can gain a wide following when they don't try to exclude anyone (though it can also be harder to define what you stand for, I think.)

It's sort of that centripetal and centrifugal force I referenced before... pushing and pulling on a social scale. And so, for example, you get fundamentalist muslims who decide that various other fundamentalist muslims are somehow incorrect and even worse than those who don't know any better since they know so much and somehow still believe wrongly, to the point where many of these groups fracture into smaller and smaller groups that are violently opposed to pretty much everyone. (Or, in Christian history, you somehow wind up fighting a war over transubstantiation)

And, on the other hand, you get people broadening the group to the most basic set of beliefs. For Christians, well... belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and all that. Which, if you define things that way, means there really isn't much difference between Catholic or Baptist or Episcopalian. (Or, to continue the Muslim analogy - so long as you believe and practice the Five Pillars, you're Muslim... and the distinctions between Shi'a, Sunni, and all those fractured fundamentalist groups don't amount to much at all so long as the Five Pillars are observed.)

Another personal headcanon is, well...

That oftentimes the side that 'wins' is the one that screws up the least. Like, it's not saying everything they did is right or correct... but they did enough 'right', and whoever the other side is did enough 'wrong', that they came out ahead.

The reason for such a complicated headcanon? We still have to think critically about history, and finding the 'root cause' is darn difficult. Especially since some consequences don't appear immediately, or the responsible party gets lost... particularly in large and complex organizations.

So, like, here's a theory based on that headcanon that I have absolutely no way of testing whether or not it's true. St. Paul had a great deal of influence on the early Christian church, for better or worse. On the one hand, what I would consider some of the worst beliefs about women are attributed to some of his writings. On the other hand, he's also the one who opened up the early church to gentiles... going back to that 'inclusion and universalism' thing.

After all, Jesus was a Jew who taught and preached and had disciples who were all also Jewish, and it was quite a stretch to suddenly say that everything this Jesus guy said and did was relevant to people who were in no way, shape or form Jewish.

Read up on some of the early debates, and there were questions like "do Christians have to observe all the Jewish practices? Like circumcision?"

And St Paul, for better or worse, essentially decided the question in favor of inclusion.

So I, personally, think he showed rather human fallibility with the part about women, but that he probably did well overall because he weighed in on the side of inclusion. (Those who believe the Bible is divinely inspired but written through fallible people would understand that, but this goes in direct contradiction of the notion that every word in the Bible is as God willed it, and that what I just said is cherry-picking at it's worst. To which I say - we're reading a translation of a language most of us don't speak, in a cultural context that tbh is quite foreign to the world we live in today, and we're already cherry-picking what it means. I'm just not fooling myself about it.)

But, you know, I'm not a religious authority figure, so I don't expect anyone else to agree with me here.

Anyways.

Early Rome seemed to grow powerful in part because it was inclusionist... in an ancient world where most cities were xenophobic, Rome seemed to allow pretty much anyone to come. (And, btw, realizing that most of these 'ancient cities' were about the size of a small college town like Bloomington, IN or Champaign, IL, is trippy. Suddenly those grand and glorious battles that helped early Rome become big and powerful were... as though Champaign declared war on Bloomington, IL? Weird... )

That's not to say Rome was all that. Like I said, it's as much about who screws up the least as anything else, and Rome definitely had slavery and developed a history of military aggression. (Though at least most of those slaves had a path to citizenship? Maybe? The way they practiced it was very different from our more recent history.)

Anyways, that's enough babbling for now. I'm enjoying the book, it makes me feel like this was the book on Roman history I've been looking for all along.

Edited to add: inclusion vs exclusion is not just a religious thing. On social media I've seen some posts talking about "terfs", and the word "queer", and whether asexuals should be part of the LGBTQIA thing, and it's the same old thing in a new setting - exclusionists trying to mark boundaries and cut people out, and inclusionists saying "I hated feeling left out, so I'm not leaving anyone else out."

Something to Ponder

What is the difference between power and control?