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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26492 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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I think he's just caught between a rock and a hard place.

If he wants to keep his position as "internet historian," it's essential that he has some genuine academic bona fides. Right now he's an adjunct professor, which is just barely enough to call himself "professor," even though everyone in academia knows he's not a "real" professor.

His specialty is an classics, specifically the military history of the Roman republic. That's a very old-school, white male coded, conservative interest. It's also been out of favor with the academy for, I don't know, at least 100 years. So if he bends too far towards his fan base, he'll get excommunicated by the academy and lose all of his professional bona fides. He'll become just another internet "roman statue guy." On the other hand, if he leans too far towards the academy, he'll spend all his time writing about the queer women of color in the roman republic, or whatever. He wrote a whole series about how women traditionally made clothing and he had to admit that primary sources were sparse because even the primary sources of the time thought that this was an incredibly boring topic which no one cared about. They basically just took a strand of wool or flax then "spun" in a circular motion, over and over and over, for approximately one million hours, until it resembled something like a modern dress. Neat.

In of his recent article, he did admit the contradiction- if he was a woman or Black person, writing about more academia-friendly topics, he'd probably be a full professor by now. Instead he's marginalized as basically a glorified grad student, despite having a huge internet following and way more funding than most full professors. And yet, he has to kind of look down on and despise his followers in order to maintain his standing. Truly a difficult position.

He wrote a whole series about how women traditionally made clothing and he had to admit that primary sources were sparse because even the primary sources of the time thought that this was an incredibly boring topic which no one cared about.

When I read it, I did not think it was especially boring. I actually found it interesting to learn that a lot of productivity went into textiles. For myself, this contrast is larger than for food -- I still spend a couple of hundreds Euros a month on food, but perhaps only a couple of 100 Euro per year on clothes. A 50 Euro jeans can easily last for years.

Or you could say that the baseline requirements of labor for textiles (even after the invention of the spinning wheel) sets the stage for the industrial revolution as spinning machines were one of the early consumers of steam power.

even the primary sources of the time

Come on, that is an incredibly weak argument. Most of our sources were upper class, often aristocratic men interested in what their class viewed as appropriate interests. There is a ton of stuff -- details of industrial processes, demographic information, nutrition of the general population, etc -- which they could have trivially found out and written to us about, but did not bother for the most part.

Some of these a woke niche interests ("Okay, but what was life in the kingdom like for the 99%?") but others might allow us to understand why history happened the way it happened, why this society was stable and that one was not and so on.

I found it interesting, too.

Per gwern:

Clothing has become almost “too cheap to meter”, as the Industrial Revolution in textiles never stopped; employment in the US textile industry has cratered while garment per man-hour & per capita GDP in new textile-heavy economies like Bangladesh soars as textile automation continues.

I thought his article was the one with stats about the percentage of income spent on clothing, but I guess that was somewhere else. It was outrageous even through the 50s.

His specialty is an classics, specifically the military history of the Roman republic. That's a very old-school, white male coded, conservative interest.

Noted. But can't the same be said about anyone specializing in ancient Rome in general, ancient Greece in general and not just Sparta, or the Middle Ages in general, for example, or even military history as a whole?

Sure, but who else is like that, who writes prolifically on the internet for a general audience, in modern times? I think you'd have to either go back to much older sources, or look to some fairly obscure academics who don't even have a twitter or any sort of online presence. Academia in general just... doesn't do a good job of catering towards popular interests.

I think he's just caught between a rock and a hard place.

And you believe that this absolves him of responsibility? That it makes him a trustworthy source?

I dont believe any source is trustworthy in the sense of "oracle of truth." I just appreciate his perspective. He must be read in context, just like every single other human who ever dared to speak with authority. I so generally trust him about the specific factual details of life in the ancient world, but much less when it comes to editorializing or drawing broad conclusions.

I dont believe any source is trustworthy in the sense of "oracle of truth."

That's not what I asked, I asked you if being "caught between a rock and a hard place" absolved him of responsibility. and If it made him a trustworthy source.

If anything, your reply reads to me like a list of reasons to be intensely skeptical of any claim he makes.

I dont believe any source is trustworthy in the sense of "oracle of truth."

That wasn't the question. Do you think it makes him more likely to put forward an argument in good faith?

I think I answered @JeSuisCharlie's question of "is he a trustworthy source?" You're now asking a different question- "is he more likely to put forward an argument in good faith?" (presumably you mean, more likely because of his political beliefs?) To that I would say no, but neither is anyone else. Like everyone, you need to read him with an eye towards his potential bias.

I think I answered @JeSuisCharlie's question of "is he a trustworthy source?"

I don't think you did originally, and I don't think I did. "Trustworthy" doesn't usually mean "an oracle of truth".

They basically just took a strand of wool or flax then "spun" in a circular motion, over and over and over, for approximately one million hours, until it resembled something like a modern dress. Neat.

It's at least a little funny that you've forgotten about the weaving and sewing part of clothes production despite apparently being aware of this checks notes five part series on clothes production.

From what I recall from the series, the lions share of work actually went into thread production, that is spinning. The weaving was much less, and the sewing much less than the weaving again.

Oh yeah, sewing, I recall that's on part 6 of the series.

In all seriousness it's not part of the series so you might want to recheck your notes.

I didn't actually read the series. Looking now, despite the name, it's really more about cloth production than clothing production, despite the name. Very troubling!

I took a quick look, and despite enjoying Youtube vlogs about textile content, nd enjoying beating wool with sticks, felting, and several other textile things, it looked pretty boring. I can see why someone wouldn't ever click through to knitting or weaving or anything else.

Real knitting, let alone crochet, was actually unknown to the ancients. There was a process called "nalebinding" which involved a single needle and passing the entire thread through each loop, joining threads to make a full garment. True knitting with two needles without passing the whole yarn through each loop came about around the 11th century.

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