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So, the language Peterson is using isn’t scientific, it’s an act of cultural interpretation. Which is, of course, fine, and a great reminder that linguistics is

So, the language Peterson is using isn’t scientific, it’s an act of cultural interpretation. Which is, of course, fine, and a great reminder that linguistics is a subject that connects many different fields of knowledge. But when I see an advertisement for Game of Thrones, I see a cultural vision that is inaccurate, distorting, and bears a very specific relationship to the European past. It isn’t an innocent one. I see a Tolkien-inflected vision of the Middle Ages, with the sexual violence and warfare and ethnic stereotyping amped up to a pitch so cartoonishly horrendous that I can’t look at it. PC crap in an otherwise really interesting article. It's not amped up actually. The degree of butchery that goes on in historical outbreaks of violence is astonishing to the post-19th century mind. Mass executions of enemies and conquered cities (and accompanying rape and pillage) happened with regularity in some parts of history. One of the noted advancements of the Mongol warfare style in the middle ages, especially under Genghis Khan, was development of efficient mass execution tactics. Sexual violence and warfare happened at a cartoonishly horrendous pitch. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast has an amazing series on the Mongol conquests, "Wrath of the Khans" if you wanna know more.

veddox 11y ago
> It's not amped up actually. The degree of butchery that goes on in historical outbreaks of violence is astonishing to the post-19th century mind. Mass executions of enemies and conquered cities (and accompanying rape and pillage) happened with regularity in some parts of history. "... in some parts of history"? Atrocities like that have never ended - human nature doesn't change. In the civil wars in western and southern Africa, rape is regularly used as a weapon of war. We all know the kind of massacres IS has been committing. I don't know an awful lot about Genghis Khan, but I'm pretty sure the machete-wielding executioners of the Rwandan genocide must have been just as effective. That kind of violence has nothing to do with the time period in which you live, there's nothing magic about the post-19th century world/mind. It's about humans being, well, inhuman. And that, unfortunately, can include pretty much everybody.
krick 11y ago
Your comment is absolutely unrelated to your quote. The fact that Mongol warfare was quite, uh, violent (which is obviously true) has nothing to do with the fact that Martin's books and especially the TV show have "a cultural vision that is inaccurate, distorting, and bears a very specific relationship to the European past" (which is also obviously true). In fact, I'm even harsher in my opinion, angrily denying all attempts to mark "Game of Thrones" (or even SoIaF) as "historically accurate", because it could be viewed as that only in the most primitive sense, and any somewhat educated audience would be continuously annoyed by the contrary. That is because Martin borrows quite large pieces of historical motives, but unlike Tolkien is unable to elegantly glue them together. And as the devil is in the details the resulting picture makes simply no sense. Calling it grotesque would be even an understatement.

veddox 11y ago

> It's not amped up actually. The degree of butchery that goes on in historical outbreaks of violence is astonishing to the post-19th century mind. Mass executions of enemies and conquered cities (and accompanying rape and pillage) happened with regularity in some parts of history. "... in some parts of history"? Atrocities like that have never ended - human nature doesn't change. In the civil wars in western and southern Africa, rape is regularly used as a weapon of war. We all know the kind of massacres IS has been committing. I don't know an awful lot about Genghis Khan, but I'm pretty sure the machete-wielding executioners of the Rwandan genocide must have been just as effective. That kind of violence has nothing to do with the time period in which you live, there's nothing magic about the post-19th century world/mind. It's about humans being, well, inhuman. And that, unfortunately, can include pretty much everybody.

krick 11y ago

Your comment is absolutely unrelated to your quote. The fact that Mongol warfare was quite, uh, violent (which is obviously true) has nothing to do with the fact that Martin's books and especially the TV show have "a cultural vision that is inaccurate, distorting, and bears a very specific relationship to the European past" (which is also obviously true). In fact, I'm even harsher in my opinion, angrily denying all attempts to mark "Game of Thrones" (or even SoIaF) as "historically accurate", because it could be viewed as that only in the most primitive sense, and any somewhat educated audience would be continuously annoyed by the contrary. That is because Martin borrows quite large pieces of historical motives, but unlike Tolkien is unable to elegantly glue them together. And as the devil is in the details the resulting picture makes simply no sense. Calling it grotesque would be even an understatement.