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So someone made a guess, it was wrong, that happens. But why did end up being spread around the news so much. So what, even if it said Allah? Vikings liked to t

by rdtsc 9y ago

So someone made a guess, it was wrong, that happens. But why did end up being spread around the news so much. So what, even if it said Allah? Vikings liked to travel, they might have been buying or copying decorative elements from various places. I saw in the tweet she tagged Guardian, BBC, NatGeo and NYTimes. Was there just a slow news day that they all picked up that one claim and ran with it.

sampo 9y ago
> But why did end up being spread around the news so much. She explains it towards the end of her story: Why does brouhaha over Arabic on Viking textile matter? Three reasons One, context: story likely went viral because of recent events. Charlottesville revealed to all what has long been known among medievalists: that white supremacy uses medieval imagery & symbolism. At Charlottesville we saw medieval banners & chants with Crusader phrases like Deus Vult. So the Viking Allah textile exhibits what Stephen Colbert once called ‘truthiness’ but is not supported by scholarship. But ‘truthiness’ cannot be enough for news media, especially in this age of accusations of Fake News. And when medieval & particularly Viking age is used as ideological weapon by white supremacists & scholars are risking careers to fight white supremacist appropriation & not just white supremacists use medieval to further contemporary agendas: same tactic used by ISIS, alQaeda who kill thousands. Then it matters that we get this right. Media can report on diversity of Global Middle Ages w/out trumped-up scholarship. But we need news media to be our allies, consult experts, and get facts right.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  It is kind of fun to see white supremacism discussed in the context of Sweden. Sweden is historically inhabited by europeans who happened to settle there over the course of centuries, and then to their amazement later discovered they are "white". They probably just thought they were people back then. I haven't heard about Swedes participating in slave trade (vikings aside) and there was nobody else for them to oppress (vikings aside), so it's kind of strange idea that Swedes now has to make up for centuries of white supremacism ("people supremacism"?) A lot of things which make sense in context of history of USA (when european colonists overran the land and then imported black people agains their will to exploit them) doesn't extend on Northern Europe.
  - lostboys67 9y ago
    Um no one of the busiest slave markets in that time was Dublin only Constantinople was bigger.
    - pluma 9y ago
      Is that Dublin, Sweden or Dublin, Ireland?
      - sampo 9y ago
        Ireland. There is no Dublin in Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ireland
        Grustaf 9y ago
        Dublin started out in ernest as a Viking settlement so it’s not that far from being a Swedish town...
        pluma 9y ago
        That's the joke. The comment that brought up Dublin was in response to a comment about Sweden.
  - vixen99 9y ago
    Slavery has been a characteristic of almost every human grouping at some time or another. It seems you are not aware of the large number of Europeans and Africans (and in East Asia) who were enslaved by Muslims in the 18th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Muslim_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Musl...
    - vim_wannabe 9y ago
      We don't talk about that.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  >And when medieval & particularly Viking age is used as ideological weapon by white supremacists & scholars are risking careers to fight white supremacist appropriation & not just white supremacists use medieval to further contemporary agendas: same tactic used by ISIS, alQaeda who kill thousands. Then it matters that we get this right. http://i.imgur.com/HwlKPoE.gif http://i.imgur.com/HwlKPoE.gif
- coffee9 9y ago
  This politicization is disgusting and now it's ammo for the alt-right.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  Ah ok. That explains it. What if medieval times more often than not were full of racists, irrational crazy beliefs, brutality, killing, hate, all kinds of xenophobia, sexism, and other stuff we find despicable today. Trying to paint that time as a happy period, where everyone was integrated, and they lived together peacefully will backfire unless there is solid evidence to prove it. > Then it matters that we get this right. Media can report on diversity of Global Middle Ages w/out trumped-up scholarship. Exactly. I think there were areas at the intersection of trade routes where cities had multiple nationalities and faiths living together. One distinct feature was that it was tied to economic prosperity. As long as everyone was not starving and had a place to live, and trade was flourishing, living together worked well. I think picking one of those example might have worked better in this context. But in general if the audience was white supremacists, it's better to just ignore them and not engage, it's waste of time debating with crazy people.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    One distinct feature was that it was tied to economic prosperity. Dubai is pretty diverse today. The question, what happens when wealth runs out?
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      A very good question indeed! I guess here the idea wast to politicize this "discovery". It backfired, now the crazies will say "See, these scientists have to make up facts,what else are they lying about!" So I thought, if politicizing and PR was the main purpose, there are better example out there to pick from than Vikings as an example of a peace loving integrated society.
sremani 9y ago
Its not a slow news day, its fits their ancient europe is "diverse" narrative, which they have interest promoting now, with a immigrant crisis in Europe.
- imposterer 9y ago
  This doesn’t sound racist or anything. Nope.
  - norikki 9y ago
    Do you think James Damore is sexist? I'd love to know just how highly correlated opinions are on racism and sexism. I suspect in the United States people are comparatively more likely to believe things are racist, and in continental Europe people are comparatively more likely to believe things are sexist, but I don't have the data.
cannedslime 9y ago
The swedish government has been trying to prove that it has always been multicultural and diverse. The Swedish government have paid 450.000SEK for an exhibition which purpose was to show that islam always had a place in Sweden (even though this is most likely for modern propaganda purposes and not really anything actually educational). The same goes for the established media. Anything that will "prove" that islam belongs in Europe / Scandinavia gets regurgitated without much scrutiny because of ideological reasons.
lostboys67 9y ago
They did the BBC did a program on Vikings and one rich pagan Viking had obviously collected different religious artefacts from India, Arabia and From the Cristian world
Grustaf 9y ago
>So someone made a guess, it was wrong, that happens. Not quite. What happens is that people pose hypotheses, based on available evididence, that are later strengthened or weakened by new evidence. What happened here was that the authour had the same evidence that we have, they just took the liberty to add data that wasn’t actually there, and drew conclusions based on that.

by rdtsc 9y ago

sampo 9y ago

> But why did end up being spread around the news so much. She explains it towards the end of her story: Why does brouhaha over Arabic on Viking textile matter? Three reasons One, context: story likely went viral because of recent events. Charlottesville revealed to all what has long been known among medievalists: that white supremacy uses medieval imagery & symbolism. At Charlottesville we saw medieval banners & chants with Crusader phrases like Deus Vult. So the Viking Allah textile exhibits what Stephen Colbert once called ‘truthiness’ but is not supported by scholarship. But ‘truthiness’ cannot be enough for news media, especially in this age of accusations of Fake News. And when medieval & particularly Viking age is used as ideological weapon by white supremacists & scholars are risking careers to fight white supremacist appropriation & not just white supremacists use medieval to further contemporary agendas: same tactic used by ISIS, alQaeda who kill thousands. Then it matters that we get this right. Media can report on diversity of Global Middle Ages w/out trumped-up scholarship. But we need news media to be our allies, consult experts, and get facts right.

thriftwy 9y ago
It is kind of fun to see white supremacism discussed in the context of Sweden. Sweden is historically inhabited by europeans who happened to settle there over the course of centuries, and then to their amazement later discovered they are "white". They probably just thought they were people back then. I haven't heard about Swedes participating in slave trade (vikings aside) and there was nobody else for them to oppress (vikings aside), so it's kind of strange idea that Swedes now has to make up for centuries of white supremacism ("people supremacism"?) A lot of things which make sense in context of history of USA (when european colonists overran the land and then imported black people agains their will to exploit them) doesn't extend on Northern Europe.
- lostboys67 9y ago
  Um no one of the busiest slave markets in that time was Dublin only Constantinople was bigger.
  - pluma 9y ago
    Is that Dublin, Sweden or Dublin, Ireland?
    - sampo 9y ago
      Ireland. There is no Dublin in Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ireland
      - Grustaf 9y ago
        Dublin started out in ernest as a Viking settlement so it’s not that far from being a Swedish town...
      - pluma 9y ago
        That's the joke. The comment that brought up Dublin was in response to a comment about Sweden.
- vixen99 9y ago
  Slavery has been a characteristic of almost every human grouping at some time or another. It seems you are not aware of the large number of Europeans and Africans (and in East Asia) who were enslaved by Muslims in the 18th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Muslim_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Musl...
  - vim_wannabe 9y ago
    We don't talk about that.
nyolfen 9y ago
>And when medieval & particularly Viking age is used as ideological weapon by white supremacists & scholars are risking careers to fight white supremacist appropriation & not just white supremacists use medieval to further contemporary agendas: same tactic used by ISIS, alQaeda who kill thousands. Then it matters that we get this right. http://i.imgur.com/HwlKPoE.gif http://i.imgur.com/HwlKPoE.gif
coffee9 9y ago
This politicization is disgusting and now it's ammo for the alt-right.
rdtsc 9y ago
Ah ok. That explains it. What if medieval times more often than not were full of racists, irrational crazy beliefs, brutality, killing, hate, all kinds of xenophobia, sexism, and other stuff we find despicable today. Trying to paint that time as a happy period, where everyone was integrated, and they lived together peacefully will backfire unless there is solid evidence to prove it. > Then it matters that we get this right. Media can report on diversity of Global Middle Ages w/out trumped-up scholarship. Exactly. I think there were areas at the intersection of trade routes where cities had multiple nationalities and faiths living together. One distinct feature was that it was tied to economic prosperity. As long as everyone was not starving and had a place to live, and trade was flourishing, living together worked well. I think picking one of those example might have worked better in this context. But in general if the audience was white supremacists, it's better to just ignore them and not engage, it's waste of time debating with crazy people.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  One distinct feature was that it was tied to economic prosperity. Dubai is pretty diverse today. The question, what happens when wealth runs out?
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    A very good question indeed! I guess here the idea wast to politicize this "discovery". It backfired, now the crazies will say "See, these scientists have to make up facts,what else are they lying about!" So I thought, if politicizing and PR was the main purpose, there are better example out there to pick from than Vikings as an example of a peace loving integrated society.

sremani 9y ago

Its not a slow news day, its fits their ancient europe is "diverse" narrative, which they have interest promoting now, with a immigrant crisis in Europe.

imposterer 9y ago
This doesn’t sound racist or anything. Nope.
- norikki 9y ago
  Do you think James Damore is sexist? I'd love to know just how highly correlated opinions are on racism and sexism. I suspect in the United States people are comparatively more likely to believe things are racist, and in continental Europe people are comparatively more likely to believe things are sexist, but I don't have the data.

cannedslime 9y ago

The swedish government has been trying to prove that it has always been multicultural and diverse. The Swedish government have paid 450.000SEK for an exhibition which purpose was to show that islam always had a place in Sweden (even though this is most likely for modern propaganda purposes and not really anything actually educational). The same goes for the established media. Anything that will "prove" that islam belongs in Europe / Scandinavia gets regurgitated without much scrutiny because of ideological reasons.

lostboys67 9y ago

They did the BBC did a program on Vikings and one rich pagan Viking had obviously collected different religious artefacts from India, Arabia and From the Cristian world

Grustaf 9y ago

>So someone made a guess, it was wrong, that happens. Not quite. What happens is that people pose hypotheses, based on available evididence, that are later strengthened or weakened by new evidence. What happened here was that the authour had the same evidence that we have, they just took the liberty to add data that wasn’t actually there, and drew conclusions based on that.