5 ms·

I'm ready for the article that unearths the actual statistics, not the grim examples. Similar to Steven Pinker's deep research on the actual prevalence of viole

I'm ready for the article that unearths the actual statistics, not the grim examples. Similar to Steven Pinker's deep research on the actual prevalence of violence in medieval times vs. modern times. Like, I wonder how often in daily life these things happened? As opposed to events that did not make the written histories, like "Alfred is accused of theft of apples. The local noble questions him and warns him not to do it again. He denies it, but no more apples are stolen." Would a historian know about that, or bother to write about it if he did?

dionidium 4y ago
I've wondered about stuff like this, often: > Gruesomely, it is believed the person would often still be conscious during this. The genitals would also be cut off and burnt in full view of the crowds and the victim. Talk about adding insult to injury. Only once the final stage was reached would the poor soul succumb to death, since before quartering he was usually beheaded. If you were wondering, “quartering” quite literally meant chopping the torso into four parts, generally with a huge axe. As this punishment was enacted less often than its more genteel counterparts, it would attract particularly large crowds. This sort of defies any understanding I have of human beings. This isn't like, "how could they think hats like that looked good?" or, "They really lived in such small huts?" No, this suggests a fundamentally different kind of creature, one that could derive enjoyment from something that would make my stomach turn. You might as well tell me they thought human shit was a delicacy. As I understand it, this stuff wasn't actually that common, in other words.
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  Yes. Something I read once stuck with me: Simple minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds, in the commonplace.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Go to any Reddit forum that follows videos from the Ukrainian war and look at the comments. Even today, some people are absolutely savage about other people getting killed, if they believe that they deserve it. There isn't much difference between a real crowd cheering someone's execution and a virtual crowd cheering someone being blown up.
  - 0dayz 4y ago
    Or even better example the gore community.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  People were much more accustomed to violence, both casual and premeditated. Additionally, harm to humans and animals was commonplace. You didn't have OSHA in medieval times. On top of that, for a largely mundane life the execution of a criminal was a huge event.
  - UIUC_06 4y ago
    > harm to humans and animals was commonplace Again, "commonplace" is kinda misused here. You can find examples of cruelty in the historical record, not so many of the opposite. Because no one kept statistics.
    - samatman 4y ago
      It is not misused in the slightest, particularly where animals are concerned. This article talks about medieval England in particular, which has excellent survival of detailed records of many things, including the bloodsports which were popular occurrences everywhere in the kingdom. It doesn't sit right with me that watching roosters and dogs maul each other, often to death, was among the most popular of entertainments in the era. But it was.
      - dionidium 4y ago
        Ultimately, this squares the circle, because what's happening, I think, is that human beings are pretty good at defining other creatures to be outside of their circle of empathy. Historically, animals were obviously right out, but so were foreigners and surely criminals, too.
      - UIUC_06 4y ago
        > It is not misused in the slightest, particularly where animals are concerned Mandatory disclaimer: I'm not, in any way, shape, or form defending mistreatment of animals or humans, in this era or any other. With that out of the way: yes, it IS misused. What you are saying is "it happened a lot." But "commonplace" would means it happened all the time, everywhere. There are records of it happening, as you said, but there are no records, or very few, of it NOT happening: criminal acts which were not severely punished, say. Here's an example of what I mean: If you look at "murders in Chicago" you find a lot, typically hundreds per month. Yet if you ask the random Chicago resident "How many people did you know who were murdered?" they might have one, or none. (Unless they live in certain neighborhoods.) I actually knew three, but that was over the course of an entire childhood.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > This sort of defies any understanding I have of human beings. This isn’t like, “how could they think hats like that looked good?” or, “They really lived in such small huts?” No, this suggests a fundamentally different kind of creature, once that could derive enjoyment from something that would make my stomach turn. Humans in intense conflict are…different. Read up one what has gone in the context of almost any war, ever. > As I understand it, the fact is that this stuff wasn’t actually that common, in other words. Hanging, drawing, and quartering wasn’t very common in the long period it was a criminal punishment (in part because the kind of things that it was a punishment for often ended up with the accused being killed before facing judicial punishment – and were the kind of things that would have been true of even without the added pressure of the particular punishment that awaited them.) Though the mid-16th through the 17th Centuries were an…interesting…period in that regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_hanged,_drawn_and_quartered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_hanged,_drawn_a...
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  Most of the comments objecting to this are along the lines of "yes, it did happen!" No one's saying it didn't. The question is "what were your chances of it happening to you, if you committed some crime?"
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  That sort of thing still happens. You can find videos online of large crowds calmly watching the brutal murder of accused criminals. People being tied up in car tires and burned alive, dogs eating their genitals off, all sorts of insane shit.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Given that torture and gruesome executions still happen today all over the world, it would seem that your definition of "human beings" is simply not broad enough.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  What makes your stomach turn is programmed into you as a child. A certain amount of reason overrides this to a degree but it is quite hard and somewhat uncommon to get any significant distance from where you started. Human societies practicing human sacrifice and or cannibalism are found in history more or less everywhere, likewise is opposition to them in some of the oldest recorded history. There’s real danger in not being able to fathom people who do and think things unimaginable to you are actually very much the same as you with only minor changes. We all could be Nazis given the right circumstances. More likely so if we can’t imagine it possible.

dionidium 4y ago

I've wondered about stuff like this, often: > Gruesomely, it is believed the person would often still be conscious during this. The genitals would also be cut off and burnt in full view of the crowds and the victim. Talk about adding insult to injury. Only once the final stage was reached would the poor soul succumb to death, since before quartering he was usually beheaded. If you were wondering, “quartering” quite literally meant chopping the torso into four parts, generally with a huge axe. As this punishment was enacted less often than its more genteel counterparts, it would attract particularly large crowds. This sort of defies any understanding I have of human beings. This isn't like, "how could they think hats like that looked good?" or, "They really lived in such small huts?" No, this suggests a fundamentally different kind of creature, one that could derive enjoyment from something that would make my stomach turn. You might as well tell me they thought human shit was a delicacy. As I understand it, this stuff wasn't actually that common, in other words.

UIUC_06 4y ago
Yes. Something I read once stuck with me: Simple minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds, in the commonplace.
inglor_cz 4y ago
Go to any Reddit forum that follows videos from the Ukrainian war and look at the comments. Even today, some people are absolutely savage about other people getting killed, if they believe that they deserve it. There isn't much difference between a real crowd cheering someone's execution and a virtual crowd cheering someone being blown up.
- 0dayz 4y ago
  Or even better example the gore community.
dmitriid 4y ago
People were much more accustomed to violence, both casual and premeditated. Additionally, harm to humans and animals was commonplace. You didn't have OSHA in medieval times. On top of that, for a largely mundane life the execution of a criminal was a huge event.
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  > harm to humans and animals was commonplace Again, "commonplace" is kinda misused here. You can find examples of cruelty in the historical record, not so many of the opposite. Because no one kept statistics.
  - samatman 4y ago
    It is not misused in the slightest, particularly where animals are concerned. This article talks about medieval England in particular, which has excellent survival of detailed records of many things, including the bloodsports which were popular occurrences everywhere in the kingdom. It doesn't sit right with me that watching roosters and dogs maul each other, often to death, was among the most popular of entertainments in the era. But it was.
    - dionidium 4y ago
      Ultimately, this squares the circle, because what's happening, I think, is that human beings are pretty good at defining other creatures to be outside of their circle of empathy. Historically, animals were obviously right out, but so were foreigners and surely criminals, too.
    - UIUC_06 4y ago
      > It is not misused in the slightest, particularly where animals are concerned Mandatory disclaimer: I'm not, in any way, shape, or form defending mistreatment of animals or humans, in this era or any other. With that out of the way: yes, it IS misused. What you are saying is "it happened a lot." But "commonplace" would means it happened all the time, everywhere. There are records of it happening, as you said, but there are no records, or very few, of it NOT happening: criminal acts which were not severely punished, say. Here's an example of what I mean: If you look at "murders in Chicago" you find a lot, typically hundreds per month. Yet if you ask the random Chicago resident "How many people did you know who were murdered?" they might have one, or none. (Unless they live in certain neighborhoods.) I actually knew three, but that was over the course of an entire childhood.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> This sort of defies any understanding I have of human beings. This isn’t like, “how could they think hats like that looked good?” or, “They really lived in such small huts?” No, this suggests a fundamentally different kind of creature, once that could derive enjoyment from something that would make my stomach turn. Humans in intense conflict are…different. Read up one what has gone in the context of almost any war, ever. > As I understand it, the fact is that this stuff wasn’t actually that common, in other words. Hanging, drawing, and quartering wasn’t very common in the long period it was a criminal punishment (in part because the kind of things that it was a punishment for often ended up with the accused being killed before facing judicial punishment – and were the kind of things that would have been true of even without the added pressure of the particular punishment that awaited them.) Though the mid-16th through the 17th Centuries were an…interesting…period in that regard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_hanged,_drawn_and_quartered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_hanged,_drawn_a...
UIUC_06 4y ago
Most of the comments objecting to this are along the lines of "yes, it did happen!" No one's saying it didn't. The question is "what were your chances of it happening to you, if you committed some crime?"
MichaelCollins 4y ago
That sort of thing still happens. You can find videos online of large crowds calmly watching the brutal murder of accused criminals. People being tied up in car tires and burned alive, dogs eating their genitals off, all sorts of insane shit.
int_19h 4y ago
Given that torture and gruesome executions still happen today all over the world, it would seem that your definition of "human beings" is simply not broad enough.
colechristensen 4y ago
What makes your stomach turn is programmed into you as a child. A certain amount of reason overrides this to a degree but it is quite hard and somewhat uncommon to get any significant distance from where you started. Human societies practicing human sacrifice and or cannibalism are found in history more or less everywhere, likewise is opposition to them in some of the oldest recorded history. There’s real danger in not being able to fathom people who do and think things unimaginable to you are actually very much the same as you with only minor changes. We all could be Nazis given the right circumstances. More likely so if we can’t imagine it possible.