Hey, LGBTQ historian here. What you're saying is not untrue, but I'd like to complicate it a little bit. I think a lot of the identities you talk about here are politicized because they exist under duress, and for better or worse, it becomes a political necessity to claim ancestors, even though (for instance) Roman men who had sex with men may not recognize themselves as "gay" in the modern sense. More than anything, I'd like to point out that while what you say about gay identity is true, it is EQUALLY true that straight identity didn't exist in ancient Rome, either--indeed, the term heterosexual was coined in the late 19th century, AFTER the term homosexual was coined. I think sometimes that people whose identities are under duress get an unfair amount of the blame for projecting their identities back into the past, whereas people who don't experience that duress will project the idea that their identities have existed in some universal sense since the dawn of time, and don't get the same amount of flak for it.
These are of course fantastic points - I deeply regret not making the point about straight identity being equally modern. The point about needing to claim ancestors is especially interesting, and I had not thought about it in that way. Would you mind if I pinned this comment to the top of the comment section so that more people can see it?
It's not just a matter of the concepts of "sexual orientation" and "sexual identity" all being modern concepts, but also people claiming a historical person was in a gay relationship on the flimsiest of evidence or applying the term homosexuality to historical phenomenon that is clearly unrelated to homosexuality. An example of the latter would be Pederasty, which clearly is a phenomenon that has got absolutely nothing to do homosexuality. These mentoring relationships between adult men and adolescent boys in ancient Greece may have included romantic and sexual aspects, but was a cultural practise that was performed by all males in the upper classes of ancient Greece and not by a "sexual minority". When the public are falsely and purposefully misinformed that Ancient Greece was some type of gay utopia and paradise, where adult men ran around in drag, then this is blatant lies to cover up the inconvenient history that most people today would conceptualise as being adult men touching 13-year-old boys sexually with the excuse that they were providing sex education. This lie is there to first protect the reverence and respect that upper class people in western society have for ancient Greece and it's philosophers (who were notorious apologists for pederasty), but to also make mentally fragile gay men feel better about themselves by telling them homosexuality was more accepted in history than what it was.
I very much enjoyed the "that music is truly curious" to "it's a free country I suppose" to "I don't think I can do this anymore" process. It seemed very Roperish.
my favourite Roperian trope is when Simon starts outside and due to one thing or another getting progressively more annoying, eventually moves inside. My personal favourite examples are the wind rendering him inaudible, and that one video where a torrential downpour forced him inside literally the moment that he started recording.
Thank you for this video Simon, as I believe this subject is of paramount importance. As someone who studies historical reconstruction of music, I often see the effects of retroactive projection of modern identity into the past in the field of historical music. Some Christians are very uncomfortable with performances of reconstructed early Christian chants, which had an “Islamic-like” quality to them. Similarly, some modern Middle-Easterners often are very uncomfortable when shown the evidence that many typical Middle-Eastern aspects of music were of Greek origin, and were present in Roman Europe before being widespread in the east. One may wonder why a Christian would care what 9th century Carolingian chant sounded like, or why a modern Syrian person may care where some scale in their traditional music originated. I believe it comes down to the importance of identity, and cultural aspects like these are things we invest our identity in, so it makes sense for us to want them to be from a long line of historical continuity, so we can tell ourselves that our ancestors were just like us. It’s a feeling we can all sympathise with, but we must be aware of its destructive potential when it comes to history. I suppose my point is that retroactive projection of modern identity in the past can come in any field, and can take the most oddly specific shapes, such as the denial of the vocal quality of 9th century Carolingian chant. It permeates every aspect of historical studies, and we must acknowledge it and be aware of our own biases lest we taint the historical record.
To that point, the fact that today Greek philosophy and "white" marble statues (that were of course painted in ancient times...) are seen as part of "European identity", when the "last point of contact" is actually the arabic world translating and preserving the stuff. I think it's just cool how bizarre twists and turns eventually feed into modern concepts, like how in Sweden we sing "Små Grodorna" at midsummer, which is a melody from a French marching song that was then parodied by the English to be about frogs, and now it feels like a quintessentially Swedish phenomenon to sing this and look stupid without knowing that you're indirectly mocking napoleonic soldiers
@@WinstonSmithGPT ...Yes of course, which was also several more centuries before the modern diatonic scales (let alone equal temperament 12 tone) and singing technique became standard, what people would now stereotypically expect as "christian choral sound".
We old people tend to reflect the entirety of our life experiences. Those experiences will determine, generally speaking, where we land in our dotage. Minds don’t automatically narrow with age. ✌🏼💕
I appreciated this video. One thing I've always had an issue with is people projecting modern nation-state identity onto medieval Europe. Part of this boils down to people often compartmentalizing and viewing medieval Europe as homogeneous or static, and thinking that modern concepts like nationality existed or were interpreted the same ways hundreds of years ago. There was a tremendous amount of cultural and linguistic diversity across Europe that for some reason a lot of people can't seem to get their heads around.
The most common issue I've personally encountered is that many people generally don't understand just how modern most borders in Europe really are.... As in less than 100 years old and as a direct result of the 2nd World War. I'm consistently shocked how often this seems to blow peoples' minds or if you try and explain something like the Partitions of Poland or what in the world Prussia was or the Holy Roman Empire. Sometimes, I acknowledge that I love history and have more reason to know these things, but conceptually, people should have a grasp of how a border works. 😅 It's like they've assumed that if a modern border exists, it's always exists and the same people have lived there forever which is the complete opposite of history in every sense.
The general ignorance of the general public astounds me. I am no scholar but have read books, listened to wireless broadcasts, then TV documentaries and now radio podcasts on language, Michael Rosen's Word of Mouth, philosophy, history, biography etc courtesy of Melvyn Bragg's In our time series. Stuff on astronomy, mathematics, - who knew there was more than 1 infinity-, mind blowing quantum cats and dead strawberries on The Infinite Monkey cage. Then there is you tube. There can be no excuse other than lack of curiosity for remaining ignorant of all this stuff. Even if you dont understand it at least know it is out there. And hope that a little understanding seeps in by osmosis. 😊
In my opinion the whole nation-state system is such rubbish that it needs a complete revamp. It's actively killing all the cultural and linguistic diversity and it bolsters discrimination solely based on nationalities.
thank you!!! the most recent immigrant in my family history came here only about a century ago, but I joke often about how none of the countries my ancestors left exist anymore (all within europe). it's a very small-minded view to believe that the structures you exist under have existed forever, and evidence of a failure to teach history well.
I think these are the reasons I dislike contemporary historical fiction so much... So much of it is written with the intent of projecting contemporary worldview onto characters in the past in order to make a point. Of course, I am not against using historical fiction as social commentary, but I feel that it can be done better in ways that don't require erasing historical persons' perception of identity and plastering ours onto them. It feels very reductive to me, as though trying to make the world smaller & reduce diversity of thought.
I have been editing academic papers from around the world, and it is amazing how lockstep they all are politically and even in terms of word-use. Academia has become extremely repressive, though its hypocritical posturing would have you believe otherwise. I see very little actual thought, much less idealism-- just a lot of rancid careerism. I have a PhD in history, and look back to a time, pre-Foucault, when this sort of preachy, anachronistic posturing was called out as bad history.
One of my favourite modern filmmakers, Robert Eggers, is *great* at making historical films where people feel relatable emotionally while still holding totally alien worldviews.
I absolutely see what you mean and have really thought about this whilst studying the witch-craze in the last few months. It’s the sort of thing that easy to just say was “crazy” and dismiss with a simple explanation based on our own worldview e.g. “people only hunted witches because they were stupid and hated all women, especially those who weren’t silent 100% of the time”. Whilst at some level that makes sense, and undoubtedly there were many very misogynistic attitudes both in society and behind many the the views of the stereotypical witch, and many (but not all - roughly 70%)of the victims were women who were on the fringes of society and/or fell foul of societal expectations, it’s a reductive explanation. At the end of the day, people want to feel that they understand these things, but only through their own current perspective because it’s too hard to accept that, whilst other factors were influential in shaping beliefs and persecutions, fundamentally “people hunted witches because they believed they were witches”, and we just can’t fully understand that belief anymore, but it existed then.
@ 3:01 You reference the historical western tradition of pressuring men to supress emotion. I just want to add that it's not all emotion. .. anger in particular has been allowed/encouraged (definitely ymmv per country). The fact that it's not seen as an emotion by many means that men can redirect every emotion into rage outbursts and we'll still talk about it as if they're not expressing emotion. They are - just the only socially acceptable one to express. Hopefully we're turning a corner on that.
I tend to speculate the origin of this cultural pressure is conscription... soldiers are best not feeling... if they do feel its after the fact. Male military service surely exascerbated these gender differences which presumably reverberate to the present day.
@connormcgee4711 I wonder if it isn't more related to the tendency that the majority of the average population has to discourage & try to prevent people with male sex organs &/or characteristics & those who are perceived as male from expressing emotions that are traditionally associated with people who are or are perceived as females, girls, women, feminine, effeminate, weak, passive, &/or anything that they don't perceive as traditionally masculine or as a part of their ideal of masculinity?
You are a brave man, Simon Roper! Nicely balanced and sensitive look at some very tricky topics! I was very happy to hear you say that people in the past did not experience these issues in the same way that we experience them now. This is very useful to keep in mind.
“What is lost when men die is not the world but only the image of the world in men’s hearts.” Had to share this line from Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, one of my favorite books. I think about it a lot.
Big terms like bell and favorite and my and the numbers and men and or / car / thy and pronouns with capital letter only reflect me & my protectors and cannot be misused by ppl in comments / yt names / names etc or in any other ways, and must be changed / edited out - I am THE only Bell (The Angie Bell being one of the special / superiority names only reflecting me that were selected for my perfect pėrsonalities, and ppl cannot misuse unsuitable names that only reflect me) and I am the only Possessor / Owner / Leader etc aka The Goddess / The Lady / The Queen / The Princess / The Mistress / The Boss / The Master / The God / The Idol / The Star etc aka the superior / pure / radiant being etc and the only being reflecting words like or (gold) and thy etc the only being who can use the word favorite, and my pure protectors can also use the words that I use, as we are like the same being in multiple bödies, and such words cannot be misused by ppl in names b comments / yt names etc!
ReIationships are only meant for us pure beings (me and my pure protectors aka the alphas) who were blessed with a pure body that doesn’t gx one out and that has a good smėII / no smėIIs aka an enjoyable presence, and were never meant for ppl / sìnnėrs!
Simon, thank you for your reasoned, thoughtful and rational views. It is on one hand heartful and encouraging to know that there are still people like you in the world (and expressing your thoughts to a wide audience) and on the other hand sad and frustrating that you being such a person is actually noteworthy. We have far too few thinkers in this world and we would all be better served if there were more people like you. Thank you again.
I think identity is overstated so much in modern society, instead of perhaps traits or an idea similar. Even though I have changed my gender, if things were different I wouldn't consider it part of my identity any more than saying that I graduated from the particular schools I went to. I think if anything the idea of any LGBT+ stuff as the LGBT+ aspect is a reaction to a persecution or divisive discourse regarding the original trait, in the same way that to my understanding the American colonists were Britsh, Dutch, etc, who happend to live overseas until there was a reason to be divided.
I like the American motto that we engrave on all our coins: Ē plūribus ūnum. It's Latin for "out of many, one." To me the signifies how our country can be made up of many people of various different background and yet we can unite under a single shared American identity. I think it's been a key part of our success. If we promote excessive sectarianism and focus on our distinctions and separate identities instead of commonalities we could destroy our great nation.
In religious studies the practice of setting aside ( or attempting to set aside) your own personal ideological framework in order to consider the beliefs and framework of other people in other cultures on their own terms is called "bracketing". This is very much what you describe at the end. It's hard in practice, but worth attempting to do in order to reach a fuller understanding.
Sometimes you have to be cautious with that though. A couple times I've bracketed someone's belief only to realise they're a Nazi or such, which very quickly makes me backpedal and reconsider the context of their previous points.
As a queer person I believe you're right that a few LGBT folk do anachronism with ancient people. The modern concept of gender and attraction, which is at most about a century old, is very categorical, with one root in clinical descriptions, and another in banding together under common banners for resisting oppression. Rigid categories are not reflective of true basal human gender and attraction, which, like all complex human behaviours, has always been hard to describe, hugely diverse over time and culture, sometimes unstable throughout a single lifetime, and most importantly, incredibly idiosyncratic. It also often feels like westerners projecting their relatively new concepts of identity onto foreign cultures, which can seem patronising and, as you said, disrespectful to both modern and ancient people.
Well said. And some who dismiss having various identities as divisive never had one thrust upon them. They were likely born with an identity that is well accepted in their culture.
I will say we should also recognise that just the way we think of identity just generally is different from how they thought about it in the past. They wouldn’t have necessarily seen one’s identity, oneself, as something one must “discover”, and their sense of “identity” (itself an anachronistic term when talking about the past) was often much more specifically tied to their sense of belonging to the group, unlike in our much more individualised society
Yes, that's right. Identity for most people is (and was) a given, not a choice. I actually suspect that much misery is caused by the notion that it's a choice, especially around the matter of your sex. It's just untrue to tell people that they can be members of the opposite sex.
@@hughoxford8735 I didn't quite mean it in that way. My point was not such that people don't have an internal sense of the self which they can shape or "discover", or that they shouldn't, but rather that they didn't see it in that way in the past, or at least not exactly the same. I'm fairly agnostic all in all as to whether we should see identity that way or not
now that I've finished your video, redacted a big paragraph, and had the time to allow me to care less before deleting it, I should still say two things: 1. you were fine at the start, really poor around the tolerance bit (it's not the end goal, tolerance, we can end it whenever the neonazis start bashing people semi-regularly). the UK knows, the olden queer knew, and I knew sixteen years ago when the game of war for territory started to become too real and the numbers of killings piled up: THE NAZIS ARE THE ENDPOINT. we allow ourselves to stop being tolerant when a fkg neonazi starts following every day after classes. everyone knows, no tolerance for the nazis, however they be called in any part of the world. Zamudio died stabbed and bashed because he didn't hide and kissed a man in the public park. who cares about tolerance inside an atmosphere as dense as that. 2. about identity, your biggest improv *I laugh flirtatiously here*, you could read Alyson Escalante's "GENDER NIHILISM, an anti-manifesto". 13 pages of eloquent irrefutable philosophy of being. Post-Human Feminism is a masterpiece too, but that one's a powerhouse for the veterans. (I am not aware of the depth of your background in philosophy of mind, epistemological anthropology or even translational psychiatry). I have a great third talk point, but this is as long as an essay and might end up in a rereading frenzy if I keep going on and on. Bye and good luck. It was a fine video overall, good recover towards the end.
As always, a very thoughtful, humble, and balanced take. I appreciate your opinions for the way they contrast with the more prevalent style of bashing people over the head with rigid dogma.
I apologise for this kind of ramblish, semi-tangential, half-vent of a comment, but as a trans viewer and huge fan of your channel, I was so extremely relieved to hear that you are supportive of trans people during this incredibly trying time for us all. Over the years I (along with many of my queer peers, I suspect) have become extremely anxious of finding anything out about the views of TH-camrs I like towards the "validity" of my identity, and the justification of others' attacks on it, purely because of all of the times when a person I held in high regard has turned out to be against us. That kind of thing always hurts because it suddenly renders a place I visit to escape the stresses of real life into a place where I feel like I am unwelcome and unwanted. With TH-camrs like you who avoid talking about their personal views it is easier to make your channels into these safe spaces, but it is also stressful when I see an upload come up with a title like this, because by now I can't help but think, "oh no, will this be the one where I find out they want me gone?" This is such a terrifying time for me and my trans friends around the world, and I just wanted to get it out there how relieved I was to hear you say you're on our side (however ambivalently/conflict averse-ly), not because it makes any big difference, but just because I can relax now knowing this channel will remain a safe space for me (although this IS the internet, and I'm certain that this comment will get hateful replies anyways. I'm sure I'm used to it now enough that it won't bother me too much). Cheers Simon, keep up the great videos
You don't need to apologise at all - I recorded this video three times, and still feel like I should probably apologise for not making my views more clearly known. Part of the reason is that I wouldn't want people who are on the fence about these issues to switch off, but I'll admit that part of it is fear of backlash. I wouldn't mind people disappearing from the channel if they hold views I disagree with, but I'm a little bit scared of death threats, which seems cowardly given that trans people already receive them. I feel more strongly about the issue than I implied in the video, and I also regret delaying the actual point and prolonging that anxiety, because I can well understand it (even though I'm not in the same position as you). I imagine it's especially true with TH-camrs who discuss things like early medieval history, which draws lots of people who have already made up their minds about a lot of these issues. I'm glad that this channel can be a safe place now, and I am always happy to be corrected if I ever say something which seems unwittingly cisnormative. I hope that the fact these conversations are happening eventually has positive consequences, and I'm sorry that the process of gaining recognition is proving so dangerous
@@simonroper9218 you're completely correct, this area of TH-cam does tend to draw those kinds of people who hold beliefs like that for one reason or another, but it's worth saying that on channels like this it's noticeably counteracted by the online linguistics community's inclusivity and acceptance of queer identities. I'd just like to say your understanding and honesty in regards to this issue is so heartwarming, and I am really grateful for your reply. I and others have been stressing out a lot lately about those frightening goings-on of the world, and personally I cannot understate just how much it has cheered me up to hear these kind thoughts from someone who is such an inspiration to me. It's easy to see in how you write, and how you spoke in the video about projection of modern LGBTQ+ identities onto historical peoples, that you're making a strong effort to be respectful and inclusive in your content (not to mention the fact that you were brave enough to mention queer issues here in the first place). Thank you so much for making this niche little corner of wherever that little bit warmer for us queer folk, it really does mean a lot, to more people than you may realise
I’m sorry but the trans community are the most privileged and protected community right now. There is no other group out there that gets to put their flags absolutely everywhere, has the backing of corporations as well as be at the forefront of societal discussion and change for such a small group. You’re all in a power position right now. I will get the hate for pointing this out, just watch below.
Unless you don't go with the status quo in which case your opinions are shut down and labelled as bigoted, ironic. Open discussion is so important for our progression but we're not progressing positively
I think you raise a great point when you talk about taking things into consideration in their right context. So many times do I see people talking about Dark Age Europe and refer to nations, the Polish nation, the French nation etc, when such terms make no sense at that time. France was an absolute monarchy, you weren't part of a French nation as a peasant, you were just a peasant. The entire concept of the nation is a modern one, so to project it onto kingdoms that shared a name with it hundreds of years ago is just pointless.
for a people that apparently had no concept of nation the english certainly wrote a lot about being english and what that meant to them, and funnily enough none of them even question the idea that the english are a thing and that they exist. just like countless tribes in the americas and africa who were never exposed to some modern nation states before european contact, regardless, cling to their ethnic identity "Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria! [Give thanks, England, to God for victory!] Owre Kynge went forth to Normandy With grace and myght of chyvalry Ther God for hym wrought mervelusly; Wherefore Englonde may call and cry Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!" - agincourt carol In olden time the English people -- for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other people's observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's -- calculated their months according to the course of the moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans (the months) take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called mona and the month monath. - bede, the reckoning of time Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves! A thousand hearts are great within my bosom: Advance our standards, set upon our foes; Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George, Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons! Upon them! Victory sits on our helms. - william shakespeare, richard iii and many more
@@barnsleyman32 You're doing the exact thing I was talking about, taking songs and poems refering to the English monarchy and state assuming it refers to the nation defined as an ethnic group
@@barnsleyman32 Although there was such a thing as an ethnonym before the modern period, nations are a remarkably recent concept (less than 300 years old, in practice) and did not really reflect the political reality before that point. Borders were generally patchy and not enforced, you didn't pay taxes directly to a central authority, many folk were stuck in one place for most of their lives and travelling around the country may have been more difficult than travelling abroad in some cases, the list of differences continues. For example: Bede, your 2nd source, was writing 300 years before there was even a kingdom called England, and yet he calls it (in this translation) a "nation": the English folk he spoke of were more of a cultural and ethnic grouping, as we may say "native american" or "european" in modern parlance. The other two were written specifically about the military, which is one of the few areas in which there has always been *some* semblance of national unity because the nation's soldiers fight as a monolith against another army (to say nothing of the fact that Richard III is at best ass-kissing the Tudor royals and at worst mere propaganda). Not to say, obviously, that "English" as a meaningful term is particularly new, or that the people writing in your sources even meant *drastically* different things to you when they wrote of "England" and "English" (except Bede, that's wayyy too long ago for the meaning to be applicable). Today I am a Yorkshireman, an Englishman, a European, a westerner. In the year 800, someone who lived where I do may have seen themselves as a man of the village I live in, a man of the local Wapentake, a Northumbrian, an Englishman. And those terms will have meant very different things to him. So, far as I can tell, Simon is not saying that people in the past had no identity, or even that there was no such thing as an English person before England became a nation-state. He's simply stating that identities are profoundly influenced by the culture around them, and therefore do not bear any proper comparison to modern, similarly named identities when removed from that culture (nor will our modern identities likely be relatable or intuitive to people living several hundred years into the future).
@@jaspecific4101 This is really interesting - I find the concept of the emergence of the “nation state” really fascinating, and in England it seems to have happened, to an extent (obviously borders etc were far less clear and stable), a little earlier than in other countries in Europe, for a variety of reasons (centralised control, national coinage and tax collection, threat from invasion etc), though of course there was still undoubtedly a large difference in how people would consider a nation in the 12th century vs now. If it interests you, or anyone else who may read this, there’s a really interesting focus on this in the first episode or two of David Starkey’s “Monarchy” series, which is available on youtube, focusing on the emergence of this concept, comparable to the modern nation state, in late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman England.
I think the concept of identity itself is under attack in modernity. Identity until the modern era had to do with how you were born, what caste/class you were, your religion, your language, and your culture. All those things have become fractured, both purposefully and as a product of rapid technological changes, and many of us are faced with a dark reality that every pillar of our identity is either already destroyed or in the process of being destroyed. Modern phenomena like racial/ethnic demographics being weaponized against host populations via mass migration, the concept of being male or female becoming blurred, religion being subverted/attacked, and the sudden and massive sociological changes brought by internet, smart phones, and social media are all part of why identity feels so ephemeral these days. It's especially hard for those of us of European ethnicities because of the gaslighting and mixed-messaging we get from the government, media, and corporations about our racial/ethnic identity being either non-existent or bad while we're told to respect/embrace the identities of non-Europeans who are forced upon us in ever-increasing numbers. The same can be said of the conflicting messaging forced on us about sexuality and gender. It puts us in a tough place of being "immoral" by rejecting the lies, gaslighting, and such because we don't want to be hateful or harmful, but at the same time we can see the evil being done to us and want the harmful lies and destructive practices to stop.
I can respect someone who disagrees with or wishes to not associate with a different lifestyle. I cannot respect someone who wants to punish/disenfranchise/deny the existence of a different lifestyle.
It's a strange thing lately that people expect the makers of whatever media they consume to agree with their every view, and stop watching that those whose views don't perfectly match. Even where it really has no real relevance to the subject. I've never go onboard with that: if you make something that I enjoy, your political views have no bearing on that on won't change my enjoyment. On the subject you mentioned my stance is that almost all the data I have is filtered through one opinion or another, and so I feel I lack the ability to truly speak about it. Also, it really is given far more importance in the media for reasons that are not exactly wholesome, and I mislike being manipulated by emotional arguments. On the whole I think it's best that I just don't have an opinion because it won't be possible to base it on untainted data.
Reading Arthur Machen, even just 100 years ago he was observing just how much of the Welsh identity had been lost. Whatever Welsh people consider themselves to be today, you can be sure it is not quite what it was historically. I mean, sure, same is true of every nationality and culture in a sense, but the Welsh identity was intentionally and systemically oppressed, it didn't just change and evolve naturally, so it's different for them. They have to try to reconstruct what their past identity was and hope they can get a good approximation of it. Other cultures that didn't suffer such oppression (at least in modern times) aren't concerned about connection to their historical past identity, they are content with knowing their cultural identity is continuous for a long enough time that they can be confident they are authentically that culture. Obviously just using the Welsh as one example here as it is mentioned in the video, but lots of cultures have been intentionally oppressed, or even subject to attempted genocide, over the past century or two, so yes, I know well enough that lots of extant cultures have that same problem today besides the Welsh.
I remember in one of my graduate seminars discussing whether a group of Late Antique Egyptian nuns, who starved themselves to the point that they had no visible breasts and no longer menstruated and were able to pass as male and live in monasteries, counted as transgender, and that struck me as deeply demeaning to the fullness of their humanity and the depth of their religiosity. It's entirely possible that those nuns had gender dysphoria or, had they lived today, they would've identified as trans, but that whole discourse didn't really exist in any similar way 1600 years ago, and simplifying the past to fight contemporary political fights is very demeaning. Clifford Ando made a video lecture where he looks at the reasons given for the fall of the Western Roman Empire over time and compares them to the contemporary political debates when those histories were published, and unsurprisingly there was a great degree of correlation. As someone who wants to be a historian there's something a bit sad about the way that a large degree of historical scholarship (especially pop history) is partially just a cipher for contemporary political debates
Your second point reminds me of the great classic novels of China, which have in common that they are set in one historical era but may actually be representing in code what happened much later, usually at the time they were written. That was true also of Shakespeare's history plays; Queen Elizabeth I is reported to have recognised that.
My understanding of the views on homosexual relationships in ancient Europe, though I don't remember now where I read/heard it, was that the act itself wasn't looked down upon, the "man" in the relationship was not looked down upon, but the "woman" in the relationship was looked down upon, and it was a major insult to insinuate that someone was that part of it.
One thing I wonder often about in a somewhat similar vein is how differently people saw suffering throughout history and cultures. Slavery, public executions, a good part of your children dying at a young age. It's just so difficult for me to project myself into the shoes of a person in a time and place where such things were mundane parts of everyday life.
I rather think the loss of a child was always gut wrenching. I have been lucky so far but am close to someone whose child was stillborn. Their grief was something I only felt 2nd hand and that was bad enough. Animals, from our cats and dogs to elephants grieve the loss of their young. Witness the killer whale who kept trying to revive her dead calf for weeks a few months ago.
I have thought this way as well. I think that was why in part people adhere/d to their religions so fiercely. Thinking about Europe, for example, I often think that, if you were going to lose, 1/4 or more of your little ones, believing that there was meaning to that suffering and that there was an afterlife must have been necessary to maintaining sanity.
Great video as always. Your comment about language families and how they're somewhat over overpllayed nowadays reminded me of a point made by Graeber and Wengrow in The Dawn of Everything (highly recommended book btw) and how we can extrapolate from that when there's no evidence of language families being necessarily relevant when it comes to understanding cultural similarities between groups.
Graeber and Wengrow make some very interesting observations, but I'll never find their total dismissal of all paleoarchaeology >30kya not annoying lmao
The key in general is that to understand your own or someone else's "identity", you have to know their world and the language that defines it. For example, did medieval serfs view themselves as "unfree"? Why did Catholics and Protestants war against each other, when today we would say they were both "Christian"? Did the Cherokee and Cheyenne people view themselves as "American" or even "native" when there was no threat from Europeans? Would the Mayan and Aztec recognize any affinity even though today we call them "mesoamerican"?
I think it might also be true that even identity itself as a concept might be fairly modern, at least in the way that it’s treated nowadays. I’ve gleaned from various sources (Dr. Jackson Crawford among them) that, broadly speaking, people in centuries past probably thought more in terms of _behaviors_ than _identities_, and more often in concrete terms rather than abstractions. I think further that it might be worth considering for modern people to try to think in those terms as well. It’s easier to avoid taking things personally when you think people are speaking of something you like to do rather than who you are as a person. It helps me not condemn people out of hand as well, when I think “they are doing something I think is wrong” rather than “they are bad people”.
beau of the fifth column had a very interesting video about conservatism but I can't recall the title of it. He basically said that people don't become more socially conservative as they get older. People's views are formed when they're young and their views generally stay the same for the rest of their lives. It just seems like people become more conservative as they age because the rest of society is continually getting more progressive and tends to move past what people thought was progressive 20 years ago. At 43, I tend to think of myself as fairly progressive but maybe by the standards of society in 40 years time, people will think my views are fairly conservative. Who knows.
Part of the problem here is determining what someone’s identity is - should it be the one they give themselves or the one other people give them? For example, I correctly look down on supporters of Keir Starmer as the lowest of the low, and that’s putting it politely, but I doubt many of them see themselves like that.
Discussions about relativism and thinking critically (which are what I understood this video was about) are sorely necessary in any social context, but especially so in our contemporary one. Thank you.
As a non binary & bisexual individual I love to find joy, acceptance, validation etc. through historical figures similar to myself such as the P.U.F (18th century preacher who identified as neither gender) or Sappho (famous for her homoerotic poetry). However, just as I’d like my identity to be respected, I make sure to take care when referencing these figures as they sure didn’t have the same labels as me! You can find kinship with historical people without forcing your own modern labels upon them :)
I’m starting to think the “side” that we come down on on this issue has almost everything to do with the media we’re exposed to/our social milieu. Time and time again, it turns out that those maligning feminists actually have no idea what we believe, what we want, what we’ve asked for. Women are concerned about legislative/institutional changes that have huge material implications for us, about the medicalization of gender non-conformity in children (about the pathologization of gender non-conformity as a whole), about the conflation of sex and gender and the erasure of sex in law and language *because sex is politically important*, and this affects us every day, not because we’re somehow guarding a fragile sense of identity. Likewise, which group (and there are more than two groups here) you think is more likely to be threatened/abused probably depends on where you’re standing. Women have faced an absolute tidal wave of misogyny, death and rape threats just for trying to discuss this issue or pointing out the political significance of sex. I love this channel, and it’s hugely popular and I’m sure you can afford to lose a small subset of marxist feminists. But I know lots of women will feel unwelcome, to see themselves misrepresented and the abuse we face diminished. It really doesn’t have to be us or them.
Sex cannot have political significance as it is biological, while politics are social and therefore concerns itself with the social corollaries of biology as gender is. What you state is not only false but impossible.
@@wormwoodcocktail I don't know any context or personal details. But he's always seemed to me (as far as it's possible to guess from TH-cam) an intelligent, compassionate sort of person. The shock to me isn't that he's taken one side or other, but that there's a huge lack of understanding and nuance here that's in contrast to the rest of his content. And a total misrepresentation of the opposing views.
@@wormwoodcocktail I won't deny that there will be abusive trans people, because everyone of any demographic can be abusive. And literally everyone playing contact sports sustain injuries, they're contact sports. But what should the response be? Is it really the best option to functionally remove trans women from society like you seem to suggest? What do you want to do to trans women in response to this, and do you really think your response is just?
"We're all sitting here stranded, though we're doing our best to deny it." I have avoided all these issues, and I'm glad that the first time I've listened to anyone talk about it, it is a thoughtful, intelligent take on the problem. There are a lot of trans people where I live, and....so what? It isn't my business. Politically, however, I think that the whole issue is a major distraction from far more important economic battles, especially in the US.
I think it's best to see trans rights as an important battle in itself, while still understanding that the powers-that-be use fearmongering as a distraction: recognizing how people can't put their own unique struggles "on hold" to march with their own persecutors, and recognizing how different people's struggles are often closer to one's own struggles than one may at first think, is key to building a great and diverse coalition to fight those most important economic battles that affect all people. That's at least what I think.
Steven, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I am not bothered by trans or any other life choices but I do see all the sensationalism on the news as a deliberate distraction hiding the more important existential threats we live with today.
I've got to disagree with the framing about language families and identity. The fact that ancient people were unaware of the cultural connection they shared with other groups based on a common language doesn't mean such a connection didn't exist. In fact, the very existence of a language family is kind of proof of that connection (how did the languages of that family get to be related to each other if not through a common origin?). My pet Beagle doesn't need to know he's a Beagle in order to be one, he is a Beagle because he meets the criteria for what a Beagle is. If there are Celtic languages, there is a Celtic people*. The members of that people historically may not have known this, but that isn't really relevant to the classification, and modern people know more about the topic, hence the sense of identity that exists now. * I'm aware that the case of the "Celtic" people is actually complicated by the fact that the linguistic group and the cultures identified by ancient sources as "Celts" don't necessarily match up, and that the name "Celtic" may have been misapplied to the speakers of the branch of the Indo-European languages of which Irish and Welsh are members, but whatever the name you'd like to use for the latter, the existence of such a linguistic group is proof of peoplehood in and of itself, regardless of historical people's understanding of this.
I feel the need to clarify my comments here. I understand that people in the past did not think about themselves in the way we do today, and agree that there is a certain arrogance (or at least ignorance) in assuming they did. We should try to understand how they thought about their identities just as we should understand everything else they knew about the world, so that we can explain their actions accurately and not attribute to them motives they couldn't possibly have had. So if that is what you mean by "projecting", I agree we shouldn't project these self-identities onto them. However, I do still identify them according to our modern understanding of their ethnic relationships, and I don't feel we should be bound by their understanding of themselves when understanding them ourselves retrospectively. I can consider the ancient Irish and Welsh to have shared a common cultural heritage regardless of whether or not they would have, because I know more about the world than they did. I should understand that they didn't think of it that way but it is still a fact that they shared the things I know them to have shared, regardless of them knowing that or not.
As a trans viewer, I really appreciate this discussion. The bit you mentioned about how (to our current knowledge) the concept of homosexuality not necessarily being a social identity in medieval Rome tugged a bit on my heart. I wish my experience in society could be just like that. I'm transmasculine and pansexual, but that isn't the core of my identity and I don't want those aspects of me to be the only things that people think of when they look at me. My transness just means that I've had 2 puberties and now I have a flat chest and a deep voice and people see me as a man. It doesn't mean anything about anyone else's identity or how they get to live their life. It's so bizarre to hear folks say things we're invading their gender or want to push our identities into others and turn kids queer. My man, I just want water my plants and pick up some groceries for dinner, I don't care about whether or not Susan's baby is gay, lol. I'm fortunate that I don't really have to think about my gender that often, and I wish the world could just do the same. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I hope folks who are on the fence about things like this can see this and maybe realize that it's not really a big deal.
Cheers from fellow pansexual who doesn't view it as a core part of my identity! I never intended to get into 'gay culture' and I don't feel I belong there. I also don't feel sad about death as Simon. I'm just me trying to live my life in my own way, don't mind me :)
I find it so interesting that female to male is simply not mentioned in all the hoo ha about changes of sex. Not heard of one male who cares if a trans man uses the public loos, though I would tend to use stalls if in that position, as a trans. But that might be my hangups... I do find it sad that there is not more generous acceptance - and if you can tell me, if going from male to female, if on heavy duty hormones, wouldn't it be impossible to classically se xually assault a woman, even if the op is not done? That seems to be the great howl. I have researched WW2, for about 15 years. One topic of interest is gays and Jewish people on the frontline, and any small bits of info on transexuals, (post war). Just for you, IF you haven't found them already, Joy/Jonathan Ferguson. ATA girl, WW2 Elizabeth/Euan Forbes-Semphill Heir to baronetcy, I think. And inherited - and married. Laura/Michael Dillon also heir - as a male, to a baronetcy, and buddhist monk. First to have a phalloplasty? maybe in UK? Michael Dillon was actually vital to help Robert/Roberta Cowell change sex. First male to female British sex change. The problem at the time, was it was illegal to remove te stes, unless, I presume, cancer, etc. I suppose to protect prepubescent boys from becoming victims for creating castrati singers. Michael, studying medicine, helped out Robert, quietly. Once that was done, most of Robert's work was done by the great surgeon, Sir Harold Gillies. He was an early , (WW1), surgeon of burns and shell shrapnel in military. (So earliest plastic surgeons) His cousin was the most famous pilot/burns surgeon of WW2, Archie McIndoe. Gillies was ready to help the early trans people he met, and Robert/Roberta was pre war, a racing car driver, Spitfire pilot and POW of the Germans, and race car driver even after post war sex change. Hope I have added a tiny degree of interest by my post? Hope it is not all 'Old News.'
@@georgielancaster1356 You're right that FTM folks aren't seen as predators or threats nearly as much as MTF individuals. I think a lot of transphobia has its roots in sexism, specifically misogyny. Women aren't taken seriously, and if someone doesn't see a trans man as an actual man, it's easy to write off their gender as a joke or that "they don't count." When a trans woman transitions, however, everyone panics, lol. Some women see it as an invasion, I think because they've suffered trauma at the hands of men and they don't see trans women as women. According to the NSVRC, 81% of women in the US have been sexually harrassed (though this statistic doesn't break down the genders that the harassment was from). I can't speak on other countries, but I think we all know that it's exceedingly common for women in general. So the fear and outrage is completely warranted, it's just misdirected to trans women who are even more likely to suffer the same treatment, and not the overall culture that victimizes all women. As for your question, everyone who medically transitions has a unique experience and hormonal makeup. Taking hormones absolutely does affect one's parts, but the extent to which that happens is different for each person. Some folks are prescribed a topical testosterone cream to retain function if they would prefer, so that is an option. Of course, assault can be inflicted by anyone regardless of gender or anatomy, but you're right that people are especially scared of trans woman in that specific way. It's so unfortunate, because 1 in 2 trans women experience sexual assault or abuse at some point in their lifetime (US office for victims of crime), but that doesn't seem to matter to the folks who would rather point fingers at them. Thanks for the list of historical figures! Trans and gender nonconforming people have always existed, but I'm not personally familiar with the details of any of the people you mentioned or honestly hardly any known queer folks of the past. I look forward to learning about them. :)
Thank you - for being brave and clear about your ideas on this. I enjoy your talks, whether scripted and to the point, or unscripted and “rambling.” In both cases, you show yourself to be a thoughtful and kind person. Our world needs more of you! ❤
Hi Simon, thank you for sharing your reflections on identities and history. One thing I'd say is that the ways we interpret and make sense of the past are often driven by preoccupations that we feel in the present. Your example of the Celtic identity is a perfect illustration of this. And you can see exactly the same mechanism in action with reference to what we now call "Old English". Neither "old" or "English" necessarily (or at all) refer to facts as such - rather, they are constructs that, for a variety of reasons, we need in order to postulate for example the existence of a long and unbroken cultural and ethnic line identifying "the English people" as a cohesive national entity. It's all very fascinating. Language, or our understandings of it, plays a major role in all of this.
Sex and gender being same/different concepts is the thing we argue about, no? Now, this isn't strictly linguistic question, because it's not targeted into any given language. Instead to a concept translated between languages. And all languages doesn't have that extra word/concept to separate one from another. So the concepts have been formed also as "social sex" and "biological sex". Are these different? Is one just a reflection of the other (and which way?) Which do we mean with when saying man or woman? If we can't agree on the meaning of these words (or their equivalent translations into our own languages), what does it mean to the common discourse? Do we need new words, or is that another spiral we have gotten ourselves into? There's some questions that actually relate to the issue, in my opinion, of course. And none of them actually answer "what should we do to do good instead of causing harm?" Because, this is why people fight so hard about it. Both want to do good and not cause harm, and the views are opposite. (Plus some who want to harm on each sides) Respect the other guy. (Guy in this context referring to any human being). If I only remember, I will be back tomorrow to share my lean. But I wish it not to overshadow what I have said just yet.
Additional question to these would be: do we need to have an open discourse with everyone around the world as if we were one society, and are we? For this... I have always thought talking anyone from anywhere, we share the human condition, and we should share our thoughts and experiences with each other.
Thinking about what you were saying about Celtic identity in the Iron Age, it occurred to me that cultural identity only really emerges in contrast. Until we are confronted with a different culture, our culture is all there is and isn't a topic. I think of the Native American tribes. Many times, their names for themselves were just "the people." Cross-cultural similarities are likely assumed until differences are encountered. Every person assumes that all other people are just the same as him or her, so when there's a difference, it can be shocking. This may be the source of the push for conformity, especially among young people, that leads to bullying and in- and out-groups or cliques. Other identities are threatening also because they open up hitherto unimagined options for oneself as well as challenging one's comfortable, established worldview. This may be part of the explanation for the emergence of England out of a previously Romano-British cultural substrate. Did the Romano-Britons embrace Anglo-Saxon culture and shift their identity? Had they over time reoriented themselves toward Germanic Europe for some reason? Through contact over time? Admiration? Just pondering another identity question that remains unresolved since DNA testing and archaeology have challenged previous theories.
I come to think recently the human beings are essentially territorial. We want to have our piece of the world, be able to protect it and be otherwise left in peace. Identity factors into that in odd ways and what really happens is that marginalized people are unreasonably tresspassed upon those with power to claim dominion over what isn't really theirs. We want control over our own lives, no matter who we are, and sometimes the manifestation of that desire is to control other who might in some vague way be able to threaten that. The drama is less in the words that are spoken and more in the imbalance of power, where at best most people can only hope to have a common goal with people who wield that power, though sometimes what is called public sentiment can be a large if uncontrolled form of power on its own... just some ramblings
Thank you for what you said about the differences in how people feel things. In our modern pseudo-psychology culture there seems to be a kind of tyranny of the average and people assume that every human being feels things the same way we just express or don't express differently, but that's not the case at all. We all feel things differently AND we express those feelings differently. Like you, I am not torn up by news of people dying or getting a bad illness. That doesn't mean I don't think about them and wish them well, but I just don't get emotional about it. My mind seems to turn more logical about it. I feel and express certain emotions more than others and hearing you say that helped remind me that it is okay. We men don't feel the same exact way as women do, and not all men feel the same way as women also don't all feel the same. It is unfair to expect me to react or feel the same way someone else does. Thank you for saying what you did.
I'm not sure if I've misunderstood you, but I'm a woman and I feel the same way about death/illness etc., for what its worth. I think it would be a misstep to imply any inherent processing differences between men and women on this issue, because I think women are socialised to be more emotionally expressive, or at least allowed to be. Y'know, the whole "a gendered society will produce gendered brains" thing, hahah.
@@steorbord I just assumed that's what he was getting at. The idea that there's an expectation of how to express emotions, and how they're different from what is expected from women, and like you stated that's a socially influenced issue. I mean I'm not that guy so maybe I'm wrong, but considering they're talking about social standards and the implications they have on him personally, I sort of doubt they would change tone entirely and just associate the behavior of women as something biological. At least it would be a strange shift if that were the case. But maybe I read it and assumed motive. So maybe this comment is pointless but I've written too much at this point to delete it and not feel like I've waisted my time, so....
sufi poets in india e.g. khusro or bulleh shah used to write gender bent love songs to their teachers. bulleh shah famously dressed as a woman and danced for his teacher. the 'identity' of these people is hard to pin down from a modern point of view. they could have been gay or trans as we understand it but i've always thought that that's a reductive way to think about. even when i used the word 'teacher' here i'm wrongly applying my modern concepts because the murshid-mureed re!ationship isn't exactly the same as that between a teacher and their student as we understand it. bulleh shah is highly respected by homophobic people (not exclusively). being gay is a separate concept concept to them from being a young man writing love songs to another man in a religious context. it's all a lot more complicated than we'd like it to be. i think that the concepts we invent get in the way of us properly understanding how people work
While I don't agree fully with some of your opinions, I feel like you've treated these topics very tactfully and without being aggressive - which I feel is something people tend to be nowadays when discussing anything political. I very much like your approach of "not talking about politics"; these days _anything_ is political and it's just so... exhausting, having to care about everything all the time. I do agree that we shouldn't project modern identities and issues onto the past, or at least to try not to. While sometimes this might just be because of a poor (or layman's) understanding, often times it's done for political purposes as well. I'm from Catalonia (in Spain) and as a student of History it's just disheartening to see how both sides of the independence debate try to project everything onto the past. I'm sure that just by asking "was the Crown of Aragon a Catalan state?" I'll spark a huge flame war in the comments. It's also only been 30 minutes since this video was posted and the comments section has already turned into a dumpster fire. To be honest, I expected more civility, considering how non-belligerant you tried to be in the video. Oh well, I guess terminally-online people have nothing better to do. Anyways, what do you think a medieval English peasant's opinion of the Russo-Ukranian war would be? ;)
I really appreciate comments like this :) All of these issues are complicated, and I sometimes feel that I don't know enough about any of them to have a fully-formed and precise opinion. I was aware of some of the Catalan independence stuff while I was in my first year of university because I was friends with a few ERASMUS students from Spain (although not specifically Catalonia), and I'm not surprised that it's the kind of thing people use historical arguments to justify. Within archaeology (at least in my limited experience) there's a fair bit of disdain for popular media nowadays trying to create a narrative of a continuous British identity going back to the Neolithic, which is less directly political but certainly reinforces the idea that people in the past had identities that corresponded a lot more to modern ones than evidence would suggest.
Just an all around good point to make. You were thoughtful and self-aware. I have a hard time believing people would find what you said controversial in some way, but this is the internet so I'm probably wrong. I think your overall point about the application of modern definitions of identity to history being detrimental is a very important point to make. I also think your point about the weight identity holds and how it can be inauspiciously implemented in order to bamboozle people into taking certain actions is something that everyone needs to be vigilant of. It doesn't matter what side of "the aisle" you're on, this is something that's been used many many times in our not so distant past in order to get people to believe/act/vote/etc. in some way or another. Even though the vast vast vast majority of us have so much more in common than not, it's often beneficial to have us all pointing fingers at each other rather than pointing fingers where we truly ought to be looking. At least that's my humble opinion. It's a shame that this vast gray area in which we all exist is constantly portrayed as black and white by those who attempt to paint it as such. Sorry for the rant. I just want to say I appreciate your honesty and your thoughtful expression on a topic that's layered with far more footfalls than it should have.
Very balanced and informative, thank you Simon! I will say, as a Medievalist, I'm always a bit wary when I see one of my favorite history youtubers start talking about politics and identity, especially when their focus is usually on Anglo-Saxon or Nordic history. There are some *wild* theories and misbeliefs out there. Thank you for showing me that my wariness was misplaced!
Big same! It’s a tough community sometimes, it’s hard to throw a stone without hitting a white national tbh. It’s always a relief to see this level of thoughtfulness.
@@PerksJ Try doing the same on a channel about African history and see what reactions your posts get. I doubt you'd label them as "black nationalists" though, and I wonder why.
@@darrendin2050 Black nationalism is a widely used label for all sorts of extremist groups like the nation of islam, so-called hoteps, black israelites, etc. It's certainly not verboten like you're implying. An African history channel can just as easily be a perfectly normal history channel or a hotbed of bizarre takes on Yakub and similar and I doubt the person you're responding to would shrink from labeling the latter black nationalism. Why would you think otherwise?
@@bertchintus Very well said. I was going to reply to that comment too, but I couldn't possibly have put it in such a graceful and knowledgeable manor as you did. Just wanted to compliment you on that.
@Bert Chintus Yeah, of course it would. However the other person has so gladly and flippantly bracketed people who disagree with him on the issue of lgbtq into "white nationalists", a group normally characterised when people want to talk about racial differences and biases. Why did they do this? Completely asinine, so I decided to be asinine back.
'people who think, for some reason' have you ever heard the expression 'if you don't understand your opposition's arguments, you don't understand your own'?
As an elderly 77 year old bloke, with eclectic interests in :- mediaeval history, early keyboard instruments and music, Christian theology and history, early twentieth century art, Mediaeval and renaissance art and Architecture, and current Politics and Economics - to name but a few ! ...I find your content interesting and challenging, though I reject your blanket notions applying to the elderly , maybe statistically true but in my experience not universal. We are not the ones with closed minds ! or at least not solely. Please refer to that great man McGilchrist,and his philosophy deriving from neuroscience and the bilateral nature of the brain. Never the less, thankyou for a stimulating thought sharing !
Very thoughtful 'ramble' Simon. I love your videos very much. I started watching the historical linguistics videos first, but I like your views on lots of other topics too.
Yes, very good, Simon! I agree! Whenever I read a fiction book which takes place in an earlier era, and imposes modern day social views…I can’t finish it. I have a saying I carry around with me….I really don’t care what a person is, I do care who they are.
Altho personal opinion: I believe that "intellectual humility" is important. Given that you won't understand things from others perspectives or have experienced what others have experienced. This humility should be taken more as a "given" rather than judging things purely on your preexisting knowledge and in some cases can be very hurtful to others.
An important aspect of this is that people can use the past to de-legitimize certain attitudes of the present, which I think is just as incorrect as saying that the present matches up to the past perfectly. Many people pretend that the present did not grow out of the past, or try to decouple the present from the past, as if there were no reasons the present we have emerged from the past it did.
I think one of the big things that keeps replicating the disconnect over how people feel about identity is that there are essentially 2 major modes of identity in competition with each other. A good metaphor, and arguably a related phenomenon to this, is the change in political/social relationships towards land that have occurred since early modernity. For some identity is a locus of contributing factors, who's summation illustrates any given experience. This is very much a kind of identity of the peasantry. Under the feudal system people were of course legally tied to the land and it makes sense that after centuries their conceptions of self would be reflective of such. In contrast we have the ownership style of identity. Identity is something that you hold, that you have acquired by force, that is in boxes and is concisely described. That surely has been the view of kings for millennia. However with the coming of industrial capitalism, and the world it has manifest, these 2 modes come into increased contact and conflict. In fact many people often experience a synthesis of the two.
addendum: of course then neoliberal identity politics is the explicit attempt to reconcile the 2 positions, albeit by the designs of the ownership class. So yeah probably the only true universal about how we understand ourselves is that it will change
Thoughtful, and thought-provoking, especially how we tend to use our own biases to attribute thoughts/feelings/beliefs onto others, when no such attribute exists. Thank you for reminder that's it's not always helpful, or true, to do that. Hugs
I am not sure that older people's brains becoming less neuro-plastic is the reason they hold onto the views they had when they were younger. It might just be that when you are retired you don't have to worry about being sacked for espousing unacceptable views, and you don't have to worry about committing social suicide because you are not a social butterfly any more and most the friends you still have are friends you have had a long time.
Very well put across we are entering into a very turbulent time and I completely agree we need to step back from our modern bubble and acknowledge that what was the norm 100 or 1000 years ago is not the same now the same as our bias and social conditioning now will likely be completely out of step with what’s socially acceptable in the distant future too.
'the iron age in britain was a time of great cultural diversity'. err, no. not true. no evidence provided for this, the iron age germanic tribes had very similar languages, religion, cultures and came from the same genetic stock. See Tom Rowsell as he has videos on this area
I like this less structured format, it felt more like listening to a natural conversation where you can see connections emerge between topics that you wouldn't necessarily think to associate with each other. Also, I think the popularity of reductive or dialectic views of history may be a direct result of the enormous amorphous complexity of historical data available coming up against the human drive to use historical narrative in service to identity.
I'm guessing that when you are dead, this obscene focus on identity won't exist. It is popular culture and nonsense. I do not think I have any reason to acknowledge or deny anyone's identity as I go through my life. If we can be respectful and cordial to each other, we are doing well.
Excellent. One's projections and biases are often unrecognized and cloud understandings of the past and current. It is interesting that when historical films are produced current views are often incorporated for viewership only.
Tolerance and balance is the key. Too much of modern social politics is driven by people on the extremes, on both sides of any divide, hence all the threats and radicalisation. But this is nothing new. So many of the things in the past which have survived to the present as literature, documents, artifacts or archaeology were created or preserved by those with power, wealth, agendas or divinity. The thoughts and activities of 'ordinary' people usually do not sound down the ages anywhere near as strongly. What I like about your channel is that wherever possible you do try to tap into that everyday experience wherever you can.
Pretty coherent video for a ramble! You're making interesting points about cultural identity in general, and it leaves me thinking about how I perceive myself and others.
Thank you for this thoughtful post. Identity is a very necessary topic to discuss. Identity provides a lens through which we view the world; LGBTQ, Marxist, Feminist for example. These have all made valuable contributions to our understanding of the human condition and as with physical lenses, they each provide a unique views. Behind the lens is the eye and the brain, here further interpretations are made on a personal level. So in the modern world we have these 2 identities, the identity lens and the identity of individual interpretation. Interpretation without bias is impossible. More traditional cultures would include a third identity which is both communal and spiritual in nature, it is an ontological identity which ultimately lies beyond both science and individual experience and emotions and reaches out to a far more metaphysical understanding of our nature and place. To me, the real tragedy of modern times is the disconnect with this third type of identity, and I feel a reconnect is sorely needed. It is the identity which produces great art, music and literature which transcends and enriches the human experience. We are witnessing the death of beauty.
well said Mr Roper but alas we are where we are and even at our most studious attempts at dispassion we colour the past through the rose tinted or gloomiest shades cast by our current events. One of my wishes as an astrologer is that we lived several hundred years longer so we could gain perspective and that applies to our need to attempt to see the past dispassionately too. But as a birder I also see how the experience of a much older species has made them fitter and better able to adapt to changing circumstances, even continental drift , than we newcomers who find the slightest change so hard to accept
'the idea of a man or woman is culturally conditioned' no it's not. the definitions of these is very apparent and empirical. I'm not a meteorologist, but i know when it's raining.
I really like your example of how people Identify with their ancestors and their cultural history. Sometimes I think that to give enough respect to history we shouldn’t identify with our ancestors so much in the way that I see people doing this today. Picking a team and identifying and saying we’re so different from others, is honestly something that I find is almost instinctual for us humans to do, but not good for human relations.
Sometimes you don't pick a team, you are born into it. You are proud of it. It doesn't exclude people, and in the modern world, it doesn't mean you think your team are more deserving humans. Diversity adds flavor.
I really, really agree with your thought that people who fear for their identity can be manipulated by bad actors. I think this is behing a lot of the craziness we see in the news these days, and your statement helps me understand the very strong drive behind these devisions and why it's so difficulty to have rational discussions about some of these topics. Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful comments.
Ironically, on the subject of how we have a tendency to project modern perspectives on history...as I continue to learn more about history (which admittedly is still not very much at all), one thing I have found interesting to discover is that this "phenomenon" of misinterpreting the past-and I may be doing it now even, for all I know, so this may be inaccurate-has always existed throughout history. That at any given time, people have always viewed "the past" through the distorted lens of their present circumstances, as well as their limited historical knowledge and, potentially, myths about the past which may have evolved over time to inform their own culture and sense of identity. And these "misunderstandings" have always played a role in creating the world we live in. The events that end up shaping history have been influenced/caused by individuals whose own perspectives were, naturally, of their time...but also, they themselves did not necessarily have a clearer, or more accurate, or true understanding of /their/ past, anymore than we have of /them/ today. Layers upon layers of biases going further and further back in time, making history such a complicated and difficult story to unfold, as we inevitably add another layer of our own for tomorrow's historians to peel away. And conversely, I feel that looking at our present world is futile without a historical perspective-without working to understand where things comes from, or how and why they are the way they are. If we simply assume, "the world is this way currently, because that's just how it is," then we're committing the same mistake people always have made.
It's not about identity it's about belief. People don't like their beliefs challenged, no matter how illogical, and they'll always think their view is the logical one, even if it isn't. People react badly especially if they realise they are wrong. They blame the person who is right, when the problem really is that they don't like knowing they are wrong.
I think this misses the point. Not all issues are black and white, not always can the truth be distinguished from the falsehoods even if there is one, perhaps not at the moment, perhaps even not within our lifetime. That might be useful to realize before coming to arguments or addressing other people's opinions.
This is true. It is about belief. I believe that when the best women's swimmer is man, when the best women's kick boxer is a man, when the best women's rower, is a man, when all the women sports champions are all biological males that this is wrong. Why should I have to tell my little daughter that no matter how long and hard she trains in her sport that for her future a man will always take the girls trophy. I believe that is wrong.
This is a great video (no need to do any additional scripting). I had not considered that the redefinition of what someone thinks of as their identity could be perceived as a threat, even if I happen to think their definition is antiquated.
Bias isn't automatically negative; being biased in favour of marginalised people is actually a good thing. "Neutrality" is a false notion, with both-sides-ism serving only an oppressive status quo. One cannot be an ally of trans people (for example) without the courage to anger bigots, including older individuals who have chosen to stop growing as people.
One of the problems with each side "showing respect to each other" is that each side has a different idea of what respect is. There are a great many people out there who think it would be more respectful to disabuse me of my identity than to go on living what in their estimation is a lie. My idea of respect is to call people whatever they wish to be called and to use whichever pronouns they want me to use to refer to them. I don't think there's a very good solution to this problem, but I am open to suggestions.
Generation X (born mid 1970's): What has changed in history: In the old days (like 1990's), your sexuality was a private issue. Unless I'm flirting with you as a prospective lover or you're flirting with ME as a prospective lover, the spot between the legs is not relevent. Now it is a public issue, not just to the individual, but pushed on the children of third party strangers at those strangers expense. And the key word is pushed. I was bisexual in the 1990's. My best friends male and female likewise.
Just a quick point on the expression of trans identity. My personal belief is that most trans people are far less concerned about their identity being "recognised" than they are about improving their access to healthcare, spaces where they feel safe and just general decent treatment. Unfortunately for a lot of people who transition later in life the fact that they are Trans can be visibly evident and as a result people who don't like Trans people have an easier time of discriminating against them. My personal subjective experience has been that the vast majority of cis women aren't afraid of somehow losing their own identity and the ones that vocally claim this fear are usually transparently using it as an excuse to justify a more deep rooted prejudice. The emergence of modern control, centralised systems and manufactured lifestyles makes it easier than ever for authority figures to negatively affect others based on opinions and preferences. Identity is for a lot of minorities a necessity in order to interact with governing bodies in a way that effects real change. Each individual person who asks for hormones can be dismissed by a practitioner but this becomes harder to dismiss when all trans people unify under the identity in order to secure rights despite the fact that the trans banner actually includes a multitude of different and distinct people/identities. It is actually a known phenomenon within the community that some people who "pass" after their transition will exit the community in order to live life being perceived as cis by those around them. For these people its clearly a matter of support structures and rights rather than a matter of having their identity recognised. When trans people say there have been trans people throughout history they aren't necessarily trying to claim the identity has always existed just that people who have similar issues within themselves have. When looking at historical contexts its usually less a projection of "identity" as such so much as evidencing the phenomenon. Like your example of gay people, when gay people today say gay people existed throughout history they aren't referencing the identity but the phenomenon. This is an expected and rational response to modern prejudicial claims that homosexual activity is in some way "unatural"
I've long enjoyed your amazing and in-depth analyses of historical linguistics and whatnot. I have no idea why you would choose to do this on your channel. I enjoyed listening to your opinion but I don't think I really needed to listen to this on the channel that I identified with linguistic historical content.
Too often nowadays when people are complaining about things “becoming political”, it’s just a proxy for “I disagree with them.” Linguistics and politics are very intertwined, you can see that today with the emphasis on preferred pronouns. In order to talk about linguistics you’ll have to talk about politics, and people should be open about their opinions and biases when talking about these things.
I believe I have a similar communication style/thought processing faculty to you. So much so I often find myself embarrassed by watching your videos. I haven't yet got it together to make the YT docus that I'd like to however as I am far too shy and reclusive (I have considered a series based on the history of Penwith, where I live). On topic, personally I percieve myself as a mind rather than a gender or race or any other superficiality; as an embodiment of the sum total of my own experience and the afterglow of my ancestral/evolutionary experience both mentally and corporeally. Furthermore, I do not emotionally entangle myself in such superficialities as the culture wars foist upon us (regardless, I try to see as many sides as I can). People are people. Each of us is an everchanging individual; a brain in a meatsuit, and each of us makes decisions according to a multitude of internal and external, hardware and software factors. I see minds and attitudes, reason and lack of it, ignorance and education, intelligence and instinct, personalities and similarities, dominance and subjugation, accuracy and inaccuracy, honesty and dishonesty, the holistic effects of ideas, consensus and indoctrination. As patterns; as cycles, splashes and ripples. I see the multitudinous effects of technology and the acceleration of evolution. I am a writer. I like to observe how things are and attempt to recreate versions of how things could have been (I write historical fantasy), I also study biochemistry as a subject. My interests are in genetic anthropology (how culture, how even perhaps language might have evolved molecularly) and medieval history (which led me to your channel).
What I will say is that whilst I think it’s absolutely anachronistic to call people from the past “gay” as a specifically modern social category and identity, but identity and orientation are not the same, and so I think it can be reasonable to say, “we shouldn’t say they were gay as a social identity cus that social identity didn’t exist, but we can say they were what we would today call gay if they lived in our society in that that they had a long-running experience of attraction to the same-sex”. Now that is v hard to do, to look into their experiences to see if that was true (not everyone who had sex with the same sex was gay, in Ancient Rome for example, men would have sex with eachother in a very specific social setup, rather than because they were necessarily (or predominantly/exclusively) attracted to other men, and so unless people said something along the lines of “those people of the sex ain’t half ugly, I’m only attracted to my own sex” (not necessarily as direct as that ofc but to say that) I don’t think we can speculate about orientation just from behaviour.
I only discovered you recently, and I'm fascinated by a lot of what you can tell us about the history of the English language. But, I hadn't subscribed until now. This video is what got me to click on the "subscribe" button. So, there, it's had the opposite effect of what you feared. It's nice to know that you're not only a wickedly smart man but also a great guy.
Hey, LGBTQ historian here. What you're saying is not untrue, but I'd like to complicate it a little bit. I think a lot of the identities you talk about here are politicized because they exist under duress, and for better or worse, it becomes a political necessity to claim ancestors, even though (for instance) Roman men who had sex with men may not recognize themselves as "gay" in the modern sense. More than anything, I'd like to point out that while what you say about gay identity is true, it is EQUALLY true that straight identity didn't exist in ancient Rome, either--indeed, the term heterosexual was coined in the late 19th century, AFTER the term homosexual was coined. I think sometimes that people whose identities are under duress get an unfair amount of the blame for projecting their identities back into the past, whereas people who don't experience that duress will project the idea that their identities have existed in some universal sense since the dawn of time, and don't get the same amount of flak for it.
These are of course fantastic points - I deeply regret not making the point about straight identity being equally modern. The point about needing to claim ancestors is especially interesting, and I had not thought about it in that way. Would you mind if I pinned this comment to the top of the comment section so that more people can see it?
@@simonroper9218 Absolutely pin it, if you wish! Thank you for the thoughtful reply.
They reason they don't get flak for saying it is because they're right. Whereas the other people are wrong.
It's not just a matter of the concepts of "sexual orientation" and "sexual identity" all being modern concepts, but also people claiming a historical person was in a gay relationship on the flimsiest of evidence or applying the term homosexuality to historical phenomenon that is clearly unrelated to homosexuality.
An example of the latter would be Pederasty, which clearly is a phenomenon that has got absolutely nothing to do homosexuality. These mentoring relationships between adult men and adolescent boys in ancient Greece may have included romantic and sexual aspects, but was a cultural practise that was performed by all males in the upper classes of ancient Greece and not by a "sexual minority".
When the public are falsely and purposefully misinformed that Ancient Greece was some type of gay utopia and paradise, where adult men ran around in drag, then this is blatant lies to cover up the inconvenient history that most people today would conceptualise as being adult men touching 13-year-old boys sexually with the excuse that they were providing sex education.
This lie is there to first protect the reverence and respect that upper class people in western society have for ancient Greece and it's philosophers (who were notorious apologists for pederasty), but to also make mentally fragile gay men feel better about themselves by telling them homosexuality was more accepted in history than what it was.
Thank you for this- makes me think of 'markedness' in both labeling and conceptualization of identity.
I very much enjoyed the "that music is truly curious" to "it's a free country I suppose" to "I don't think I can do this anymore" process. It seemed very Roperish.
lmfao yeah
@@LaggingGames I couldn't hear anything
my favourite Roperian trope is when Simon starts outside and due to one thing or another getting progressively more annoying, eventually moves inside. My personal favourite examples are the wind rendering him inaudible, and that one video where a torrential downpour forced him inside literally the moment that he started recording.
@@finolaomurchu8217 you gotta turn it way up and it's still faint.
i think i prefer "Roperian"
Thank you for this video Simon, as I believe this subject is of paramount importance. As someone who studies historical reconstruction of music, I often see the effects of retroactive projection of modern identity into the past in the field of historical music.
Some Christians are very uncomfortable with performances of reconstructed early Christian chants, which had an “Islamic-like” quality to them. Similarly, some modern Middle-Easterners often are very uncomfortable when shown the evidence that many typical Middle-Eastern aspects of music were of Greek origin, and were present in Roman Europe before being widespread in the east.
One may wonder why a Christian would care what 9th century Carolingian chant sounded like, or why a modern Syrian person may care where some scale in their traditional music originated. I believe it comes down to the importance of identity, and cultural aspects like these are things we invest our identity in, so it makes sense for us to want them to be from a long line of historical continuity, so we can tell ourselves that our ancestors were just like us. It’s a feeling we can all sympathise with, but we must be aware of its destructive potential when it comes to history.
I suppose my point is that retroactive projection of modern identity in the past can come in any field, and can take the most oddly specific shapes, such as the denial of the vocal quality of 9th century Carolingian chant. It permeates every aspect of historical studies, and we must acknowledge it and be aware of our own biases lest we taint the historical record.
beautifully said
as was Simon's original comment here
To that point, the fact that today Greek philosophy and "white" marble statues (that were of course painted in ancient times...) are seen as part of "European identity", when the "last point of contact" is actually the arabic world translating and preserving the stuff.
I think it's just cool how bizarre twists and turns eventually feed into modern concepts, like how in Sweden we sing "Små Grodorna" at midsummer, which is a melody from a French marching song that was then parodied by the English to be about frogs, and now it feels like a quintessentially Swedish phenomenon to sing this and look stupid without knowing that you're indirectly mocking napoleonic soldiers
Well said, sir.
Early Christian music predates Islam by seven centuries.
@@WinstonSmithGPT ...Yes of course, which was also several more centuries before the modern diatonic scales (let alone equal temperament 12 tone) and singing technique became standard, what people would now stereotypically expect as "christian choral sound".
We old people tend to reflect the entirety of our life experiences. Those experiences will determine, generally speaking, where we land in our dotage. Minds don’t automatically narrow with age. ✌🏼💕
I appreciated this video. One thing I've always had an issue with is people projecting modern nation-state identity onto medieval Europe. Part of this boils down to people often compartmentalizing and viewing medieval Europe as homogeneous or static, and thinking that modern concepts like nationality existed or were interpreted the same ways hundreds of years ago. There was a tremendous amount of cultural and linguistic diversity across Europe that for some reason a lot of people can't seem to get their heads around.
The most common issue I've personally encountered is that many people generally don't understand just how modern most borders in Europe really are.... As in less than 100 years old and as a direct result of the 2nd World War. I'm consistently shocked how often this seems to blow peoples' minds or if you try and explain something like the Partitions of Poland or what in the world Prussia was or the Holy Roman Empire. Sometimes, I acknowledge that I love history and have more reason to know these things, but conceptually, people should have a grasp of how a border works. 😅
It's like they've assumed that if a modern border exists, it's always exists and the same people have lived there forever which is the complete opposite of history in every sense.
The general ignorance of the general public astounds me. I am no scholar but have read books, listened to wireless broadcasts, then TV documentaries and now radio podcasts on language, Michael Rosen's Word of Mouth, philosophy, history, biography etc courtesy of Melvyn Bragg's In our time series. Stuff on astronomy, mathematics, - who knew there was more than 1 infinity-, mind blowing quantum cats and dead strawberries on The Infinite Monkey cage. Then there is you tube.
There can be no excuse other than lack of curiosity for remaining ignorant of all this stuff. Even if you dont understand it at least know it is out there. And hope that a little understanding seeps in by osmosis. 😊
In my opinion the whole nation-state system is such rubbish that it needs a complete revamp. It's actively killing all the cultural and linguistic diversity and it bolsters discrimination solely based on nationalities.
@@helenamcginty4920 Can a man become a woman? What say you?
Let’s see whether you’re really the person to be deciding who is ignorant and who is not.
thank you!!! the most recent immigrant in my family history came here only about a century ago, but I joke often about how none of the countries my ancestors left exist anymore (all within europe). it's a very small-minded view to believe that the structures you exist under have existed forever, and evidence of a failure to teach history well.
I think these are the reasons I dislike contemporary historical fiction so much... So much of it is written with the intent of projecting contemporary worldview onto characters in the past in order to make a point. Of course, I am not against using historical fiction as social commentary, but I feel that it can be done better in ways that don't require erasing historical persons' perception of identity and plastering ours onto them. It feels very reductive to me, as though trying to make the world smaller & reduce diversity of thought.
I have been editing academic papers from around the world, and it is amazing how lockstep they all are politically and even in terms of word-use. Academia has become extremely repressive, though its hypocritical posturing would have you believe otherwise. I see very little actual thought, much less idealism-- just a lot of rancid careerism. I have a PhD in history, and look back to a time, pre-Foucault, when this sort of preachy, anachronistic posturing was called out as bad history.
One of my favourite modern filmmakers, Robert Eggers, is *great* at making historical films where people feel relatable emotionally while still holding totally alien worldviews.
I absolutely see what you mean and have really thought about this whilst studying the witch-craze in the last few months. It’s the sort of thing that easy to just say was “crazy” and dismiss with a simple explanation based on our own worldview e.g. “people only hunted witches because they were stupid and hated all women, especially those who weren’t silent 100% of the time”.
Whilst at some level that makes sense, and undoubtedly there were many very misogynistic attitudes both in society and behind many the the views of the stereotypical witch, and many (but not all - roughly 70%)of the victims were women who were on the fringes of society and/or fell foul of societal expectations, it’s a reductive explanation. At the end of the day, people want to feel that they understand these things, but only through their own current perspective because it’s too hard to accept that, whilst other factors were influential in shaping beliefs and persecutions, fundamentally “people hunted witches because they believed they were witches”, and we just can’t fully understand that belief anymore, but it existed then.
The only thing that can get away with being like that is Plebs.
it's written to be antiwhite and push White erasure
dont be afraid to give out your opinion, especially if your going to put as much care and thought into it as you did this video.
@ 3:01 You reference the historical western tradition of pressuring men to supress emotion. I just want to add that it's not all emotion. .. anger in particular has been allowed/encouraged (definitely ymmv per country). The fact that it's not seen as an emotion by many means that men can redirect every emotion into rage outbursts and we'll still talk about it as if they're not expressing emotion. They are - just the only socially acceptable one to express. Hopefully we're turning a corner on that.
Very astute observations! Do you think less "raw" emotions like guilt, pity, and shame are discouraged like excitement or sadness?
The problem is we aren't actually turning a corner because we are still not rewarding more vulnerable behavior from men, still punishing it in fact.
Well, there's also lust
I tend to speculate the origin of this cultural pressure is conscription... soldiers are best not feeling... if they do feel its after the fact. Male military service surely exascerbated these gender differences which presumably reverberate to the present day.
@connormcgee4711
I wonder if it isn't more related to the tendency that the majority of the average population has to discourage & try to prevent people with male sex organs &/or characteristics & those who are perceived as male from expressing emotions that are traditionally associated with people who are or are perceived as females, girls, women, feminine, effeminate, weak, passive, &/or anything that they don't perceive as traditionally masculine or as a part of their ideal of masculinity?
You are a brave man, Simon Roper! Nicely balanced and sensitive look at some very tricky topics! I was very happy to hear you say that people in the past did not experience these issues in the same way that we experience them now. This is very useful to keep in mind.
“What is lost when men die is not the world but only the image of the world in men’s hearts.”
Had to share this line from Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, one of my favorite books. I think about it a lot.
I've never heard this quote before, but it's a perfect summary of what I was hoping to get across at the start of the video! Thank you :)
@@simonroper9218 your reflection brought it to mind! Thanks for doing what you do.
That's a really great quote. Everyone's image is different and often only applies to them.
Big terms like bell and favorite and my and the numbers and men and or / car / thy and pronouns with capital letter only reflect me & my protectors and cannot be misused by ppl in comments / yt names / names etc or in any other ways, and must be changed / edited out - I am THE only Bell (The Angie Bell being one of the special / superiority names only reflecting me that were selected for my perfect pėrsonalities, and ppl cannot misuse unsuitable names that only reflect me) and I am the only Possessor / Owner / Leader etc aka The Goddess / The Lady / The Queen / The Princess / The Mistress / The Boss / The Master / The God / The Idol / The Star etc aka the superior / pure / radiant being etc and the only being reflecting words like or (gold) and thy etc the only being who can use the word favorite, and my pure protectors can also use the words that I use, as we are like the same being in multiple bödies, and such words cannot be misused by ppl in names b comments / yt names etc!
ReIationships are only meant for us pure beings (me and my pure protectors aka the alphas) who were blessed with a pure body that doesn’t gx one out and that has a good smėII / no smėIIs aka an enjoyable presence, and were never meant for ppl / sìnnėrs!
Simon, thank you for your reasoned, thoughtful and rational views. It is on one hand heartful and encouraging to know that there are still people like you in the world (and expressing your thoughts to a wide audience) and on the other hand sad and frustrating that you being such a person is actually noteworthy. We have far too few thinkers in this world and we would all be better served if there were more people like you. Thank you again.
A wise young man, you made me rethink a few conversations I’ve had with elders, I’ll go and re address those , thank you mate
I think identity is overstated so much in modern society, instead of perhaps traits or an idea similar. Even though I have changed my gender, if things were different I wouldn't consider it part of my identity any more than saying that I graduated from the particular schools I went to. I think if anything the idea of any LGBT+ stuff as the LGBT+ aspect is a reaction to a persecution or divisive discourse regarding the original trait, in the same way that to my understanding the American colonists were Britsh, Dutch, etc, who happend to live overseas until there was a reason to be divided.
I like the American motto that we engrave on all our coins: Ē plūribus ūnum. It's Latin for "out of many, one." To me the signifies how our country can be made up of many people of various different background and yet we can unite under a single shared American identity. I think it's been a key part of our success. If we promote excessive sectarianism and focus on our distinctions and separate identities instead of commonalities we could destroy our great nation.
In religious studies the practice of setting aside ( or attempting to set aside) your own personal ideological framework in order to consider the beliefs and framework of other people in other cultures on their own terms is called "bracketing". This is very much what you describe at the end. It's hard in practice, but worth attempting to do in order to reach a fuller understanding.
Sometimes you have to be cautious with that though. A couple times I've bracketed someone's belief only to realise they're a Nazi or such, which very quickly makes me backpedal and reconsider the context of their previous points.
I tend to go with a conviction I have or what resonates.
As a queer person I believe you're right that a few LGBT folk do anachronism with ancient people. The modern concept of gender and attraction, which is at most about a century old, is very categorical, with one root in clinical descriptions, and another in banding together under common banners for resisting oppression. Rigid categories are not reflective of true basal human gender and attraction, which, like all complex human behaviours, has always been hard to describe, hugely diverse over time and culture, sometimes unstable throughout a single lifetime, and most importantly, incredibly idiosyncratic. It also often feels like westerners projecting their relatively new concepts of identity onto foreign cultures, which can seem patronising and, as you said, disrespectful to both modern and ancient people.
Some are born with identity, some achieve identity and some have identity thrust upon them.
Well said. And some who dismiss having various identities as divisive never had one thrust upon them. They were likely born with an identity that is well accepted in their culture.
I will say we should also recognise that just the way we think of identity just generally is different from how they thought about it in the past. They wouldn’t have necessarily seen one’s identity, oneself, as something one must “discover”, and their sense of “identity” (itself an anachronistic term when talking about the past) was often much more specifically tied to their sense of belonging to the group, unlike in our much more individualised society
Yep, part of the Western Marxist worldview.
Yes, that's right. Identity for most people is (and was) a given, not a choice. I actually suspect that much misery is caused by the notion that it's a choice, especially around the matter of your sex. It's just untrue to tell people that they can be members of the opposite sex.
@@hughoxford8735 I didn't quite mean it in that way. My point was not such that people don't have an internal sense of the self which they can shape or "discover", or that they shouldn't, but rather that they didn't see it in that way in the past, or at least not exactly the same. I'm fairly agnostic all in all as to whether we should see identity that way or not
o boi, I can almost hear the eggshells cracking as you walk by them without the script
now that I've finished your video, redacted a big paragraph, and had the time to allow me to care less before deleting it, I should still say two things:
1. you were fine at the start, really poor around the tolerance bit (it's not the end goal, tolerance, we can end it whenever the neonazis start bashing people semi-regularly). the UK knows, the olden queer knew, and I knew sixteen years ago when the game of war for territory started to become too real and the numbers of killings piled up: THE NAZIS ARE THE ENDPOINT. we allow ourselves to stop being tolerant when a fkg neonazi starts following every day after classes. everyone knows, no tolerance for the nazis, however they be called in any part of the world. Zamudio died stabbed and bashed because he didn't hide and kissed a man in the public park. who cares about tolerance inside an atmosphere as dense as that.
2. about identity, your biggest improv *I laugh flirtatiously here*, you could read Alyson Escalante's "GENDER NIHILISM, an anti-manifesto". 13 pages of eloquent irrefutable philosophy of being. Post-Human Feminism is a masterpiece too, but that one's a powerhouse for the veterans. (I am not aware of the depth of your background in philosophy of mind, epistemological anthropology or even translational psychiatry).
I have a great third talk point, but this is as long as an essay and might end up in a rereading frenzy if I keep going on and on.
Bye and good luck. It was a fine video overall, good recover towards the end.
As always, a very thoughtful, humble, and balanced take. I appreciate your opinions for the way they contrast with the more prevalent style of bashing people over the head with rigid dogma.
I apologise for this kind of ramblish, semi-tangential, half-vent of a comment, but as a trans viewer and huge fan of your channel, I was so extremely relieved to hear that you are supportive of trans people during this incredibly trying time for us all. Over the years I (along with many of my queer peers, I suspect) have become extremely anxious of finding anything out about the views of TH-camrs I like towards the "validity" of my identity, and the justification of others' attacks on it, purely because of all of the times when a person I held in high regard has turned out to be against us.
That kind of thing always hurts because it suddenly renders a place I visit to escape the stresses of real life into a place where I feel like I am unwelcome and unwanted. With TH-camrs like you who avoid talking about their personal views it is easier to make your channels into these safe spaces, but it is also stressful when I see an upload come up with a title like this, because by now I can't help but think, "oh no, will this be the one where I find out they want me gone?"
This is such a terrifying time for me and my trans friends around the world, and I just wanted to get it out there how relieved I was to hear you say you're on our side (however ambivalently/conflict averse-ly), not because it makes any big difference, but just because I can relax now knowing this channel will remain a safe space for me (although this IS the internet, and I'm certain that this comment will get hateful replies anyways. I'm sure I'm used to it now enough that it won't bother me too much). Cheers Simon, keep up the great videos
my thoughts exactly. wild times we livin in
You don't need to apologise at all - I recorded this video three times, and still feel like I should probably apologise for not making my views more clearly known. Part of the reason is that I wouldn't want people who are on the fence about these issues to switch off, but I'll admit that part of it is fear of backlash. I wouldn't mind people disappearing from the channel if they hold views I disagree with, but I'm a little bit scared of death threats, which seems cowardly given that trans people already receive them. I feel more strongly about the issue than I implied in the video, and I also regret delaying the actual point and prolonging that anxiety, because I can well understand it (even though I'm not in the same position as you). I imagine it's especially true with TH-camrs who discuss things like early medieval history, which draws lots of people who have already made up their minds about a lot of these issues.
I'm glad that this channel can be a safe place now, and I am always happy to be corrected if I ever say something which seems unwittingly cisnormative. I hope that the fact these conversations are happening eventually has positive consequences, and I'm sorry that the process of gaining recognition is proving so dangerous
@@simonroper9218 you're completely correct, this area of TH-cam does tend to draw those kinds of people who hold beliefs like that for one reason or another, but it's worth saying that on channels like this it's noticeably counteracted by the online linguistics community's inclusivity and acceptance of queer identities. I'd just like to say your understanding and honesty in regards to this issue is so heartwarming, and I am really grateful for your reply. I and others have been stressing out a lot lately about those frightening goings-on of the world, and personally I cannot understate just how much it has cheered me up to hear these kind thoughts from someone who is such an inspiration to me. It's easy to see in how you write, and how you spoke in the video about projection of modern LGBTQ+ identities onto historical peoples, that you're making a strong effort to be respectful and inclusive in your content (not to mention the fact that you were brave enough to mention queer issues here in the first place). Thank you so much for making this niche little corner of wherever that little bit warmer for us queer folk, it really does mean a lot, to more people than you may realise
I’m sorry but the trans community are the most privileged and protected community right now. There is no other group out there that gets to put their flags absolutely everywhere, has the backing of corporations as well as be at the forefront of societal discussion and change for such a small group. You’re all in a power position right now. I will get the hate for pointing this out, just watch below.
@@sorrysirmygunisoneba you just have no clue what you’re talking about.
Fantastic video. Being open about our personal perspectives and biases is incredibly important, I think.
Unless you don't go with the status quo in which case your opinions are shut down and labelled as bigoted, ironic. Open discussion is so important for our progression but we're not progressing positively
I think you raise a great point when you talk about taking things into consideration in their right context. So many times do I see people talking about Dark Age Europe and refer to nations, the Polish nation, the French nation etc, when such terms make no sense at that time. France was an absolute monarchy, you weren't part of a French nation as a peasant, you were just a peasant. The entire concept of the nation is a modern one, so to project it onto kingdoms that shared a name with it hundreds of years ago is just pointless.
for a people that apparently had no concept of nation the english certainly wrote a lot about being english and what that meant to them, and funnily enough none of them even question the idea that the english are a thing and that they exist. just like countless tribes in the americas and africa who were never exposed to some modern nation states before european contact, regardless, cling to their ethnic identity
"Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!
[Give thanks, England, to God for victory!]
Owre Kynge went forth to Normandy
With grace and myght of chyvalry
Ther God for hym wrought mervelusly;
Wherefore Englonde may call and cry
Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!" - agincourt carol
In olden time the English people -- for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other people's observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's -- calculated their months according to the course of the moon. Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans (the months) take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called mona and the month monath. - bede, the reckoning of time
Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!
A thousand hearts are great within my bosom:
Advance our standards, set upon our foes;
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
Upon them! Victory sits on our helms. - william shakespeare, richard iii
and many more
@@barnsleyman32 You're doing the exact thing I was talking about, taking songs and poems refering to the English monarchy and state assuming it refers to the nation defined as an ethnic group
@@barnsleyman32 Although there was such a thing as an ethnonym before the modern period, nations are a remarkably recent concept (less than 300 years old, in practice) and did not really reflect the political reality before that point. Borders were generally patchy and not enforced, you didn't pay taxes directly to a central authority, many folk were stuck in one place for most of their lives and travelling around the country may have been more difficult than travelling abroad in some cases, the list of differences continues.
For example: Bede, your 2nd source, was writing 300 years before there was even a kingdom called England, and yet he calls it (in this translation) a "nation": the English folk he spoke of were more of a cultural and ethnic grouping, as we may say "native american" or "european" in modern parlance.
The other two were written specifically about the military, which is one of the few areas in which there has always been *some* semblance of national unity because the nation's soldiers fight as a monolith against another army (to say nothing of the fact that Richard III is at best ass-kissing the Tudor royals and at worst mere propaganda).
Not to say, obviously, that "English" as a meaningful term is particularly new, or that the people writing in your sources even meant *drastically* different things to you when they wrote of "England" and "English" (except Bede, that's wayyy too long ago for the meaning to be applicable). Today I am a Yorkshireman, an Englishman, a European, a westerner. In the year 800, someone who lived where I do may have seen themselves as a man of the village I live in, a man of the local Wapentake, a Northumbrian, an Englishman. And those terms will have meant very different things to him.
So, far as I can tell, Simon is not saying that people in the past had no identity, or even that there was no such thing as an English person before England became a nation-state. He's simply stating that identities are profoundly influenced by the culture around them, and therefore do not bear any proper comparison to modern, similarly named identities when removed from that culture (nor will our modern identities likely be relatable or intuitive to people living several hundred years into the future).
@@jaspecific4101 This is really interesting - I find the concept of the emergence of the “nation state” really fascinating, and in England it seems to have happened, to an extent (obviously borders etc were far less clear and stable), a little earlier than in other countries in Europe, for a variety of reasons (centralised control, national coinage and tax collection, threat from invasion etc), though of course there was still undoubtedly a large difference in how people would consider a nation in the 12th century vs now.
If it interests you, or anyone else who may read this, there’s a really interesting focus on this in the first episode or two of David Starkey’s “Monarchy” series, which is available on youtube, focusing on the emergence of this concept, comparable to the modern nation state, in late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman England.
@Squids have 10 tentacles Hey, thanks for the recommendation and thoughtful response, I'll be sure to check those videos out.
I think the concept of identity itself is under attack in modernity. Identity until the modern era had to do with how you were born, what caste/class you were, your religion, your language, and your culture. All those things have become fractured, both purposefully and as a product of rapid technological changes, and many of us are faced with a dark reality that every pillar of our identity is either already destroyed or in the process of being destroyed. Modern phenomena like racial/ethnic demographics being weaponized against host populations via mass migration, the concept of being male or female becoming blurred, religion being subverted/attacked, and the sudden and massive sociological changes brought by internet, smart phones, and social media are all part of why identity feels so ephemeral these days. It's especially hard for those of us of European ethnicities because of the gaslighting and mixed-messaging we get from the government, media, and corporations about our racial/ethnic identity being either non-existent or bad while we're told to respect/embrace the identities of non-Europeans who are forced upon us in ever-increasing numbers. The same can be said of the conflicting messaging forced on us about sexuality and gender. It puts us in a tough place of being "immoral" by rejecting the lies, gaslighting, and such because we don't want to be hateful or harmful, but at the same time we can see the evil being done to us and want the harmful lies and destructive practices to stop.
I can respect someone who disagrees with or wishes to not associate with a different lifestyle. I cannot respect someone who wants to punish/disenfranchise/deny the existence of a different lifestyle.
It's a strange thing lately that people expect the makers of whatever media they consume to agree with their every view, and stop watching that those whose views don't perfectly match. Even where it really has no real relevance to the subject. I've never go onboard with that: if you make something that I enjoy, your political views have no bearing on that on won't change my enjoyment.
On the subject you mentioned my stance is that almost all the data I have is filtered through one opinion or another, and so I feel I lack the ability to truly speak about it. Also, it really is given far more importance in the media for reasons that are not exactly wholesome, and I mislike being manipulated by emotional arguments. On the whole I think it's best that I just don't have an opinion because it won't be possible to base it on untainted data.
Reading Arthur Machen, even just 100 years ago he was observing just how much of the Welsh identity had been lost. Whatever Welsh people consider themselves to be today, you can be sure it is not quite what it was historically. I mean, sure, same is true of every nationality and culture in a sense, but the Welsh identity was intentionally and systemically oppressed, it didn't just change and evolve naturally, so it's different for them. They have to try to reconstruct what their past identity was and hope they can get a good approximation of it. Other cultures that didn't suffer such oppression (at least in modern times) aren't concerned about connection to their historical past identity, they are content with knowing their cultural identity is continuous for a long enough time that they can be confident they are authentically that culture.
Obviously just using the Welsh as one example here as it is mentioned in the video, but lots of cultures have been intentionally oppressed, or even subject to attempted genocide, over the past century or two, so yes, I know well enough that lots of extant cultures have that same problem today besides the Welsh.
Or more than the Welsh.
I remember in one of my graduate seminars discussing whether a group of Late Antique Egyptian nuns, who starved themselves to the point that they had no visible breasts and no longer menstruated and were able to pass as male and live in monasteries, counted as transgender, and that struck me as deeply demeaning to the fullness of their humanity and the depth of their religiosity. It's entirely possible that those nuns had gender dysphoria or, had they lived today, they would've identified as trans, but that whole discourse didn't really exist in any similar way 1600 years ago, and simplifying the past to fight contemporary political fights is very demeaning.
Clifford Ando made a video lecture where he looks at the reasons given for the fall of the Western Roman Empire over time and compares them to the contemporary political debates when those histories were published, and unsurprisingly there was a great degree of correlation. As someone who wants to be a historian there's something a bit sad about the way that a large degree of historical scholarship (especially pop history) is partially just a cipher for contemporary political debates
Your second point reminds me of the great classic novels of China, which have in common that they are set in one historical era but may actually be representing in code what happened much later, usually at the time they were written. That was true also of Shakespeare's history plays; Queen Elizabeth I is reported to have recognised that.
My understanding of the views on homosexual relationships in ancient Europe, though I don't remember now where I read/heard it, was that the act itself wasn't looked down upon, the "man" in the relationship was not looked down upon, but the "woman" in the relationship was looked down upon, and it was a major insult to insinuate that someone was that part of it.
A gentle, thoughtful, and thoroughly enjoyable discussion on a very relevant topic to past, present, and future. Thank you, Simon. Be well.
Best “ramble” I’ve heard in a long time. Thank you for your kind and gentle contemplation on these serious topics 🌸
One thing I wonder often about in a somewhat similar vein is how differently people saw suffering throughout history and cultures. Slavery, public executions, a good part of your children dying at a young age. It's just so difficult for me to project myself into the shoes of a person in a time and place where such things were mundane parts of everyday life.
I rather think the loss of a child was always gut wrenching. I have been lucky so far but am close to someone whose child was stillborn. Their grief was something I only felt 2nd hand and that was bad enough.
Animals, from our cats and dogs to elephants grieve the loss of their young. Witness the killer whale who kept trying to revive her dead calf for weeks a few months ago.
I have thought this way as well. I think that was why in part people adhere/d to their religions so fiercely. Thinking about Europe, for example, I often think that, if you were going to lose, 1/4 or more of your little ones, believing that there was meaning to that suffering and that there was an afterlife must have been necessary to maintaining sanity.
When Simon “rambles” the level is higher than most people can ever imagine, or attain.
Haha "that music very curious... I've never heard that before" starting to show your age old fellow
I realised when I turned the camera off that it was 'Redbone' - I'm losing touch already!
@@simonroper9218 secluded area... have to be careful of the biases or they stay under the rug 😶🌫😶🌫
Great video as always. Your comment about language families and how they're somewhat over overpllayed nowadays reminded me of a point made by Graeber and Wengrow in The Dawn of Everything (highly recommended book btw) and how we can extrapolate from that when there's no evidence of language families being necessarily relevant when it comes to understanding cultural similarities between groups.
Graeber and Wengrow make some very interesting observations, but I'll never find their total dismissal of all paleoarchaeology >30kya not annoying lmao
The key in general is that to understand your own or someone else's "identity", you have to know their world and the language that defines it. For example, did medieval serfs view themselves as "unfree"? Why did Catholics and Protestants war against each other, when today we would say they were both "Christian"? Did the Cherokee and Cheyenne people view themselves as "American" or even "native" when there was no threat from Europeans? Would the Mayan and Aztec recognize any affinity even though today we call them "mesoamerican"?
I think it might also be true that even identity itself as a concept might be fairly modern, at least in the way that it’s treated nowadays. I’ve gleaned from various sources (Dr. Jackson Crawford among them) that, broadly speaking, people in centuries past probably thought more in terms of _behaviors_ than _identities_, and more often in concrete terms rather than abstractions.
I think further that it might be worth considering for modern people to try to think in those terms as well. It’s easier to avoid taking things personally when you think people are speaking of something you like to do rather than who you are as a person. It helps me not condemn people out of hand as well, when I think “they are doing something I think is wrong” rather than “they are bad people”.
beau of the fifth column had a very interesting video about conservatism but I can't recall the title of it. He basically said that people don't become more socially conservative as they get older. People's views are formed when they're young and their views generally stay the same for the rest of their lives. It just seems like people become more conservative as they age because the rest of society is continually getting more progressive and tends to move past what people thought was progressive 20 years ago. At 43, I tend to think of myself as fairly progressive but maybe by the standards of society in 40 years time, people will think my views are fairly conservative. Who knows.
Society has been becoming more progressive for decades, but such a development is by no means inevitable
Totallly unrelated but would you consider doing a history of ae-tensing in the English language?
Part of the problem here is determining what someone’s identity is - should it be the one they give themselves or the one other people give them? For example, I correctly look down on supporters of Keir Starmer as the lowest of the low, and that’s putting it politely, but I doubt many of them see themselves like that.
Discussions about relativism and thinking critically (which are what I understood this video was about) are sorely necessary in any social context, but especially so in our contemporary one. Thank you.
'if you can convince someone their identity is under threat, you can make them do a lot of things' the irony of this statement
As a non binary & bisexual individual I love to find joy, acceptance, validation etc. through historical figures similar to myself such as the P.U.F (18th century preacher who identified as neither gender) or Sappho (famous for her homoerotic poetry). However, just as I’d like my identity to be respected, I make sure to take care when referencing these figures as they sure didn’t have the same labels as me! You can find kinship with historical people without forcing your own modern labels upon them :)
I’m starting to think the “side” that we come down on on this issue has almost everything to do with the media we’re exposed to/our social milieu. Time and time again, it turns out that those maligning feminists actually have no idea what we believe, what we want, what we’ve asked for.
Women are concerned about legislative/institutional changes that have huge material implications for us, about the medicalization of gender non-conformity in children (about the pathologization of gender non-conformity as a whole), about the conflation of sex and gender and the erasure of sex in law and language *because sex is politically important*, and this affects us every day, not because we’re somehow guarding a fragile sense of identity.
Likewise, which group (and there are more than two groups here) you think is more likely to be threatened/abused probably depends on where you’re standing. Women have faced an absolute tidal wave of misogyny, death and rape threats just for trying to discuss this issue or pointing out the political significance of sex.
I love this channel, and it’s hugely popular and I’m sure you can afford to lose a small subset of marxist feminists. But I know lots of women will feel unwelcome, to see themselves misrepresented and the abuse we face diminished. It really doesn’t have to be us or them.
Sex cannot have political significance as it is biological, while politics are social and therefore concerns itself with the social corollaries of biology as gender is. What you state is not only false but impossible.
@@wormwoodcocktail I don't know any context or personal details. But he's always seemed to me (as far as it's possible to guess from TH-cam) an intelligent, compassionate sort of person. The shock to me isn't that he's taken one side or other, but that there's a huge lack of understanding and nuance here that's in contrast to the rest of his content. And a total misrepresentation of the opposing views.
@@wormwoodcocktail and are these super dangerous murder trans women in the room with us right now?
@@wormwoodcocktail I won't deny that there will be abusive trans people, because everyone of any demographic can be abusive. And literally everyone playing contact sports sustain injuries, they're contact sports. But what should the response be? Is it really the best option to functionally remove trans women from society like you seem to suggest? What do you want to do to trans women in response to this, and do you really think your response is just?
An excellent, thoughtful and well-balanced talk. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for what it’s worth, I agree with you.
"We're all sitting here stranded, though we're doing our best to deny it." I have avoided all these issues, and I'm glad that the first time I've listened to anyone talk about it, it is a thoughtful, intelligent take on the problem. There are a lot of trans people where I live, and....so what? It isn't my business. Politically, however, I think that the whole issue is a major distraction from far more important economic battles, especially in the US.
I think it's best to see trans rights as an important battle in itself, while still understanding that the powers-that-be use fearmongering as a distraction: recognizing how people can't put their own unique struggles "on hold" to march with their own persecutors, and recognizing how different people's struggles are often closer to one's own struggles than one may at first think, is key to building a great and diverse coalition to fight those most important economic battles that affect all people.
That's at least what I think.
Economic battles are of the least importance, fighting against the degeneracy of the age is the top priority.
Steven, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I am not bothered by trans or any other life choices but I do see all the sensationalism on the news as a deliberate distraction hiding the more important existential threats we live with today.
I've got to disagree with the framing about language families and identity. The fact that ancient people were unaware of the cultural connection they shared with other groups based on a common language doesn't mean such a connection didn't exist. In fact, the very existence of a language family is kind of proof of that connection (how did the languages of that family get to be related to each other if not through a common origin?). My pet Beagle doesn't need to know he's a Beagle in order to be one, he is a Beagle because he meets the criteria for what a Beagle is. If there are Celtic languages, there is a Celtic people*. The members of that people historically may not have known this, but that isn't really relevant to the classification, and modern people know more about the topic, hence the sense of identity that exists now.
* I'm aware that the case of the "Celtic" people is actually complicated by the fact that the linguistic group and the cultures identified by ancient sources as "Celts" don't necessarily match up, and that the name "Celtic" may have been misapplied to the speakers of the branch of the Indo-European languages of which Irish and Welsh are members, but whatever the name you'd like to use for the latter, the existence of such a linguistic group is proof of peoplehood in and of itself, regardless of historical people's understanding of this.
I feel the need to clarify my comments here. I understand that people in the past did not think about themselves in the way we do today, and agree that there is a certain arrogance (or at least ignorance) in assuming they did. We should try to understand how they thought about their identities just as we should understand everything else they knew about the world, so that we can explain their actions accurately and not attribute to them motives they couldn't possibly have had. So if that is what you mean by "projecting", I agree we shouldn't project these self-identities onto them.
However, I do still identify them according to our modern understanding of their ethnic relationships, and I don't feel we should be bound by their understanding of themselves when understanding them ourselves retrospectively.
I can consider the ancient Irish and Welsh to have shared a common cultural heritage regardless of whether or not they would have, because I know more about the world than they did. I should understand that they didn't think of it that way but it is still a fact that they shared the things I know them to have shared, regardless of them knowing that or not.
As a trans viewer, I really appreciate this discussion. The bit you mentioned about how (to our current knowledge) the concept of homosexuality not necessarily being a social identity in medieval Rome tugged a bit on my heart. I wish my experience in society could be just like that. I'm transmasculine and pansexual, but that isn't the core of my identity and I don't want those aspects of me to be the only things that people think of when they look at me. My transness just means that I've had 2 puberties and now I have a flat chest and a deep voice and people see me as a man. It doesn't mean anything about anyone else's identity or how they get to live their life. It's so bizarre to hear folks say things we're invading their gender or want to push our identities into others and turn kids queer. My man, I just want water my plants and pick up some groceries for dinner, I don't care about whether or not Susan's baby is gay, lol. I'm fortunate that I don't really have to think about my gender that often, and I wish the world could just do the same. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I hope folks who are on the fence about things like this can see this and maybe realize that it's not really a big deal.
This was a nice read! Thank you for sharing a viewpoint I hadn't considered so deeply yet. Have a great day sir!
Cheers from fellow pansexual who doesn't view it as a core part of my identity! I never intended to get into 'gay culture' and I don't feel I belong there. I also don't feel sad about death as Simon. I'm just me trying to live my life in my own way, don't mind me :)
I find it so interesting that female to male is simply not mentioned in all the hoo ha about changes of sex. Not heard of one male who cares if a trans man uses the public loos, though I would tend to use stalls if in that position, as a trans. But that might be my hangups...
I do find it sad that there is not more generous acceptance - and if you can tell me, if going from male to female, if on heavy duty hormones, wouldn't it be impossible to classically se xually assault a woman, even if the op is not done? That seems to be the great howl.
I have researched WW2, for about 15 years. One topic of interest is gays and Jewish people on the frontline, and any small bits of info on transexuals, (post war).
Just for you, IF you haven't found them already,
Joy/Jonathan Ferguson. ATA girl, WW2
Elizabeth/Euan Forbes-Semphill
Heir to baronetcy, I think. And inherited - and married.
Laura/Michael Dillon also heir - as a male, to a baronetcy, and buddhist monk. First to have a phalloplasty? maybe in UK?
Michael Dillon was actually vital to help Robert/Roberta Cowell change sex. First male to female British sex change. The problem at the time, was it was illegal to remove te stes, unless, I presume, cancer, etc. I suppose to protect prepubescent boys from becoming victims for creating castrati singers.
Michael, studying medicine, helped out Robert, quietly.
Once that was done, most of Robert's work was done by the great surgeon, Sir Harold Gillies.
He was an early , (WW1), surgeon of burns and shell shrapnel in military. (So earliest plastic surgeons) His cousin was the most famous pilot/burns surgeon of WW2, Archie McIndoe. Gillies was ready to help the early trans people he met, and Robert/Roberta was pre war, a racing car driver, Spitfire pilot and POW of the Germans, and race car driver even after post war sex change.
Hope I have added a tiny degree of interest by my post? Hope it is not all 'Old News.'
@@georgielancaster1356 You're right that FTM folks aren't seen as predators or threats nearly as much as MTF individuals. I think a lot of transphobia has its roots in sexism, specifically misogyny. Women aren't taken seriously, and if someone doesn't see a trans man as an actual man, it's easy to write off their gender as a joke or that "they don't count." When a trans woman transitions, however, everyone panics, lol.
Some women see it as an invasion, I think because they've suffered trauma at the hands of men and they don't see trans women as women. According to the NSVRC, 81% of women in the US have been sexually harrassed (though this statistic doesn't break down the genders that the harassment was from). I can't speak on other countries, but I think we all know that it's exceedingly common for women in general. So the fear and outrage is completely warranted, it's just misdirected to trans women who are even more likely to suffer the same treatment, and not the overall culture that victimizes all women.
As for your question, everyone who medically transitions has a unique experience and hormonal makeup. Taking hormones absolutely does affect one's parts, but the extent to which that happens is different for each person. Some folks are prescribed a topical testosterone cream to retain function if they would prefer, so that is an option. Of course, assault can be inflicted by anyone regardless of gender or anatomy, but you're right that people are especially scared of trans woman in that specific way. It's so unfortunate, because 1 in 2 trans women experience sexual assault or abuse at some point in their lifetime (US office for victims of crime), but that doesn't seem to matter to the folks who would rather point fingers at them.
Thanks for the list of historical figures! Trans and gender nonconforming people have always existed, but I'm not personally familiar with the details of any of the people you mentioned or honestly hardly any known queer folks of the past. I look forward to learning about them. :)
trans is false, you're crossdressing
Thank you - for being brave and clear about your ideas on this. I enjoy your talks, whether scripted and to the point, or unscripted and “rambling.” In both cases, you show yourself to be a thoughtful and kind person. Our world needs more of you! ❤
Hi Simon, thank you for sharing your reflections on identities and history. One thing I'd say is that the ways we interpret and make sense of the past are often driven by preoccupations that we feel in the present. Your example of the Celtic identity is a perfect illustration of this. And you can see exactly the same mechanism in action with reference to what we now call "Old English". Neither "old" or "English" necessarily (or at all) refer to facts as such - rather, they are constructs that, for a variety of reasons, we need in order to postulate for example the existence of a long and unbroken cultural and ethnic line identifying "the English people" as a cohesive national entity. It's all very fascinating. Language, or our understandings of it, plays a major role in all of this.
I don't quite agree with your views, but I appreciate hearing your thoughts
What in particular don't you agree with what he said?
@@okay8136 You say while implying 'men' and 'women' are terms refer to sex instead of gender.
Sex and gender being same/different concepts is the thing we argue about, no?
Now, this isn't strictly linguistic question, because it's not targeted into any given language. Instead to a concept translated between languages. And all languages doesn't have that extra word/concept to separate one from another.
So the concepts have been formed also as "social sex" and "biological sex".
Are these different? Is one just a reflection of the other (and which way?) Which do we mean with when saying man or woman? If we can't agree on the meaning of these words (or their equivalent translations into our own languages), what does it mean to the common discourse? Do we need new words, or is that another spiral we have gotten ourselves into?
There's some questions that actually relate to the issue, in my opinion, of course. And none of them actually answer "what should we do to do good instead of causing harm?" Because, this is why people fight so hard about it. Both want to do good and not cause harm, and the views are opposite. (Plus some who want to harm on each sides)
Respect the other guy.
(Guy in this context referring to any human being).
If I only remember, I will be back tomorrow to share my lean. But I wish it not to overshadow what I have said just yet.
Additional question to these would be: do we need to have an open discourse with everyone around the world as if we were one society, and are we?
For this... I have always thought talking anyone from anywhere, we share the human condition, and we should share our thoughts and experiences with each other.
@@okay8136 "There is A and B and nothing else" while being surrounded by evidence of the contrary sure sounds like an ideology to me.
thank you for treating the subject with respect, :)
I sure hope the comments will be ok ...
excited for the film!
Thinking about what you were saying about Celtic identity in the Iron Age, it occurred to me that cultural identity only really emerges in contrast. Until we are confronted with a different culture, our culture is all there is and isn't a topic. I think of the Native American tribes. Many times, their names for themselves were just "the people." Cross-cultural similarities are likely assumed until differences are encountered. Every person assumes that all other people are just the same as him or her, so when there's a difference, it can be shocking. This may be the source of the push for conformity, especially among young people, that leads to bullying and in- and out-groups or cliques. Other identities are threatening also because they open up hitherto unimagined options for oneself as well as challenging one's comfortable, established worldview. This may be part of the explanation for the emergence of England out of a previously Romano-British cultural substrate. Did the Romano-Britons embrace Anglo-Saxon culture and shift their identity? Had they over time reoriented themselves toward Germanic Europe for some reason? Through contact over time? Admiration? Just pondering another identity question that remains unresolved since DNA testing and archaeology have challenged previous theories.
I come to think recently the human beings are essentially territorial. We want to have our piece of the world, be able to protect it and be otherwise left in peace. Identity factors into that in odd ways and what really happens is that marginalized people are unreasonably tresspassed upon those with power to claim dominion over what isn't really theirs. We want control over our own lives, no matter who we are, and sometimes the manifestation of that desire is to control other who might in some vague way be able to threaten that.
The drama is less in the words that are spoken and more in the imbalance of power, where at best most people can only hope to have a common goal with people who wield that power, though sometimes what is called public sentiment can be a large if uncontrolled form of power on its own...
just some ramblings
Thank you for what you said about the differences in how people feel things. In our modern pseudo-psychology culture there seems to be a kind of tyranny of the average and people assume that every human being feels things the same way we just express or don't express differently, but that's not the case at all. We all feel things differently AND we express those feelings differently. Like you, I am not torn up by news of people dying or getting a bad illness. That doesn't mean I don't think about them and wish them well, but I just don't get emotional about it. My mind seems to turn more logical about it. I feel and express certain emotions more than others and hearing you say that helped remind me that it is okay. We men don't feel the same exact way as women do, and not all men feel the same way as women also don't all feel the same. It is unfair to expect me to react or feel the same way someone else does.
Thank you for saying what you did.
Being offended is not a choice. But, reacting to being offendedis a personal preference that sometomes get people killed. Mostly in the US...
I'm not sure if I've misunderstood you, but I'm a woman and I feel the same way about death/illness etc., for what its worth. I think it would be a misstep to imply any inherent processing differences between men and women on this issue, because I think women are socialised to be more emotionally expressive, or at least allowed to be. Y'know, the whole "a gendered society will produce gendered brains" thing, hahah.
@@steorbord I just assumed that's what he was getting at. The idea that there's an expectation of how to express emotions, and how they're different from what is expected from women, and like you stated that's a socially influenced issue.
I mean I'm not that guy so maybe I'm wrong, but considering they're talking about social standards and the implications they have on him personally, I sort of doubt they would change tone entirely and just associate the behavior of women as something biological. At least it would be a strange shift if that were the case. But maybe I read it and assumed motive. So maybe this comment is pointless but I've written too much at this point to delete it and not feel like I've waisted my time, so....
@@nocturne000 Hahah no worries, yeah I was just confused about the wording!
sufi poets in india e.g. khusro or bulleh shah used to write gender bent love songs to their teachers. bulleh shah famously dressed as a woman and danced for his teacher. the 'identity' of these people is hard to pin down from a modern point of view. they could have been gay or trans as we understand it but i've always thought that that's a reductive way to think about. even when i used the word 'teacher' here i'm wrongly applying my modern concepts because the murshid-mureed re!ationship isn't exactly the same as that between a teacher and their student as we understand it. bulleh shah is highly respected by homophobic people (not exclusively). being gay is a separate concept concept to them from being a young man writing love songs to another man in a religious context. it's all a lot more complicated than we'd like it to be. i think that the concepts we invent get in the way of us properly understanding how people work
While I don't agree fully with some of your opinions, I feel like you've treated these topics very tactfully and without being aggressive - which I feel is something people tend to be nowadays when discussing anything political. I very much like your approach of "not talking about politics"; these days _anything_ is political and it's just so... exhausting, having to care about everything all the time.
I do agree that we shouldn't project modern identities and issues onto the past, or at least to try not to. While sometimes this might just be because of a poor (or layman's) understanding, often times it's done for political purposes as well. I'm from Catalonia (in Spain) and as a student of History it's just disheartening to see how both sides of the independence debate try to project everything onto the past. I'm sure that just by asking "was the Crown of Aragon a Catalan state?" I'll spark a huge flame war in the comments.
It's also only been 30 minutes since this video was posted and the comments section has already turned into a dumpster fire. To be honest, I expected more civility, considering how non-belligerant you tried to be in the video. Oh well, I guess terminally-online people have nothing better to do.
Anyways, what do you think a medieval English peasant's opinion of the Russo-Ukranian war would be? ;)
I really appreciate comments like this :) All of these issues are complicated, and I sometimes feel that I don't know enough about any of them to have a fully-formed and precise opinion. I was aware of some of the Catalan independence stuff while I was in my first year of university because I was friends with a few ERASMUS students from Spain (although not specifically Catalonia), and I'm not surprised that it's the kind of thing people use historical arguments to justify. Within archaeology (at least in my limited experience) there's a fair bit of disdain for popular media nowadays trying to create a narrative of a continuous British identity going back to the Neolithic, which is less directly political but certainly reinforces the idea that people in the past had identities that corresponded a lot more to modern ones than evidence would suggest.
Just an all around good point to make. You were thoughtful and self-aware. I have a hard time believing people would find what you said controversial in some way, but this is the internet so I'm probably wrong. I think your overall point about the application of modern definitions of identity to history being detrimental is a very important point to make. I also think your point about the weight identity holds and how it can be inauspiciously implemented in order to bamboozle people into taking certain actions is something that everyone needs to be vigilant of. It doesn't matter what side of "the aisle" you're on, this is something that's been used many many times in our not so distant past in order to get people to believe/act/vote/etc. in some way or another. Even though the vast vast vast majority of us have so much more in common than not, it's often beneficial to have us all pointing fingers at each other rather than pointing fingers where we truly ought to be looking. At least that's my humble opinion.
It's a shame that this vast gray area in which we all exist is constantly portrayed as black and white by those who attempt to paint it as such. Sorry for the rant. I just want to say I appreciate your honesty and your thoughtful expression on a topic that's layered with far more footfalls than it should have.
Very balanced and informative, thank you Simon! I will say, as a Medievalist, I'm always a bit wary when I see one of my favorite history youtubers start talking about politics and identity, especially when their focus is usually on Anglo-Saxon or Nordic history. There are some *wild* theories and misbeliefs out there. Thank you for showing me that my wariness was misplaced!
Big same! It’s a tough community sometimes, it’s hard to throw a stone without hitting a white national tbh. It’s always a relief to see this level of thoughtfulness.
@@PerksJ Try doing the same on a channel about African history and see what reactions your posts get. I doubt you'd label them as "black nationalists" though, and I wonder why.
@@darrendin2050 Black nationalism is a widely used label for all sorts of extremist groups like the nation of islam, so-called hoteps, black israelites, etc. It's certainly not verboten like you're implying. An African history channel can just as easily be a perfectly normal history channel or a hotbed of bizarre takes on Yakub and similar and I doubt the person you're responding to would shrink from labeling the latter black nationalism. Why would you think otherwise?
@@bertchintus Very well said. I was going to reply to that comment too, but I couldn't possibly have put it in such a graceful and knowledgeable manor as you did. Just wanted to compliment you on that.
@Bert Chintus Yeah, of course it would. However the other person has so gladly and flippantly bracketed people who disagree with him on the issue of lgbtq into "white nationalists", a group normally characterised when people want to talk about racial differences and biases.
Why did they do this? Completely asinine, so I decided to be asinine back.
'people who think, for some reason' have you ever heard the expression 'if you don't understand your opposition's arguments, you don't understand your own'?
As an elderly 77 year old bloke, with eclectic interests in :- mediaeval history, early keyboard instruments and music, Christian theology and history, early twentieth century art, Mediaeval and renaissance art and Architecture, and current Politics and Economics - to name but a few ! ...I find your content interesting and challenging, though I reject
your blanket notions applying to the elderly , maybe statistically true but in my experience not universal. We are not the ones with closed minds ! or at least not solely. Please refer to that great man McGilchrist,and his philosophy deriving from neuroscience and the bilateral nature of the brain. Never the less, thankyou for a stimulating thought sharing !
Very thoughtful 'ramble' Simon. I love your videos very much. I started watching the historical linguistics videos first, but I like your views on lots of other topics too.
For a ramble, that was pretty deep, fair-minded and thought-provoking. Thank you.
Getting older brings wisdom… not rigid thinking. Something to thing about?
Yes, very good, Simon! I agree! Whenever I read a fiction book which takes place in an earlier era, and imposes modern day social views…I can’t finish it. I have a saying I carry around with me….I really don’t care what a person is, I do care who they are.
Altho personal opinion: I believe that "intellectual humility" is important. Given that you won't understand things from others perspectives or have experienced what others have experienced. This humility should be taken more as a "given" rather than judging things purely on your preexisting knowledge and in some cases can be very hurtful to others.
An important aspect of this is that people can use the past to de-legitimize certain attitudes of the present, which I think is just as incorrect as saying that the present matches up to the past perfectly. Many people pretend that the present did not grow out of the past, or try to decouple the present from the past, as if there were no reasons the present we have emerged from the past it did.
I think one of the big things that keeps replicating the disconnect over how people feel about identity is that there are essentially 2 major modes of identity in competition with each other. A good metaphor, and arguably a related phenomenon to this, is the change in political/social relationships towards land that have occurred since early modernity. For some identity is a locus of contributing factors, who's summation illustrates any given experience. This is very much a kind of identity of the peasantry. Under the feudal system people were of course legally tied to the land and it makes sense that after centuries their conceptions of self would be reflective of such. In contrast we have the ownership style of identity. Identity is something that you hold, that you have acquired by force, that is in boxes and is concisely described. That surely has been the view of kings for millennia. However with the coming of industrial capitalism, and the world it has manifest, these 2 modes come into increased contact and conflict. In fact many people often experience a synthesis of the two.
addendum: of course then neoliberal identity politics is the explicit attempt to reconcile the 2 positions, albeit by the designs of the ownership class. So yeah probably the only true universal about how we understand ourselves is that it will change
Thank you for sharing your point of view
Thoughtful, and thought-provoking, especially how we tend to use our own biases to attribute thoughts/feelings/beliefs onto others, when no such attribute exists. Thank you for reminder that's it's not always helpful, or true, to do that. Hugs
I am not sure that older people's brains becoming less neuro-plastic is the reason they hold onto the views they had when they were younger. It might just be that when you are retired you don't have to worry about being sacked for espousing unacceptable views, and you don't have to worry about committing social suicide because you are not a social butterfly any more and most the friends you still have are friends you have had a long time.
Very well put across we are entering into a very turbulent time and I completely agree we need to step back from our modern bubble and acknowledge that what was the norm 100 or 1000 years ago is not the same now the same as our bias and social conditioning now will likely be completely out of step with what’s socially acceptable in the distant future too.
'the iron age in britain was a time of great cultural diversity'. err, no. not true. no evidence provided for this, the iron age germanic tribes had very similar languages, religion, cultures and came from the same genetic stock. See Tom Rowsell as he has videos on this area
Thank you for touching on this subject, it’s something that I wish more people would objectivity and honestly discuss.
I like this less structured format, it felt more like listening to a natural conversation where you can see connections emerge between topics that you wouldn't necessarily think to associate with each other. Also, I think the popularity of reductive or dialectic views of history may be a direct result of the enormous amorphous complexity of historical data available coming up against the human drive to use historical narrative in service to identity.
I'm guessing that when you are dead, this obscene focus on identity won't exist. It is popular culture and nonsense. I do not think I have any reason to acknowledge or deny anyone's identity as I go through my life. If we can be respectful and cordial to each other, we are doing well.
Excellent. One's projections and biases are often unrecognized and cloud understandings of the past and current. It is interesting that when historical films are produced current views are often incorporated for viewership only.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Simon, this was great
Tolerance and balance is the key. Too much of modern social politics is driven by people on the extremes, on both sides of any divide, hence all the threats and radicalisation. But this is nothing new. So many of the things in the past which have survived to the present as literature, documents, artifacts or archaeology were created or preserved by those with power, wealth, agendas or divinity. The thoughts and activities of 'ordinary' people usually do not sound down the ages anywhere near as strongly. What I like about your channel is that wherever possible you do try to tap into that everyday experience wherever you can.
Sorry that my existence is driving this polarization
Pretty coherent video for a ramble! You're making interesting points about cultural identity in general, and it leaves me thinking about how I perceive myself and others.
9:10 is a 10/10 take. thank you.
Thank you for this thoughtful post. Identity is a very necessary topic to discuss. Identity provides a lens through which we view the world; LGBTQ, Marxist, Feminist for example. These have all made valuable contributions to our understanding of the human condition and as with physical lenses, they each provide a unique views. Behind the lens is the eye and the brain, here further interpretations are made on a personal level. So in the modern world we have these 2 identities, the identity lens and the identity of individual interpretation. Interpretation without bias is impossible. More traditional cultures would include a third identity which is both communal and spiritual in nature, it is an ontological identity which ultimately lies beyond both science and individual experience and emotions and reaches out to a far more metaphysical understanding of our nature and place. To me, the real tragedy of modern times is the disconnect with this third type of identity, and I feel a reconnect is sorely needed. It is the identity which produces great art, music and literature which transcends and enriches the human experience. We are witnessing the death of beauty.
well said Mr Roper but alas we are where we are and even at our most studious attempts at dispassion we colour the past through the rose tinted or gloomiest shades cast by our current events. One of my wishes as an astrologer is that we lived several hundred years longer so we could gain perspective and that applies to our need to attempt to see the past dispassionately too. But as a birder I also see how the experience of a much older species has made them fitter and better able to adapt to changing circumstances, even continental drift , than we newcomers who find the slightest change so hard to accept
'the idea of a man or woman is culturally conditioned' no it's not. the definitions of these is very apparent and empirical. I'm not a meteorologist, but i know when it's raining.
this distinction between gender and sex are important here
@@phlumpersno. they are the same thing.
Such a nuanced and respectful way to approach this greatly important subject, and just affirms what a lovely person you are.
I really like your example of how people Identify with their ancestors and their cultural history. Sometimes I think that to give enough respect to history we shouldn’t identify with our ancestors so much in the way that I see people doing this today. Picking a team and identifying and saying we’re so different from others, is honestly something that I find is almost instinctual for us humans to do, but not good for human relations.
Sometimes you don't pick a team, you are born into it. You are proud of it. It doesn't exclude people, and in the modern world, it doesn't mean you think your team are more deserving humans. Diversity adds flavor.
I really, really agree with your thought that people who fear for their identity can be manipulated by bad actors. I think this is behing a lot of the craziness we see in the news these days, and your statement helps me understand the very strong drive behind these devisions and why it's so difficulty to have rational discussions about some of these topics. Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful comments.
I love your jumper-do you know where you got it?
Its some interesting ideas but my favourite videos are like the Raven one. High detail on some mundane thing including entomology and point of view
Ironically, on the subject of how we have a tendency to project modern perspectives on history...as I continue to learn more about history (which admittedly is still not very much at all), one thing I have found interesting to discover is that this "phenomenon" of misinterpreting the past-and I may be doing it now even, for all I know, so this may be inaccurate-has always existed throughout history. That at any given time, people have always viewed "the past" through the distorted lens of their present circumstances, as well as their limited historical knowledge and, potentially, myths about the past which may have evolved over time to inform their own culture and sense of identity. And these "misunderstandings" have always played a role in creating the world we live in. The events that end up shaping history have been influenced/caused by individuals whose own perspectives were, naturally, of their time...but also, they themselves did not necessarily have a clearer, or more accurate, or true understanding of /their/ past, anymore than we have of /them/ today. Layers upon layers of biases going further and further back in time, making history such a complicated and difficult story to unfold, as we inevitably add another layer of our own for tomorrow's historians to peel away.
And conversely, I feel that looking at our present world is futile without a historical perspective-without working to understand where things comes from, or how and why they are the way they are. If we simply assume, "the world is this way currently, because that's just how it is," then we're committing the same mistake people always have made.
It's not about identity it's about belief. People don't like their beliefs challenged, no matter how illogical, and they'll always think their view is the logical one, even if it isn't. People react badly especially if they realise they are wrong. They blame the person who is right, when the problem really is that they don't like knowing they are wrong.
I think this misses the point. Not all issues are black and white, not always can the truth be distinguished from the falsehoods even if there is one, perhaps not at the moment, perhaps even not within our lifetime. That might be useful to realize before coming to arguments or addressing other people's opinions.
While that is true, it is also true that identity is what we believe about ourselves (and others)
This is true. It is about belief. I believe that when the best women's swimmer is man, when the best women's kick boxer is a man, when the best women's rower, is a man, when all the women sports champions are all biological males that this is wrong. Why should I have to tell my little daughter that no matter how long and hard she trains in her sport that for her future a man will always take the girls trophy. I believe that is wrong.
@@tuapekathrive2049 that never happens
@@vulpes7079 it's already happened
This is a great video (no need to do any additional scripting). I had not considered that the redefinition of what someone thinks of as their identity could be perceived as a threat, even if I happen to think their definition is antiquated.
Bias isn't automatically negative; being biased in favour of marginalised people is actually a good thing. "Neutrality" is a false notion, with both-sides-ism serving only an oppressive status quo. One cannot be an ally of trans people (for example) without the courage to anger bigots, including older individuals who have chosen to stop growing as people.
One of the problems with each side "showing respect to each other" is that each side has a different idea of what respect is. There are a great many people out there who think it would be more respectful to disabuse me of my identity than to go on living what in their estimation is a lie. My idea of respect is to call people whatever they wish to be called and to use whichever pronouns they want me to use to refer to them. I don't think there's a very good solution to this problem, but I am open to suggestions.
Generation X (born mid 1970's): What has changed in history: In the old days (like 1990's), your sexuality was a private issue. Unless I'm flirting with you as a prospective lover or you're flirting with ME as a prospective lover, the spot between the legs is not relevent.
Now it is a public issue, not just to the individual, but pushed on the children of third party strangers at those strangers expense. And the key word is pushed.
I was bisexual in the 1990's. My best friends male and female likewise.
Just a quick point on the expression of trans identity. My personal belief is that most trans people are far less concerned about their identity being "recognised" than they are about improving their access to healthcare, spaces where they feel safe and just general decent treatment. Unfortunately for a lot of people who transition later in life the fact that they are Trans can be visibly evident and as a result people who don't like Trans people have an easier time of discriminating against them.
My personal subjective experience has been that the vast majority of cis women aren't afraid of somehow losing their own identity and the ones that vocally claim this fear are usually transparently using it as an excuse to justify a more deep rooted prejudice. The emergence of modern control, centralised systems and manufactured lifestyles makes it easier than ever for authority figures to negatively affect others based on opinions and preferences. Identity is for a lot of minorities a necessity in order to interact with governing bodies in a way that effects real change. Each individual person who asks for hormones can be dismissed by a practitioner but this becomes harder to dismiss when all trans people unify under the identity in order to secure rights despite the fact that the trans banner actually includes a multitude of different and distinct people/identities.
It is actually a known phenomenon within the community that some people who "pass" after their transition will exit the community in order to live life being perceived as cis by those around them. For these people its clearly a matter of support structures and rights rather than a matter of having their identity recognised. When trans people say there have been trans people throughout history they aren't necessarily trying to claim the identity has always existed just that people who have similar issues within themselves have.
When looking at historical contexts its usually less a projection of "identity" as such so much as evidencing the phenomenon. Like your example of gay people, when gay people today say gay people existed throughout history they aren't referencing the identity but the phenomenon. This is an expected and rational response to modern prejudicial claims that homosexual activity is in some way "unatural"
I've long enjoyed your amazing and in-depth analyses of historical linguistics and whatnot. I have no idea why you would choose to do this on your channel. I enjoyed listening to your opinion but I don't think I really needed to listen to this on the channel that I identified with linguistic historical content.
Too often nowadays when people are complaining about things “becoming political”, it’s just a proxy for “I disagree with them.” Linguistics and politics are very intertwined, you can see that today with the emphasis on preferred pronouns. In order to talk about linguistics you’ll have to talk about politics, and people should be open about their opinions and biases when talking about these things.
@@peanutcookiefantacheesypan496 shut up lol
I believe I have a similar communication style/thought processing faculty to you. So much so I often find myself embarrassed by watching your videos. I haven't yet got it together to make the YT docus that I'd like to however as I am far too shy and reclusive (I have considered a series based on the history of Penwith, where I live). On topic, personally I percieve myself as a mind rather than a gender or race or any other superficiality; as an embodiment of the sum total of my own experience and the afterglow of my ancestral/evolutionary experience both mentally and corporeally. Furthermore, I do not emotionally entangle myself in such superficialities as the culture wars foist upon us (regardless, I try to see as many sides as I can). People are people. Each of us is an everchanging individual; a brain in a meatsuit, and each of us makes decisions according to a multitude of internal and external, hardware and software factors. I see minds and attitudes, reason and lack of it, ignorance and education, intelligence and instinct, personalities and similarities, dominance and subjugation, accuracy and inaccuracy, honesty and dishonesty, the holistic effects of ideas, consensus and indoctrination. As patterns; as cycles, splashes and ripples. I see the multitudinous effects of technology and the acceleration of evolution. I am a writer. I like to observe how things are and attempt to recreate versions of how things could have been (I write historical fantasy), I also study biochemistry as a subject. My interests are in genetic anthropology (how culture, how even perhaps language might have evolved molecularly) and medieval history (which led me to your channel).
What I will say is that whilst I think it’s absolutely anachronistic to call people from the past “gay” as a specifically modern social category and identity, but identity and orientation are not the same, and so I think it can be reasonable to say, “we shouldn’t say they were gay as a social identity cus that social identity didn’t exist, but we can say they were what we would today call gay if they lived in our society in that that they had a long-running experience of attraction to the same-sex”. Now that is v hard to do, to look into their experiences to see if that was true (not everyone who had sex with the same sex was gay, in Ancient Rome for example, men would have sex with eachother in a very specific social setup, rather than because they were necessarily (or predominantly/exclusively) attracted to other men, and so unless people said something along the lines of “those people of the sex ain’t half ugly, I’m only attracted to my own sex” (not necessarily as direct as that ofc but to say that) I don’t think we can speculate about orientation just from behaviour.
I only discovered you recently, and I'm fascinated by a lot of what you can tell us about the history of the English language. But, I hadn't subscribed until now. This video is what got me to click on the "subscribe" button. So, there, it's had the opposite effect of what you feared. It's nice to know that you're not only a wickedly smart man but also a great guy.
welcome to our family
Genuinely lovely. ❤