(12-09-2016, 03:55 PM)beneficii (my postings in blue) Wrote:Quote:"Hun" has of course become a by-word for destructiveness, with Attila recognized as one of the most evil persons to have ever lived. But put some of the fault on the rottenness of the Roman Empire which could no longer well defend itself. The distinction between Europe and Asia dates from ancient Greek times, when "Asia" meant practically anything to the east of the Aegean Sea and "Europe" anything to the west of the Aegean Sea. Eventually the Greeks started finding that there was much more to "Asia" than Persia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Arabia -- and that "Europe" extended only as far as what is now Portugal.
Kim disputes the decline theory of the Roman Empire in his book, and I find his arguments convincing. In his book, he argues that Rome was actually very strong, and if it had faced simply the type of "barbarians" it had faced in the 3rd century crisis, it would have come out on top. The Huns were a type of enemy the Romans had never faced before; the Huns were actually very well organized, and had better weapons and tactics than the Romans. Were it not for the Huns, the Empire likely would have lasted indefinitely. Even if this seems dubious to you, I still suggest checking out the book--I have it checked out on interlibrary loan--as it is an impressive collection of evidence, introducing evidence from Inner Asian scholars which previously had largely not been considered by scholars of the West.
The Roman Empire had serious faults from its inception. The slave system precluded the rise of a viable middle class (see also the ante-bellum South) and the entrepreneurialism and innovation typical of that class. The Roman Empire had plenty of resources to resist barbarian incursions in the late 300s but not so many a few decades later. The Goths and Vandals did far more damage to the Roman social order; the Huns were simply more objectionable.
Quote:As for the "evil" of the Huns, the kinds of atrocities they committed were really no different from those committed by various other peoples during this time period, including Germanic peoples. Kim criticizes the tendency of Western historians to explain away the various atrocities committed by Germanic peoples while using the same kinds of atrocities to condemn the Huns.
Quote:Similarities between the ancient Anglo-Saxons and the Huns (the Huns never got to Britain!) are either coincidence due to a similar level of development or Hun influence upon Germanic tribes closest to the Huns and to the Angles and Saxons by diffusion. Something that works diffuses.
Exactly how far west the Huns got is something historians have had difficulty with. Some maps show them largely limited to the Carpathian Basin, while others show them getting as far west as about the Rhine River and even as far north as modern-day Denmark and southern Sweden. There appears to be memory among the Scandinavian peoples of Hunnic rule, such as a royal genealogy containing names that are similar to the names of Hunnic kings. There is also other evidence, like Hunnic brooches being found in the region. Lotte Headeager has been making the case for a Hunnic presence and rule in southern Scandinavian.
In view of the strength of the Huns I would not be surprised to find that Germanic tribal chiefs married Hun princesses to get some safety from the fearsome Huns.
As for Britain, no map as far as I can tell includes Britain in the Hunnic Empire. If, however, Headeager is correct about Hunnic rule in southern Scandinavia, then that would mean the traditional Anglo-Saxon homelands fell under Hunnic rule. This alone would make plausible Hunnic influence in Anglo-Saxon culture. Now, this of course says nothing about a Hunnic presence in Britain, but Green cites other sources suggesting that probably this is the case. Now, I'm sure you are familiar with Bede's famous list of peoples the Anglo-Saxons descended from, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes? As Green argues, this list is very likely a simplification, and her evidence for that is convincing. She cites another passage from Bede's Ecclesiastical History, this time Book V, Chapter 9, which appears to give a more detailed list of peoples the Anglo-Saxons descended from, a passage that has given historians difficulty:
Quote:He knew that there were very many peoples in Germany from whom the Angles and the Saxons, who now live in Britain, derive their origin... Now these people are the Frisians, Rugians, Danes, Huns, Old Saxons, and Boruhtware (Bructeri); there are also many other nations in the same land who are still practising heathen rites to whom the soldier of Christ proposed to go...
Some historians say that this was just a list of peoples that Egbert (the "he" talked about in the passage) wanted to preach to in the 8th century, but others such as James Campbell have argued that the "the sense of the Latin is that these were the peoples from whom the Anglo-Saxons living in Britain were derived", and those ancestors included the Huns. Marital alliances worked even in early-modern times, as with Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette of Austria. (Well, that one did not turn out so well!)
Quote:Another interesting passage is from Priscus, who quotes a Western ambassador to Attila's court named Romulus who says that in addition to forcing the Romans to pay tribute, he now ruled "the islands of the Ocean". Some historians have argued that this means the Baltic Sea, a reference to Thule or Scandinavia, which Romans at the time thought were a series of islands. However, others such as Peter Heather say that this refers to the islands of the Atlantic, which would undoubtedly include Great Britain.
Legends are not to be accepted as literal truth unless they are validated with evidence. Acceptance of legends as literal truth despite a lack of evidence is bad history. Attempting to associate vague stories with far-off lands is tricky, as with assumptions that the Phoenicians occasionally ended up in South America for a short time in history and that people since forgot about such journeys (perhaps accidental).
Quote:As for other pieces of evidence, Hunnic-style brooches and gold earrings have been found in Britain, Anglo-Saxons seemed to use the Hun ethnonym in some of the names they gave their children, the Kings of Kent claimed connections to the Ostrogoths (and included an Octa in their genealogy, a name close to that of the Hunnic King Oktar). In combination with the other evidence, a possible Hunnic presence and even rule in Britain should be investigated.
Dissemination of artifacts is a commonplace reality. Roman coins have been found in China, which indicates nothing more than the desirability of Roman coins in trade -- and not that Romans ever reached China. Names? "Alexander" is found in one form or another in lands as disparate as Scotland and Indonesia, not that there was ever any extensive Greek settlement any closer to Scotland than the South of France or any closer to Indonesia than the Punjab. Alexander's fame spread far beyond the extent of his great travels.
Fanciful genealogies are commonplace. To be sure, descent from Charlemagne is a near certainty to any modern European of European origin, and descent from Mohammad is reliably documented by Charles, Prince of Wales. But documentation of descendants of Mohammad is well documented. Such is not so with Attila the Hun or Genghiz Khan. Some genealogies have people descended from unlikely entities, as shown in the alleged descent of Japanese Emperors from a sun god.
Quote:Anyway, I have gone way overlong. There is a lot here, and I am excited about what future research may bring. And yes, I think this would be devastating to the intellectual foundation of white supremacy if my suspicions mentioned above prove true. Don't think the efforts of racists won't be hurt by such an attack.
One of the arguments for white superiority is that white people is that they look the least like the 'inferior' West Africans. But DNA tells a different story; distance in time and place from West Africa puts Australian Aborigines, First Peoples of the Americas, and peoples of East Asia even farther in genetic distance from West Africa. As a white person I will have to pass on any claim to superiority over Africans because of the corollary of 'racial' inferiority to other peoples.
Quote:As for the points about the evil of Trump, I think you should consider that the rest of the world has agency, and would have their own piece to say about the rise of Fascism in the United States. You should also consider their opponents in this country, once we've adapted to the new situation. Remember, at this stage in the Crisis the last time it happened, Fascism appeared to be on the rise, but it was subsequently defeated, and was discredited in the post-Crisis order.
American fascism in the form of the KKK has been discredited at least three times, which suggests that it must have some appeal to some base drive in human character among those who think that it can give them some claim to superiority. There is no Master Race. The only valid claim to superiority for anyone is of either legitimate achievement (and those with legitimate achievement typically consider themselves more fortunate than superior) or moral virtue that precludes any need to assert a claim to personal superiority.
America was a winner in World War II because its leadership was decent and humane. A fascistic America will find itself with enemies more like America in World War II than like the gangster regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo. America can lose World War III because there are larger armies than ours with a huge potential for military protection.
Liberalism is still nearly a majority view in America... and it will not go away without its brutal suppression. Many Americans are intellectually wired for it, and a few years of its antithesis will not change that. The only campaign promise of which I have no doubt that he will keep is to stick it to the educated middle class. He may have promised jobs, something that any fascist can deliver. What those jobs will not have is adequate pay for anything beyond an animal level of survival. He could unwittingly rebuild a coalition as powerful as the New Deal Coalition, one that can give liberals (or at least pro-working-class populists) victories in unlikely places -- even without an economic meltdown or a catastrophic war. 48% of the electorate voted against him in the 2016 election, and more would have had they known what was coming.
There are just too many liberals in America to put them all in camps for political prisoners. We have a heritage of resistance to irresponsible government:
Where is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when we need him most? In ourselves, if we can muster the courage, rationality, fairness, and compassion of the Last Founding Father of the democratic experiment in America. We don't need to burn any flags or shout profanities.
We can eschew violence and destructiveness because we don't need violence and destruction.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.