tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post6634819037442524156..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: Crusades vs. JihadsNoah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-63698408319250845982015-02-18T08:44:05.287-05:002015-02-18T08:44:05.287-05:00Invasion of Iraq was purely war for oil. And Afgha...Invasion of Iraq was purely war for oil. And Afghanistan leadership at that time did attack US first.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-73410132201826877942015-02-14T06:39:03.329-05:002015-02-14T06:39:03.329-05:00"Number of innocent people killed by Christin..."Number of innocent people killed by Christina terror in the past decade: negligible"<br /><br />The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan are terror attacks done by Christian states against Islamic countries. It is so funny that one can white wash history on their end so much that the barbaric invaders are the "righteous" and the defenders of their country are named "terrorists".Shadow_Nirvananoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-80740652892059941752015-02-14T06:30:55.699-05:002015-02-14T06:30:55.699-05:00"....and also they tend to believe that the J..."....and also they tend to believe that the Jews are merely proxies who are holding the Holy Land on behalf of and supported by Christian world powers. "<br /><br />The Right in the USA thinks that (on a good day; most days they are more like proxies of Israel).Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-37251978456066365902015-02-14T06:25:26.839-05:002015-02-14T06:25:26.839-05:00No, it's that the enlightenment seems to have ...No, it's that the enlightenment seems to have problems repelling the barbarians amongst us.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-80584884436381195862015-02-14T06:23:40.419-05:002015-02-14T06:23:40.419-05:00And please note also the quite deliberate crushing...And please note also the quite deliberate crushing of various movements by the West.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-47160076877121908812015-02-13T03:50:32.892-05:002015-02-13T03:50:32.892-05:00I like this. The intelligent Europeans stopped the...I like this. The intelligent Europeans stopped their "crusades" a long time ago, they are pursuing peaceful strategies now! Except the colonization of Africa and America, the more recent massacres in the Middle East and Afghanistan, drone strikes, invasions etc. Those don't count. Teheee. But those backwards Muslims are doing their jihads and shit.<br /><br />Charlie Hebdo shooting? "OMG Islam is terrorism. Those savages." Neonazis murdering Turkish people and other immigrants in Germany? *crickets* Chapel Hill shooting? *crickets*<br /><br />If a Muslim made a video about jihadists and glorified them, the West would be up in arms about it. But apparently you guys can invade a country(to "liberate" them, of course! liberate them of their natural resources and oil, probably), kill a million of their people, brand the people fighting against this invasion as "terrorists" and murder them and their families. Then you guys can glorify your war heroes, who liked killing Muslims, calling them savages, looted their houses in Falluja, would drive cars at high speeds at them because he enjoyed their screams. Then you can make a movie about them and make it break boxoffice records and nominate it for Oscar. <br /><br />The Crusaders are over, though. so Muslims should just stop being so violent and stop jihadding. Feh. And you people are surprised when Muslims don't integrate and would kill you if they had the chance. Well, you guys can always bomb them back to the Stone Age if they do things that displease you.<br />Shadow_Nirvananoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-86820477932879078332015-02-12T22:48:36.041-05:002015-02-12T22:48:36.041-05:00reason -
Are you suggesting it's the enlighte...reason -<br /><br />Are you suggesting it's the enlightenment's fault that ignorant, anti-intellectual people refuse to become enlightened?<br /><br />There's some sort of tautology tangled in there.<br /><br />JzBJazzbumpahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07337490817307473659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-38201471336400193262015-02-11T22:56:47.112-05:002015-02-11T22:56:47.112-05:00'So how did it all end? Eventually, after cent...'So how did it all end? Eventually, after centuries of pathetic defeat (culminating at Nicopolis), you saw the Crusades run out of steam, and the word "crusade" adopt a more peaceful meaning - much like the peaceful meaning many Muslims attribute to the word "jihad".'<br /><br />Final fun bonus language fact:<br /><br />Actually, you did not see this, for the simple fact that the word "crusade" did not exist at the time of "the Crusades."<br /><br />" 'Crusade is a modern term,' from the French croisade and Spanish cruzada. The French form of the word first appears in the L'Histoire des Croisades written by A. de Clermont and published in 1638. By 1750, the various forms of the word "crusade" had established themselves in English, French, and German. The Oxford English Dictionary records its first use in English as occurring in 1757 by William Shenstone.<br /><br />The Crusades were never referred to as such by their participants. The original crusaders were known by various terms, including fideles Sancti Petri (the faithful of Saint Peter) or milites Christi (knights of Christ)."<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades<br /><br />So apparently Europeans stopped associating the word "crusade" with certain forms of violent activity before certain forms of violent activity had begun to be referred to as "crusades," and the word "crusade" ceased meaning what it had originally meant before it had actually been invented. Nice trick. Darrylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13343326513724197557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-52223109080871226012015-02-11T07:51:47.293-05:002015-02-11T07:51:47.293-05:00What was hardly mentioned in the debate, I guess b...What was hardly mentioned in the debate, I guess because it's too politically sensitive, is that Arabs see Israel as a kind of modern Crusader state. I know it's not really fair to compare Zionism to Crusading, but in Arabs do make the comparison, and also they tend to believe that the Jews are merely proxies who are holding the Holy Land on behalf of and supported by Christian world powers. And moreover all the Arabs I spoke to in the region are determined that eventually somehow the "new Crusaders" will be defeated and forced to flee. Take an Arab friend with you for a walk round a Crusader castle and see what he says.Tomnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-46540725771906907922015-02-11T07:19:37.010-05:002015-02-11T07:19:37.010-05:00Novice writers will use death or despair as an emo...Novice writers will use death or despair as an emotional hook for a story, which is a fairly cheap tactic, easy to implement.Foreign Exchangehttp://www.epicresearch.co/currencynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-4790337745484032742015-02-11T06:57:28.319-05:002015-02-11T06:57:28.319-05:00I second these thoughts. There is an important di...I second these thoughts. There is an important distinction between "defending the crusades" and trying to change wildly popular misconceptions about their origins and purposes. Not that I wholeheartedly agree with Madden's conclusions, but I certainly wouldn't characterize what he wrote as defending the crusades, nor would I degrade the insight he has brought to the discussion with cool millennial derision, but then again, I'm not commenting from a position of authority on the issue. I'll leave scholarly criticism to experts on the issue, you know, like Noah.The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-87483450728311819212015-02-11T03:56:56.682-05:002015-02-11T03:56:56.682-05:00Noah the pun has to do with the pope and the crusa...Noah the pun has to do with the pope and the crusades.reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958786975015285323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-43219176118284992722015-02-11T03:54:55.702-05:002015-02-11T03:54:55.702-05:00OK the question is then, WHY do so many people in ...OK the question is then, WHY do so many people in the West reject it. After all one of the major parties in the US is basically an anti-enlightenment party (and it got that way by adopting a regional culture that was that way all along). If the Entlightenment is so good, why does it have such a hard time convincing people still.reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958786975015285323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-41939873112304785652015-02-10T22:30:48.797-05:002015-02-10T22:30:48.797-05:00Not sure about you joining in with Delong in the s...Not sure about you joining in with Delong in the smack-down on the Madden article. Insofar as I read it, it's by no means an attempt to "defend' the crusades, but a discussion of the motivating principles behind the crusaders, and the subsequent historiographical development of the concept of the crusades. None of this seems remotely deserving of the epithet execrable unless of course you're looking to hit up something because the wrong team has been linking to it. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-42922513302673334212015-02-10T19:08:23.370-05:002015-02-10T19:08:23.370-05:00“In the 1600s…” -- I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we ...“In the 1600s…” -- I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were only considering Europe v. the M.E. Can we agree Europeans did indeed displace local populations and colonize N. America, S. America, Australia, and S. Africa, and impose an alien European elite on the local population pretty much everywhere else? (This last was itself pretty much the model of the crusader states: a few mostly Franco-Norman knights and retainers ruling local peasants and small traders. A major reason the whole thing flamed out is that they did not displace enough locals and replace them with Europeans: i.e., actually colonize the place.)<br /><br />“Amy Chua did make this argument.” -- Thanks for the pointer, I’ll think about the tolerance thesis some more. I presume the key text is “Day of Empire.” Just from a brief peek, I’d say there are some problems with her case study time frames: neither the Nazis nor the Japanese got beyond the conquest phase, while at point-of-conquest the Mongols and Romans were easily just as savage. It’s all about what happens after the conquest. Here Spain is judged an “intolerant” failure, but it left behind the mestizo cultures of S. America, while “tolerant” British N. America scraped the locals off the map. A real definition-of-terms problem here, as far as what both “success” and “tolerance” mean in practice.<br /><br />“It began as a scramble for trade routes” – (1) The word “began” is doing an awful lot of work there. (2) “Trade routes” are not neutral natural phenomena: they are human-made systems of exchange, and the “scramble” was a violent conflict to exclude rivals and (often literally) rope the locals into your system, while shutting down their pre-existing system. Portuguese (for example) trading ships in the 1500’s did not stop off Indian beaches and dangle their wares over the side in wistful hope of enticing buyers. They arrived in a fleet, guns out, and demanded (politely but firmly) access to the local textile or spice market and the right to build an autonomous trading fort. Also, too, exclusive access (no Dutch allowed). Or else. Because it would be a terrible thing if someone gave that rival rajah of yours some guns. So you restructure the whole local textile or spice economy around your trade, the fort becomes a city, dealing with rajahs becomes a pain in the ass, and you decide it’s simpler just to govern directly yourself. A few grapeshot-laden massacres later, and you’ve got yourself a colony. Lather, rinse, repeat. Voila, an empire. Is all of this better or worse than the sack of Jerusalem? I don’t know, I guess it depends what massacre you were on the wrong end of. Whatever it is, it’s certainly not “Enlightened,” except in the extremely limited sense of “I won’t kill you as long as you can make yourself useful to me.” (3) Trade interests were already in play during the crusades, particularly Venetian and Genoese interest in control of Egyptian trade and the Red Sea and Black Sea routes to Asia. Which is why the (non-crusader) Venetians and Genoese supplied the cash and boats.<br /><br />“Monumentally, demonstrably, utterly false” – I’m talking about hard tech, and particularly weapons tech. I think the overwhelming historical evidence is that this diffuses rapidly. Mad skilz may not be there right away, and may not come fast enough to stop getting occupied and colonized, but I really don’t see significant examples of societies not trying. Any specific counter-examples?<br /><br />“Um...yeah…” – You really owe yourself more than a dismissive snort on the question of medieval technology. It’s a fascinating area of research in terms of explaining what made Europe Europe. Only a wiki link, but it gives a good basic background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology Note particularly that the “Little Renaissance” of the 12th century followed immediately after the First Crusade.Darrylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13343326513724197557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-25060446452929078282015-02-10T18:54:25.925-05:002015-02-10T18:54:25.925-05:00Ok fine. Stick to macro and Haiku. You've ea...Ok fine. Stick to macro and Haiku. You've earned it.The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-45851243340830551182015-02-10T18:03:05.931-05:002015-02-10T18:03:05.931-05:00Nitpick: the Eastern Roman Empire did not fall to ...Nitpick: the Eastern Roman Empire did not fall to the Arabs.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-63457085100128074532015-02-10T15:38:40.743-05:002015-02-10T15:38:40.743-05:00One cannot say for sure, but my serious Muslim fri...One cannot say for sure, but my serious Muslim friends tell me that among themselves, the peaceful meaning about internal moral/spritual struggle continues to be the main meaning. It is outsiders and media who have made the more violent meaning associated with violent and aggressive Islamist groups be what people think it means, although these groups do use it in the violent way, in some cases evein in their names, as with "Islamic Jihad," one such group. So, it may be more a matter of this more unpleasant meaning going away and stop being what most non-Muslims think it is.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-23645779270495968462015-02-10T14:32:20.026-05:002015-02-10T14:32:20.026-05:00My comment section
Piled with yellow snowdrifts
Wi...My comment section<br />Piled with yellow snowdrifts<br />Winter of the trollsNoah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-20871772527596193012015-02-10T14:30:14.409-05:002015-02-10T14:30:14.409-05:00I agree. I think it took lots of shocks to dislodg...I agree. I think it took lots of shocks to dislodge the old European model. In fact, as National Review showed, there are still some people out there who want to go back to the old model!Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-47187476651143850102015-02-10T14:28:36.464-05:002015-02-10T14:28:36.464-05:00So when did this "civilizational strategy&quo...<i>So when did this "civilizational strategy" actually change? The Enlightenment may have improved technology, but the European rebound from, say, the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the final division of colonial spoils at the Berlin Conference (1884) seems perfectly in line with this "medieval" game plan.</i><br /><br />In the 1600s, after the 30 Years' War. And note that at the height of their power, European countries did *not* do what they then had the power to do and had tried unsuccessfully to do in the Crusades - displace local populations and colonize the Middle East.<br /><br /><i>I don't think anyone has ever made the argument that the British were able to build the world's biggest empire because they were relatively more tolerant, religiously, than, say, the Spanish (or despite being significantly less tolerant than the Dutch).</i><br /><br />Amy Chua did make this argument. And the Dutch had an enormous empire given their tiny size.<br /><br /><i>But, again, when did this change? What was the great European imperial expansion, from Cortez to the final scramble for Africa, except the imposition of a European political and economic model on the rest of the world?</i><br /><br />It began as a scramble for trade routes, not as what you describe. <br /><br /><i>Everybody swipes the other guy's tech.</i><br /><br />That is monumentally, demonstrably, utterly false!!<br /><br /><i>But there was actually plenty of technical innovation within Europe throughout the medieval period</i><br /><br />Um...yeah. I'm just gonna leave that one there. ;-)<br /><br />Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-10414361164113086012015-02-10T14:22:12.621-05:002015-02-10T14:22:12.621-05:00This is true. We tend to compress a lot of centuri...This is true. We tend to compress a lot of centuries when we look back. But it's also probably true that society *did* change much more slowly back then, given the lack of economic growth and the glacial rate of technological progress.Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-42017768012122339662015-02-10T09:32:12.623-05:002015-02-10T09:32:12.623-05:00I find that your post lacks a little bit of a time...I find that your post lacks a little bit of a timeline regarding the crusades/jihadists movements which do not appear in vaccuum. (eg: conflating constantinople and "the crusades", when a limited amount of historical culture tells you that you have two centuries between the start of the crusade phenomenon and the fall of the latter... and three more centuries before the final fall of eastern roman empire to the arabs). All of it conflated in a sort of timelapse so that you seem to assume that there is no change at all in western societies between 980 and 1200... <br /><br />I feel a bit let down to say the truth. But well. nice post.Javihttp://www.eurotrib.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-85974102004939592642015-02-10T08:20:03.285-05:002015-02-10T08:20:03.285-05:00I liked that article, the comparisons are very int...I liked that article, the comparisons are very interesting. Though you might have gone step too far by explaining a change of cultural trajectory with the crusades, especially a certain estrangement from the Church. I think the Black Death is a more important factor, The Crusades were not a "mass movement", more a movement of "spare people", i.e. second sons, adventurers, vigilantes, basically, marginalized people. The Black Death however affected everyone. Alexander Sebastian Schulzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15135338616598357444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-90138549253133058142015-02-10T08:11:59.997-05:002015-02-10T08:11:59.997-05:00Indeed. For example, Prussia is the result of a cr...Indeed. For example, Prussia is the result of a crusade.Alexander Sebastian Schulzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15135338616598357444noreply@blogger.com