Romanticizing History

    As a people we do an interesting thing with our history, we often confuse it with romantic ideals of what we want to have been, rather than what was. An odd point to me, is in some cases we don’t realize which parts are nearly completely fictional and which are just romanticized history. Some people believe the three musketeers are as fictional as Arthur and his knights, or that the epics of Homer are as based in history as the Romance of The Three Kingdoms.

    Here’s a decent example of something so many of us romanticize, Pirates. We constantly romanticize pirates in popular fiction. We’ve distorted the idea of what pirates were, we’ve made them into heroes. From the Dread Pirate Roberts to Jack Sparrow to Guybrush Threepwood, we’ve made pirates into charming, roguish, good-natured ne'er do wells. In history, however, Pirates were very much not. They were criminals, oftentimes poor ones at that.

    We can talk about Edward Teach(Blackbeard) and his great exploits that lead, ultimately, to his untimely death when he got the attention of the governor of Virginia, but let’s talk about piracy in the Caribbean in general instead. There were many pirates in what we call “The Golden Age of Piracy” that are much closer to what our romanticized idea of pirates are, but they are still quite a bit distant. Some were more good-natured or well intentioned, some beleaguered or disenfranchised after the wars seeking to make back what they felt was theirs, or seeking their fortune. In some cases it was just easier and paid much better than good honest work was for a mariner of the time. The only downside, once the Royal Navy actually went after you, you likely didn’t live long. Piracy was not very “noble,” though a few notable pirates were noble born. Enough about pirates, I like the romanticized version and don’t want to knock it too much by thinking about the reality of it.

    Let’s move to a different subject, how about Dumas and the Musketeers, we could go into detail about how the characters come from a lesser known novel titled, Memoires de M. d’Artagnan, but currently that’s beside the point. In both cases the Novels or Novel series, in Dumas’ case, d’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers take center-stage as the main protagonists. Strangely as it’s a novel, people seem to be under the impression that d’Artagnan, and the Musketeers are fictional, which is simply not the case. Memoires de M. d’Artagnan was a semi-fictional novel based on the life of Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d’Artagnan published just 27 years after his death. He was indeed a real person, but his semi-fictional portrayal in the novel led to Dumas writing(plagiarizing) his own novel The Three Musketeers of which d’Artagnan is the star character.

    We’ve reached a point in our society that the fictional form of d’Artagnan and the three musketeers are more recognized than their historical counterpart. Interesting when you think about it, even more so if you consider my next subject.

    Now everyone probably knows some portion of Arthurian legends, it’s even common for those among that group to believe there is some historical bases for the legends. Now, while Musketeers actually had a basis in reality, being inspired by real characters, and it taking place during real events, many of the events of Arthurian legends never happened, or, if they did, are vastly different from the reality of what happened. It’s why there’s so much debate between historians about who Arthur may have actually been. Many of you, as I originally was not, are unlikely to be aware that Lancelot wasn’t a real person at all, but a fictional character added on to the legends sometime later to try to give knights of the time a kind of “role model.” This is further complicated when we realize that we have no idea who Thomas Malory(Morte D’Arthur) even was, or if he was a real person at all.

    Verifiable information about Arthur in any real sense is almost completely nonexistent. Another and possibly more important is that the knights that are described in Arthurian legends do not have any real reflection of knight behavior in a historical sense. Also some people have said things that led me to believe they think of knight a military rank, or that a group of knights was a military force, most commonly confused with cavaliers. Knight was, and still is, a social rank, it just so happened that in the middle ages there was crossover between the two. Being a knight at times just meant you were part of a noble house, it never meant you were a good fighter, or even a decent commander. Even the terms nobility and chivalry seem to carry some prestige of honor nowadays, when it used to only mean you had rich parents.

    Also no one married for love in the middle ages, it was all for money, to form alliances, or to garner favor. Love was a luxury most women could never afford back then. Daughters were a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, not sure what kind of chivalry that represents. It’s probably a good thing chivalry is dead.

    Now brings us to the next point in our journey, the Romance of The Three Kingdoms. Now RoTK is a chinese epic from the three kingdoms era of chinese history, that’s right, it’s based on fact. Most of the cast of characters were real people who lived real lives, and many of the events and battles in the story actually happened in some way. The story is part fiction, probably about as true as musketeers, if not more so, but mostly historical with a splash of mythical for good measure. I personally have not read it myself but I have played the Dynasty Warriors games which are heavily based on the story of RoTK, so I know a rough outline of the events, I’ve also seen Red Cliff, which is a movie about the battle of Red Cliff. It’s a great movie by the way and well worth the time if you have any interest in chinese history. I’ll get around to the story itself one day, but still have plenty of things on my plate before I get there.

    On to the next subject, Homer. Homer’s epics are some of the longest living texts from western civilization we have. It’s incredibly old, and as such is also mostly unknown about the true identity of the author. That’s right, we’re not exactly sure who Homer was, or if he was a real person. It is only in the last century that we have found evidence of where the city of Troy may have been, and given any evidence to a previously thought complete myth. The legend of a Trojan Horse is so well known I probably don’t even need to explain it for everyone reading this to immediately have pictured a wooden horse in their head from me merely typing the words Trojan Horse. Even though there is now evidence of a possible war that could have led to the fall of a city we believe might be Troy with dates that seem to be in the same ballpark as those pieced together by historians, we don’t have enough to verify that it actually was based, in any sense, on reality and not just us forming a connection that might not be there. That’s just how history works sometimes we might never find out enough to be absolutely sure, we might only find out enough to be close enough to be reasonably convinced that it might be true. It’s unlikely we’ll ever find a big neon sign, that say, “This was Troy,” or that such a sign would even be readable by us. Still there could be some truth, to Homer’s epics, even if he was not even a real person. Currently I’d put them on the same plate as Arthurian legends, might have some semblance of history there, but likely mostly myth.

   In closing, knights and pirates weren’t as we portray them in popular fiction. Whereas d’Artagnan and Guan Yu, are historical figures, Arthur and Achilles are likely fictional. Sometimes we like to remember things better than they were and romanticize it, this happens to our personal history as well. Sometimes we get so carried away we forget which parts are real. It’s good to have a reality check once in awhile.

   Also wikipedia is a great resource when you can’t remember names.

Minimum Wage

    It has come to my attention that some people seem to have a rather gross misunderstanding of something critical and important to our Economy. I speak, of course, about minimum wage. I’ve read about many people claiming minimum wage isn’t intended for people to live on, it’s a training wage for those who are coming into the workforce. If minimum wage goes up so will inflation. Raising the minimum wage will hurt business and reduce employment. People just need to go to school and get a better job.

    The problem with the idea that the minimum wage is not intended to be a living wage is that well for one it’s way too low even for an introductory wage. It should, for example, be enough for someone to afford to go to college on that wage, but many colleges in the country would be well out of your reach and you’d still need a student loan. Secondly, if the wage was introductory then after roughly six months to a year, your wage should increase substantially to something that meets the current cost of living in your area, as you are no longer training. Which, of course, does not happen. Many employers raise wages rather slowly and as the minimum wage in some states is far below the cost of living, it can be three to four years before you make something you could see yourself living on.

    Some people have the gall to claim that minimum wages are introductory jobs only, like fast food and retail clerk. Which is just stupid, big fast food chains and retail corporations employ far too much of our workforce for that to even be true. As someone who used to work as a retail sales clerk, because of the slow rate at which pay is raised, I’ve worked with supervisors who made far less than the cost required for them to live on their own. Last time I checked Supervisor wasn’t an introductory position.

    The minimum wage was not designed as an introductory wage, it was designed as the minimum wage someone is capable of living on. For that, it is currently far too low.

    Now, inflation going up because we increase minimum wage may be true. Minimum wage, however, was invented as a method of keeping up with inflation, which has gone way beyond the scope of the current minimum wage. So at this point increasing the minimum wage is the only logical recourse to put things back on track.

    I can’t tell you how much raising the minimum wage will affect all businesses. Some will hurt, but many of the big corporations that are the major employers of low-income and minimum wage workers, would probably be fine, even though they are the ones who fight the increase the hardest.

    If your parents didn’t make enough to put aside a substantial sum to pay for you to go to college, you’ve got to pay it on your own. With many students coming out of college with degrees and nowhere to use them, it can be s risk  to take out a large student loan to make tuition payments. A minimum wage job wouldn’t help you really at all. In most cases, the price of college is higher than it’s ever been. So the “just get an education,” argument falls rather flat in the face of fact.

I, after working for a company for over 6 years was barely able to afford: rent, groceries, and bills. If I had any medical bills, I’d have to cut into my savings to pay them off. I could only take time off to deal with medical issues if I had paid time(vacation/personal) to take it. I had a serious lack of money to invest in school. My mother worked with student loans and was able to keep me informed of how often a student was actually able to pay them back, and how many were going to be paying them for the rest of their life.

    I could have started and ended this whole thing with a statement from Franklin D. Roosevelt on the minimum wage, but I’ll at least end with one.

    “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Echo Chamber

    A strange thing I’ve encountered being an Atheist is the need some seem to have to assault another for believing differently. I’ve said before I have a facebook page, and a twitter, and I follow people like Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais. The strange thing is that I have friends who are Christian, which isn’t strange in and of itself, so sometimes when they post on pages relating to Christianity or Jesus it’ll pop up on my feed. The strange thing about it is that the posts they comment on/like usually just have pages and pages of responses saying “Amen” and such like. However, when I see a post on the Richard Dawkins page, many times not even about Christianity or even a be necessarily Atheist, it’s often filled with people insulting Atheists, and every once in awhile, someone calling Dawkins the Anti-Christ. Though the Anti-Christ would clearly be a Christian or Christian leader of some description, but I’ll get into that another time.

    Now I understand the idea of Christians or Atheists attacking the other in a circle jerk between each other. I know that happens in pretty much every social group so I don’t think either is particularly special for doing so. The thing that I don’t understand is when a Christian takes offense and attacks an Atheist, on an Atheist page for being an Atheist. I mean, you’d expect to see an Atheist being an Atheist, and maybe being offensive toward someone who puts merit to something they find ridiculous, on an Atheist page.

    Now, I can say that Christians don’t seem to comment as much negatively on their pages about Atheists or others, however. I more often see Christians liking/commenting on a post that is in itself purposely offensive to non-Christians. Often bundled with a pseudo-threat about what will happen if they don’t comment, or like the post. “Like and comment ‘Amen’ if you believe in Jesus, keep scrolling and (displays picture of something horrible, often an injury or illness).” Or, “If you believe in Jesus I dare you to type ‘Amen,’” as though it was somehow unpopular to declare yourself a member of one of the most popular religions in the world.

    Now again, I’m not saying Christians are special for circle jerking in that way because many social groups do such. The problem I have is when they invade the other side’s social group to insult them. It’s not just Atheist pages, it’s also LGBT friendly pages, which garner large amounts of hate for just being.

    So, inside your own group you can sit there and circle jerk for eternity about how dumb everyone outside their echo chamber is, so that the rest of us can reach outside our social group and learn from others what they think. We can grow and the hateful and just be left in their box. I don’t feel it’s necessary for them to ever come out of their box to attack others for any reason. If you reach outside your box you should always be willing to listen to the opinions of others. That’s the whole point of reaching out, I don’t even begin to understand the need to step outside your box to assault someone from another, it’s completely ridiculous.

    Why be unnecessarily cruel, when you can just listen? You know when someone says that something is good for my soul, or my salvation, I don’t believe in the existence of a soul. So you’re not helping me by telling me something I need to accept because my soul is in danger or that maybe I’ll go to Hell. I don’t believe in the existence of Hell either, so the threat of eternal punishment doesn’t scare me. I don’t appreciate people stepping out of the Christian box to tell me that I need to change something for the good of my soul. If you’re stepping out of your box and not willing to understand, or even make an attempt to, that people have differing views to yours and that they are entitled to that view. People are allowed to believe whatever they want, people are allowed to be wrong. You can tell them they are wrong, but you have to understand their point to be able to actually explain why they are wrong. So you have to listen to them, you have to give their point weight, then compare that to your own points, then determine if it’s worth your time for debating it. All opinions are not created equal. Sometimes the opinion that is not as supported is your own, and you must be willing to accept your own errors. I personally believe, one should be more willing to look at their own errors before making any attempt at seeking errors in others.

    So if you see tons of errors in others and a need to correct them, and no errors in yourself, please just stay in your echo chamber, so the rest of us can grow. We don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives.