A narcissist can only care about his own problems. These are conflated with those of falling civilizations, not a few deaths in the Middle East. Whatever Somerby is mourning, it has nothing to do with current events. Somerby's grandiosity can only be satisfied by equating his distress to the fall of the Bronze Age.
Ironically, Gaza is listed as one of the cities that fell during the collapse of the Bronze Age. Does Somerby know that and intend something by it? Nah, probably not. He doesn't seem to know that morality had nothing to do with the collapse of those ancient civilizations (which would be tiny in comparison to today's cities and nations). Perhaps Somerby means to suggest that climate change is God's revenge on us for being bad? Another childish form of magical thinking. Would Somerby have the nerve to think that children in Gaza or Ukraine did anything to deserve their deaths? Sometimes Catholics do think that way.
Yes, this is speculation about Somerby's mind. But what else can a reader do when he won't say what he actually means?
Or perhaps Somerby really doen't care about Ukraine (because the Republicans are pretty much backing Russia and it would interfere with promoting right wing memes here to care about Russian atrocities in Ukraine).
Isn't that kind of obvious, Hector? There are quite a few situations where what Somerby says only really makes sense if you consider it from a right wing perspective. Israel is OK to be upset about, because Christian nationalism demands an apocalypse that cannot happen without Israel. But Ukraine is upsetting Putin, so they are the bad guys, no matter what Russia does to people there in violation of rules of war. Somerby's attention seems to align with the right on these things, not the left.
"Perhaps Somerby means to suggest climate change is God's revenge on us for being bad? Another childish form of magical thinking."
Friends, the debilitating effects of ATS (Attribution of Thought to Somerby) are on full display here. An acute AMS sufferer like 9:03 assigns thoughts to Somerby, then criticizes Somerby for having these same thoughts.
Won't you help? For as little as 35 cents a day we can provide 9:03 and other ATS sufferers with training in logical thinking and reasoning that will minimize, and may one day eliminate, ATS forever.
Why stop with Ukraine? There must be dozens more atrocities in the world Bob hasn't mentioned that you could make into some vague accusation. After all, he's obligated to write about whatever you think he should, right?
As has been said already, Somerby can write more clearly. He just doesn't want to pin himself down to what he really means. It would ruin his pretense at being a liberal if he were to admit he is actually promoting right wing memes.
Hector, see @9:42 below. I have pointed out Somerby's lack of concern when such atrocities have occurred. He was also unconcerned about George Floyd or the victims of Rittenhouse or of Crumbly's school shooting, but the list of things Somerby doesn't mention is very long. So that begs the question -- why is Somerby devastated now but not previously? And why does he care more about those drowned migrants off the shores of Europe and nothing about kids in cages here, much less the kids in Ukraine? Somerby's concern IS highly selective and that deserves to be mentioned, just as it would be if Biden said nothing about Gaza or any other tragedy affecting American citizens. Somerby's comments today are barely better than Trump's. He is upset because Netanyahu would not join him by verbally attacking Biden.
And if and when Somerby says something about anything, you can bet your nest egg that anonymices will consider it to be the worst damn thing to have ever been said.
Save your money, folks. There’s no fixing the emotional, mental, and spiritual derangement of anonymices.
not mh - there are uncountable numbers of horrible things going on the world. Is TDH to mention every one of them to satisfy you? You have no idea how TDH feels about the Ukraine war victims or the persons shot by Rittenhouse (who was found not guilty after a jury trial). Your comment is deeply unintelligent -
Somerby is inclined to say that the Bronzed Age is back -- everyone will surely recognize this as a reference to Trump, our Bronze leader and his lack of morality. I would be appalled too, but I know he will not be reelected. Why would he be, with his fake tan and lack of morality and all?
He’s not apologizing for being appalled by atrocity. He’s apologizing for not providing you with a free essay for you to read, mischaracterize, and insult him about.
Somerby is a big boy. He can say what he means if he wants to. If not, he can suffer the consequences. I find his use of the Middle East conflict to excuse his own behavior kind of horrible. Children and women and elderly and middle aged and young adults all died in Israel so that Somerby can use their deaths to excuse his medical appt or virus or other personal circumstances.
That's like taking a note to your teacher to excuse you from a math test, saying that you had to attend your entire family's funeral because they were all wiped out in a car crash. Unnecessary and trivializing something very serious for all who are affected by the conflict in Gaza. That is apparently NOT Somerby or he wouldn't have been so crass.
Here is the way Somerby should excuse his absence:
No fish today -- busy with other things.
It works without insulting the feelings of those who do care about these and other deaths. I will remind you that Somerby said nothing about the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub, or the mass shooting at a country music concern in Las Vegas, by someone who thought, like Somerby, that our civilization is in disarray and in a death spiral, so why not shoot up a few hundred people. Nothing.
Cecelia impishly pretends to be a woman while writing gibberish comments that only contain a modicum of coherence during the spewing of insults that are motivated by his tragic and wounded circumstances.
The question of what happened to cause the collapse of various civilizations during the Bronze Age is fascinating, but the parallels with today's age are slim to none.
As I pointed out when Somerby first started this theme about the Bronze Age, civilizations evolve but do not collapse from a societal viewpoint. Wikipedia says it better than I did:
"Others, particularly in response to the popular Collapse (2005) by Jared Diamond[8] and more recently, have argued that societies discussed as cases of collapse are better understood through resilience and societal transformation,[9] or "reorganization", especially if collapse is understood as a "complete end" of political systems, which according to Shmuel Eisenstadt has not taken place at any point."
Somerby is using the Bronze Age as a metaphor for collapse, but while there was change, the idea that everything collapsed is plain wrong. People migrated elsewhere or were overrun by migrants (due to climate change, lack of food, natural disaster), but they didn't cause the demise of cities or empires. Fires burned down cities (as has happened in NYC and Chicago and Boston too). There were pandemics in some places. Other places listed as destroyed have been found to have not been destroyed at all, leading to the belief that the so-called collapse has been greatly exaggerated by earlier researchers (who are dealing with ancient remains that are by no means clear cut). Without a written literature, it is difficult to know what happened anywhere. Homer is unreliable as a historian because he relies on oral history over 1100 years, which is sure to have drifted and become largely myth. It is foolish to regard that as fact, much less to claim to know anything about so-called morality on the basis of Homer. That would be like a future visitor to our era considering Pulp Fiction to be an example of our morality. We are horrified by current events because they are aberrations, not commonplace, anywhere.
Somerby makes himself ridiculous with this moaning over ancient civilizations that we know very little about. But worse, he seems to want to project and read into those myths his own views about modern politics, and that is just wrong. He doesn't own Homer any more than we liberals do, and making up moral lessons to justify his politics is like using Disney movies to predict moral decay, as DeSantis does. Crooked business, a misuse and abuse of history. Shame on Somerby for doing this. This is an appropriation worse than when he steals Dylan song lyrics.
Our modern civilizations are highly developed, complex, rich in culture. We have not only agriculture but technology to give us more flexibility in the face of climate change, conflicts and natural disasters, the ability to communicate and to travel quickly. A volcano erupted in Iceland in 1973, engulfing hundreds of houses but not a single person was killed by it. Today, Iceland has learned to predict eruptions in order to evacuate people at a slower pace. We are not as vulnerable to the things hypothesized as the causes of the Bronze Age collapse.
Ironically, Somerby seems to think it was morality that did in ancient empires. One theory is that the advent of the Iron Age caused the collapse because Iron provided better weapons to those who conquered the societies reliant on bronze. They lost the arms race of their times and were taken over by more advanced people. What does that have to do with morality?
Listened to AM radio in northwest KY to see what the poutrage of the day was. Consensus is no $$ for Ukraine, need to spend it to secure the border. This was before Israel. They are jaggoffs.
There were a lot of different civilizations during the Bronze Age. Which morality is Somerby talking about? And given that they had no writing systems capable of expressing complex thought (just systems for counting and for naming things), how does Somerby know what their morality was, in any given Bronze Age society? Homer wrote over a thousand years later, based on oral tradition (myths and stories), so he didn't know. He made things up based on his own culture. So what is Somerby talking about?
Yes, it’s appalling.
ReplyDeleteI was also appalled when Russia killed Ukrainian children.
https://www.reuters.com/world/un-adds-russia-list-shame-killing-children-ukraine-2023-06-22/
And used rape as a weapon.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/15/europe/russia-ukraine-rape-sexual-violence-military-intl-hnk/index.html
No mention of Ukraine here at the Howler.
A narcissist can only care about his own problems. These are conflated with those of falling civilizations, not a few deaths in the Middle East. Whatever Somerby is mourning, it has nothing to do with current events. Somerby's grandiosity can only be satisfied by equating his distress to the fall of the Bronze Age.
DeleteIronically, Gaza is listed as one of the cities that fell during the collapse of the Bronze Age. Does Somerby know that and intend something by it? Nah, probably not. He doesn't seem to know that morality had nothing to do with the collapse of those ancient civilizations (which would be tiny in comparison to today's cities and nations). Perhaps Somerby means to suggest that climate change is God's revenge on us for being bad? Another childish form of magical thinking. Would Somerby have the nerve to think that children in Gaza or Ukraine did anything to deserve their deaths? Sometimes Catholics do think that way.
DeleteYes, this is speculation about Somerby's mind. But what else can a reader do when he won't say what he actually means?
"No mention of Ukraine here at the Howler."
DeleteYour point being...?
Somerby seems a tad insincere about his highly selective mourning.
DeleteOr perhaps Somerby really doen't care about Ukraine (because the Republicans are pretty much backing Russia and it would interfere with promoting right wing memes here to care about Russian atrocities in Ukraine).
DeleteIsn't that kind of obvious, Hector? There are quite a few situations where what Somerby says only really makes sense if you consider it from a right wing perspective. Israel is OK to be upset about, because Christian nationalism demands an apocalypse that cannot happen without Israel. But Ukraine is upsetting Putin, so they are the bad guys, no matter what Russia does to people there in violation of rules of war. Somerby's attention seems to align with the right on these things, not the left.
"Perhaps Somerby means to suggest climate change is God's revenge on us for being bad? Another childish form of magical thinking."
DeleteFriends, the debilitating effects of ATS (Attribution of Thought to Somerby) are on full display here. An acute AMS sufferer like 9:03 assigns thoughts to Somerby, then criticizes Somerby for having these same thoughts.
Won't you help? For as little as 35 cents a day we can provide 9:03 and other ATS sufferers with training in logical thinking and reasoning that will minimize, and may one day eliminate, ATS forever.
Please give generously.
mh,
DeleteWhy stop with Ukraine? There must be dozens more atrocities in the world Bob hasn't mentioned that you could make into some vague accusation. After all, he's obligated to write about whatever you think he should, right?
Isn't that what the contract says?
Donate to Somerby, if you love the guy so much.
DeleteAs has been said already, Somerby can write more clearly. He just doesn't want to pin himself down to what he really means. It would ruin his pretense at being a liberal if he were to admit he is actually promoting right wing memes.
DeleteHector, see @9:42 below. I have pointed out Somerby's lack of concern when such atrocities have occurred. He was also unconcerned about George Floyd or the victims of Rittenhouse or of Crumbly's school shooting, but the list of things Somerby doesn't mention is very long. So that begs the question -- why is Somerby devastated now but not previously? And why does he care more about those drowned migrants off the shores of Europe and nothing about kids in cages here, much less the kids in Ukraine? Somerby's concern IS highly selective and that deserves to be mentioned, just as it would be if Biden said nothing about Gaza or any other tragedy affecting American citizens. Somerby's comments today are barely better than Trump's. He is upset because Netanyahu would not join him by verbally attacking Biden.
Delete"He was also unconcerned about George Floyd or the victims of Rittenhouse or of Crumbly's school shooting"
DeleteThat's where you lose me. We know he didn't mention these victims. We have no idea how "concerned" about them he is, since he hasn't told us.
I'll donate $25 to ATS in your name.
Hector, that's the point. He said nothing. When someone who usually says nothing finally speaks, it means something. The question is, what?
DeleteATS doesn't exist as a charity, much like so many other Republican cons.
And if and when Somerby says something about anything, you can bet your nest egg that anonymices will consider it to be the worst damn thing to have ever been said.
DeleteSave your money, folks. There’s no fixing the emotional, mental, and spiritual derangement of anonymices.
10:34,
DeleteYou claim that when someone speaks, it means something.
You claim further that the question then becomes: what did they mean?
These are deep thoughts and I will ponder them.
not mh - there are uncountable numbers of horrible things going on the world. Is TDH to mention every one of them to satisfy you? You have no idea how TDH feels about the Ukraine war victims or the persons shot by Rittenhouse (who was found not guilty after a jury trial). Your comment is deeply unintelligent -
DeleteSomerby is inclined to say that the Bronzed Age is back -- everyone will surely recognize this as a reference to Trump, our Bronze leader and his lack of morality. I would be appalled too, but I know he will not be reelected. Why would he be, with his fake tan and lack of morality and all?
ReplyDelete"With apologies, we remain appalled..."
ReplyDeleteWhy would someone apologize for being appalled by atrocity?
He’s not apologizing for being appalled by atrocity. He’s apologizing for not providing you with a free essay for you to read, mischaracterize, and insult him about.
DeleteDG, Anonymices don’t need an entire essay for that.
DeleteIt only takes two sentences.
And yet that is not what he said, Dogface.
DeleteSomerby is a big boy. He can say what he means if he wants to. If not, he can suffer the consequences. I find his use of the Middle East conflict to excuse his own behavior kind of horrible. Children and women and elderly and middle aged and young adults all died in Israel so that Somerby can use their deaths to excuse his medical appt or virus or other personal circumstances.
DeleteThat's like taking a note to your teacher to excuse you from a math test, saying that you had to attend your entire family's funeral because they were all wiped out in a car crash. Unnecessary and trivializing something very serious for all who are affected by the conflict in Gaza. That is apparently NOT Somerby or he wouldn't have been so crass.
Here is the way Somerby should excuse his absence:
No fish today -- busy with other things.
It works without insulting the feelings of those who do care about these and other deaths. I will remind you that Somerby said nothing about the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub, or the mass shooting at a country music concern in Las Vegas, by someone who thought, like Somerby, that our civilization is in disarray and in a death spiral, so why not shoot up a few hundred people. Nothing.
Dogface George seems to think that we cannot provide our own free essays by writing them ourselves.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:42pm, with you, it’s all just another day that ends in “y” and castigating Bob.
DeleteYou’ve inspired your very own historic period- The Buffoon Age.
Not very original Cecelia. Somerby already did this one.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:13, well, you’re inspiring.
DeleteCecelia impishly pretends to be a woman while writing gibberish comments that only contain a modicum of coherence during the spewing of insults that are motivated by his tragic and wounded circumstances.
DeleteCorby is adorable.
DeleteAnonymouse 4:37am, and you love it!
DeleteCorby is a servant of Satan.
ReplyDeleteSatan is a servant of Corby.
DeleteSatan and Corby are partners.
DeleteLike Satan and Saddam Hussein in South Park's movie? They were gay too. It was a very romantic film.
DeleteThe question of what happened to cause the collapse of various civilizations during the Bronze Age is fascinating, but the parallels with today's age are slim to none.
ReplyDeleteAs I pointed out when Somerby first started this theme about the Bronze Age, civilizations evolve but do not collapse from a societal viewpoint. Wikipedia says it better than I did:
"Others, particularly in response to the popular Collapse (2005) by Jared Diamond[8] and more recently, have argued that societies discussed as cases of collapse are better understood through resilience and societal transformation,[9] or "reorganization", especially if collapse is understood as a "complete end" of political systems, which according to Shmuel Eisenstadt has not taken place at any point."
Somerby is using the Bronze Age as a metaphor for collapse, but while there was change, the idea that everything collapsed is plain wrong. People migrated elsewhere or were overrun by migrants (due to climate change, lack of food, natural disaster), but they didn't cause the demise of cities or empires. Fires burned down cities (as has happened in NYC and Chicago and Boston too). There were pandemics in some places. Other places listed as destroyed have been found to have not been destroyed at all, leading to the belief that the so-called collapse has been greatly exaggerated by earlier researchers (who are dealing with ancient remains that are by no means clear cut). Without a written literature, it is difficult to know what happened anywhere. Homer is unreliable as a historian because he relies on oral history over 1100 years, which is sure to have drifted and become largely myth. It is foolish to regard that as fact, much less to claim to know anything about so-called morality on the basis of Homer. That would be like a future visitor to our era considering Pulp Fiction to be an example of our morality. We are horrified by current events because they are aberrations, not commonplace, anywhere.
Somerby makes himself ridiculous with this moaning over ancient civilizations that we know very little about. But worse, he seems to want to project and read into those myths his own views about modern politics, and that is just wrong. He doesn't own Homer any more than we liberals do, and making up moral lessons to justify his politics is like using Disney movies to predict moral decay, as DeSantis does. Crooked business, a misuse and abuse of history. Shame on Somerby for doing this. This is an appropriation worse than when he steals Dylan song lyrics.
So what is the
"So what is the" should have been deleted.
DeleteMeant to ask whether it is fair to malign the Bronze Agers for causing the collapse of their civilizations when they aren't here to defend themselves?
I liked “So what is the”. It left the reader with an uncertain future, which accords with the real world.
DeleteDeep!
DeleteSteve Scalise has withdrawn his candidacy for Speaker of the House.
ReplyDeleteOur modern civilizations are highly developed, complex, rich in culture. We have not only agriculture but technology to give us more flexibility in the face of climate change, conflicts and natural disasters, the ability to communicate and to travel quickly. A volcano erupted in Iceland in 1973, engulfing hundreds of houses but not a single person was killed by it. Today, Iceland has learned to predict eruptions in order to evacuate people at a slower pace. We are not as vulnerable to the things hypothesized as the causes of the Bronze Age collapse.
ReplyDeleteIronically, Somerby seems to think it was morality that did in ancient empires. One theory is that the advent of the Iron Age caused the collapse because Iron provided better weapons to those who conquered the societies reliant on bronze. They lost the arms race of their times and were taken over by more advanced people. What does that have to do with morality?
Iron has one serious problem: rust.
DeleteListened to AM radio in northwest KY to see what the poutrage of the day was. Consensus is no $$ for Ukraine, need to spend it to secure the border. This was before Israel. They are jaggoffs.
ReplyDeleteThere were a lot of different civilizations during the Bronze Age. Which morality is Somerby talking about? And given that they had no writing systems capable of expressing complex thought (just systems for counting and for naming things), how does Somerby know what their morality was, in any given Bronze Age society? Homer wrote over a thousand years later, based on oral tradition (myths and stories), so he didn't know. He made things up based on his own culture. So what is Somerby talking about?
ReplyDeleteBronze has aged well.
ReplyDeleteIt’s still third place.
Delete