Aesop wrote:Greg wrote:Wear orange in Boston.
Which says more about Bostonians than it does about people wearing kilts and plaids.
You could have said the same about red or blue in South Central L.A., and you'd be far closer to the mark on where the real tribalism is in 21st Century America.
Do you know who lives in Boston? You wanted examples of plaid-wearing tribesmen willing to pick up a centuries-old blood feud at the drop of a hat. I gave you one. Hint: We still have places where the Irish aren't really assimilated.
The culturally and developmentally "stunted" Gaelic cultures were also largely unified and at peace internally.
OK, I thought you might have been joking with me until I read that part and then I was sure.
Whatever their charms and virtues, nothing Gaelic has *ever* been unified and at peace internally. And inasmuch as any Gaelic characteristics remain, nothing Gaelic is completely unified or at peace internally even today.
You will, perhaps, accept the inherent difference between "largely" and "perfectly".
No. Suggesting that, for example, medieval Ireland was in any sense unified or internally at peace doesn't pass the laugh test. Again, think Somalia, or Afghanistan, or to be extremely generous warring states period Japan.
Medieval Ireland was the Somalia of its time and place, with constant endemic tribal warfare. They didn't keep it to thselves either. It's only a slight exaggeration to say it took the Norse to bring with them the idea of cities and towns to Ireland. As late as the beginning of the 17th Century, Ulster had precious few permanent settlements and much of the population still lived as NOMADS.
Meanwhile, their immediate neighbors were so backwards that they suffered one of the few successful French military campaigns to predate Napoleon, and at the height of their time waged the Wars of the Roses on themselves, making England the Stalingrad of its day.
You're going to have to be a little less elliptical. You realize that for several centuries before Napoleon, France was the predominant continental power and with good reason. The rest of that bit doesn't make any more sense, either.
When comparing two different groups, no matter what someone may claim... the one that is superior is always the one that he holds to a higher standard. You ignore the constant internal warfare in Ireland, between the tribes, kindreds, kings, subkings, petty kings, princes... after all that's just what they did it's cool. But let the English have a dynastic struggle and that's evidence of their backwardness. Do you look at your own writing at all?
And yeah, you really want to ease up on the Irish booster revisionist history.
There's nothing revisionist in pointing out that culture flowed out from Scotland and Ireland to Britain, and not the other way around.
Not really, not so much. And when was this supposed to be happening?
The state of being "stunted" doesn't have so much to do with where you start, as where you stop. You find yourself in much the same ridiculous position of an Arab apologist claiming that Arab culture isn't stunted by putting his fingers in his ears and yelling "Avicenna!". Actually he'd have an edge on you, because his example is only from a thousand years ago (well and Persian, but it's a good try). By the 15th Century of course you're conceding English superiority.
It pisses the English off, but they have it coming.
Well that explains a lot.
About the best you can say, and it probably is the strongest argument... is that putting on plaids and tartans now is harmless exactly to the extent that people don't really know what it signifies. That time has made it safe by draining it of it's meaning, and the people doing it have already otherwise demonstrated that they're not about to turn into feuding tribesmen. And that's almost certainly completely true for anyone here.
You assume not attaching the same significance to it is the same as not knowing. I say they can throw out the bathwater without including the baby.
Look, I shouldn't have to explain this to you. As Chris said, you wear the plaid of the group you have the closest affinity to, because putting on the plaid is announcing your affiliation, your loyalty. As clans were still (always, stunted remember) political entities, putting on a clan tartan was rather akin to putting on a foreign military uniform, or taking a foreign loyalty oath. That's serious business, and should be considered carefully.
The best you can claim is that the clans are extinct as political entities, so it's no worse than putting on CSA uniform. Well even that should be done carefully.... not so bad for accepted reenactors, but there are still places where that act has very great meaning.
Well either that or you're a twit who has no idea what he's doing, or a hopeless poseur who only thinks things mean what he wants them to mean.
But completely aside from all the real tribal hellholes we're still dealing with across Asia and Africa, there are places at home where the traditions and mindset of tribalism are still very real and very much a problem. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to the issue because I have actually lived in Boston and (to a lesser extent) New York.
Agreed. None of them tend to be groups of people gathered in tartans or plaids. Usually saggy pants and hoodies are far more suspect.
Again, have you BEEN to Boston? The very same people can wear both.
Maybe we're just jaded, but your villainy is not particularly impressive. -Ennesby
If you know what you're doing, you're not learning anything. -Unknown
Sanity is the process by which you continually adjust your beliefs so they are predictively sound. -esr
