A Collection of Unimitigated Pedantry

[grumbler]

The cycle encapsulated in "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been" from Romance of the Three Kingdoms is NOT the Fremen Mirage.  Nor is the cycle between despotism and personal freedoms in Herodatus anything to do with the Fremen Mirage.  The Fremen Mirage seems de novo.

That's not my take on Herodotus. One of his themes is the cycle between hardship/hard-living (often nomads) who take over richer (often settled areas) become luxurious and are in turn taken over/fail against the hard-living.

I'm not seeing that at all, but it's probably not unusual to see very different takes on an author who is less interested in evidence than explanation.  The Persians are not the Fremen in Herodotus. 

[grumbler]

You are perhaps interpreting it too literally groggy. The inevitably part is probably meant as to how the tripe is interpreted. When they go sissy they will inevitably fall rather than every empire will inevitably fall.

Also, his 4 points might be wrong in some details, but some minor details don't take everything away from his arguments.

If Devereaux is merely referring to a trope, as you say, then I don't have a problem with him defining it however he wants.  That makes any extensive historical analysis rather absurd, however, since he's comparing whatever evidence he wants against a bunch of assumptions that he is simply making as he goes along.  Tropes exist because of their pleasing artistic effects, not because they have any truth value.

Take away the trope, though, and his argument is a mere truism:  most of the time, god is on the side with the big battalions (repeat 20 times).

[Oexmelin]

Historical tropes have long, long, lasting lives - and retain explanatory power for much larger swaths of the population that whatever historians are writing. The trope of "barbarian virtues" understood as martial spirit against "civilization decadence" seen as the effete pursuit of pleasures has been inscribed in classic Roman discourse and has consequently been reactivated periodically ever since. It is not surprising that it subsists today as a valid form of explanation amidst casual history fans.

[The Minsky Moment]

I always assumed that the Herbert was borrowing from the cycle of conquest of settled areas by nomads (and  their subsequent "fall" into decadence) found in ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah. ibn Khaldun's point is not that "hard times" make men physically stronger and tougher and thus better fighters.  Individually, fighters in settled areas may be as strong or tough as fighters from nomadic people just as the Sardaukar from Dune still maintain their individual strength and prowess.  What hard conditions force is a form of close group solidarity or cohesion and a sense of common purpose and identity.  Is is that social solidarity that makes the nomads/Fremen more effective the the urban garrisons/Sardaukar, who for all their training or access or equipment have a more mercenary mentality. 

One can debate ibn Khaldun's thesis but Dune succeeds as an effective novelized account of it (among other things).  The Pedantry Blogger disagrees and claims that the Muqaddimah is NOT the model for the treatment of the Fremen in Dune but in a way that really seems to miss the point.  He argues that the harsh environmental conditions give the Fremen their strength rather than ibn Khaldun's asabiyah  That's absurd.  Harsh environmental conditions standing alone, don't strengthen people, they weaken and kill people.  Harsh environmental conditions can make a people strong if and only if that people band together to cope with those conditions.  The significance of harsh environmental conditions is that that necessity for survival forces close social cooperation and drives the formation of asabiyah.  The causal linkage is: hard environment --> social solidarity to survive and thrive under those conditions --> military success. Thus, the real life nomadic and tribal societies ibn Khaldun theorized about tend to come form marginal environments, e.g. deserts and drylands.

[grumbler]

Historical tropes have long, long, lasting lives - and retain explanatory power for much larger swaths of the population that whatever historians are writing. The trope of "barbarian virtues" understood as martial spirit against "civilization decadence" seen as the effete pursuit of pleasures has been inscribed in classic Roman discourse and has consequently been reactivated periodically ever since. It is not surprising that it subsists today as a valid form of explanation amidst casual history fans.

I agree, but that is not relevant to the discussion of the Fremen Mirage.  The Romans didn't see themselves as successful and vigorous because they were impoverished and  unspecialized, and therefor lived such shitty lives that they were tough and could therefor beat advanced societies.  That's the essence of the Fremen Mirage as described (and that accurately reflects Herbert's plot device), and that's not a serious historical thesis that I've ever seen.

[Threviel]

So... Ass-burgery ass-hattery aside. What do you think of his military analysis of fantasy battles? I'm reading the Helms Deep one and it makes a lot of sense to my feeble amateur mind.

[grumbler]

So... Ass-burgery ass-hattery aside. What do you think of his military analysis of fantasy battles? I'm reading the Helms Deep one and it makes a lot of sense to my feeble amateur mind.

I'm not sure why you decided to assert that analysis you disagree with is "Ass-burgery ass-hattery," but I find it amusing that you decided to insult just before you ask for some insights on another topic.  I'll pass on that for obvious reasons.

[The Brain]

So... Ass-burgery ass-hattery aside. What do you think of his military analysis of fantasy battles? I'm reading the Helms Deep one and it makes a lot of sense to my feeble amateur mind.

Does he use history of Tolkien's Middle-Earth to analyze the battle? Or does he use history of the real world? In Tolkien's Middle-Earth physics, biology, and human society work differently than in the real world. I'm not sure to what extent the real world can help there.

[Threviel]

So... Ass-burgery ass-hattery aside. What do you think of his military analysis of fantasy battles? I'm reading the Helms Deep one and it makes a lot of sense to my feeble amateur mind.

I'm not sure why you decided to assert that analysis you disagree with is "Ass-burgery ass-hattery," but I find it amusing that you decided to insult just before you ask for some insights on another topic.  I'll pass on that for obvious reasons.

I'm afraid I don't translate well to text. It was meant as a light hearted "ok, you win, on to next". Sorry if I insulted anyone.

[celedhring]

Just read it. It's at least entertaining and make sense to my uneducated mind. This particular take when talking about Saruman:

he strikes me as exactly the sort of very intelligent person whose assumes that their mastery of one field (effectively science-and-engineering, along with magic-and-persuasion, in this case) makes them equally able to perform in other, completely unrelated fields (a mistake common to very many very smart people, but – it seems to me, though this may be only because I work in the humanities – peculiarly common to those moving from the STEM fields to more humanistic ones, as Saruman is here).

I can really sympathize with 

[The Brain]

I've certainly never heard of a very intelligent historian who assumed that his mastery of history made him able to perform in unrelated fields.

[The Minsky Moment]

It is generally known that lawyers are masters of all fields and areas of knowledge.
See: United States Senate.

[Maladict]

I've certainly never heard of a very intelligent historian who assumed that his mastery of history made him able to perform in unrelated fields.

I know several who assumed female students would be interested in sharing hotel rooms with them, for no apparent reason other than their fame*. Does that count?

* which of course did not exist outside his particular department.

[The Brain]

I've certainly never heard of a very intelligent historian who assumed that his mastery of history made him able to perform in unrelated fields.

I know several who assumed female students would be interested in sharing hotel rooms with them, for no apparent reason other than their fame*. Does that count?

* which of course did not exist outside his particular department.

You are sure they are very intelligent?

[Maladict]

I've certainly never heard of a very intelligent historian who assumed that his mastery of history made him able to perform in unrelated fields.

I know several who assumed female students would be interested in sharing hotel rooms with them, for no apparent reason other than their fame*. Does that count?

* which of course did not exist outside his particular department.

You are sure they are very intelligent?

Intelligent people are perfectly capable of making poor decisions.