- Welcome to Languish.org.
Recent posts
#11
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by Jacob - Today at 03:44:17 PMQuote from: The Minsky Moment on Today at 02:42:43 PMWe knew what we were getting when the Senate confirmed Hegseth as SecDef. Someone whose entire military career was a relatively junior officer role and then entered mass media. Someone with no experience managing large organizations and no experience in a role requiring strategic planning. Somone who had very strong opinions about NOT enforcing the laws of war on US military personnel and sought to exculpate those convicted of war crimes. Somone with contempt for the laws of war and who believes that they are obnoxious and counterproductive restraints on a "warrior" ethos. Someone who believes that any negative results in America's recent conflicts could be chalked up to the failure to unleash the military from moral or prudential restraints on conduct and from pursuing political objectives beyond kinetic destruction and applied lethality.
What we are seeing in Iran is exactly what America elected when it voted Trump in 2024 and then confirmed his choice of Hegseth.
It does seem like the US government is doing a speed run to unlearn the lessons from WWII and Vietnam around ethics, responsibility, and the use of force.
#12
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by mongers - Today at 03:38:32 PMQuote from: Jacob on Today at 01:28:50 PMQuote from: Bauer on Today at 01:23:17 PMIf they are successful in bombing Iran to oblivion, then the quagmire may be outsourced to Turkey and Europe with a new destabilized country and refugee crisis.
Iran has a little over 90 million people.
What does "bombing into oblivion" mean in this context?
See the phrase "Bombing [insert country name] back to the Stone Age".
I believe it was once in vogue, not the magazine, but that era.
#13
Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...
Last post by Syt - Today at 02:47:13 PMTrailer for V1.4 of the TIE-Fighter total conversion for X-Wing Alliance:
#14
Off the Record / Re: Grand unified books thread
Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 02:42:44 PMFWIW I'd be interested to hear more about the Beowful comment.
In part because I'm not sure on the Englishness point so would love to know more. Certainly when I studied it, it was understood as being set in Denmark and probably tied to or originating in an older oral tradition/story (all Old English poetry was oral and has some of the same sort of formulas like in Homer).
Where I think the Englishness maybe comes in is obviously that the text is in Old English (as a text) - but the real point on Englishness was more that it is clearly a poem from a Christian society so it is a very non-judgemental re-telling of a pagan story (a huge theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry is elegy and elegiac tone there's some suggestion that is almost a structural quality of elegy of a newly Christianised society remembering their past). There's basically nothing of Gods or the wider mythic world Beowulf himself lives in, instead all the references are to a more generic but perhaps safe "father almighty" and there are explicit Biblical references in the text - there's definitely a debate over whether Beowulf is a "Christianised" hero in a pagan world or if the whole story is in effect a Christian re-casting.
(Although I wonder if the assumptions and version you get from a literary critical/English department version of academia is different from what the historians and archaeologists are thinking about something? I've had the experience reading a history and then suddenly being jolted out of it by the most unsophisticaed, flat-footed reading of a text I know so it might be that they're positioning it in an English tradition
)
Edit: Also I think that's slightly harsh on Tolkien. He is absolutely central still in Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon criticism but that's because he made the argument that it needed to be read as a poem first and foremost - until then it had just been viewed as an interesting historical artefact (because only the Classical world was capable producing poetry worth studying/enjoying as art). Before him it was seen as a source on the Anglo-Saxons. But I'm fairly sure part of his interpretation was that it was a poem that was clearly from an inherited tradition. What might be the difference is that Tolkien's view was that it was a creative act basically taking the raw material of inherited traditions and sifting or forging that in an act of creation into a narrative poem and I suppose that might be the difference? Tolkien emphasises the creative act/Beowulf as art but if it's inherited traditions you will see within it the material world those traditions come from (but that is perhaps just re-framing how 19th century philologists read it?
).
In part because I'm not sure on the Englishness point so would love to know more. Certainly when I studied it, it was understood as being set in Denmark and probably tied to or originating in an older oral tradition/story (all Old English poetry was oral and has some of the same sort of formulas like in Homer).
Where I think the Englishness maybe comes in is obviously that the text is in Old English (as a text) - but the real point on Englishness was more that it is clearly a poem from a Christian society so it is a very non-judgemental re-telling of a pagan story (a huge theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry is elegy and elegiac tone there's some suggestion that is almost a structural quality of elegy of a newly Christianised society remembering their past). There's basically nothing of Gods or the wider mythic world Beowulf himself lives in, instead all the references are to a more generic but perhaps safe "father almighty" and there are explicit Biblical references in the text - there's definitely a debate over whether Beowulf is a "Christianised" hero in a pagan world or if the whole story is in effect a Christian re-casting.
(Although I wonder if the assumptions and version you get from a literary critical/English department version of academia is different from what the historians and archaeologists are thinking about something? I've had the experience reading a history and then suddenly being jolted out of it by the most unsophisticaed, flat-footed reading of a text I know so it might be that they're positioning it in an English tradition
)Edit: Also I think that's slightly harsh on Tolkien. He is absolutely central still in Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon criticism but that's because he made the argument that it needed to be read as a poem first and foremost - until then it had just been viewed as an interesting historical artefact (because only the Classical world was capable producing poetry worth studying/enjoying as art). Before him it was seen as a source on the Anglo-Saxons. But I'm fairly sure part of his interpretation was that it was a poem that was clearly from an inherited tradition. What might be the difference is that Tolkien's view was that it was a creative act basically taking the raw material of inherited traditions and sifting or forging that in an act of creation into a narrative poem and I suppose that might be the difference? Tolkien emphasises the creative act/Beowulf as art but if it's inherited traditions you will see within it the material world those traditions come from (but that is perhaps just re-framing how 19th century philologists read it?
). #15
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 02:42:43 PMWe knew what we were getting when the Senate confirmed Hegseth as SecDef. Someone whose entire military career was a relatively junior officer role and then entered mass media. Someone with no experience managing large organizations and no experience in a role requiring strategic planning. Somone who had very strong opinions about NOT enforcing the laws of war on US military personnel and sought to exculpate those convicted of war crimes. Somone with contempt for the laws of war and who believes that they are obnoxious and counterproductive restraints on a "warrior" ethos. Someone who believes that any negative results in America's recent conflicts could be chalked up to the failure to unleash the military from moral or prudential restraints on conduct and from pursuing political objectives beyond kinetic destruction and applied lethality.
What we are seeing in Iran is exactly what America elected when it voted Trump in 2024 and then confirmed his choice of Hegseth.
What we are seeing in Iran is exactly what America elected when it voted Trump in 2024 and then confirmed his choice of Hegseth.
#16
Off the Record / Re: Grand unified books thread
Last post by Norgy - Today at 02:23:41 PMSkre's mostly accepted, yet in its time, controversial hypothesis was that the kingship of Norway was in the west at Avaldsnes. A slow building of strength.
#17
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 02:22:35 PMSinking the ship itself wasn't really a bad act--it was an Iranian war ship. It's more the inappropriate after behavior that appears to have happened for no reason at all other than simple malice or spite towards norms.
#18
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 02:17:32 PMApart from any moral qualms there are utilitarian reasons why bombing a girls' primary school and sinking the ship may have additional bad consequences. The USA is claiming to be fighting the current Iranian regime, it is a very obnoxious regime so many are loth to criticise, but the more civilian/non-regime assets that are destroyed the more it becomes a war against Iran the country rather than the regime. Right now a large proportion of Iran's population support the attacks by the USA....but how long will that last?
#19
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by Legbiter - Today at 02:15:40 PMAfter a week of this we'll be in a global crisis that will make the 1973 Arab oil embargo look like a picnic.
#20
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by Jacob - Today at 02:11:47 PMQuote from: Bauer on Today at 01:47:02 PMDestabilizing the regime to the point it isn't a threat externally, but gets left with internal strife indefinitely
I see. That's a relatively clear definition, thank you.
I don't think it's going to be easy to achieve, whether through bombing alone or through a wider military campaign.