Someone suggested the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast to me last week. Actually, they suggested it to a friend on facebook and I got a note and... this part isn't important. What is important is that I really hope this show gets better as they go on. The first few episodes were amazingly short, but as they went on the shows got longer. The problem starts with the fact that as they shows got longer, the lackadaisical attitude towards preparation becomes more and more obvious. One of the girls, um, talks, um, like… you know, um, this. I can hardly begin to express how frustrating it is to listen to someone um and you know, their way through what is supposed to be an informative program.
The second problem is, they’ve got some facts, but it seems like they have little understanding on many subjects. It’s pretty clear in places that they read a wikipedia article, and maybe glanced at one or two other sources, and then sort of stopped looking into the subject at hand. It’s that sort of thing where you can tell when they’re skating around the edge of their knowledge by getting some pretty basic things either wrong or at least not quite right in a way that makes it clear they’re guessing.
I was doing okay though, for the most part, but their Crusades podcast just left me ranting. I’m a pretty sensitive new age sort of guy. I cry at long distance phone commercials, I cuddle kitties, and the fact that I once owned something pink proves I’m in touch with my feminine side. I’m not a misogynist by any standard, in fact I think women should be given far more important jobs so that I don’t have to do them. HOWEVER! I spent the whole of the Crusade podcast just saying… “Can’t we get a man in here to discuss this?” Mostly because the Crusades are BOY HISTORY! There are no pretty dresses, no egalitarian discussions on the importance of democracy, no clever fellows for girls to have history crushes on, none of that shit. It’s blood and sand and stupidity and war. It’s all the things boys like.
As proof, listen carefully for the story of men having to cut open their horses and drink their blood to try and survive in the desert. One of the girls says, and I motherfucking quote “Oh, ick!” Which just proves that these two should not be discussing this subject. If you ever find yourself saying something so moronically prissy as “Oh, ick!” then you need to step away and let someone else take care of this section.
What really got me was the end though, where they decided that The Crusades are not historically significant. Now, I think what they mean is the trendy poly-sci theory that to the political situation between the West and the Middle East, the Crusades aren’t significant to the political situation. Whoever says that is wrong, and stupid by the way, since they still celebrate King Baibars to this day in the coffee houses of the Arab world. The problem is, they don’t talk about it in those terms. They say “Are they historically significant?” “Um… no.” which left me shouting… “Except that the Crusades more or less brought algebra to Europe, along with new advancements in architecture, weapons technology, armor, tactics, language, food, understanding of the spice trade, art, literature, history, clothing, smelting, political changes across the board, and got Europe on the road of knowledge that would kick start the Renaissance! Yeah, if you ignore all of that, maybe they aren’t significant. I mean, Thomas Jefferson never fought in one and there were no pretty dresses at the Battle of Acre.”
You can maybe see why I’m sort of annoyed. I wouldn’t mind women talking about the crusades, I mind these two under-aged little girly-girls umming and oh icking their way through an examination of their ignorance. It just strikes me how much we sometimes divide history into channels, either deliberately or just by nature. It hadn’t struck me before, but I’ve clearly always regarded the Crusades and the Roman Empire as Boy History while thinking of the Regency Period and the Revolutionary War era as Girl History.
Also, the goddamned crossbow* was developed about 200 years after the crusades were over, it wasn’t invented for that adventure!
*The gastraphetes and Chinese Automatic variant not withstanding.
Edit: Forgot to add... Astronomy, navigation, heating and cooling technologies, asskickers, shitkickers and METHODISTS!
Not historically significant. You must be fucking kidding me.
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