Racialist arguments are tricky. Like most cons, there are underlying bits of accuracy, even though they’re strung together with fuzzy thinking. One of the shibboleths of modern racial paganism is a general confusion among categories of identity. One that particularly stands out for me is the way some of the them extrapolate from tribe to…
Concept of Facts
The genealogist’s stock-in-trade is the idea that the facts of the past can be (partially) recovered through research. We stumble when those facts turn out to be slipperier than we thought they would be. As our research takes us further back in time, there is more chance of stumbling. Unless we have specialized knowledge about period and…
Lost Alphabet Letters
In the modern Western world we use the Roman alphabet with 26 letters. Usually. The Swedes actually have 29 letters. What’s surprising to some folks is that we might have had more letters ourselves. Who thinks about what might have been? Except when you see an extract from an olde manuscript and spot a letter…
Fighting Snails
If you’ve ever wondered why so many medieval manuscripts have drawings of knights fighting snails. Vox, “Why knights fought snails in medieval art“, YouTube (Mar. 29, 2017). I won’t give it away. And the comments are as good as the video. Here’s a sample: “The answer is simple, in medieval times giant snails were a real…
Think About Culture Changes
Let’s take some time to think about how culture changes over time. Justin King talks a bit here toward the beginning about White American Southerners who tried to save their culture by moving to Brazil. It didn’t work. They assimilated. And that’s exactly what happens to people in the European diaspora. Our ancestors might have…