LJ friends...
Sep. 5th, 2006 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrakoVarious people have posted this -
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jkluge, maaseru, amberite, for example - and I like the sentiment, so I repeat it:If there are one or more people on your friends-list who make your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.I can't help thinking this goes without saying, but then, many things that go without saying should still be said.
There are also many people hear whom I fear I would fall out of touch with if they didn't have LJs, or if I didn't. People I've known for many years, but who live far away, or whom I would normally only see every few years at cons, or who simply have busy, divergent lives. They are important to me and I'm glad to have this chance to make contact at whatever level is practical for any of us.
And then there are the chance-met LJ people whom I found because of some random shared interest (listed on their info page), or because they wrote a story that stuck in my mind, or because their art is striking. Some of them I feel I know personally (if virtually) and others I possibly never will, but all of these people have enhanced my life.
This is what puts the 'friend' in 'flist'.
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Date: 2006-09-05 01:31 pm (UTC)I am so glad to have found you, thanks to your response on
Liking budgies and Doctor Who helps, too!
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Date: 2006-09-05 04:37 pm (UTC)On IMDb's KoH board today, a Richard-fan accused me of "overestimating" Conrad. I'm not going to rise to the bait. If these people haven't read Ilgen or Usseglio, let alone primary sources such as Choniates or the less famous Latin chroniclers, they inevitably underestimate him. It's this whole ridiculously Angevin/Anglocentric vision of the period that they have...
Don't know if you;ve checked
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Date: 2006-09-05 05:08 pm (UTC)Well - at least they're paying attention to history. I've noticed the cult status of Alexander Hamilton - and I have even managed to remember who he is. And Max Robespierre - what an odd choice of favourite!
I'll check on
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Date: 2006-09-05 05:33 pm (UTC)Albeit in a 'herd-instinct' way. I don't think I ever got enthusiastic about anyone we studied at school, and I would have felt uncomfortable about fangirling on the same people as everyone else. I was always an individualist.
I've noticed the cult status of Alexander Hamilton - and I have even managed to remember who he is. And Max Robespierre - what an odd choice of favourite!
I simply don't get either of them... OK, so I have a built-in aversion to American Rebels, full-stop (and I find it disconcerting how much of the net is US-dominated!). As for Robespierre... A lot of them seem to me to have no moral compass: it's all about "hotness", regardless of values. They regard "revolution" as somehow hip, without asking what it's for, what it's against, who benefits, and what the cost is. Ordering lots of executions of civilians isn't something I regard as a plus-point.
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Date: 2006-09-05 06:00 pm (UTC)I find it disconcerting when people in random forums talk about 'our' history when they specifically mean U.S. history, but don't say so - leaving a person to guess what they're talking about. I've seen that in several contexts in just the last few days.
I agree with you about revolutions, although sometimes the bloodier parts of history can be interesting. I like The Scarlet Pimpernel stories. I find the English Civil War interesting, if that counts. The American Revolution doesn't interest me much but I put that down to my rather extreme ignorance of the subject.
I think a lot of this reflects the way history is taught in schools, and not much else. Americans like American hitory because - if my understanding is correct - they don't study much else in school, and they are given their history with a nationalistic slant.
And the concentration of Americans online is a numbers game. You and I read and write in English, which is a filter to start with - most Americans are English speakers. The population of the U.S. is very, very large. And Americans are very high-tech and so probably have more net access per capita than most places. Even if the per capita proportion is the same in the other English-speaking countries, the U.S. population is a huge number.
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Date: 2006-09-05 06:18 pm (UTC)Yes, that has thrown me a number of times, especially when I was a newer user online, several years ago. It's the assumptions they work with. I appreciate that there are simply more of them, but they tend to assume that everyone else speaking English is American.
I agree with you about revolutions, although sometimes the bloodier parts of history can be interesting.
Indeed they are; but I find it disturbing that people who commit political mass-murder can become the object of crushes. To find something interesting is fair enough, but there's a moral vacuum among some fans.
I think a lot of this reflects the way history is taught in schools, and not much else. Americans like American history because - if my understanding is correct - they don't study much else in school, and they are given their history with a nationalistic slant.
Yes - and if you challenge those nationalist assumptions, you can get some unpleasant verbal attacks. I speak from experience...
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Date: 2006-09-05 06:27 pm (UTC)The other aspect that comes up is exhortations to 'contact your congressman' about a matter of US governance, or 'you can watch it on Sci-Fi' when the station is only available in the U.S. These aren't really annoyances so much as things that bring me up short, or give me the sense that these people are unaware that they are addressing an international community.
I find it disturbing that people who commit political mass-murder can become the object of crushes.
Well, me too. But I am told that Charles Manson has his fan club, that Karla Homolka (a Canadian serial killer of teenage girls) had people wanting to marry her when she was in prison, and some people admire Hitler. Strange world.
I would be unlikely to challenge anyone's nationalism on purpose, any more than I would challenge their religion - and it's much the same thing most of the time. I wouldn't ever misrepresent the truth (especially a historical truth!) but I'd be very careful how I phrased it in some cases.
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Date: 2006-09-05 07:48 pm (UTC)I think these things should be challenged. All too often, people prefer nationalistic or religious myths to reality, and use them to demonise others/puff up their own amour propre/push a questionable political agenda. They tell lies - and believe lies - about the past in order to manipulate and abuse people in the present.
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Date: 2006-09-05 08:00 pm (UTC)Nationalistic history isn't always lies, but it is usually a skewing of facts for propagandistic purposes.
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Date: 2006-09-15 02:55 am (UTC)filkferengi, Cute When Pithy
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