Apples

I have an intellectual axe to grind today. Well, actually I have two, but I’m going to avoid one of them and rant about the other. What I’d like to discuss is a skill that the majority of the population is completely lacking: critical thinking. Yes, I’ve spoken about this a very many times, but today I’m going to illustrate the pitfalls of going through life without thinking critically about what you read and hear by using an example from one of my classes last year.

In one of my Mediaeval history classes last year there was a student who just didn’t have a clue. A complete account of the most classic moments involving her stupidity would take far too long, so I’ll use one event to demonstrate my point. In order to understand the thoughts and behaviour of people who lived in the Middle Ages, one must understand that the thought-world they lived in was dominated by religion. Thus, we started the course by reading some of the more important sections of the Bible. When we got to the part about Adam and Eve this clueless student put her hand up and mentioned that the fateful apple that doomed the couple is an ancient pagan symbol for wisdom, and suggested that this story may thus reflect an earlier, decidedly pagan, root of early Christianity.

At this point I’d like to pause, and ask if you can see what is wrong with her analysis? Are there any questions you can think to ask about her evidence, argument, or conclusion? Think about it for a few seconds before I continue.

This student’s analysis reveals a complete lack of critical thinking skills. This deficiency, aside from making her look stupid, also caused her argument to fall very wide of the mark. In order to prove that the “pagan apple=wisdom” somehow found its way into the Bible there is a long series of questions that need to be answered so that a chain of causation can be established. Without proof of a causal chain, no historical argument has any value.

So, exactly which ancient pagans used the apple as a symbol for wisdom? Where and when did they live? How could they have had any connection with the man (yes, it was almost certainly a man) who wrote down the Adam and Eve story? Unless you can answer all these questions, and more, such an argument is useless. Well, this student revealed her ignorance by not being able to answer any of the questions, though if you knew her you would not have been surprised. Thus, the irrelevance of her idea was made abundantly clear.

Now, let’s try and answer these questions and see if we can come to a real conclusion here. Is there a connection? Did she just miss it through her inability to examine the evidence? Well, though I am no expert on pre-historical Europe, or the thousands of groups of people who lived in all of its various regions, I am aware that certain ancient Celtic groups did indeed use the apple as a symbol for wisdom. But, since at least 99% of the world’s population still thinks the word “Celtic” refers to an ethnicity, you will quickly meet a discouraging wall of ignorance if you follow this line of inquiry. From what I can tell, the specific groups in question lived in either France or Britain. Unfortunately, this actually covers many dozens of different ethnic and cultural groups who all happened to speak a related group of languages, which we now refer to as Celtic (or Gaelic, which is closer to the actual word). There was, however, a group of Celtic-speaking people who were settled in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), who may or may not have used this exact symbol.

Now, the people who wrote this part of the Bible belonged to a semi-nomadic, Semitic-speaking tribe that was eventually referred to as the “habiru”, or Hebrews. They lived in many areas of the Middle East at this time, though probably not in Asia Minor. Is it possible that the European pagans and the Aramaic monotheists met up and assimilated each other’s symbols? Probably not. Though I won’t rule it out, I would certainly laugh at anyone who tried to make this argument, even if they referred to the group of Celts in Turkey. Thus, the student’s conclusion is easily proven wrong with the application of only a tiny fraction of critical thought.

However, her argument is also disproved by following a completely different line of questioning. Had she merely asked a few more questions about the “apple” she may even have discovered it. Here are my questions: Was the Bible written in English? What language was it written in? When, how, and by who was it translated into English? Does the word apple mean the same thing in these languages?

Allow me to quickly answer these questions. This section of the Bible was written in ancient Hebrew. Eventually it was translated to Greek and Latin, and from there into Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. From there it was translated, or updated, into Middle English, and now Modern English. Though I’m not sure what the word in question was in the original text, it was translated into Old English as “apple”. However, in Old English there were two words that could have been chosen, since they both meant the same thing. These words were “apple” and “wasten”, and they both meant what the modern word “fruit” means. After 1066 the French-speaking Normans conquered England, and Old English merged with French to create two recognizable languages. First came the French dialect known as Anglo-Norman, and then came what we know as Middle English, Chaucer’s language. By this time the word “wasten” had been replaced with the French word “fruit”, and “apple” had transformed into the word for the specific fruit that we would recognize. This little change in meaning was missed when the Bible was updated, since to whoever was updating it, “apple” was not a foreign word. He probably thought it was referring to a specific fruit rather than the generic fruit that it meant in Old English. Thus, we still see the word as “apple” and think of apples, when we should be seeing the word “fruit”, and we should probably be thinking about peaches or apricots. So, the “apple” that supposedly represents wisdom, isn’t even an apple at all.

Ok, that was a little long-winded, but I hope it gets my point across. The things we think about our history can change drastically if we merely think about them critically. I hope you learned a lesson today, and I really hope you learn how to apply it. Ciao per ora, and keep thinking.

Empty

These last few months have drained me immensely. Between the hardest semester ever and all sorts of moving things and throwing parties, I'm totally spent. If I was just tired it wouldn't be so bad, but I've become mentally exhausted as well. I can't sit down for long enough to think about anything stimulating, and when people ask me things along the lines of "what's new?" I end up drawing a blank. Usually I have something to say, an issue to discuss, an injustice to lament, an indignant rant just waiting to be released. But now I've got nothing. It feels like there's a fog inside my head that solidifies and prevents any thoughts from moving around in there. Maybe I've spent all my intellectual energy on my essays and have nothing left for regular life. With that in mind, let me tell you what I've been writing lately, since it's so much better than anything I've been typing here:

-An essay concerning the formation of national identities through sport. I used a case study of the 1998 World Cup in France to explain how French nationalism and national identity were changed drastically by the success and composition of the French team.

-An essay linking the rise of the Cult of the Virgin Mary in the late 14th century to the portrayal of women found in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the very best of the courtly romances.

-A history of the Canon Law concerning marriage, the battle over control of marriage fought by the Church and the nobility in the early Middle Ages, and the eventual effects on the interpretation of "legitimate marriage" (mainly highlighting the conflict between consent and consummation) on court cases form 16th-century Geneva.

-A refutation of Martin Luther's doctrine of "justification through faith alone" using the Bible and other works on Theology that he would have had access to. The result is that Luther's theology is found to be incomplete and inconsistent.

-A short recap of the events surrounding the formation and destruction of the Paris Commune in 1870.

-I've also written 2 essays on wartime Vietnam, and still need to write one about a 16th-century religious woman in Spain who was put on trial by the Inquisition. The trial transcript is fascinating...and a little frightening.

So yeah, maybe I'm just spent. If you'd like to hear more about these and other issues concerning soccer, history (mainly Mediaeval), or theology, don't hesitate to ask; at least it will give me something to talk about. Ciao for now.

God Grant Me Strength

One of the reasons I study history is to try and correct all the ridiculous misconceptions people have about various things, and it can be a wholly frustrating task. Not only do I have to deal with outright ignorance ("The Earl of Sandwich? That's not a person, you're a liar"), and terrible mistakes made by the education system ("Christopher Columbus set out to prove the world was round because everyone else thought it was flat"), but now I also have to contend with immoral and unscrupulous authors who intentionally manipulate the historical evidence for the purposes of propaganda (yes Hitchens and Dawkins, I'm talking about you two).

Sometimes I get the urge to go crazy on people...I just CANNOT tolerate willful stupidity, nor should I, or any other sane person, be expected to. Here is a conversation I had with a man at work the other day. I found him in the Religion section, and he started talking about how much he loved "The God Delusion", and "God is not Great", two of the most a-historical books ever published (after "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" of course).

Guy: Those books were great, they really opened my mind to new things. Now I don't just

accept what people tell me.

Me: Yeah, I hear they're good. My only problem with them is that neither of the authors are

good historians (Dawkins is a scientist and Hitchens is a philosopher I believe), and they get

a bunch of their facts wrong.

Guy: Like what?

Me: Well, for example, the Inquisition. Opponents of religion tend to claim that the Inquisition

killed all sorts of people, but that just wasn't the case.

Guy: Well, it was.

Me: No, it wasn't. The Holy Office of the Inquisition has executed less that 150 people since its

inception in the 1200s. Conversely, independent Protestant "Inquisitors" in Northern

Europe killed close to 80,000 people (though that estimate is considered low by most

experts), and the Spanish Inquisition was a state run organization, not a church run one.

Guy: See, this is what you religious people do, you delude yourselves about things.

Me: No, I did the research. I am trained to do proper research, and that's what I did.

Guy: No, you're deluded.

Me: Wait...didn't you tell me you don't just believe things people tell you any more?

Um...maybe you shouldn't just believe what Dawkins and Hitchens say about subjects they

have no experience in.

Guy: Sorry man, but you're just wrong. You religious people are just wrong.

Ok, so tell me why the state won't allow violence when one has been unbearably provoked? Please people, PLEASE, don't talk knowingly about something you don't know, and then deny actual facts discovered through real research. These atheists are getting worse than the Creationists...So please, the next time you meet a poor historian who is just trying to help society by giving it a clear picture of it's past, don't argue with him (it may be politically correct for me to add "or her", but I'm actually referring only to myself here), listen, because maybe you just might learn something. Please attack stupidity wherever you find it. Ciao.

Poor Old Aethelred

Maybe by now you might be wondering who this Athelred guy in this site's address is... or, maybe it never crossed your mind. In either case, I've decided to write a short piece about the dangers of bad history, and I'm going to use poor old Aethelred as an example.

Aethelred was the king of England from about 978-1016. During his reign he had to deal with treacherous advisors, troublesome nobles, and hordes of angry Vikings. To be honest, I'm surprised that a man whom history has described as incompetent managed to last for so long. Obviously he did something right, although he certainly made some pretty dumb decisions as well.

Aethelred earned the sobriquet 'Unread' or 'Readless' either at the end of his reign, or shortly after his death. This is what I'd like to highlight in terms of bad history. Amateur historians who didn't do their research, real historians who didn't speak Old English, and common people who didn't know any better have all claimed that Aethelred's nickname means something like 'unready.' Now, I get the feeling that many of them must have been either pretty lazy, or pretty ignorant, because putting a 'y' on the end of an Old English word does not make it into a Modern English word. Nor does it adequately translate the word from Old to Modern English. Unfortunately, not many people seemed to care all that much about the word's real meaning, and so the incorrect translation has wreaked havoc on this section of English history. Allowing his nickname to colour their work, many historians have portrayed Aethelred as an incompetent king who was not prepared for the responsibility of his position, and subsequently lost the nation to the Danes...

Maybe you see where I'm going with this. 'unread' does not actually translate as 'unready.' It really means 'ill-counseled,' or in my translation; 'guy who takes bad advice.' The truth of the matter is that Aethelred was very well prepared to rule England, he just managed to allow his advisors to influence his decisions a little too often. This, more than any imagined unpreparedness, is why he was so soundly defeated by the Danes.

So what does this all have to do with anything? Well, the point I'm trying to make is that history is all too often misinterpreted, either by amateurs with no training in proper research and critical thinking, or by pros with an agenda. It is precisely these idiots whose opinions tend to influence the ideas of the general public, which confuses me, since their claims are always the hardest to believe. Sure, our perception of Aethelred may not actually have any serious repercussions, but this kind of thing is far from rare. Sadly, especially for me, it is the Middle Ages that suffer most at the hands of untrained or misguided 'historians'...but that is an issue I'll take up another time.

So, the lesson for today is that much of what we think we know about our past is actually wrong. Good historians will tell you what is as close to 'accurate' as possible, but no one seems to want to listen to them. This is why I picked Athelred as my site's address. Maybe I can set a few misconceptions right, and if not, at least I can get people to start thinking more about what they hear and read.

Until next time, remember Aethelred's plight, and try not to be so hard on him; he wasn't unready, he just had bad advice. Ciao.

Io Sono Me

I notice I've been ranting for a little about some seemingly obscure topics without any real context involved. I study Mediaeval History. NOT "Medieval", NOT "Midevel", NOT "Medivel", nor any other ridiculous spelling someone might tell you is right. This is actually one of my most pointless pet-peeves, but if you're going to dedicate your life to the study of a particular subject, it should go without saying that you expect others to treat your pursuit with respect. Though my Latin is terrible I know 'medi' means middle, and 'aeval' or 'aevalus' means years. Thus, Middle Years or Middle Ages is spelt Mediaeval. Anything else is either incorrect, or some new form of the word that has taken root amongst the illiterate Plebs Maximus and then included in dictionaries because of its common-usage status.

Hmm...I've decided to go off on a tangent here, so bear with me. Though any scholar or historian worth the name knows that the historical time periods we study have all been invented by historians themselves in order to make examining the human past easier, the Middle Ages are an interesting exception. People in the Middle Ages were well aware that they were living in the Middle Ages. Dante even referred to his time as "media tempestus" or something like that, translating roughly as "middle times." How could they know this when people in Antiquity didn't know they were living in Antiquity, and people in the Renaissance were only dimly aware of the cultural rebirth for which their time would be labelled? It's actually quite simple if you think about it. In the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of the overwhelmingly Christian Europe clearly understood that they were living in the time between Jesus' death and his future coming. Thus, they knew they were Mediaeval long before we did.

Apart from that, there are countless arguments over when the Middle Ages begin and end, and what exactly makes a society Mediaeval. I'll probably discuss this debate in a later blog, but for now I just want to stress my desire for people to spell the damn word correctly. Please, don't give in to intellectual laziness (the English Department at my university actually spells it wrong...but I won't get into all of their countless deficiencies right now) or to common usages. Spell words properly and respect their origins.

Ok...so that seems like I've given you some context. I'm a student, I get angry alot, and I hate idiots and people who fail to think critically and intelligently about important issues...or about any issue for that matter. That's it for now, I've got to go study for an exam. Ciao.

P.S. This stupid blog thing is trying to tell me that the proper spelling of Mediaeval is incorrect. I need to find whoever designed this thing, sit them down, and have a VERY serious discussion with them about the proper way to do things...