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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, Hello, and welcome to Cool People who

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Speaker 1: Did cool stuff. You're a weekly reminder that when there's

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Speaker 1: bad things happening, there's people try to do good things,

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Speaker 1: including sometimes a lot of the bad things happened a

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Speaker 1: really really long time ago, but there were still people

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Speaker 1: trying to do good things in the face of the

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Speaker 1: bad things a really really long time ago. And you've

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Speaker 1: probably noticed that because for the past month or two,

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Speaker 1: that's like all at three months, I don't know. I've

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Speaker 1: been obsessed with antiquity for the first time ever on

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Speaker 1: the show, since I decided to deep dive the Druids

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Speaker 1: for Halloween, and here I am three months later into

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Speaker 1: this hole. And what I decided to do for the

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Speaker 1: very first time was bring on an actual historian and

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Speaker 1: just ask that historian questions live. I don't know the

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Speaker 1: answers to these questions yet, but I'm going to ask

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Speaker 1: our guest Christopher Zeichmann. Hi, how are you great?

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I am very excited. So anyone who has

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Speaker 1: been listening to the last couple episodes, you know, we

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Speaker 1: did an episode recently about Spartacus and the Third Servile War,

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Speaker 1: and it was one of the first times I got

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Speaker 1: to say, wow, this this was actually cooler than I expected.

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Speaker 1: And the point of that is that you are the

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Speaker 1: main source. Well, you have a book. It came out

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five from Pluto Press. It's called Radical Antiquity,

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Speaker 1: and that book is what made me decide to finally

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Speaker 1: do a Spartacus episode and discover that they were way

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Speaker 1: cooler than I thought.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad hear they could kind of open that door.

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Speaker 2: I feel like it's sort of Spartacus, right, we see

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Speaker 2: those movies and like the was it, like, yeah, Stars

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Speaker 2: or something had a TV show Spartacus a few yearsgo.

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Speaker 2: I think they're like reviving it now, but like when

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Speaker 2: you actually look at the data, then it's just fascinating,

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Speaker 2: incredible stuff. I feel like scholars even today overlook quite

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Speaker 2: a bit. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and to just dive right into the Spartacus part

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Speaker 1: of this, yeah, yeah, I think it's the Brave Heart

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Speaker 1: effect where we're all kind of burned out on movies

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Speaker 1: like Braveheart or even Gladiator, which is on some level

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Speaker 1: of retail of the Spartacus story, right where I just

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Speaker 1: kind of I just kind of expected Spartacus to kind

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Speaker 1: of suck, like because I read a lot of history,

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Speaker 1: and so I keep finding people who are like, Oh,

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Speaker 1: there's this really cool thing, and you're like, ah, he's

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Speaker 1: just like the first two Servile Wars would have been

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Speaker 1: a perfect example of this. Okay, wait, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: try and speed run the three Servile Wars to see

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Speaker 1: if you can tell me if I'm right without my

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Speaker 1: notes in front of me.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: So, there are these servile Wars, the slave Wars, the

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Speaker 1: slave uprisings that happen in a rapid secession about a

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Speaker 1: generation apart each one in the end of the BC.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly, like they're all in like the

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Speaker 1: second century, in the first century BCE, I think exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the first two are on an island whose name

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Speaker 1: I totally remember. This is really not embarrassing. It's the

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Speaker 1: football that Italy is kicking sicily, thank you, the hacky

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Speaker 1: sack that's being kicked. And the first two they're up

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Speaker 1: ending society, but they're just like putting it right back

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Speaker 1: together again in the same way this is society was

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Speaker 1: constructed with a monarch with it certainly seems like at

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Speaker 1: least one of them had slavery because they were like, hey, you,

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Speaker 1: we've captured you. Now you have to make stuff for

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Speaker 1: us and things like that. And so what made the

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Speaker 1: Third Survival or whatever? I can't ask this question because

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Speaker 1: I already said it on the show. The Third Servile

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Speaker 1: War was different because they instead created an attempt at

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Speaker 1: a free society. Is what it certainly seems like, is

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Speaker 1: that it's an accurate.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I think they probably, like you said,

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Speaker 2: these are kind of all happening in kind of southern

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Speaker 2: Italy Sicily kind of that same general region there, right,

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Speaker 2: And I think it's pretty safe to say that kind

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Speaker 2: of Spartakiss Crisis and the other sort of rebels engaged

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Speaker 2: in the Third Servile War were aware of kind of

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Speaker 2: what worked and what didn't work with those kind of

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Speaker 2: earlier servilel wars kind of where there were successes. But

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Speaker 2: also you see the visions that kind of flame out, right,

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Speaker 2: those things like you're saying in the Brave Heart Effect,

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Speaker 2: these things that seem really cool in the abstract, and

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Speaker 2: then you oh, hey, this is just calling a different

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Speaker 2: person king now, right, And it maybe it's a litle

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Speaker 2: little bit better than before, but it's not really overhauling

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Speaker 2: society in any meaningful way. And I think, yeah, sort

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Speaker 2: of Sparta kissing these other slaves in the Third Servil

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Speaker 2: War seems like they had more of a vision anyway,

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Speaker 2: and it seems like it was a lot more I

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Speaker 2: would say democratic, in the sense that like there's a

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Speaker 2: much wider involvement in terms of like developing what these

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Speaker 2: policies were. Right, it wasn't just sort of the king

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Speaker 2: who's making these decisions and his advisors, right, the slave kings.

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Speaker 2: That is, we kind of find like it looks like

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Speaker 2: more involvement from kind of the common slaves who are

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Speaker 2: also rebelling, right, not necessarily the generals and leaders, but

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Speaker 2: and I think that's kind of what makes this sort

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Speaker 2: of Third serviol War seem a lot more exciting to

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Speaker 2: me anyway.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it makes sense. And Okay, I said at

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Speaker 1: the beginning, or maybe it was before we were started talking,

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Speaker 1: that I'm not a historian, right, I'm a pop historian.

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Speaker 1: I say history to people after reading it. But I

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Speaker 1: did come to a conclusion about Third Servile War that

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Speaker 1: I then conjectured on air like a responsible person, which is,

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Speaker 1: there's this whole thing where they march up to the

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Speaker 1: very top of it Italy right in the Third Servile War,

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Speaker 1: and then for whatever reason, they turned back around again.

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Speaker 1: And historians antique historians, what do you call it? A

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Speaker 1: historian from the era, but a couple hundred years.

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Speaker 2: Later ancient historians is what I would normally call it.

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Speaker 2: Then maybe classists to be modern writers talking about the past.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So ancient historians who were still talking about the

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Speaker 1: past at this point were like, why did Spartacus turn around?

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Speaker 1: And they wanted to kind of ennoble this one guy

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Speaker 1: because they had like it seems like the Romans invented

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Speaker 1: everything bad, or at least Rome brought out everything bad

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Speaker 1: in history, like the Great Man of History theory. They

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Speaker 1: were all about that. It looks like right they were.

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Speaker 1: They were like, Spartacus did this, whereas even even now,

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Speaker 1: like I couldn't remember the other guy's name, so I

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Speaker 1: got lazy and just said Spartacus. But there was like

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Speaker 1: five generals.

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Speaker 2: Right, yeah, like on a Maas, Cryptsis, all these other

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Speaker 2: sort of people. And but you're right, like these ancient writers,

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Speaker 2: you know, because you're saying, this is all very retrospective

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Speaker 2: for them, and so kind of when they're most these

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Speaker 2: sources were written, you know, be two hundred or so

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Speaker 2: years after this revolt took place, and by this time

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Speaker 2: kind of the second century of the Common Era, with

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Speaker 2: scholars often referred second sophistic they're very interested in kind

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Speaker 2: of this great man mode of history, like biographies of

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Speaker 2: Alexander the Great in around this time period. Right, So

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Speaker 2: this great man mode of history writing huge part of

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Speaker 2: how they're telling these histories. Then, so you're right, like

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Speaker 2: they're upholding Spartacus as this sort of genius who's like

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Speaker 2: just through circumstance, happened to be a slave, right, but

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Speaker 2: in every other way he's just as good as one

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Speaker 2: of us Greeks or Romans.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, And that's why they didn't want

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Speaker 1: him to just be a nomad from the from thrace,

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Speaker 1: right yea. Yeah. So it's presented that he gets all

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Speaker 1: the way up to the top of Italy and then

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Speaker 1: for no one can understand why he was trying to say,

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't really attack Rome, we should just go home.

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Speaker 1: But then instead they turned around his men against him

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Speaker 1: and they marched back on Rome, and he said, well,

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Speaker 1: I guess everyone else is doing it, so I'm going

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Speaker 1: to do it too. And my theory when I this

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Speaker 1: is that this is one of the greatest acts of

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Speaker 1: solidarity that's ever happened. Is that a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people wanted to go home. So they're like, all right,

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Speaker 1: I'll walk you to the end of the block, like

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Speaker 1: I will walk you to the mountains. I will get

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Speaker 1: you out of Italy. And then they're like, cool, everyone

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Speaker 1: who wants to leave. This is part of why I'm

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Speaker 1: holding the Third Survival War is successful. I'm I'm an anarchist,

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Speaker 1: so I have to pick failures in history and call

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Speaker 1: them successful. It's the only way I can reconcile anything.

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Speaker 1: But like, all of these slaves were like, all right,

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Speaker 1: we want to go home, and so a bunch of

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Speaker 1: them all head north all together, and then presumably I

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Speaker 1: can't remember which, I get all of my sources mixed up.

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Speaker 1: I read a lot of different things for that episode.

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Speaker 1: Some historians were like, well, we think some of them left, right,

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Speaker 1: and so presumably a bunch of them went home, and

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Speaker 1: then the rest were like, yeah, but I like being

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Speaker 1: a bandit and like fuck Rome, you know, and so

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Speaker 1: then they march back and keep doing essentially you know,

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Speaker 1: social banditry. This is my theory.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I love this theory, right. And the thing is,

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Speaker 2: these sources are so sparse in many ways, right, that

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Speaker 2: you get these little glimpses as to what happened, and

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Speaker 2: those are kind of course filtered through all these incredible

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Speaker 2: biases against slaves, against rebels, against foreigners, and so it's

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Speaker 2: often really hard to be able to piece what it

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Speaker 2: else is together. And I kind of love this theory

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Speaker 2: that you've put forward here. Gonna have to go back

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Speaker 2: and reread these sources with that in mind anyway, But yeah,

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Speaker 2: you're right. I think you're kind of also pointing this

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Speaker 2: other question too, right, So, like when we talk about

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Speaker 2: anarchist politics, it's often we think about these kind of

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Speaker 2: moments of failures, right, that these unsuccessful movements, right, you know,

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Speaker 2: whether we talk about them, and most you kind of

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Speaker 2: fear people talk about them optimistically as sort of like

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Speaker 2: these temporary autonomous zones and stuff like that, Right, these

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Speaker 2: kind of projects that weren't designed to last long period

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Speaker 2: of time. But whether like pirate ship or you know

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Speaker 2: a few years ago with the Seattle was it Seattle

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Speaker 2: Temporary Autonomous zone or whatever it was.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the chop chats depending on how you ask.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but we tend to think is like very temporary things.

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Speaker 2: And I think that we can still call those successes

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Speaker 2: in many ways. Right, Yeah, they don't need to last forever,

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Speaker 2: but they can accomplish something in that insistence upon liberating

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Speaker 2: here and now. And I think, I don't know, I

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Speaker 2: think you're right that we can look at this sort

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Speaker 2: of slaver role of the Spartacus and this third several

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Speaker 2: Wars as a remarkable success in many ways. Right. It

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Speaker 2: certainly outlasted the you know, crasses, the general suppressed and everything.

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Speaker 2: They It's pretty clear that these are people still living

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Speaker 2: in southern Italy here and there, and it took decades

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Speaker 2: for them to all be wiped out by the Romans

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Speaker 2: over the sort of you know, long period of time.

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Speaker 1: Anyway. Yeah, yeah, that's like one of the things that

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Speaker 1: I again barely found any information about was that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so for people didn't listen to the Third Servile War episodes,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Third Servile War lasts about four years

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Speaker 1: or so. I think actually all of the Servile Wars

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Speaker 1: lasted exactly the same number of years, and I think

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Speaker 1: it was four and you know, and then it was

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Speaker 1: essentially militarily defeated, right, and in this particular case, actually

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Speaker 1: I think in all of them, thousands or tens of

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Speaker 1: thousands of them end up crucified, right, because Rome is

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Speaker 1: very metal and dark. But then Thuri is that how

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Speaker 1: you say the name of this story? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So Thuria is this liberated zone right where they showed up.

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Speaker 1: And in a remarkable difference between what Third Servile War

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Speaker 1: was doing versus the first two, as best as it

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Speaker 1: seems like people can tell, In the first two Servile Wars,

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Speaker 1: when the slaves took over a city, they were like, ah,

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Speaker 1: we're going to kind of murder everyone and then enslave

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Speaker 1: the people that we don't want to kill because they're useful,

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Speaker 1: and you know, maybe this one guy was nice to me,

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Speaker 1: and you know, the people at the party who are

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Speaker 1: nice to the seer who ran the first one, they

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Speaker 1: may or may not be freed, right. But the Third

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Speaker 1: Servile War, it seems like when they took over this town,

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Speaker 1: they kind of were like, all right, well, we're all

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Speaker 1: going to make these decisions us and the original inhabitants

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Speaker 1: of this town they might not have asked like, hey,

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Speaker 1: can we come do this, right, but they did not

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Speaker 1: show up and slaughter everyone, and like even the Romans

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Speaker 1: who were mad at them and were like, oh, this

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Speaker 1: is a little different. They're doing something a little different here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is yeah, pretty fascinated. So it's again another way,

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Speaker 2: which is something I think is pretty unique about this

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Speaker 2: Third Servile War that like this kind of what it's

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Speaker 2: certainly a conquest of a town in a certain way, right,

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Speaker 2: or of a city that like, like you said, the

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Speaker 2: slave's not invited in by the residents of three I

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Speaker 2: or anything like that, but they managed to find a

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Speaker 2: way of working together, living together, and in a way

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Speaker 2: that really presented a problem for later Roman historians who

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Speaker 2: wanted to make Spartakiss Revolt out to be villainous. Right.

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Speaker 2: So when we look at you know, half millennium later, right,

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Speaker 2: Like one historian that talks about this is Eurosius, and

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Speaker 2: he's writing around you know, five hundred of the Common Era,

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Speaker 2: and he just needs to like contact all these wild

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Speaker 2: tales about how how evily they treated all the people

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Speaker 2: of Thury I and in a way that just you

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Speaker 2: look at earlier records and there's no evidence of this, right,

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Speaker 2: So just as time goes on, it becomes to the well,

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Speaker 2: if we're going to tell a tale of a slaver vault,

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Speaker 2: we need to be clear that these are evil people

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Speaker 2: that you can't trust slaves, and you if you're even

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Speaker 2: an inkling of slavabole for your own sake, you better,

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Speaker 2: you know, punish them, be violent against them, and suppress

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Speaker 2: any inkling of independence they might have in them. Right.

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Speaker 2: Whereas again, when you look at what actually has talked

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Speaker 2: on these ancient text the ones closest written to this

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Speaker 2: Third Servile War, it's pretty remarkable, like these notions of

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Speaker 2: a cooperation living alongside each other that I'm sure it

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Speaker 2: was tense, right, Like it can't have been easy to

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Speaker 2: do that, but yet they find a way of making

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Speaker 2: this work anyway. Absolutely, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so this idea of these like ups and downs

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Speaker 1: of history and what we declare victories, right, is one

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Speaker 1: of these things I think about a lot, because, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: after the four years of the Third Servile War, and

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Speaker 1: you know, the soldiers of it, the warriors of it,

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Speaker 1: get crucified, and you know, but ten years later whatever,

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Speaker 1: they have to go down and put down more uprisings

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Speaker 1: in that town. Because yeah, as you're saying, like these

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Speaker 1: ideas stuck around. And one of the things that I

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Speaker 1: think about from twenty twenty is that no one forgets

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Speaker 1: the first time they see the police run away from them.

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Speaker 1: Sure like no one forgets. Like I remember, I think

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Speaker 1: it was during the Freddie Gray uprising in Baltimore. There's

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Speaker 1: this period where school kids come out of school and

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Speaker 1: throw rocks at cops and drive a line of police

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Speaker 1: back and you can see the cops like just running

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Speaker 1: from these kids, and these kids who have been preyed

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Speaker 1: upon by the police their entire lives and you know,

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Speaker 1: told that they're going to get murdered or whatever, right,

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Speaker 1: and like, you don't forget that, and you don't forget

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Speaker 1: that taste of freedom. And the other thing that I

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Speaker 1: try to remember is the bigger picture you take of history,

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Speaker 1: the more you realize there's not really static states that

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Speaker 1: we reach, Like there's not equilibrium, there's not you never

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Speaker 1: reach utopia, and you also never reach dystopia. So we

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Speaker 1: never win and we never lose. And so we have

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Speaker 1: to understand things in that way where like, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: everyone who fought in the Third Survival War died, you

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Speaker 1: know who else is dead from that? Everybody? No one

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Speaker 1: is alive from that era, they all.

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Speaker 2: Die, you know, absolutely, right, like this is going to

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Speaker 2: happen always at one point and beyond that too, right,

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Speaker 2: Like I think that these are people who, you know,

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Speaker 2: even when we talk about the flaws of those first

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Speaker 2: two survey wars, they were inspirations, right, Like their inspirations

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Speaker 2: like Sparta Kiss and that third Servyvoll could not have

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Speaker 2: happened if it weren't for those earlier slaver volts to

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Speaker 2: one and two generations earlier there, right, So yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I completely agree, right, like these may have been suppressed,

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Speaker 2: they may have been violently suppressed. But again I think

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Speaker 2: stuff were you know, with the eventual abolition slavery and

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Speaker 2: all these sorts of things like these are sources of

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Speaker 2: inspiration that people pointed to for centuries, need millennia afterwards,

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Speaker 2: right absolutely, And it's I think that's something that we

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Speaker 2: need to take seriously with all this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and with the third surviv War in particular, it

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Speaker 1: was hard to tell where the chickens are and the

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Speaker 1: eggs are in this particular thing. But and I actually

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Speaker 1: don't remember if it was your book that I got

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Speaker 1: this from another source, but Roman slavery changed very dramatically

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Speaker 1: and quickly around the time of the Third Servile War

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Speaker 1: after it, and it moved away from as much of

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Speaker 1: an agrarian slave society, and therefore the people who were

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Speaker 1: the worst treated amongst the enslaved people, that was like

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Speaker 1: no longer as much the case now. Partly I believe

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Speaker 1: that that was because and whoever I was reading. Again,

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Speaker 1: it's very strange to be maybe quoting someone's own work

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Speaker 1: at them but not being sure. And I do track

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Speaker 1: my sources, but I don't always remember which idea comes

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Speaker 1: from which source, which is why I can't write a

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Speaker 1: book out of all of this. It's so frustrating. I've

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Speaker 1: done so much work and I can't write a book

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Speaker 1: out of it. Okay, but I remember reading that Roman

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Speaker 1: imperial expansion kind of slowed down at that period, and

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Speaker 1: the Roman slave society was largely fueled by expansion, and

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Speaker 1: they tied into each other, right because like, you know,

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Speaker 1: once you have slaves working in the fields, you can

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Speaker 1: send to everyone else to war better. And like you

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Speaker 1: have the centralization of the plantations and moving from small

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Speaker 1: farmers to you know, plantation systems allowed for more colonial expansion.

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Speaker 1: But on some level it seems like if you want

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Speaker 1: to make giant leaps that I wish I didn't like making,

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Speaker 1: but I do like making the Third Servile War like

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Speaker 1: fucks up Roman imperial expansion and like shrinks the state

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Speaker 1: of slavery within the Roman Empire.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't think this is my book anyway

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Speaker 2: that you were getting this from, so you know, after

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Speaker 2: about queening it at me, okay, but yeah, I think

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Speaker 2: you're right. So there's kind of a lot of reforms

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Speaker 2: and changes that happened around this time within kind of

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Speaker 2: the Roman Empire, and you know what it comes to

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Speaker 2: encompass pretty quickly, you know, around this time period, basically

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Speaker 2: the entire Mediterranean. You know, it expands, ebbs and flows

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Speaker 2: a little bit kind of what those borders are there.

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Speaker 2: But you're right, like basically, once you hit as much

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Speaker 2: as you're going to hit conquers much you're going to conquer,

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Speaker 2: that kind of main way of enslaving people becomes much

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Speaker 2: more difficult, right, you know, you kind of depend upon

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Speaker 2: other things, whether it's you know, kind of you know, procreation, right,

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Speaker 2: slave giving birth to other slaves, and you know a

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Speaker 2: few other things as well. But really it's kind of

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Speaker 2: around this time that it ceases to grow in quite

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Speaker 2: that same way. And we also find surely afterwards a

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Speaker 2: number of laws kind of changing Roman slavery a bit

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Speaker 2: here and there. A lot of it is kind of

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Speaker 2: under the pretense of making it more tolerable for slaves.

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Speaker 2: I don't you know for this, of course not safe

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Speaker 2: actually getting more tolerable. But I suspect this is at

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Speaker 2: least kind of the Roman rulers way of saying, like,

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Speaker 2: don't do any shit that's going to create another spartacus, right,

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Speaker 2: like going it down, Like don't make it so unbearable

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Speaker 2: that like they're going to, you know, get violent with

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Speaker 2: you or anything like that. Right, So I think a

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Speaker 2: lot of this is sort of Romans trying to test

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Speaker 2: what the limits of what they can get slaves to

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Speaker 2: tolerate before uprise or anything like that. So you're right,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of changes around this kind of the

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Speaker 2: late first century before the Common Era, in kind of

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Speaker 2: the early first century of the Common Era as well.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of little law changes there and kind

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Speaker 2: of regulations being put in and again fitting with kind

380
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Speaker 2: of the more or less the full extent to throw

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Speaker 2: an empire happening around this time as well right, yeah, absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense. And like I don't want to say, oh,

383
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Speaker 1: the expansion stopped because of this, but slavery and expansion

384
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Speaker 1: were so inexorably linked, right, and like it's interesting to

385
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Speaker 1: think about how, you know, Yeah, again, this uprising happens,

386
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Speaker 1: and it quote unquote failed, but it changes society because

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Speaker 1: it makes the plantation owners just like a little bit

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Speaker 1: more afraid of everybody, right, absolutely, And that's kind of where,

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Speaker 1: especially historically, like respect comes from, is like the ability

390
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Speaker 1: to exert power, right, and the three survival wars, And

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Speaker 1: I don't mean to I'm also not trying to talk

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Speaker 1: trash entirely on the first two. Like if you're enslaved

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Speaker 1: in the city and then you like rise up and

394
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Speaker 1: kill everyone in the city, like I'm kind of like, yeah,

395
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Speaker 1: like I don't know, that's like how I like wish

396
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Speaker 1: you'd done it, but whatever, you know.

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Speaker 2: I kind of understand why you would react that way

398
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Speaker 2: at the very least, right, Yeah.

399
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like, look, sometimes these things have to be

400
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Speaker 1: proven to intolerable and that's just the what it is.

401
00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:06,400
Speaker 2: Okay.

402
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Speaker 1: So the other thing I want to ask about the

403
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Speaker 1: third surwell, the greatest leap that I made during this thing.

404
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Speaker 1: You talk in the introduction to your book Radical Antiquity,

405
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Speaker 1: out from twenty twenty five for Pluto Press, which, okay,

406
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Speaker 1: just as an aside, I've probably never read a book

407
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Speaker 1: more perfectly fit for this show. It was like a

408
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Speaker 1: little present to me. I was at this little bookstore

409
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Speaker 1: in Ohio and I'm walking through the bookstore and here's

410
00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:33,840
Speaker 1: a you know, Greek statue with a red bandana mask

411
00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:36,440
Speaker 1: over its face and says Radical Antiquity. And I looked

412
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:38,760
Speaker 1: at it and I was like, I'm either going to

413
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Speaker 1: love or hate this book, and I bought it to

414
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Speaker 1: find out whether I would love or hate it. In

415
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Speaker 1: the introduction, you talk a bunch about anarchia, about the Greek,

416
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Speaker 1: and I believe by inference Roman conception of anarchia, and

417
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Speaker 1: you talk about how it's a completely different series of connotation.

418
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Speaker 1: Then there is an I would say, the modern and

419
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Speaker 1: especially kind of the pre anarchism as an ideology era, right, Okay.

420
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Speaker 1: So I had always had this assumption that when the

421
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Speaker 1: first person in the Western tradition to call himself an anarchist, Prudalin,

422
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Speaker 1: who I have very mixed feelings about, when he said

423
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Speaker 1: I am an anarchist. He was kind of like coming

424
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Speaker 1: out being like, I'm a terrorist, right, right, Because the

425
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:26,800
Speaker 1: connotations around that word at the time, coming from the

426
00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: French Revolution, were like the extremes and the violent end

427
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:34,479
Speaker 1: of things, And so it's a little bit of our

428
00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:37,680
Speaker 1: own fault that we have those connotations to this day.

429
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Speaker 1: We did pick a little edge lord word, you know,

430
00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:41,719
Speaker 1: and run with it.

431
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:42,760
Speaker 2: Sure, but.

432
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:47,720
Speaker 1: I had kind of just accidentally assumed I knew it

433
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:50,080
Speaker 1: come from the Greek and it was from an archon

434
00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:53,719
Speaker 1: without leaders, right, But like I just kind of assumed

435
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:57,240
Speaker 1: that it always had those connotations. And you make the case,

436
00:20:57,280 --> 00:20:58,800
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it a little bit, but then try

437
00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:00,399
Speaker 1: and convince you to say it a little bit more.

438
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: You make the case that the context, the connotations and

439
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:08,080
Speaker 1: Greek culture are entirely different for anarchia, and that it

440
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:11,480
Speaker 1: doesn't mean like non organized it just kind of means

441
00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:15,040
Speaker 1: like radical democracy or like just like literally just a

442
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:18,200
Speaker 1: situation where no one's directly in charge. Is that fair reading?

443
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:20,840
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, I think that's a good summary of it there. Yeah.

444
00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 2: So when we look at kind of those very early

445
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 2: uses of this word anarchia in antiquity, right, so here

446
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:29,440
Speaker 2: I'm talking you know, maybe what's kind of some of

447
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:32,720
Speaker 2: the classical Greek playwrights talking about kind of Plato Socrates,

448
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:36,320
Speaker 2: that sort of era. This word is very closely linked

449
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 2: with democracy, right, So when Plato has the Dialogues of Socrates,

450
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:44,720
Speaker 2: he clearly talks about anarchia being an aspect of democracy. Right.

451
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:48,280
Speaker 2: He says, oh, Socrates hates democracy. What he wants, of course,

452
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 2: is that philosopher king, you know, the sort of eugenic

453
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:53,119
Speaker 2: fascist state that he wants to have run there. So

454
00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:55,120
Speaker 2: he hates democracy, and he says, oh, we've got to Mary,

455
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:57,600
Speaker 2: I mean Plato, right, yes, yes, sorry, excuse me that again.

456
00:21:57,680 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 2: I was like, oh no, I've only kind of learned

457
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,400
Speaker 2: about these guys. So I was like, wait, hold on, okay, yeah, yeah,

458
00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:05,520
Speaker 2: but you know, once this sort of you know, fascist,

459
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 2: eugenic state, and he hates democracy, and he says, you know,

460
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 2: if we have democracy, right. You know the terrible thing

461
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:13,679
Speaker 2: about Greek democracy it means that every home people are

462
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 2: just gonna believe in this anarchia, right, that people should

463
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:18,879
Speaker 2: be able to have this freedom, right, that they should

464
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 2: be able to have this sort of leaderlessness. Right. And

465
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,159
Speaker 2: it's not saying there's no structure, but that structure I

466
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,919
Speaker 2: think in some ways it's you know, it can mean

467
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 2: something akin to what we talk about like horizontal leadership

468
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:31,919
Speaker 2: with the kind of anarchistic circles there. Right, So we

469
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 2: had that sort of verticality where you've had that kind

470
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:37,879
Speaker 2: of hierarchy of you know, I don't know, like the

471
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:40,680
Speaker 2: first in command, second in command and so on. Here. Instead,

472
00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 2: anarchya tends to kind of refer to kind of more

473
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,959
Speaker 2: democratic ways of organizing and this, you know, sometimes it's

474
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: talked about as a bad thing, for instance with Plato

475
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 2: in this case. In other cases, you know, Greek writers

476
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 2: use it in a pretty neutral way. Right. So just like, hey,

477
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 2: this year, we just didn't elect an Arcan, and so

478
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 2: it was the year of anarchy, right, And it's still

479
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 2: like society functioned more or less as normal, but it's

480
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 2: just a year of anarchy because we didn't have this

481
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 2: leader in place, right or the first ever historian Herodotus

482
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 2: as this sort of tale where he talks about others

483
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,120
Speaker 2: these kind of Persian a military unit who they lost

484
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 2: their commander in battle, and so we just said they

485
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 2: were in a state of anarchy. This unit was they

486
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 2: made decisions among themselves and eventually worked the way back

487
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 2: to the nearby city of Persians anyway, right, and this

488
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 2: is not to say that they were chaotic. This wasn't

489
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,199
Speaker 2: to say that they were dangerous or anything, but just

490
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 2: sort of like they were engaged in a form of

491
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 2: decision making that was what I would call radically democratic, right,

492
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 2: one that's not built around kind of orders from above

493
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 2: or anything like that. And you know, the first person

494
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,919
Speaker 2: ever to call themselves an anarchist, right, so prudan you know,

495
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 2: kind of first modern Western the most ancient one is

496
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 2: a fictional character Antigony. So in kind of a couple

497
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 2: of different plays in kind of written around this time period,

498
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,880
Speaker 2: she calls herself an anarchist, right. And in this case,

499
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 2: she's just basically saying like she's not respecting the power

500
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:11,119
Speaker 2: of the king of the city of Thebes, who issue

501
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 2: commands about you know, what to do. You know, basically

502
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:15,680
Speaker 2: she's told not to bury her brother in this case.

503
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 2: And it's again, we're supposed to sympathize with this character,

504
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 2: right when you watch these plays, that this is not

505
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 2: something that is discrediting her, but this is say like, oh,

506
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 2: like we are admiring her for standing up to kind

507
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 2: of these natural principles, and you're supposed to give someone

508
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 2: a proper burial in the state the King of thebes

509
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 2: is telling her not to do that, right, And so

510
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 2: when we look at antiquity, it tends to bear different connotations, right,

511
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 2: And over time it does kind of take on those

512
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 2: connotations that we associate with more colloquial uses today, right

513
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 2: of unbridaled chaos and stuff like that, But at least

514
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: in very early uses, it doesn't seem to bear those connotations.

515
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what I'm more interested in the

516
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 2: book anyway, Right, So, kind of the way in which

517
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 2: those sort of ancient uses of the word anarchia overlapped

518
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 2: to a certain extent with kind modern anarchistic conceptions of

519
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 2: what anarchy is. Right, And so I think there's a

520
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 2: Venn diagram. There's enough there that, you know, at least

521
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 2: enough for me to write a book about it anyway.

522
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, So then I'm going to make two

523
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: jumps from this, and this is the most like I've

524
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: always been a little bit of like red string drawing

525
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: between all of the like yarn on a big board.

526
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: When I realized that, like Tolstoi, is in every story

527
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: about the nineteenth century, and then Tuberculos has killed everybody

528
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: that the state didn't kill, and you know, all these

529
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: like connections or whatever. Right, But I feel like I'm

530
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: a little bit out on a limb here, But it's

531
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: because I'm so interested in what's out on this limb.

532
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: That apple that's at the edge of this limb is

533
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,880
Speaker 1: so interesting to me. If the connotations that the Greeks

534
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:47,679
Speaker 1: have for anarchia is neutral to like, obviously Plato hates it,

535
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: but Plato hates democracy right to it, you know, being like, ah,

536
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 1: it just means kind of like particularly radical democracy, which

537
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: will make a lot of mind an anarchist really upset,

538
00:25:58,000 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of work people do to try

539
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: and stept anarchism from democracy. I think that's kind of

540
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: nonsensical personally, but I don't care. Whatever. People can be

541
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: into whatever they're into, And if it has those connotations,

542
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: would Rome have similar connotations for it? And therefore would

543
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: the Third Servile War and specifically not the war itself,

544
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 1: because that was at least on some level hierarchical, Although

545
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: I'm curious about what hierarchy at generalship really means in

546
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: that time, And I'll ask you that in a second.

547
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: But you discussed in this book that the civil community,

548
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: there's no implication that Spartacus or any of the generals

549
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: are in charge of the civil community of thirty I

550
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: would they have called themselves anarchists? Would that be the

551
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: first self consciously anarchia in history?

552
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 2: This? I love where you're going with this. I had

553
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 2: not thought this for but I'm gonna like push this

554
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 2: speculation even a step further.

555
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 1: All right, perfect, is that you've become a repeated guest.

556
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 2: Bartacus is from Thrace, right, and Thrace is right next

557
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 2: to like Macedon and Greece. I think he knows Greek

558
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: better than he knows Latin, is my guess, right, So

559
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 2: he may well be using those Greek words himself anyway.

560
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 2: So I think that there's at least a chance that

561
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 2: they would have characterized it this way or right that

562
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 2: certainly when you see how it's talked about, right, one

563
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 2: of the things that I think it was appy, and

564
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 2: one of the ancient historians says is that one of

565
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 2: the things that really droop people into this revolt was

566
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 2: the fact that after go to a battle, they're dividing

567
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 2: spoils equally among everyone. So Spartacus isn't getting more than

568
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: any weals, the other generals aren't getting more than anyone else,

569
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 2: the commanders aren't getting more than anmals. But it really

570
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 2: seems to be like, outside the context of battle, everyone

571
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: is treated equally. It's absolutely impression get from this. So

572
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 2: I think you could at least welcomely speculate that they

573
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: would have called themselves engaging anarchia of some sort there anyway, right,

574
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 2: certainly in defiance of slave owners and stuff like that, right,

575
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 2: kind of one of those classic forms of hierarchy at

576
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 2: the time. Right. And I make the case in the

577
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,199
Speaker 2: book too that they're pushing back against some signal get

578
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 2: forms of patriarchy too, right, in terms of sexual violence

579
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 2: in the time. And I think that all this seems

580
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,640
Speaker 2: to land up pretty well with me about quite pathetically.

581
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 2: I think you probably knew Greek art kiss and so

582
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 2: I certainly other slaves revolting there. I could well imagine

583
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 2: they would have called themselves something like that, at least

584
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 2: I like to imagine it too, right, I'm fully on

585
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 2: board with this, Mario, you got me here. I love

586
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 2: it well.

587
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I started this project

588
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: really reading about like nineteenth century early twentieth century history, right,

589
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: and that's, you know, for my own sort of background.

590
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 1: That's like where a lot of the modern left, you know,

591
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: in the Western world, you can see where the socialists

592
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: and the anarchists and the communists exist and disagree and

593
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: everything is kind of happening during that time period. So

594
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: I studied a lot more about that time period. And

595
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: with that time period, you're trying to get everything right,

596
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: and it's impossible, but you're trying to write because a

597
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: lot of the people who were involved in those things

598
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: wrote stuff down right, and so you can kind of

599
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: compare a bunch of different people's accounts, and we have

600
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: just so much more of the contextual information about the

601
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: time people lived in and stuff like that. It's been

602
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: scary and freeing to read ancient history, because ancient history, now,

603
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: if you get outside of cradle of civilization writing, I

604
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: don't know the right words I'm supposed to use here,

605
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: If you get outside of the Mediterranean in the ancient world,

606
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: you get really sketchy, like we don't know at all,

607
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: We're all going on vibes or like understanding oral traditions

608
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: as best as we can. It's not just pure vibes,

609
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: but like it seems like Mediterranean ancient history. It's like

610
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: a connect the dots where we have some dots that

611
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: are specific and drawn in and permanent ink, and then

612
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 1: there's no picture on the box, and you're like, all right,

613
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: just how do these dots connect? And you can draw

614
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: any picture as long as it hits all those dots.

615
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: And then it seems like the historian job is to

616
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: not just wildly imagine, but to try and understand like

617
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: sort of like probable dots based on all of the

618
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: other contexts they have available to them. Like, it seems

619
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: like I have a lot of respect for historians, especially

620
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: after doing this ancient history stuff. But it is interesting

621
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 1: because it's still unsem leble vibes based like and once

622
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: you realize that, then you realize that the story we've

623
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: been told of history is the vibes of the dominant paradigm.

624
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: Absolutely going back in history and say like, ah, everyone

625
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: was like this until civilization saved them or whatever it is, you.

626
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 2: Know, absolutely I couldn't agree bar it. This is a

627
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 2: great way of characterizing because kind of the way the

628
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 2: study of ancient history has been practice changed a lot

629
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 2: over the past like two centuries or so, and for

630
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 2: a number of different reasons. So first, like the emergence

631
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 2: of kind of modern archaeology, we're able to find things

632
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 2: like ancient PAPYRII in a way we just didn't have

633
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 2: for so these ancient papyri, which you know, a lot

634
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: of this is coming from ancient Egypt, where it just

635
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 2: like we get letters from Joe Schmoe to his mom

636
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 2: that gives you like daily life insights in a way

637
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: that like we just didn't have available to us before

638
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 2: the emergence of modern kind of archaeologia. Right, So that's

639
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 2: kind of gives you much like lower level like not

640
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 2: just kind of Julius Caesar and his palace, but like

641
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 2: you know, average folks like you and I anyway, right,

642
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 2: kind of what their incarnter of life was. The second

643
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 2: thing you're absolutely right is is I would I connect

644
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 2: a lot of this to kind of the emergence of

645
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 2: classics as a field of study. Right, So kind of

646
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 2: that ancient history, Greco Roman history has been connected to

647
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 2: like a few distinct things from its emergence, and only

648
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 2: people are starting to now take account of this. So

649
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 2: a lot of it is connected with kind of like

650
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 2: the nationalisms of like the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Right.

651
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 2: A lot of this is like, let's read these ancient

652
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 2: texts to think about how do you properly run a state,

653
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 2: how does a people define itself? And so on. So

654
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 2: you have these kind of very well educated, you know,

655
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 2: people grew up reading Greek and Latin, and they become

656
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 2: professors in write books about this stuff, and so they're

657
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 2: kind of used to reading these texts in a way

658
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,239
Speaker 2: that's oriented course the powerful interests of kind of the

659
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 2: state and kind of you know, wealth extraction, profit, all

660
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,959
Speaker 2: these sorts of things too. And it's really only been

661
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 2: the last handful of decades that we've started to have

662
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 2: this exact realization you talk about, like, oh, what if

663
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 2: we don't assume these dudes living in you know, eighteen

664
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 2: fifty are brilliant in their interpretation of these ancient texts

665
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 2: that in fact there's a wide range of you know,

666
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 2: blind spots they had, right, that they're kind of coming

667
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 2: to it from their own distinct perspective, and that there's

668
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 2: different ways of connecting these dots, right. And I think

669
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 2: that the emergence of kind of like the social sciences

670
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 2: as a field. You know, these other ancient you know,

671
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 2: like I said, papyri and kind of those things from

672
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 2: common folk, and give us a great deal of insights

673
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 2: as to more compelling ways of connecting these dots, right,

674
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 2: Because I would also create with what you're saying, a

675
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 2: lot of what historian does is informed speculation, right, Like

676
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 2: we try to learn enough about the laws, the functioning

677
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 2: of society, these ancient texts, the bias of this ancient author,

678
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 2: of the bias of that ancient author, to be able

679
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 2: to kind of connect these dots in a way that

680
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 2: is going to be as compelling as possible, but always

681
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 2: being aware that, like there's so much we don't know

682
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 2: about this, right, Like to read every ancient text that's

683
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 2: been written about Spartacus in the ancient world would take

684
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 2: you maybe about an hour to do, right, Like, There's

685
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 2: just isn't that much there, right, Like, it's just so

686
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 2: a lot of is kind of correlating that with what

687
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 2: we know from other sources, and again driving what we

688
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 2: know from kind of other knowledge and connecting those doubts

689
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 2: in a compelling way. So this is this is a

690
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 2: great characterization, Margaret.

691
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: Thank you. I yeah, it's been a weird realization where

692
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: like again I came into this, I took three years

693
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: of Latin in high school because it was a blowoff class.

694
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: I did not learn any Latin besides sums sumass a

695
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: sunt arama rast a rama serata sarunt That is the extent.

696
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: I think agricola is like farm or something, right, Like

697
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 1: literally the teacher let us cheat and didn't care and

698
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: then got fired for sexually harassing students.

699
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 2: Right, holy cow, All right, well I'm after hearing all

700
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 2: of that, I'm surprised you're wanting to read this book

701
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 2: the first place.

702
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: I didn't have positive impressions about. And he was really

703
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: into Cicero, and he was very like a he probably

704
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: would have called himself a stoic, you know, he's like

705
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: this like free thinker guy and like whatever. Anyway, and

706
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 1: I've also disliked so much about the way that people

707
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 1: only talk about history is if it relates to like

708
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: Roman Greece. Like I've had a kind of oppositional like

709
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: if that's the center of like where Western ideas come from.

710
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: I'm I've never been really big on Western ideas, you know, yeah, sure,

711
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: And so I've always had this antagonism to it. But

712
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: it's it's actually really interesting, and it's specifically interesting if

713
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: we stop saying like this is the most important thing. Oh.

714
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: But the thing that I realized is I was like,

715
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: so I came into it not knowing who Tacitus was, right,

716
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: and then it was like my third episode in of

717
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: like and then this guy Tacitus says, I think this

718
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: is the main guy who said things, you know. Yeah, Like,

719
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 1: I did a couple episodes about different rebellions against Rome,

720
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: and of course both of those have turned into nationalisms

721
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:09,239
Speaker 1: for the various like I'm not gonna remember either of

722
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: these people's names off the top of my head, unfortunately.

723
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 1: The woman who led a rebellion in northern England against.

724
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, Budica.

725
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: Yeah Boudica, who's fascinating. And also my big leap from

726
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 1: that one is that maybe she's trans because they eventually

727
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: found a grave. Okay, hold on, let me just tangent here.

728
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: So they found a grave in twenty years ago where

729
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: they were like it says Boudica on the grave and

730
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: they're like, we found it. They open it up and

731
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:31,919
Speaker 1: there's a man skelt and they're like, ah, we still

732
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: haven't found her, there's still no historical proof that she exists.

733
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: Will never find her, you know, and I'm like, look,

734
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:42,399
Speaker 1: probably that wasn't her. But like, also, everything I've learned

735
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: about history is like, ah, man, the trans people have

736
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: always been here.

737
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 2: You know for sure.

738
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: And then the uh, the guy that Nazis liked to

739
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: has kicked Rome's ass in Germany or Minius, yeah, Arminius

740
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,720
Speaker 1: of the chorus, Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a story.

741
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: And I actually really like that people are trying to

742
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,879
Speaker 1: detangle that from German nationalism. You know, there's so much here,

743
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: Like I love the fact that like Budica is also

744
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: incorporated into like English nationalism and like therefore pro imperialism.

745
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 1: We're like, literally, what this lady did was kill imperialists, sure, sure,

746
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: Like I don't think she was like and what day

747
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 1: will conquer the world, you know, yeah, whereas our Minis

748
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: probably would have. And then they killed him for it.

749
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: His friends were like, nah, man, we actually didn't want

750
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: a king. I'm gonna kill you now anyway, Why am

751
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: I talking about that? So I didn't know any of

752
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: this shit about history, and then I'm seeing that there's

753
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: like I read all of the everything, there is no

754
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: about Budica in thirty minutes, everything was know about Spartacus

755
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: in one hour, and then everything else. Yeah, comes from

756
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: work that people like you have done, where you look

757
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: at all of the surrounding stuff. When I referenced you

758
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 1: as a serious historian despite writing this kind of pop

759
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: history book, I maybe read out a list of all

760
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: of your other titles that are much more academic sounding.

761
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,240
Speaker 2: Much more boring sounding too. I mean, I'll be honest,

762
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 2: My one goal with this book was to write a

763
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 2: book that my parents would read. I was like, if

764
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: I could write one book that my parents will like

765
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 2: read past the acknowledgments page, I will die happy person, right,

766
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 2: And that's like that was my goal with this anyway, right, Yeah, I.

767
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: Mean like eventually I'll read papyri.

768
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: Of really Roman Palestine that stuff. Yeah, I yeah, really exciting.

769
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: I know. What's interesting to me about history is that,

770
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: like I didn't care about history when I was a student.

771
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: And I think partly it's the public school system, and

772
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: partly it's my own attention deficit problems, and partly was

773
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:43,919
Speaker 1: that I didn't see myself in history. I didn't see

774
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: myself as part of this grand story that's being told

775
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: and I also didn't see things in context of each other.

776
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 1: And I think on some level I knew a lot

777
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: of what I was being told about the American Project

778
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: was kind of a lie, because every now and then

779
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:56,800
Speaker 1: I have honest teachers that would be like, yes, a

780
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: civil war'sbout slavery, you know, And I'm like, wait, but

781
00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: the that's true. Why is the Thanksgiving story a positive story?

782
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: And you're like, ah, I don't worry.

783
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 2: About that, sure, you know.

784
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: And so what I'm trying to say is that one

785
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: day I'll probably read your book about the papyri of

786
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: Roman Palestine, because like, that's actually really interesting once you

787
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:17,320
Speaker 1: start geeking out about it, once you understand enough to

788
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: understand what you're reading, which I'm probably not there yet,

789
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: but that's one of my goals.

790
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it's like there's a lot of

791
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 2: that fascinating data out there, and I think I don't know,

792
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 2: like just sort of one thing that's been kind of

793
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 2: on the mind of a lot of my colleagues my

794
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 2: own lately is sort of, you know, the university system

795
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 2: as is right now is kind of lying right like

796
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 2: us is very clearly an active effort by kind of

797
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 2: the current political administration to defund and kind of get

798
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 2: rid of, you know, anything that reeks of you know,

799
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:48,320
Speaker 2: scare quote equity, right, m right, So like black studies,

800
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 2: cultural studies, LGBT studies also means like religious size and

801
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 2: history also get defund to write Harvard Davindi School because

802
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 2: it had a program that you know, focus a bit

803
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 2: on Palestine, got you know, all day had to deal

804
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,840
Speaker 2: with a lot right there and even here in Canada,

805
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 2: right Like, there's still like this kind of crisis of

806
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 2: the humanities. And I think that one thing that scholars

807
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 2: have not been good at is convincing people why they

808
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 2: should care about what we do. Right. A lot of

809
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:13,840
Speaker 2: it is just sort of, like you said, kind of

810
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 2: these academic books that we write that are just kind

811
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 2: of conversations that you know, I'll publish this book, and

812
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 2: then what five other people will read the book that

813
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 2: I wrote about this stuff, right, Whereas I think we

814
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 2: bear responsibility to the public to do a better job

815
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,879
Speaker 2: of saying, here's why it's worth thinking about antiquity or

816
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,240
Speaker 2: for this or that reason, or this or that figure

817
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:35,319
Speaker 2: from antiquity. And I don't know. My hope is that

818
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 2: this book can kind of demonstrate why I think at

819
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 2: least some of this is relevant to the twenty first

820
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: century and are curent political moment anyway.

821
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: No, I think it's a really excellent job of that,

822
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: because I think it does a really good job of

823
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: We tend to see the history as like completely other

824
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: people who are completely different, and there are ways that

825
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: people thought about the world very differently, right, Like, it's

826
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:02,240
Speaker 1: hard to overestimate how important Christian theology was to Western

827
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:04,879
Speaker 1: Europe in the Middle Ages, right to the point where

828
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: even a modern Christian might struggle a little bit to

829
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 1: understand why certain things are done the way they are,

830
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: right absolutely, And when I read about radical movements in

831
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,279
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, I'm mostly reading about heretical sect of

832
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,439
Speaker 1: Christians who are like, hey, there's no such thing as sin.

833
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 1: We can all fuck, you know, which is a common refrain.

834
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 1: Radical is either one to all fuck or not fuck

835
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: at all, which does map to the modern world, where

836
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: everyone I know is either wildly polly and or ace

837
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: or both, you know. And I think that being able

838
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: to see ourselves is really useful and see that some

839
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: of these same patterns, like even if the Third Surviyal

840
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 1: War didn't call themselves anarchists, and you do a good

841
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: job of like not saying that these people were anarchists,

842
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: and they call themselves anarchists, and they're tied into the

843
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 1: same lineage as everyone who fought at Haymarket, you know. Sure,

844
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: but you can see these same things that people have

845
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: law come up with to try and do, where people

846
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: are like, hey, this patriarchy thing isn't working out for

847
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: least half of us and honestly most of us, you know,

848
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: or people being like, hey, why do we own people?

849
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 1: This seems a little weird or even just like greater

850
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,879
Speaker 1: levelings than that right to use the medieval theological word

851
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 1: for communism or for social equity or whatever. So it's

852
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 1: really interesting to me that you're you're presenting just to

853
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: continue to pitch this book that I think everyone should read,

854
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 1: because I'm not going to do all of the chapters

855
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: as episodes, although I'm going to do some of the

856
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 1: chapters of episodes. It's going through all of these different

857
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,760
Speaker 1: societies that do these things that both are and aren't

858
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: recognizable to us as like within the same lineage. And

859
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: I love that there's these things that come up over

860
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: and over again, including ones that I like, look I

861
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: don't eat meat, but like that's not part of my

862
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: politics really, I mean it is, but not in a

863
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 1: complicated way where I'm trying to tell anyone to do.

864
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: But like when you talk about the North African Christian

865
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 1: Socialists who's name, I can't remember the circumsilience, the circumcillience. Yeah, yeah,

866
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 1: like they didn't eat me, right? Or is that as

867
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: I get that mixed up with another group that you

868
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: talked about.

869
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 2: I think it was a different group, but I think

870
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 2: that might have been the therapew type. But they're also

871
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 2: they were in Egypt, so also yeah.

872
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm like, why do I keep running across

873
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,919
Speaker 1: these these things over and over and over again. M hmm, Yeah,

874
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just I think that I'm just

875
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: trying to pitch everyone on this book. It's just really good.

876
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:21,920
Speaker 1: It's very accessible. If you can listen to this podcast

877
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 1: and enjoy it and understand it, you can you can

878
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 1: read your book and enjoy it and understand it.

879
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, I mean I think that's kind of

880
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 2: one of things I was hoping to communicate with this too, right,

881
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,439
Speaker 2: that the historian's job is kind of this contradictory job

882
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 2: of on the one hand, to make the ancient world

883
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 2: seem incredibly strange, right, that it's very much a different

884
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 2: world from us, right, Like we don't live in world

885
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 2: where slavery is legalized. That you know, all these sorts

886
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 2: of things are just so different. Must But on the

887
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 2: other hand, like there are these resonances with the present day. Right,

888
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 2: So I think you know, one example therapew type, for instance,

889
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 2: is one was I talked about where the sort of

890
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 2: Jewish second kind of outside of Alexandra Egypt. And I

891
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 2: don't think I say this explicit, but I think I

892
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 2: hinted it repeatedly anyway, is that this would have been

893
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 2: a group that would have been very enticing for kind

894
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 2: of queer women in particular. Right, That this is like

895
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 2: you know, for women who don't find the prospect of

896
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,359
Speaker 2: marriage appealing, right, whether it's because they're asexual, whether it's

897
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 2: because they're lesbian, whether for whatever reason, right, Right, that

898
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 2: groups like this, these sort of monastic groups can be

899
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 2: an easy way of like escaping certain aspects of patriarchy. Right.

900
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 2: And this doesn't say they were perfect, but like these

901
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 2: you know kind of desires or lack of desires that

902
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 2: people might have have always been there, right, And like

903
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 2: you're saying also before too, right, like trans people have

904
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 2: always existed, right, it's just a matter of whether they're erased,

905
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 2: whether they're insulted, all these sorts of kind of resonances

906
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 2: that we find. And I think part of it is

907
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 2: what you're saying before too, right, that previous generations of

908
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 2: historians have not wanted to see that, right, Yeah, pretty

909
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 2: clear reasons why. And I think now when we start

910
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 2: being more open to the idea of like stuff that

911
00:43:57,960 --> 00:43:59,799
Speaker 2: doesn't sound too radical to most of us. Right. In addition,

912
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 2: you know, autonomy and in kind of agency, right, kind

913
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 2: of the trans people existing and having lives that are

914
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 2: compelling of their own right, all these sorts of things, right,

915
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 2: that it kind of invites us to read ancient texts

916
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 2: in a way that is very different, right, And not

917
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 2: to say that they're the same as us, but I

918
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 2: think that we can still see those resonances between past

919
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 2: and present that can help us learn something about ourselves

920
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 2: and maybe reflect on how things can be done differently

921
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: than from how they're done today or how they were

922
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 2: done them for that matter.

923
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've I write a lot of fiction, and when

924
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 1: I first started writing fiction. I was like, speculat fiction

925
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: is a way to show the way that the world

926
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: could be different and to example the things that you

927
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: want to see in the world. And I still believe that,

928
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: but more and more I've realized all I want is

929
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: for my fiction, both of the one that I write

930
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: and that I consume, to acknowledge that the world can

931
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 1: be different. Like, my biggest problem with Dungeons and Dragons,

932
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: aside some issues around power scaling and mechanics, is the

933
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,720
Speaker 1: idea that it kind of just takes like nineteen seventies

934
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: and me Erica and then like it's like the Middle

935
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: Ages are like that, yeah, you know, and it's like

936
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: everyone just has gold pieces and you're like, motherfuckers are

937
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 1: paying their rent with eels, you know, yeah, or you

938
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: can have the other accidental like kind of noble savage

939
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: thing and saying like every indigenous culture before civilization was

940
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: entirely egalitarian and like had no money. And then I

941
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: read David Graeber's Debt and was like, oh no. I

942
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: was like, money is real old. Money is older than writing.

943
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,879
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that all societies had it either, right,

944
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: And so what I'm interested in doing is just saying like, yeah,

945
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: just a riff off what you're saying. Things can be different.

946
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: And I think that more than saying like we need

947
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: to do it exactly like the Third Servile War did

948
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 1: and that's the only way to have a good society,

949
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 1: or like the therapeudi you know we talked about in

950
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: the book. They're the ones who let both men and

951
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: women in as equals but very separate.

952
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 2: Right yeah, absolutely, yep.

953
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: And you know I mostly associate that with like conservative

954
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: Christian sex, right yeah, in the modern era, including ones

955
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,319
Speaker 1: that like see themselves as kind of like radical but

956
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 1: like you know, you can't like touch someone of the

957
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: opposite sex or whatever. Right, I'm not interested in that.

958
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: But they are saying society can be different. And when

959
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: we understand that society can be different, we can start thinking, well,

960
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:19,280
Speaker 1: how do we want it to be different?

961
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 2: Absolutely? I think a lot of this has to do

962
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 2: with how our imaginations often really foreclosed by those possibilities.

963
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 2: I think that Dungeons and dram as an example, is

964
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 2: like perfect there, right, Like you can imagine any world

965
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 2: you want and it's the same economy. It's just like

966
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: you know, just gruden Evils a little more stark and

967
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 2: we're wearing you magic you know, devices and stuff like that, right, Yeah,

968
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 2: And I think the historical record can give us so

969
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 2: many glimpses in these lives. I think, you know, we

970
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 2: mentioned David Graebersherta in the anthropological record, right, can give

971
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 2: us glimpses in just so many different ways of doing things.

972
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 2: And I think it's just sort of I don't know.

973
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 2: I grew up in a very small town in rural Michigan,

974
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 2: you know, three thousand people, and even moving here to

975
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 2: the city of Toronto, where it's just arguably the most

976
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 2: diverse city in the world. I think there's more dialects

977
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 2: and language spoken in Toronto than any other city in

978
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 2: the world. Oh wow, And just the people you meet

979
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 2: is just astounding and just like learning like, oh hey,

980
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 2: like this thing that I assumed everybody did is not inevitable, right,

981
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 2: And it's just there's so much of encountering that that

982
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 2: invites you to say, well, if everything I'm taking for

983
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 2: granted doesn't have to be that way, then it really

984
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 2: invites you just again those kind of lego bricks you

985
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,280
Speaker 2: can use to create a society that's a bit more appealing,

986
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 2: whether that's a whole large scale society, or even just

987
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 2: kind of your own small communities, right, those households or

988
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 2: organizations or whatever it might be. Right, I think that

989
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 2: there's so many different possibilities out there that if you

990
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 2: take the chance to look at them, whether again historically

991
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 2: or anthropologically, there's a lot of compelling stuff out there.

992
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: Well, this seems like probably where we should break it

993
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: for today, because I'm not surprised. After reading this. I

994
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: was like, again, you are the first person that I

995
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 1: invited to this particular style of episode, because I was like, oh, no,

996
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: I kind of want to just pick your brain anyway,

997
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: but I was like, I'm going to do it on air,

998
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,040
Speaker 1: but I'm going to continue to pick your brain, and

999
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about more stuff, including diogenes and

1000
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 1: the cynics. In case you really like those episodes, dear

1001
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: listener and are mad at me about how I re

1002
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 1: present diogenies, We'll talk about that and some other stuff

1003
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. But in the meantime, kind anything you want

1004
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 1: to plug here at the end of the episode.

1005
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 2: Why Radical Antiquity. I think there will be an audiobook

1006
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,720
Speaker 2: out in February sometimes soon, I don't remember the exact date. Anyway,

1007
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 2: Oh amazing. But if you want to get through your

1008
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 2: local library or you have audiobook credits, feel free to

1009
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 2: check that out in February as well.

1010
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, what do I have to plug? I don't know?

1011
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: To help people, I don't know. They sometimes I have

1012
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: something better than that, but I didn't prepare. This isn't

1013
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: my usual recording day. I'm hungry and I will talk

1014
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:48,879
Speaker 1: to you all on Wednesday. Cool People Who Did Cool

1015
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of a Whole Zone Media. For

1016
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: more podcasts and.

1017
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 2: Cool Zone Media, visit our website Goolezonemedia dot com or

1018
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 2: check us out on.

1019
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio, on app a Podcasts, or wherever you get your

1020
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: podcast m