#historical sociology

[nitrogennarcosis]

Today the adult experiences sooner or later - and increasingly it is sooner - the feeling that he has failed, that his adult life has failed to achieve any of the promises of his adolescence.  This feeling is at the basis of the climate of depression which is spreading throughout the leisured classes of industrialized societies.

Philippe Ariès, Western Attitudes Towards Death

#sooo this was from a socilogist's lecture in 1973 y'all #doing a bit of light reading today and wham #guess it's not just me then lol #quotes #reading #historical sociology #western attitudes towards death #philippe ariès

[pansyboybloom]

"actually, every past society has a supreme mother goddess and divine feminine that christianity destroyed and--"

*Oliver Twist voice* please sir, may I have a source?

#ppl pretending the 'divine feminine' or 'mother goddess' character is a historical sociological concept and not a new age invention KILLS ME

[i-didnt-do-1t]

Having female characters in shows is not feminism. It’s just women existing

(Especially when they should’ve been there all along)

#newsies #and if it is feminism #then good! #there should be female characters #and representation #especially when it’s historically accurate #and one of the main inaccuracies of a show was cutting all the girls in the first place #it’s not feminism to give them their rightful place in history #the sociology and English literature Uno student in me is Vibrating

[foxsoulcourt]

to gain context for upcoming movie . . .

#so far have finished 45 page intro + 1st two chapters; 110 more pages in story #intro alternately historically/sociologically interesting and exceedingly academic #makes sense since it’s by a scholar (oliver harris) #soooooooo curious what about this project drew in luca guagagnino daniel craig lesley manville drew starkey + jason schwartzman #never before read burroughs #doubt i will again #not my cuppa tea #but i like having CoNtExT for movies so here i am #queer #william s burroughs #luca guadagnino #daniel craig #lesley manville #drew starkey #jason schwartzman #reading

[chimaerabutt]

If you’re afraid of reading anything written by anyone with conflicting views to you because you think consuming media of “the enemy” will lead to thoughtcrime, you should perhaps do some deep thinking on the religious trauma you still need to deconstruct, and examine why you have replaced religious dogmatism with an ideological dogmatism your belief in is somehow so fragile that simply reading the wrong thing could shatter it.

It is important to read things, even doctrine heavy manifestos, by those ideologically opposed to you. It is important to understand their viewpoint and the people that wrote them.

Understanding is NOT agreeing with. Reading is NOT agreeing with. If you do not understand, do you even know what you are opposing? If you do not understand what you oppose, do you even know what YOU believe?

The less you understand those you are against, the less you understand about their beliefs, the shakier your own arguments, the more susceptible you are to propaganda, and moreover, the more likely you are to Other them. Normal human beings are capable of absolutely terrible things. YOU are no less capable of absolutely terrible things because you think the Right Thoughts ™️

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Your enemy is still human.

Do not cling to political ideology as though it is a new religious doctrine with its own forms of “Sin”.

Important and Good are not synonyms. Many important things are terrible.

They are still important.

#please recognize that the national religion of America is capitalism #the idea you are performing as a good leftist by consuming only things right and proper is capitalist #good luck making it through college level history or even sociology without reading Thoughtcrime™️ books #understand your enemy’s arguments #understand your own arguments #understand PLEASE that your average person is not in fact your enemy even if they’re saying terrible things #shockingly most people are just misinformed #confused #and scared #screaming half formed thoughts at them will fix approximately zero of these things #hi if you’re the one in the discord server that was aghast I’m making my way through political essays and historical texts right now #to better understand how movements we’re dealing with now actually formed #yes I’m vagueing you #if you’re not that person #the above message is still important

[redsolon]

Historical Materialism Course

I've spent years reading and watching things about history. Eventually I decided to compile all the useful things I've watched into a course for history from a Marxist perspective. Of course I'm limited to what videos I can find, so not everything is covered as well as I'd like, and many videos are made by liberals or even reactionaries, who may make an important point in the video, but leave out important further context. That said, I feel like video documentaries are how a lot of younger people absorb history now, so we might as well compile resources that are actually good for them.

I've broken up the videos into a series of playlists covering various periods of history. It goes from the beginning of the universe to the beginning of the Cold War. (Cold War history from a socialist perspective is so complicated and full of misinformation that at that point you really just have to delve into the books and primary sources yourself. Summary videos won't suffice.)

#history #historical materialism #dialectical materialism #revolutionary history #class struggle #Marxist theory #Marxism #communism #socialism #capitalism #feudalism #economics #economic history #archaeology #anthropology #sociology #political science #political economy #Marx #Youtube #education #dialectics #complexity theory #complex systems #Bronze Age #Iron Age #Stone Age #colonialism #imperialism #settler-colonialism

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Hi! I really loved a post you made earlier about how society is only now returning to a variety of religious beliefs and was wondering if you could talk more about it. Any thoughts on countries taking up their original religions? Magnus and asatru? Rhys or his siblings with druidism?

TW discussions of religion, religious skepticism and fictional depictions of religion in historical fantasy. I feel like they pick up things they themselves remember but the modern human iteration is... Meh. No shade to believers, I did some time with the Nordic pantheon before the Nazis took it over but the modern iterations of almost all European pre-Christian religions are unfortunately mostly constructed between the 18th and 20th centuries. Almost none of it dates back further than revivals during the enlightenment. Would they see echoes of their lived experience in these revivals? Sure. I just don't know if they'd be adherents to the modern form when they can remember at least some of the real thing, otherwise now dead and gone. So I do think there's things in them that survive but they can't quite look at modern paganism as a belief system.

But two parts I think would really feel important to them: a lot of the pagan revivals are about a rejection of the Calvinist themes of Reformation and counter-reformation Christianity that emphasize individuality, created the belief of the elect who are saved by god and stripped Christianity of a lot of its older emphasis on community and mutual aid and responsibility. I think a lot of the pagan revivalism would very much appeal there and in its counter-culture themes.

And second, because I'm a weirdo who uses hetalia to get into really niche topics and practice writing historical fiction I want to publish when I'm grown, I try to stick to what we actually know. I want to replicate the perspectives of history. The fantastical aspects are often just adaptations of what magic was actually believed in, as far as I can adapt from a very limited pool of knowledge. I have written Alasdair carving the symbols we have from some Pictish standing stones and Ogham, a Gaelic form of literacy into objects and sacred trees to make them into portals and protective objects. I have written Arthur's primary contact with their mother as being not when he visits the site of her barrow and the Kirk that gives them their name that was later built on he same site, but after he drowns or is caught in a storm, because we know the Britons of prehistory and the Roman era and even into the early medieval believed water was a kind of portal between this world and the sacred. I gave Rhys their mother's bronze age sword because magic swords are everywhere in every flavor of Celtic Mythology. Arthur keeps Cromwell's head on the mantel partially because he's a stubborn fuck who can hold a grudge for centuries but also because we know that the ancient Celts believed the head specifically to be a very powerful magical object.

Norse paganism as we know it today is based on things like the Icelandic Sagas and the descriptions of the temple of Uppsala by Adam of Bremen. Those are fantastic documents but they only come into being centuries after the end of the Viking age and are written by Christians, usually clerics, and usually men. Our heads are full of images of powerful priestesses, shield maidens and goddesses, but more than a third of human women were starved as children compared to under ten percent of boys. Every Norse grave is different, with only general categories being able to be sussed put based on grave goods, the style of inhumation or cremation and marking ships or stones. We just don't know fuck all about the specifics what the people of this era really believed.

Or with the British celts. We know what the Romans said. That they burned criminals in wicker men, committed human sacrifice, that the Romans slaughtered the druids on Anglesey in Wales. We know the names of their gods when they are twinned with Roman ones or archaeologists find inscriptions. But so many of them are only known by one or two inscriptions. There are only eight for Brigantia and she was the patron goddess for the largest tribe by territory in Iron Age Britain. We know they offered sacrifices of value to bodies of water, we know from medieval Irish sources, also written by Christians, that they had 4 holidays aligning with the seasons and divided the year into half light half dark. But we don't know shit about songs or prayers or even how much the Romans made the fuck up. Which was likely most of it but we'll never know. What the Picts in Scotland may have believed is especially lost, we don't even have most of their language or even sheep counting like Cumbrian.

There's been a lot of push back against terms prehistory and dark ages and rightly so in that they conjure images of a filthy past, people living in their own shit and grim misery. But on a historical level, on an archival level, there really are such things as dark ages and prehistory where we just do not know the details and when discussing and writing religion I err towards what we know the most about, especially where archaeology and history can support each other.

#the ask box || probis pateo #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations #today on: I use hetalia to figure out how I want to write historical fiction when I grow up lmao

[raayllum]

This might be because I’ve been working on the same story idea for close to 12 years, but I’ll never understand the “This wasn’t worth the 3 year wait” complaint about S4, because it’s a muddled complaint and an inherently emotional one. Having issues with the pacing, or characterization, or progression? Those are also subjective, yes, but they’re structural. They can be debated, discussed, explained, etc. But saying “this wasn’t worth the wait” is an emotional complaint. Which is also fine! But it’s entirely subjective. It’s saying your enjoyment of the season (a story that is separate as a concept out of time) is dependent on the time you spent waiting for it, something that means nothing to the story’s structure, because it was never built to take that into account from a Plot standpoint, never mind a narrative one

How I structure and write the plot progression of my novels does not change depending on how many years there are between books, or how long it takes even to write them. Particularly for something that’s long form and developed/created the way something as time consuming as an animated story is. 

I also think separating emotions from analysis is sometimes an important part of understanding and analyzing something, i.e. season three of Trollhunters left me absolutely devastated. I was so upset about a story decision they made I had to take a day just to process and think about it. But I also knew in my heart it was the best decision not only for the characters, even if it wasn’t what I was expecting or hoping for, but also because it worked best thematically and therefore for the story as a whole. My emotional reaction didn’t matter, and now it’s probably my all time favourite thing the show ever did. 

This is also informed by my personal experiences watching Steven Universe. I watched a couple episodes a day and made my way through the show like that from start to finish until SU: Future came out and I think that’s the strongest, story wise, way to consume the show, because I could fully enjoy each peace of filler while also not having to wait forever between drops and/or for lore. 

All of this to say:

S4 didn’t work for you pacing/plot wise is a subjective reading about structure. S4 wasn’t worth the wait after the season three hiatus isn’t grounded in anything other than emotion. Saying “how S4 was plotted/progressed wasn’t worth the 3 year wait” is still saying the structure is dependent on how it makes you feel; it’s an emotional complaint dressed up as a structural one. It’s not grounded in analysis. And you can evaluate stories wholly on how they make you feel, if you want to. That’s entirely within your and anyone else’s right. It’s just not very interesting to me, and doesn’t really do anything from an analytical perspective, which is my own prerogative. 

#tdp #the dragon prince #like analysis not better than emotion or vice versa #and the two are often deeply linked #the english major strikes again #fandom #dragons rambles #like does it Matter? no #but idk i've been mulling over this #in relation to TDP but also in stuff like ASOIAF or like anything with long hiatuses #or not long hiatuses #and how that can influence and inform audience opinion #and i think that discrepancy or relationship between the two can be interesting from a response/sociological leaning perspective #but just. not an analytical one bc that only cares about the story #and Maybe the historical / societal context surrounding the story At Best #tag ramble #also as always: isn't about anything in particular #just about general post s4 reaction

[shcherbatskya]

i don’t CARE about social mores i only care about hoop skirts.

#this is my problem i can’t JUST be interested in fashion i have to also #drag myself kicking and screaming into historical sociology as well because fashion is so like. trivial to me. i don’t know… #samael speaks

[goldiebeams]

Something that makes me so happy to think about is the fact that people have always been people, and those people in the past had an intrinsically unique experience depending on when they lived. People hundreds of years ago still had silly little trends they clung onto (albeit on a much smaller scale bc no internet), and phrases they repeated until those phrases got old and they clung onto new ones. Those people had common aspects of culture and experiences that bonded them together, just how we bond over our shared experiences as the world continues to turn. Those people still had petty friend drama, stupid crushes, fantasy daydreams they got lost in, but the way that they interact with those aspects of their life is completely unique based on when they grew up, and what the culture was like at the time, which I find fascinating.

It’s so easy to look back on the past and see the flaws of that culture and how we’ve progressed since then— which is still a very valuable perspective— but I think there’s also value in seeing that those people did the exact same thing in their time, and that our past was the modern present for them. People lived just as rich and complex lives back then as you do now, and I think it’s so fucking cool that the human experience is both unique to the individual and the time, while also constant and consistent.

Idk maybe that made no sense at all, but history on a small individual scale is cool as fuck.

#also if anyone knows of any small historical cultural quirks or trends I would absolutely love to hear!! #I love learning about little things about people throughout history #history #ramblings #rambles #history rambles #philosophy #daydreaming #shower thoughts #more like sitting in bed at 1:00 AM thoughts but yknow #text post #my text post #please add if you have any thoughts!! #period drama #vintage #period dress #vintage dress #tumblr history #history side of tumblr #sociology #historical society #historical sociology

[anthonycrowley]

sellout is probably not perfect but one thing it does do pretty well is both shows examples of bands that do not fit the overall mold (ie not lily white or male-led) of the scene and also gives you possible reasons why those bands did not reach the heights of those who did without spoonfeeding you the answer. i say this because before this i finished a 500ish page book about the censorship of comics and spent probably 400ish waiting for them to talk about the role of antisemitism in targeting the comics industry instead of just incredibly off the cuff references to many artists and writers being jewish and then the last 100ish being mad when i realized that section of the book simply was not coming.

#text #my post #mobi #i know it was quote unquote historical not quote unquote sociological but i was listening to it like I FEEL LIKE SOMETHING IS MISSINF #book tag

[championofapollo]

Weird thought, but if society and it's trends are on a pendalum, are we presently living the equivalent of the Victorian era?

HEAR ME OUT

Obviously, a lot of things have changed in the past few centuries, but if you think about it, we're just going back to the old ways. The gays are reemerging, we're making long poofy dresses the height of fashion once more cause cottagecore n academia. Only select people who can afford it get higher education, cause y'know uni tuition sucks- The highlight of our days is the scandal sheet sat on our laps

Of course, we're not going to completely revert back to old ways and relive some of that cultural trauma, BUT I can totally see us slowly adding the ancient greek way of life back into our society

#sociology #psychology #ancient greece #victorian era #historical fashion #cottagecore

[guiltyonsundays]

Historians owe everything to sociologists and philosophers… sociologists I am kissing you on the mouth so gently

#literally where the fuck would we be without: #Patricia hill collins #kimberlé Crenshaw #gayatri chakraborty #gayatri spivak #michel foucault #judith butler #pierre bourdieu #antonio gramsci #W. E. B. Du Bois #jurgen habermas #as a historian…. we can’t theorise for shit #all we do is steal y’all’s theories and apply them to different historical contexts #academia #post grad #post graduate #history #sociology #humanities #social science #philosophy #Karl Marx #Marxism

[arthur-r]

getting distracted lecturing mean old men about language in instagram comments sections instead of writing my linguistics paper. if only the topic of my paper were “improper” use of language i have written a thousand words already. but instead i have to write about stupid accents i’m so bored

#it’s weird because i love history i love linguistics and broadly speaking i love historical linguistics #but it’s annoying having that be limited to 20th and 21st century english. i don’t care about that part #and we’re so focused on phonology it’s getting exhausting. can we get a little modernist in here please???? shdhdf #i dont know. i want to talk about the sociology of it all. the stigma and associations. the mutability of identity #but instead i am studying the monophthongal ‘‘o’’. is it that hard to explain?? minnesota used to be full of norwegians- done!! #i dont know. just feeling a little bit unsatisfied. and physically ill which isn’t helping #my roommate gets back today so i have to clean so that he doesn’t hate me for being a normal fucking person #his FROG is on my side of the room. he can’t be mad at me for having a cardboard box next to my bed #idk. wish me luck hope you all are well. i’ll be vaguely around plenty throughout the night i hope #me. my post. mine. #delete later

[rockislandadultreads]

The More You Know: Books on Death and What Comes After

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by: Caitlin Doughty

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death by: Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Cullen has created a humorous and poignant chronicle of her travels around the country to discover how Americans -- baby boomers, in particular -- are reinventing the rites of dying. What she discovered is that the people who reinvented youth, redefined careers, and reconceived middle age have created a new attitude toward the afterlife. They no longer want to take death lying down; instead, they're taking their demise into their own hands and planning the after-party. Cullen begins her journey at a national undertakers' convention in Nashville, where she checks out the latest in death merchandise. Traveling with her newborn infant on her back, she hears stories of modern-day funerals: lobster-shaped caskets and other unconventional containers for corpses; the booming cremation industry that has spawned a slew of "end-trepreneurs," including a company that turns cremated remains into diamonds; and even mishaps like dove releases gone horribly wrong. Cullen tours the country's first "green" cemetery in South Carolina, meets a mummification advocate at his pyramid in Utah, and visits the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Colorado. She crashes a Hmong funeral in Minneapolis and a tango funeral in Washington, D.C. Eye-opening, funny, and unforgettable, Remember Me gives an account of the ways in which Americans are designing new occasions to mark death -- by celebrating life.

All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work by: Hayley Campbell

A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look? Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear. Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she asks: Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by: Caitlin Doughty

Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry—especially chemical embalming—and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.

#nonfiction #non fiction #non-fiction #non-fiction books #to read #tbr #books for Halloween #Death and Dying #Funeral Practices #Culture #anthropology #historical #reading recommendations #Book Recommendations #interesting books #human interest #Death #science #sociology #book recs

[tototavros]

kontextmaschine voice: you can tell whether or not it’s a good pizza place if it’s got a shrimp special on fridays 

#to explain the joke more: there is a historical/sociological phenomenon behind the association of 'traditional'/'good' local pizza joints #and having a non-land animal on fridays as a special #(i'm not sure what the actual rule is; my father's family always had fish & so did the local vfw) #that is based in 'white culture' #but if you actually take the post at its words its facially and obviously wrong #@km: i know you follow me <3