[PD] [OT] Re: about sexism

Chris McCormick chris at mccormick.cx
Wed Oct 10 06:18:10 CEST 2007


On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 12:51:14AM -0400, vade wrote:
> Because the Mongolians did it so much better as to be noteworthy?

It depends what you mean by 'better'. For example, the British Empire
covered more land than the Mongolian Empire ever did, and that's just
one arm of the European invasion of the rest of the world. The British
Empire also ruled over far more people; roughly one quater of the world's
entire population at the beginning of the 20th century.

If by 'better' you mean "more ruthless" then you need to read more
history. First hand accounts by the Spanish invaders into parts of
South America brag unashamedly about deceiving and slaughtering the
local peoples. Slave ships (I don't need to say any more on that one).
The way in which the Aboriginal people of Australia, Canada, and the USA
were treated by the first settlers in these places. The list is very
long. There is a lot more debate about how civil the ancient Mongolians
were than there is about how the later Europeans treated the people
they invaded, possibly because Europeans kept better written records,
whilst the records of Mongolian invasion were all kept by people who
were being invaded.

As with all history, it's very complicated, but my point is that we
only refer to the "Mongolian hordes" because we are biased towards a
pro-western way of thinking. That is most definately ignorant, and
probably racist.

Best,

Chris.

> And  
> dont forget the Vikings, we were pretty legendary. Then the damn  
> Christians tamed us.
> 
> But im also an American citizen (my mother is Scandinavian), so you  
> have my explicit permission to speak of the current American Hordes,  
> should you need to specify any group of people with a  
> "horde"/"Invasion"/"rape"/"torture" analogy, or if you are feeling a  
> bit reminiscent, to use viking rather than mongolian, you will at  
> least offend n-1 people on the PD list.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> On Oct 8, 2007, at 10:40 PM, Chris McCormick wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 12:41:22PM -0400, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> >>On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> >>
> >>>Of course, hacker slang can be sexist as well, even racist if you  
> >>>look
> >>>at the term " Mongolian Hordes technique" above.
> >>
> >>If only you had had those real Mongolian hordes rushing towards  
> >>you at the
> >>appropriate time in history, you would understand...
> >>
> >>There's a difference between being sensitive to racism and dismissing
> >>history.
> >
> >I wonder why we don't refer to the european hordes rushing into  
> >countless
> >continents, slaughtering and raping the local peoples for the last few
> >hundred years? There is a difference between dismissing history and
> >selective memory.
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >Chris.
> >
> >-------------------
> >http://mccormick.cx
> >
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> v a d e //
> 
> www.vade.info
> abstrakt.vade.info
> 
> 
> 
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