More fun than work

[strange_complex]

OMG, why am I reading an article which contains sentences like this:"Sahlins' argument is thus for a dialectical relationship between externally generated events and localized actions"
when I could be doing this Who meme taken from snapesbabe?

Comments

[a_d_medievalist]

I don't even understand that sentence!

[strange_complex]

It's about the consequences of Roman imperialism, and basically trying to say that [Sahlins says] cultural change in that context happened as a result of interactions between the things the Romans did and the things the locals did. But yeah - it is couched in pretty opaque terms, isn't it!

[a_d_medievalist]

Yep -- I hate academics who write that way. I don't write becaue I want to show how smart I am, I write because I think I have something worth saying, and it's important to me to say it as clearly as I can.

Sahlin

[vonheath]

appears to be expressing in a poenastic fashion the observation of Patrick Geary of the effects of the Romans on the Germanic world in his Before France & Germany...

Re: Sahlin

[strange_complex]

Yeah, it's hardly a controversial view. And to be fair, they're not Sahlins' own words - rather a paraphrase of his (or her?) views by someone called Webster. In fact, despite what I've written above, Sahlins wasn't actually talking about the Romans at all, but about Europeans arriving in Hawaii - it's just that Webster is drawing an analogy between the two forms of imperialism.

But you're right - it is unnecessarily wordy.

Re: Sahlin

[weepingcross]

So ... 'things far away affect things nearby'?

'Concentrate, Professor Dougal. These events are SMALL. Those are FAR AWAY.'

Re: Sahlin

[strange_complex]

To be charitable, I think it's more 'things far away interact with things nearby' - i.e. it's a two-way process.

But, fundamentally, yeah... And I have to try to take this stuff seriously and engage with it. :-/

[huskyteer]

I thought about filling this in, then realised I would just insult everyone on my Friends list: "God I hate RTD...God I hate Colin Baker...what's with this silly 'Two', 'Ten' naming convention, it's 'The Second Doctor'...the idea of Dr Who slash is just sick..."

I might go ahead and do it anyway.

[strange_complex]

Nah, g'wan anyway! It's all good fun.

I must say, though, that I absolutely love the numerical naming convention. I love it because it's like saying that the Fourth Doctor (or whichever) is the single most important association ever with the number four. All anyone needs to say is 'Four', and the reference to that Doctor is instantly understood - no-one is thinking of (e.g.) Channel Four, Radio 4, the Four Seasons, the Birmingham Four or anything else trivial or ephemeral of that nature!

I can't tell you how happy I was when I realised I'd referred to all ten of them in my meme answers, so that I could quite reasonably sit there and type 'one, two, three, four, etc.' into the tags field. :-)