Roman Britain in Black and White

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/roman-britain-black-white/

by DanBC • 9 years ago

99 99 9 years ago

the-tls.co.uk

bionsuba• 9 years ago

It's interesting that she decided to leave out the fact that Taleb's comment on citations was him firing back after she called anti-fragile et. all "pop risk books": https://medium.com/incerto/something-is-broken-in-the-uk-int...

zipfle• 9 years ago

She didn't leave it out.

"I think Prof Taleb did get annoyed when I said that I had read his ‘pop risk’ book, not the others. But I was actually trying to make clear that I had some knowledge of his work, though not a lot."

ar-jan2• 9 years ago

Also, even if you disregard the "pop risk books" qualification, her argument comes down to "what did you publish on Roman Britain", instead of engaging with Taleb's argument.

panzagl3• 9 years ago

Taleb is disregarding the entire field of history because it is 'Anecdotal' as opposed to 'Statistical'. Since there are no 'statistics' from the period he is acting like he knows as much as one of top living scholars on Roman history. The written and archaeological record shows that auxiliaries were often stationed far from their home territories, but I guess that was all part of a 2000 year plot to make Britons accept immigrants.

pknight• 9 years ago

She not only mentioned that in the article, it's the truth? And how is that a slight? It's bloody amazing that you can write books on risk that reach mass audiences. It's only a slight to Taleb because he prefers to think of himself as above the fray.

ItsDeathball• 9 years ago

The piece seemed like it was intended to explain the historical consensus on ethnic diversity in Roman Britain and how that consensus was achieved, which one can't really do reasonably in 140 characters. She mentions the Twitter drama for context, but I think she's trying to keep the debate focused on the point of factual contention rather than personal conflict.

If people want to get anything productive at all out of these constant Twitter flareups they need to allow for de-escalation.

dragonwriter2• 9 years ago

Anti-Fragile is a popular work on risk; the description is simply accurate, and distinguishes the works she had read from Taleb’s academic work.

Most academics who also write popular works aren't prickly about describing their popular works as such; I don't think Hawking would get upset at someone describing A Brief History of Time as pop cosmology.

aaronbrethorst• 9 years ago

The author, Mary Beard, is a classicist and the UK's top Roman scholar. She's also the author of the critically acclaimed SPQR: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/books/review-in-spqr-a-hi...

ch4s3• 9 years ago

For those who haven't read the book, SPQR is an excellent piece of writing.

sremani• 9 years ago

Prof. Beard is hiding behind the bad behavior of her opponents, there is no cogent answer to the question..

where are the genes ?

pja6• 9 years ago

In her article, she points out that the same study failed to find Norman genes either. So I might ask similar questions about them: where are the Norman genes? Is the Norman invasion of Britain a hoax perpetrated by the alt-right of yore?

etc. etc.

(In other words: it’s a legitimate question, but the way Taleb is using it as some kind of gotcha! query suggests that he isn’t really asking it in good faith.)

dragonwriter2• 9 years ago

it’s a legitimate question, but the way Taleb is using it as some kind of gotcha! query suggests that he isn’t really asking it in good faith.

Or, more generously (as to Taleb’s character) that the implicit premise (if there were ethnic diversity, we would have robust genetic evidence) justifying his argument is itself not based on a well-informed understanding of the context.

tcbawo• 9 years ago

This time period is separated by centuries of plague, smallpox, and high infant mortality. I would not be surprised that genetic diversity would simply vanish over time.

sbmassey• 9 years ago

She said "very little" Norman genes, not none at all. Given that the normal story of the Norman invasion is not about mass invasion, but the replacement of one ruling class with another, so relatively few actual people, this would not seem to be surprising.

cabalamat7• 9 years ago

the same study failed to find Norman genes either

How would a Norman gene be different from a French or Norse one?

maze-le• 9 years ago

I doubt you could even define "Norman genes" properly. How would they be different to say "Danish genes", wich migrated to Britain between the 8th and 10th century. After all Normans were also just Scandinavian people who relocated to northern France in the 10th century. The Normans integrated quickly into french (frankish) society by adaptding the language and intermarriage. Furthermore "Norman genes" should also be found in southern Italy, since it was the Normans who founded the Kingdom of Sicily, before it was incoorperated into the Holy Roman Empire.

panzagl3• 9 years ago

As someone who has studied post-Roman Britain as an amateur, I would guess they got on a boat and left Britain the same time the legions took off to play imperial whack-a-mole. That whole period of history is basically about migrations and population displacement, so it hardly seems unlikely that they could have effectively 'disappeared' over the next 3 centuries.

chippy• 9 years ago

This could be seen as framing it as being a Roman Occupation of Britain.

clock_tower2• 9 years ago

Maybe in Wales? Modern England (and most of modern Scotland) is mostly Anglo-Saxon, not Romano-British.

jasonwatkinspdx• 9 years ago

There is genetic evidence of people from the Balkans migrating to Wales during the Roman era: https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/molb...

barry-cotter• 9 years ago

That's not true. East Anglia, the region with the most Germanic ancestry, is only ~30%.

pja6• 9 years ago

Mary Beard’s proper title would be Prof. Beard of course. Something she extended the courtesy of to him, but apparently he couldn’t be bothered to extend the same to her.

The falling back on 'I got more citations than you, so ner' isn’t exactly a good look either.

unknown_apostle2• 9 years ago

Taleb calling people Ms and Mr here was obviously about being firm. As in Agent Smith saying "MISTER Anderson". If anyone wants to suggest that Talib pulled some kind of gender card on her, that's pathetic. It actually strengthens the idea that academia needs to be wary of identity politics creeping in (and also bad manners).

Btw Taleb was a huge fan of Beard. Until a few days ago that is.

pja6• 9 years ago

Nice use of the passive voice there.

In what way am I 'pulling the gender card' exactly?

uyhso8• 9 years ago

This whole thing strikes me as sad. The argument could have gone an entirely different way.

Taleb blasts the nature and tone of the argument, concluding "scholarship is dead in the UK,"(https://medium.com/incerto/something-is-broken-in-the-uk-int...) but the irony is that if it's ending, it's ending in part because of behavior such as his.

I actually agree in general with his perspective on the cartoon, but found his behavior unacceptable. The other side of the argument isn't unreasonable, even if you conclude it's maybe not the best side of the argument.

In some ways it doesn't matter, but I'm getting tired of the right setting up this dynamic where they engage in ad hominem bullshit, and then act offended when other side responds. I say this as someone who often identifies with the right--it's alienating and pushes reasonable people away. Rather than apologizing about not being respectful of Professor Beard, he becomes defensive and somehow tries to rationalize it.

Next time Taleb, could you please just take the high road in your behavior? Even if the other side is totally full of shit, and acting inappropriately, you'll look better and everyone will win by being the better one. I even agree with you and you've turned me off of your own damn arguments.

Jeez.

autokad2• 9 years ago

I'm getting tired of the right setting up this dynamic where they engage in ad hominem bullshit

its not different than the way the left attacks people as: racist, homophobe, mysangist, uneducated, hillbilly, etc.

the last one i find quite interesting, a party that is supposed to stand against stereotypes, labeling, and skin color references uses hillbilly / red neck a lot.

sqeaky2• 9 years ago

Calling someone out for being racist or bigoted in some other should be acceptable, because that behavior is not acceptable. Preventing people from being called out on their bigotry is tolerating intolerance, and we shouldn't have any of that.

I do agree it is not a real rebuttal if the other side has a point unrelated to their bigotry.

ZeroGravitas2• 9 years ago

You literally call out "the left" for bigotry in the same sentence in which you complain about them calling people out for bigotry.

How can you square this logically?

icebraining• 9 years ago

"The Left" is not a party.

jmorphy882• 9 years ago

Taleb is correct to call out this cartoon as the politically correct nonsense that it is. A saner society might agree with him and ask itself why, in the current day, history needs to be rewritten to be completely fictitious.

Taleb's persona, however, does not lend itself well to open debate over such issues, as he champions himself as being a lone iconoclast against the "IYIs". All we can do is enjoy the show, I guess.

cabalamat7• 9 years ago

Taleb is correct to call out this cartoon as the politically correct nonsense that it is.

Agreed -- it's a bullshit attempt to re-write history.

why, in the current day, history needs to be rewritten to be completely fictitious.

For example complaining the recent Dunkirk film has mostly white men in it... when that was true of the historical event it depicts.

Bakary2• 9 years ago

If anything the need to distort history is even clearer now, since it can be employed in devastatingly effective media narratives

av3csr• 9 years ago

I'm here just to say I appreciate the irony of an economist calling someone a "BS vendor"

codeisawesome• 9 years ago

I'm not taking any sides here on the main debate! Quite the minefield!

But I did want to point out that a lot of The Black Swan - was about berating "other economists and their flawed theories". I feel he tries a lot to make it clear that he isn't an economist...

But I haven't read enough books on economics to know if this is what all economists like doing to each other.

PS: I really enjoyed that book and tried to absorb many lessons from it, but I gotta say "pop-risk" is a funny nickname for it.

patrickg_zill• 9 years ago

Go to Google Images, type in "European people history" and note the first ten results. That is what this is about.

hn_anon_founder• 9 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb

cabalamat7• 9 years ago

In other cases where Google's algorithms have come up with something embarassing, they have corrected it. It is revealing that they have chosen not to do so in this case.

clock_tower2• 9 years ago

I'd always heard "Europeans", not "European people"; if Google is just confused (and I wouldn't rule it out -- look up "Goofle Translate"), I think it's because "European people" is a pretty rare semantic construct.

ZeroGravitas2• 9 years ago

I'm kind of amazed at how seriously people are taking this.

The guy is the editor for a literal conspiracy theory website that condones the idea that Sandy Hook was staged by the US government. And long list of even more ridiculous and appalling things.

They make their money selling pseudoscientific "wellness" products of the kind that Gwyneth Paltrow sells on Goop.

The main star of Infowars recently admitted it was just an act of entertainment because if he didn't a divorce court would have ruled him a danger to his children based on things he says and does.

Back to the matter at hand, he's literally proposing a conspiracy theory, based on an educational cartoon, for children, about the Roman empire. Just let that soak in.

The BBC are, in this theory, intentionally promoting "mass uncontrolled immigration" to children via animations about the Roman empire. Step 2 ???. Step 3. White Genocide.

It's an embarrassment to us all as a species that this passes for political discussion today.

emmelaich4• 9 years ago

"The guy?" Which guy? What website?

aptwebapps• 9 years ago

Did the link change or something?

pja6• 9 years ago

I think ZG might have confused Taleb with Alex Jones?

(Taleb is the arrogant loud-mouth[1] who made his money in the financial markets, Alex Jones is similar in aspect but made his money by building an audience of right-wing conspiracy theorists and then selling them herbal supplements.)

[1] Not an insult. I suspect he’d embrace this description whole-heartedly.

mhw2• 9 years ago

The '"alt-right" commenter' referred to in the second paragraph kicked the whole thing off, and was then replied to by Mike Stuchbery here: https://twitter.com/MikeStuchbery_/status/889846960139751424

Unfortunately twitter doesn't seem to be presenting the thread of Mike's replies any more, which seems like a failing of the platform.

Kevve2• 9 years ago

he's literally proposing a conspiracy theory, based on an educational cartoon, for children, about the Roman empire

I'm not sure conspiracy is the right term, but it does seem like political propaganda from BBC, don't you think? How else would you explain the unrealistically "diverse" representations of history (the Roman period being just one of them as you can see in that other post)?

bryananderson• 9 years ago

It should be clear to anyone who has read this article by Dr. Beard (or her phenomenal book SPQR) that it isn't really up for debate whether there were Roman soldiers and civilians in Britain who came from the far reaches of the Empire and beyond. Yes, including from Africa. Whether we would have looked at these people and said they were "black" is, as Dr. Beard explains, pretty unanswerable (not to mention a vain attempt to view the ancient world in terms of group identities that are very modern indeed).

Dr. Taleb and others show a massive ignorance of how the studies of history, archaeology, and biology work when they assert that we can just "look in the genes" for an unambiguous record of every damn person who has ever set foot on the British Isles. But a misguided desire to hold history to the same evidentiary standards as, say, physics or mathematics - including by physicists and mathematicians - is nothing new.

What's more worrisome is the determination of some to willfully ignore historical evidence that might challenge their worldview.

Look around the Internet - there is a new revisionist history of the Western world that is being pushed, one that holds a shared "white" or "European" identity as paramount. These are the people who came after Dr. Beard as they come after anyone who challenges their views.

These people are undoubtedly far less numerous than they appear; they use bots and multiple accounts to make themselves appear more legitimate. This itself is dangerous, as it may cause bystanders to view these people as more mainstream than they truly are (and it's no secret that people ascribe more credulity to an idea when it seems widely accepted).

This is not going to get better as neural networks improve at writing tweets that sound human.

zpergs• 9 years ago

You're making it sound more complex than it is. If Roman Britain was ethnically diverse then what happened to the diversity? It's just not represented in the modern population.

Furthermore, a study is probably incorrect if it can't withstand sanity checking from simple population models based on data we do have from the time (e.g. Roman garrison sizes).

Look around the Internet - there is a new revisionist history of the Western world that is being pushed..

The revisionism is actually that Roman Britain was ethnically diverse. To paraphrase the source of this controversy, Paul Joseph Watson: If Roman Britain was diverse then modern day Japan is ethnically diverse.

The "we are all immigrants" narrative is pushed to justify mass immigration and open borders. This might make academics like Beard feel cosmopolitan and P.C. views might draw the attention of the Guardian and boost her book sales, but tens of millions of people are suffering from the consequences of these policies and feel alienated by an elite that they feel is working against their will and best interests.

These people are undoubtedly far less numerous than they appear; they use bots

Paul Joseph Watson has over 1m subscribers on YouTube and his videos have hundreds of thousands of views. This places his daily circulation higher than most newspapers. While only a small percentage of those people may agree with his views enough to push them online, that is still a lot of people.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading "Skin in the Game" and wonder whether this story will become another anecdote of Taleb's "Intellectual Yet Idiot" social class.

neffy• 9 years ago

It is there, you just have to know what to look for, it helps to get out to the country. Down in deepest, darkest Devon - one of my Uncles married into a family who have a) been in Devon for centuries (as had his side of the family), and b) generally about the same shade as northern Indians. Friends at university had similarly ancient pedigrees, and tight, curly hair. etc.

Modern day Japan, btw. is ethnically "Japanese". Which is to say the entire country are migrants from various parts of the Asian mainland over the last 4000 or so years, again, obvious when you know what to look for. (And don't mention Korea...)

Concern over the problems of the modern era, overpopulation and refugees, are real, valid and deserve respect. But they don't need to be mixed up with the convenient stupidities of racism.

panzagl3• 9 years ago

How many Polish genes do you think will be in Afghanistan in 2000 years- after all, Polish units have served in Afghanistan. I have an acquaintance whose Russian family lived in Azerbaijan during the fall of the Soviet Union- they figured things were about to go south, so they packed their genes and moved. Maybe an African living in Britain felt the same way when the the legions left and the Scots were coming over the wall...

laretluval• 9 years ago

If Roman Britain was diverse then modern day Japan is ethnically diverse.

I don't understand the argument this is making. Could you clarify?

cabalamat7• 9 years ago

If Roman Britain was ethnically diverse

You probably mean racially diverse -- most Roman soldiers / administrators were ethnically Roman, regardless of race.

then what happened to the diversity?

Cities have historically been population sinks, not able to replenish themselves without constant population flows from the countryside. If there were non-white people in the cities it might not have left much trace in the population's genes.

cabalamat7• 9 years ago

The "we are all immigrants" narrative is pushed to justify mass immigration and open borders.

This is indeed the case, and the nativists v. cosmopolitans culture war is raging throughout the West. It's one of the reasons behind Brexit, for example.

ta871263• 9 years ago

There were Roman soldiers from all over the Empire in Britain because the Romans invaded Britain. It was not exactly a consensual exchange. "The past had diversity too" triumphalism should be evaluated at least partially in that light.

cabalamat7• 9 years ago

there is a new revisionist history of the Western world that is being pushed, one that holds a shared "white" or "European" identity as paramount

I don't think it's either new or revisionist -- the vast majority of European have been white, going back millenia.

And very many Europeans, particularly educated ones, have considered themselves as European, both in geographical terms, and in civilisational terms -- e.g. they thought of them selves as Romans, or as part of Christendom, or as part of the West.

it isn't really up for debate whether there were Roman soldiers and civilians in Britain who came from the far reaches of the Empire and beyond. Yes, including from Africa.

Indeed so.

Whether we would have looked at these people and said they were "black" is, as Dr. Beard explains, pretty unanswerable

In terms of what they looked like, most Romans were of Mediterranean appearance.

Red_Tarsius• 9 years ago

It's not an isolated incident. The same show depicted ethnic people in questionable situations.

– Sub-Saharan Celts http://i.imgur.com/WSHbj36.png

– A Sub-Saharan English Nobleman, 1215AD http://i.imgur.com/Y5WFtXO.png

– A Sub-Saharan blacksmith, Iron Age Britain http://i.imgur.com/XptrQDP.png

– A North-African Norman priest http://i.imgur.com/5JHBzMN.png

The criticized video was supposed to be "An exploration of life in Roman Britain shown through the eyes of a typical family." http://i.imgur.com/tg25juJ.jpg

ng123• 9 years ago

Christ, this needs to be further up. All this discussion of whether or not the cartoon was politicized becomes moot when they have dark-skinned Celts.

mirimir6• 9 years ago

How do you know that there weren't dark-skinned Celts? But maybe you're saying that there are?

Consider that priests of the Lemba tribe carry the Y-chromosome Cohen gene.

http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/lemba-tribe-in-so...

lhopki01• 9 years ago

Celts are a fabricated identity. The modern representation arose out of trying to have a pan European ancestry and identity in the 19th century.

usrusr2• 9 years ago

"Some Roman soldiers had dark skin" and "the show is going too far in their attempts to make it easier for dark-skinned children to identify with the history of the place where they were born" can both be true at the same time. You don't have to be Mary Beard to understand that the former is true, just read the two Cesar books, hardly something only experts in the field do. They are full of examples of foreign units operating on continents far away from home. Centuries later, foreign mercenaries only got more integrated.

This whole story is just right wingers picking the wrong example out of ignorance and then stubbornly using mob tactics to compensate. They can't have a meaningful discussion about the show because they are too narrowminded to understand why the example they picked was the wrong example for the point they were originally trying to make.

norikki3• 9 years ago

What are you even talking about. I can not figure out what you are saying, could you clarify? What is the wrong example? The multiple examples in the comment you replied to?

emmelaich4• 9 years ago

I like the article in The Atlantic about this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/dna-roma...

As it says, it's mostly people talking past each other.

Taleb is unnecessarily un-collegial though.

Klockan• 9 years ago

I'd say that this is roughly on par with depicting Jesus as a white western European, but I don't see any right wingers complaining about that.

Kevve2• 9 years ago

Jesus often gets depicted to match the local population. In Korea, for example, he looks Asian. The difference is that it's done for religious purposes, whereas an "educational historic video" like those made by BBC are expected to have different motives and standards of objectivity.

pm24601• 9 years ago

Romans were in Britain 2000 years ago. In 2000 years, with negative environmental selection - maybe the gene for black skin was turned off. Everyone is focusing on skin color, what about curly hair or ...

This is all silly any how.

Roman Britain in Black and White

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