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[Masterpiece]

Well all the items dug up in Troy went to Berlin, but that's because the Sultan allowed it back then. Now they're in Russia.

[Loki]

That's interesting, I never knew that. Was Troy on Ottoman ground?

And Method: I don't know the answer, sorry.

[KOK]

There is such a thing as "legal successor" in regards to states.

For example, after the downfall of the USSR, Russia went and said "we are the legal successor of the USSR. If anyone has any outstanding business with the USSR, come to us", and mostly everyone agreed, I suppose because Russia was where the orders were coming from anyway.

That very nearly went differently. Russia was not a member of the Sovjet Union when it was dissolved. When everybody else had left, the Sovjet Union consisted of the five central asiatic republics, and for a short while it seemed that they might keep the Union going. What would had happened then is difficult to say. How long could they have kept the veto in the UN security council, for example? To what lengths would Russia have gone to wrest it from them? To what lengths would China have gone to destabilize the union? A major Turkish state right at the border of China's Turkish speaking provinces is a nightmare to the Chinese government.

[KOK]

That's interesting, I never knew that. Was Troy on Ottoman ground?

Not only Troy, also Athens. The British Museum aquired the Parthenon frieze legally, since they had the permission of the Ottoman government, who was the legetimate government of Greece at the time. Today Grece claims that the it was not, but it was recognized as such by all powers at the time.

Troy is in what it Turkey today.

[Masterpiece]

A major Turkish state right at the border of China's Turkish speaking provinces is a nightmare to the Chinese government.

Turkeys border is miles away from China. So I'm not entirely sure what you're saying.
If you mean Turkmen state, that's a different thing entirely.

[Carl-E]

Turkey, Turkmenistan, it's all the same...   

Re: Chechnya / Czechoslovakia...

[TinPenguin]

'Turkic' might be the more accurate term. And it's not a different thing entirely... where do you think the Turks came from to begin with?

[KOK]

A major Turkish state right at the border of China's Turkish speaking provinces is a nightmare to the Chinese government.

Turkeys border is miles away from China. So I'm not entirely sure what you're saying.
If you mean Turkmen state, that's a different thing entirely.

"Turkey" as a state is what is left of the Osmannian empire. The ancestral homeland of the Turks is in central Asia, and many of them still live there. But if you insist that "Turkish" refers to the state, then "Turkish speaking". Anyway, a large part of this "Turkestan", as some call it, is in China. The rest is split into four former Sovjet republics. Four, not five. That is one of the reason that these five republics disolved the union. Tadsjikistan did not want to be a Persian speaking minority in a Turkish union.

[Masterpiece]

See, this is terminology I can get around with. Yes I knew that Turks came out of China, but Turkmenistan and the Turkic states are quite different compared to Turkey. For one, while the language comes from the same root, Turkic languages use a lot more different vocabulary and grammar, mainly because the Turkish language acquired a lot of European vocabulary during their stint as the Ottoman Empire and a lot of Arabic when they were their warriors (and later, their leaders).

[Is it cold in here?]

It, like "Huckleberry Finn" is a story of its times, and we should feel shamed that things were once like that.

Except Huck Finn did not take the world of its times for granted and was in fact implicitly critical.

[Is it cold in here?]

Fuck you, Bob!

How fair is it to criticize someone for not transcending his entire time and culture? Particularly when he was at the very least a generation ahead of his time with Blacks and women?

We're all likely to look pretty bad seventy years from now.

[Kugai]

Probably true

After all, just how is history in 100 years from now going to look at the Middle East?

Or North Korea

Or even organisations like Al Queda or Hizbulla?

[Pilchard123]

Whose bulla?

[Method of Madness]

Not my bulla!

[Loki]

Did someone say köttbullar?

[pwhodges]

pwhodges added a soundcloud tag not long ago. Does it work on Apple devices yet?

No; it uses Flash.  Soundcloud has an HTML5 interface available, but converting the mod to use it is a lot more work than the things I did to the YouTube mod.  However, the fact that I know this means I have looked at it seriously... 

So, sometime - but don't hold your breath (I have to plan and rehearse a recital and talk over the next few weeks, as well as helping to set up another forum, and - oh - work 'n all).

[ankhtahr]

Picking up this "talking" topic from above, would there be interest in a Mumble Server? I've always wanted to try and host a Mumble server, but I never found any reason for it if it was only for me, talking to myself.

For everybody who doesn't know what Mumble is: Mumble is a VoIP system similar to TeamSpeak, completely Open Source, using open codecs. I don't know for how many users my bandwidth will suffice (ADSL), but it might be worth a try.

[Is it cold in here?]

"Colonialist" is clearly right, but if the creator of Henry Gladstone Kiku and Dr. Royce Worthington was "racist", he deserves much credit for overcoming it.

EDIT: with a little more thought, it's inevitable that someone born in Missouri in 1907 would start out racist. He's a shining example of growing past it.

I just remembered Sixth Column. It's inexcusable and proves me wrong.

[Kugai]

Not my bulla!

I wonder if we're fulla bulla?

[Akima]

In 1941... there was no China as a nation.

There certainly was a de jure nation of China in 1941. The USA recognised what you call the "Kuomintang regime" as the legitimate government of the Republic Of China at the time, had diplomatic relations with it, and continued to recognise it until 1979, when it controlled no territory beyond Taiwan. It is perfectly true that the Republic had lost de facto control of much of the territory it nominally ruled in 1941, but it had no more ceased to exist as a nation than the USA did during the American Civil War.

How fair is it to criticize someone for not transcending his entire time and culture?

I don't know. I had never even heard of We Also Walk Dogs until Zoe linked it, and its unreconstructed attitudes took me by surprise. The story's attitude to the artefacts of non-European cultures is still widespread today. Should we give our museum curators a free pass because they are merely reflecting the attitudes of their time and culture?

[Kugai]

And are you of the opinion that the story should be rewritten??

Just because a story is written and reflects the attitudes of the time it was written is no excuse to rewrite it. 

[Carl-E]

As she said, she was taken aback by it.  Knowing the time of writing before reading it might have ameliorated that, thought not the reaction to the attitude. 

[Is it cold in here?]

There was not even a hint of a suggestion of rewriting it in anything Akima said.

The closest thing in the conversation was my reflection of how much better the story would have been if General Services had been of general service.

[ZoeB]

The story's attitude to the artefacts of non-European cultures is still widespread today.

That is the problem.

[Is it cold in here?]

Not just non-European. There are plenty of pieces of art displaced today due to old intra-European looting.

[westrim]

I'm in agreement with Rimwolf; the artifact in question is not the point of the story, it's just a Macguffin. Getting upset at the author, especially this author considering his stated, prescient, and evolving opinion on the subject of race, for the historical background of the MacGuffin is a bit absurd.

Also in real history is the fact that a good chunk of Ming pottery was even at the time of their creation exported to Europe, and most that were obtained afterward were sold, not looted. There was a fair bit of looting, and a good bit of that went the the British trophy room museum, but it pales in comparison to the scale of ordinary commerce.

On the general issue of repatriation of artifacts, it's all about circumstance. Ones stolen or dug up with no or BS local government permission should be returned with free shipping, but ones that were just plain bought like any other item should be compensated or allowed to be kept.

On the general topic of China, I find outrage on behalf of historical artifacts taken from there to be laughable considering their perspective throughout history on the trappings of the past. From 1000 BCE and probably earlier, it was standard practice as part of the cycle of empires to get rid of the stuff from the previous one, and that carried through straight to the Cultural Revolution. The greatest damage to a society's past is usually self inflicted.

And still want Paul Verhoven publicly flogged.

But he didn't make a Starship Troopers movie. He made a completely different movie form the book, which was then named Starship Troopers after most of the writing and preproduction was finished. I can forgive him due to that, and the shower scene, which as an 8 year old boy I immensely appreciated.

The people making World War Z and Enders Game have no excuses, though, so we'll see how that goes.

[KOK]

I do not understand all this anger. What Westrim says is all correct. On a more basic level: Heinlein does not say that this is the propper way to treat such an artifact. To the contrary, that it is treated so is a sign of how desperate the situation is.

[Akima]

Also in real history is the fact that a good chunk of Ming pottery was even at the time of their creation exported to Europe, and most that were obtained afterward were sold, not looted. There was a fair bit of looting, and a good bit of that went the the British trophy room museum, but it pales in comparison to the scale of ordinary commerce.

The "Flower Of Forgetfulness" is presented as a one-off, unique artwork, not the simple run of "ordinary commerce". If it had been just another piece of commercially mass-produced Ming porcelain, the physicist would not have been so motivated to obtain it.

Many countries have gone through periods of vandalising or destroying their own cultural and historical artefacts. For example, religious extremists vandalised cathedrals and artworks during the English Civil Wars and Commonwealth period 1640–1660. Would that make it OK for a Chinese army to burn Buckingham Palace, and steal its contents? If not, how would the "burning of books and burying of scholars" ordered by Qin Shi Huang, for example, somehow excuse, or even mitigate, the actions of European imperialists in China?

On what basis do we decide whether an artefact was "just plain bought"? During the colonial era, artefacts were routinely "purchased" at gunpoint, or in situations where there was no legal equality between "purchaser" and "vendor" because the foreign "purchaser" had obtained, at gunpoint, special privileges over the local population, and over the local governing authorities, making it impossible for them to question the legal right of the "vendor" to make the sale. The determination of our museums to hang on to artefacts obtained in this manner makes them complicit in this. The fact that we permit it to continue makes us complicit too.

I do not understand all this anger. What Westrim says is all correct. On a more basic level: Heinlein does not say that this is the propper way to treat such an artifact. To the contrary, that it is treated so is a sign of how desperate the situation is.

The situation is not presented as desperate in any way. It's just an ambitious politician wanting to gain a diplomatic advantage, and the protagonists are in it for the money without even needing any knowledge of what the negotiations are about. At the end of the story, the protagonist characters demonstrate their full voluntary complicity in the situation by taking special steps to ensure their right to participate personally in the elitist private enjoyment of the artefact they have "acquired" without the slightest qualm. No, Heinlein quite obviously had no problems at all with the way the artefact is treated. If you don't either, we will just have to agree to differ.

[GarandMarine]

Akima I confess I'm having a hard time following just what you're arguing for.

[ZoeB]

Akima I confess I'm having a hard time following just what you're arguing for.

I think... if a foreign army entered the US, burnt the last copy of the constitution just to keep warm, then decamped with the Liberty bell and a few other such items - and later refused to return them.. you might get the general idea.

She has a point. It says a lot for her character that she's not being rather more.. blunt.. about it.

[Method of Madness]

I know that WWZ's been turned into a generic zombie movie, but what's the problem with Ender's Game? (I've heard surprisingly little about it)

[Akima]

Akima I confess I'm having a hard time following just what you're arguing for.

In my last posting?

That treating unique artworks as somehow comparable with commercial products mass-produced for sale is dubious.

That colonialist looting of other people's cultures is bad, even when dressed up by the looters as "legitimate purchase" in a legal context that they force on their victims at gunpoint. That I don't accept Westrim's arguments as offering any justification for it, or for regarding Chinese attitudes as laughable.

That I don't accept that the characters in the story exhibit any sense of desperation as suggested by KOK, or any qualms at all about the appropriateness of their behaviour.

[Neko_Ali]

The problem with Ender's Game is Orson Scott Card. And especially all of the bad press he's gotten lately of his deeply misogynistic and homophobic world view and writings. It is not to the best credit of the LGBT community as a whole that lately every time his name shows up people start screaming about it because of his beliefs. See the crap storm that was generated when it was announced DC was having him write for Superman. But on the other side, his beliefs are deeply disgusting to me and others, and he is not shy about promoting them to the detriment of people. I know I enjoyed his books when I was a teenager, before I learned about his beliefs and realized how little he would think of me. It kinda puts a damper on things.

[Method of Madness]

Is he involved in making the movie?

[Neko_Ali]

I don't know if he's involved in the making of the movie, but he wrote the book. Even if they cut him out entirely of the movie, that's pretty much involved.

Unless it's a Transformers, Starship Troopers or (gods forbid) Battleship movie. Then it really doesn't have anything at all to do with the source material, they just slapped a label on it.

[Method of Madness]

Yeah, but the book wasn't representative of his bigotries, was it?

[Is it cold in here?]

Also in real history is the fact that a good chunk of Ming pottery was even at the time of their creation exported to Europe, and most that were obtained afterward were sold, not looted.

The Flower seemed to be one of those "national treasure" things that people don't voluntarily sell.

On the general topic of China, I find outrage on behalf of historical artifacts taken from there to be laughable considering their perspective throughout history on the trappings of the past. From 1000 BCE and probably earlier, it was standard practice as part of the cycle of empires to get rid of the stuff from the previous one, and that carried through straight to the Cultural Revolution. The greatest damage to a society's past is usually self inflicted.

That is, if you stop to think about it, a pretty basic ethical fallacy.

[westrim]

It's long, click the link

Being unique doesn't make it a national treasure on par with the Liberty Bell as ZoeB suggests, it just makes it unique. It's not a national treasure any more than every Monet should go to France. We don't know the history of this piece because it's not important to the story (I can't emphasize enough that it's just a MacGuffin that could have been replaced with anything unique from anywhere and served the same function), so you're interpreting the worst possible one.

Your comparison is unequal because unlike England, China made a habit of 'out with the old, in with the new', and did it so often it was acknowledged and named by 1000 BC. Every place has gone through periods of unrest, but China alone made a named and expected cycle of it. Even if it lapsed at times, Western Europe by and large had more respect for their own old stuff (it helped that a lot of them were tied up in the dominant religion) during the 1500s to 1941 period, even including stuff like the Sacking of Magdeburg and the Napoleonic Wars. My ultimate point was that ignoring the sins of China and focusing on the sins of the British Empire is myopic, not that either makes the other okay. Anyway, I wasn't trying to justify looting, which in all circumstances is abhorrent, I was pointing out that if it had been in China there's a better chance that it would no longer exist between it's obtainment and 1941 than there was from being in Britain. Sometimes sins do have positive results, but that doesn't make them less bad.

Variations on not actually being just plain bought from merchants were covered under the term "BS local government permission," but I suspect you drastically underestimate the number of pieces that were indeed just plain bought.

I know that WWZ's been turned into a generic zombie movie, but what's the problem with Ender's Game? (I've heard surprisingly little about it)

I have no idea, I'm just worried.

The problem with Ender's Game is Orson Scott Card. And especially all of the bad press he's gotten lately of his deeply misogynistic and homophobic world view and writings. It is not to the best credit of the LGBT community as a whole that lately every time his name shows up people start screaming about it because of his beliefs. See the crap storm that was generated when it was announced DC was having him write for Superman. But on the other side, his beliefs are deeply disgusting to me and others, and he is not shy about promoting them to the detriment of people. I know I enjoyed his books when I was a teenager, before I learned about his beliefs and realized how little he would think of me. It kinda puts a damper on things.

I don't really give a darn about his views any more than I give a darn that Tom Cruise is a member of a cult explicitly designed to make money. They're unfortunate and idiotic, but ultimately have no bearing on his work if he doesn't put them in. I'll read any good book or watch any good movie regardless of what one person involved in the process says. He still writes good and thought provoking material (it may have been opposite to my politics and the characters way too smart, but I liked the Empire duology), and that's enough for me.

[Neko_Ali]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I disagree with Orson Scott Card's beliefs and opinions, but they are his and he has every right to them. Nor do I think he should be denied work or any other horrible thing because of it. I think that the people demanding he should be fired from DC are in the wrong... They are basically trying to do to him what has been done to LGBT people for many many years. And it's just as wrong in that case as when it's against LGBT people. What I am saying is that there is so much negative publicity surrounding him lately that some of it is going to unavoidably spill over to anything he's at all involved with, especially the Ender's Game movie.

[Is it cold in here?]

I believe there's already a thread for discussing how to deal with the work when you disapprove of the artist.

[Pilchard123]

(click to show/hide)

"Hey, all this training that you were doing? It was real all along!"

EDIT: Spoilered a...spoiler.

[Is it cold in here?]

Maybe Claire just wants a dodgeball game.

[HeavyP]

(click to show/hide)

"Hey, all this training that you were doing? It was real all along!"

EDIT: Spoilered a...spoiler.

I'm going to try to reply without spoilering....I think it's an issue of removing an unnecessary variable in the battles.  The Battle School kids, especially Ender, are All Business All The Time anyway, so allowing that bit of information to be known can have nothing but detrimental effects.

[Mr_Rose]

Wait, ender's game requires spoilers?
Should I also refrain from telling people the boat sinks during Titanic?

[Loki]

I have not read Ender's game. I would bet most of our non-US readers haven't either.

[Method of Madness]

It's a fairly well known book, but the ending is hardly Rosebud=sled or Vader=dad level, so...no, you should not spoil it.

[westrim]

It's a fairly well known book, but the ending is hardly Rosebud=sled or Vader=dad level, so...no, you should not spoil it.

Vater, not vader. Or are we not talking about German?

Enders Game isn't praised so much for the plot as for the characters. Lots of smart kids related to Ender. The world was also interesting enough that he was able to milk the Shadow series out of it.

[Method of Madness]

While that may be true, it always bugs me when people say "it's about the characters, not the plot" like that's a valid excuse to spoil an ending. Not that you were doing that, but it reminded me of people that do.

[Rimwolf]

The first I ever heard of Orson Scott Card was when he came out in support of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie -- i.e. he thought a death sentence was appropriate for "blasphemous" writing. That's the last I ever wanted to hear of him.

[DSL]

First I heard of Card was his short story "Unaccompanied Sonata," which left me profoundly sad -- as I think it would anyone of any  even remotely artistic bent. As for art vs. the artist, I've met in person and been disappointed by enough people I've admired for their accomplishments in any field you want to name to not even want to take into account anything beyond the work.