kiltrout

This answer isn't satisfying because the question makes two absolutely false assumptions. The norse were almost always better armed than their opponents and definitely not these bearded freaks who won by stupidly throwing their lives away. The viking raids were incredibly systematic and so were the tactics. Firstly, they'd land and steal horses, using them to bait an attack on their ship, always located in a defensible position. There, they'd use a shield wall which was so effective casualties would in fact be very minimal. They weren't backwards at all in their techniques, much to the contrary. Their innovative way of fighting war is what would come to dominate the Mediterranean, and less importantly for the era, the north Atlantic.

Why are you called postmodern jukebox when you're doing everything in a severely retro modernist style?

Hello Matt. How do you maintain your independent point of view while writing for a large corporate publication like Rolling Stone? There must be things you know you cannot say, now that you are a part of this bureaucracy. Maybe you have never had the reason to say these things, and maybe you never will, but certainly the threat of losing your oh-so-prestigious position has become so familiar as to become embedded in your writing in ways you cannot recognize.

Also, why do you want to destroy the internet? I mean, you do know what a Luddite IS, right?

This message has been brought to you, Matt Taibbi, by the editorial staff at the inexorable Internet Chronicle, your one and ONLY source for all things fulfilling and true.

The Vikings had access to the same weapons as other Europeans and Mediterraneans, but because of their successes they generally possessed the best of the best equipment. Yes, the steel of some Carolingian sword makers was on par with that of the more sophisticated cultures in the far east. Which is kind of astounding and sad, considering the impoverished arts and architecture of early medieval europe, the long declining population, and so on. But these weren't weapons made by the norse.

In social or cultural history of Huizinga it's given the other way around. Uncertainty and the terror at changes in the world which cannot be mastered lead to religion, scapegoating, and materialism. The last is particularly dehumanizing and probably the dominant coping mechanism for contemporary people. Scapegoating is even worse as it is a kind of demonizing and clearly it's on the rise in a big way in the US. As coping mechanisms these two seem pretty vile, and the history seems to show us that the increasingly rational mind of even the very early modern period was also one that was responsible for the witch craze, for the most brutal inquisitions and attacks on heretics, jews, and muslims in Europe at the time. The most rational century of all, last century, was also the most wicked and deadly on record with genocide after genocide and gizmos like trains, computers, factories, doctors, psychologists, and so on were employed in these ends. The way you word this post shows 'dehumanization' as an extrahuman, non-human force, and that this is a problem for psychologists like you to resolve, like a disease, but how does that have a praxis? How do you diagnose and treat a nation, or a globe? Hitler was a Darwinist and Liberal Economics operates along these same lines, a truly vicious 'naturalistic' way to distribute resources which leaves the weakest in the lurch & at the same time demonizes them simply for being poor. The powerful and moneyed have spent vast historical sums to enhance this proclivity for demonization and what equal but opposite force do we have? I see nothing so far, except for distant echoes of saints saying it's foul to make instruments of other people, and Jesus saying love your neighbor (especially that enemy Samaritan)