A good article in which the author researched how Twitter’s algorithm pushed people interested in history into alt-right content.
Quote: “Adhering to my guidelines to follow accounts suggested by the algorithm, I clicked the “follow” button. This was the first time I was recommended content adjacent to alt-right and “manosphere” ideology. Prior to that, it was all history related. After “liking” approximately 100 Tweets, however, I saw that the accounts suggested to me were becoming increasingly political, and I was specifically being recommended accounts run by internet political commentators – as opposed to professional politicians or journalists. I cannot definitively call this observation evidence of being led down an alt-right pipeline, but it was interesting to note that those were the types of accounts suggested to me by the Twitter algorithm.”
I just don’t understand how someone interested in antiquity can possibly fall for Trumpism. The fall of the Roman Republic was presaged by a guy literally trying to get elected to office so that he could escape prosecution for illegal abuses of power, and the legal system standing aside and saying “yeah, we’ll let you do that in order to maintain the peace” and then falling into civil war anyway.
How much of that sounds familiar…?
someone genuinely interested for intellectual reasons would likely not fall for it. I would imagine that a non-trivial percentage of “antiquity enjoyers” are very light on history substance and heavy on history feelz.
once the appropriate brain tickles have been pushed into their heads their “history substance” feed content becomes decidedly propagandized.
Agreed. Anyone who studies history should understand why Trumpism is bad and unsustainable.
But a lot of people are just in for the historical “aesthetics”.
Aesthetics, plus the seductive appeal that pre-modern, pre-liberal-democratic societies (when the governments were authoritarian, the women were submissive, and the men “were men”) have for reactionaries, incels, and cryptofacists.
I think this is it.
The historians I know of actually seem to lean quite left of the average person; it’s the light hobbieists, who are often more interested in the aesthetics/surface stuff, who seem to fall victim to the alt-right stuff.
Honestly I’m a light hobbyist myself. My exposure to history is primarily via YouTube channels like the excellent Historia Civilis (their series on Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Roman Republic is stunning) and via games like Age of Empires.
Gotta remember that rome was a genocidal slave regime. That’s why the founding slavers worshiped it so much. That’s why there are fasces all over state churches. That’s why fascists started fascism.
This all lines up perfectly with maga fascism.
The alt right obsesses over the Roman empire, but ignores the republic, as if Julius Caesar and Octavius were the origin of everything. As such I’m not surprised that they don’t learn about what caused the fall of the republic. (A century or so of oppressed masses and greedy elites did it.)
And, even when it comes to the empire, they’re busier cherry-picking examples that show that the grass was greener, the men were manlier, the women were chaster, and dogs barked quieter.
A century or so of oppressed masses and greedy elites did it.
True, and that’s important context if you’re trying to get a deeper understanding of how Julius Caesar came to have the power he held before his assassination.
But there’s enough of a problem you can see even if you just start at Julius, which is what I was concentrating on in my previous comment. The parallels to Trump are terrifyingly on the nose.
But there’s enough of a problem you can see even if you just start at Julius, which is what I was concentrating on in my previous comment. The parallels to Trump are terrifyingly on the nose.
True that.
Weirdly enough (or perhaps not surprisingly) I see the same here with Bolsonaro supporters; there’s a disproportionally high amount of them among classicists, even if humanities as a whole leans heavily to the left.
As a Christian, the guy is literally an anti-christ, lol. Although I can see people voting for him because they dislike Kamala more
While this is an interesting article, I feel like in the current state of twitter Alt right accounts are promoted whatever you like. When I was on it I followed feminist type pages, local news, some left wing comedians, I was still frequently offered Andrew Tate and the like.
I was on youtube recently and I had a video suggested to me about how Elon Musk is a free speech advocate with all the comments making him out to be some saint. So it is not just Twitter that seems to have the alt right pipe line.
YouTube has been an alt-right pipeline for a very long time now. If you so much as smell right-leaning content in the next room, it wilk start serving you truck loads of right wing and alt-right recommendations.
They made you sure you would always get some Musk tweets. Its very annoying.
TBH the underlying problem is “classics” itself. It’s an extremely subjective eurocentric construct that’s inherently racist. It elevates slavers, imperialists, and colonizers. It’s no surprise when white supremacists adopt ideologies that validate their viewpoint.
We can’t fight this with more “classicism”.
What if you live in Europe, though? I like our classical architecture, and I saw a post advocating for different countries to go back to their historical architecture instead of big plain concrete and glass boxes
There is no such thing as “our classical architecture”. Who is we? Where are you actually from? Italy, Greece, Sweden, Iceland?
Europe is a large and varied “continent” (not even). Architecture comes from all over the world including the middle east, africa, and beyond. These phony constructs like “european classical architecture” are just white supremacy with another name.
United Kingdom. Getting called a white supremacist for liking architecture really is something
Are you suggesting that architectural styles are not based on interactions with different peoples and that the type of architecture, for example, from 200-500CE is not going to vary greatly in different regions such as East Asia and Europe? And that those peoples with individual cultures and ideas about architecture won’t ever interact with their neighbors, creating cross-cultural styles? That these cultures will never interact and reach a quorum on specific styles of buildings, especially when brought together through larger institutions such as religion?
I hope you are merely trolling.
Classical architecture is an extremely broad term.
Are you talking about Greece or Roman architecture? Gothic? Byzantine? Renaissance? Baroque?
Even when you talk about “European” there are a variety of styles among different countries.
Victorian 😎
At least when it comes to languages, the eurocentrism and subjectivity are being addressed for at least a century. Sapir for example proposed that the “classical languages” weren’t just two but five - Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit. And the definition became roughly “varieties with a heavy and outlasting impact outside their native communities”. (Personally I’d also add Sumerian, Quechua and Nahuatl to that list. But that’s just me.)
Additionally plenty linguists see the idea of “classic” not as specific languages, but as a potential stage of a language, assigned retroactively to the period when its prestige and cultural production were specially strong. For example, Classical Ge’ez is defined as the one from centuries XIII~XIV.
Fantastic article.
I’ve got nothing against cosplay, but these right-wing nut jobs pretending to be Roman conqueror’s just take it too far.
Same if you’re interested in religion. There’s a lot of anti semetism about. Personally I think trad_west isn’t too bad. But I follow them on Instagram, not twitter.
Also saw them making fun of Andrew Tate and people who degrade women.
