[BRIEF NOTE] CFTAG Report

[rfmcdonald]

schizmatic and I enjoyed CFTAG last Sunday, discussing a variety of topics. Since, this time, I actually took notes, I can reproduce a few of the major themes.

• We began by talking about parallel networks in globalization, how all manner of transnational connections exist independently of Western-dominated paradigms, whether one talks about Hadrami migrants in Indonesia or quiet circles of underground carpet aficionados. Reality is messy.


• Turtledove's alternate-history fiction, always and increasingly frustrating, is good inasmuch as it tries to represent these networks. Demonstrating how, say, Québécois farmers or American working-class radicals react to historical changes is a good, human way of showing the impact of historical changes. Unfortunately, he does too much of it, resulting in the "Who are these people and why do I care?" syndrome.


• Misinterpretations can be enormously productive, whether you're talking about DNA and RNA copying errors in relation to natural selection, or the misinterpretation of older and/or foreign texts in relation to human culture. schizmatic cited the example of Roman law on orphans, which required all decisions regarding their welfare to be made by all on the principle that what "touches all must be approved by all"; this, mistakenly generalized, led to the idea of hierarchies having an obligation to represent popular desires.


• If the Portuguese managed to implant Roman Catholicism in sub-Saharan Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries, and if the African Church remained in regular contact with Rome, interesting things could happen. At worst, this Africa would be as isolated from the outside world as Ethiopia; at best, this Africa could be plugged closely into European developments, with the institutional structure of the church aiding state-building greatly. It would help immensely if the slave trade didn't take off.


• If the Soviets were defeated by Nazi Germany in 1941-1942, Very Bad Things would happen. Worse would happen once the Allies began to nuke and firebomb Germany in 1945-1946. More at soc.history.what-if.


• By the mid-16th century, the Portuguese had established an astonishingly successful global trading and colonial network, with permanent holdings on all of the world's inhabitable continents save North America and bordering all of the world's oceans. Portugal failed to retain its supremacy, though, like the Dutch a century later in many of the same territories, or the contemporary Venetians in the eastern Mediterranean, once larger territorial monarchies got involved. All three maritime societies depended heavily on foreigners to supplement scarce domestic labuor supplies, with the Dutch drawing upon north German Protestants and French Huguenots, for instance.


• U of T professor Brian Stock's work on textual communities in the Europe of the Middle Ages is relevant to the modern-day Internet universe. Everything, in the age of mass literacy and easy publication, is textual, as the infosphere expands rapidly in size and internal density. What is it like to be human when we can listen to mp3s of Titan's wind?


• Isn't it odd that, in the United States, the colonies of the North settled by religious fanatics ended up becoming much more secular than the colonies in the South settled by happy-go-lucky capitalist entrepreneurs?