Duncan responds:
I think that’s probably true to some extent. And I certainly feel like there are people in my own fan base who listen to my shows and read my books and are in that right wing and anti-woke-adjacent crowd, who probably feel like, “I feel stifled by this contemporary life where men are the only people that can be attacked, and women have all the advantages in the world.”...
So they retreat to what they think of as the ancient world, and it’s a complete Fantasyland. But I know many, many more Roman history fans where it’s not about that stuff at all. It’s not about trying to retreat from an egalitarian society into something that is far more aggressively patriarchal....
Toward the end, the interviewer asks, "How often do you think Trump thinks about the Roman Empire?," and Duncan says:
I can’t imagine that. Donald Trump thinks about much of anything but himself. I think he’s just on a loop thinking about Donald Trump and how great Donald Trump is. But let me think about this. Maybe once a week? Because there’s lots of memes from what used to be the alt-right, where people would Photoshop his head onto Julius Caesar’s body. And those kinds of fans from sort of the fascist wing of Roman history, are always going to be trying to make him look like this great imperial conqueror....
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Started listening to an episode or 2 or History of Rome but could not get into it.
But I REALLY liked his "Revolutions" podcast series. Over 3-4 years he covered American, French, Haitian, South American, European, Mexican and Russian revolutions. Terrific series, I highly recommend it.
He's a neighbour of your, Ann. Lives in Madison, anyway. You should invite him out for coffee sometime. And then blog about it.
I suspect that you would like each other as you seem to have similar temperments. Assuming that my impression of you from blogging and him from podcasting is accurate.
John Henry
I doubt that anybody thinks about the Roman Empire. It was the most boring subject ever in school. Why would that change? Something else is afoot.
“I feel stifled by this contemporary life where men are the only people that can be attacked, and women have all the advantages in the world.”
Stifling aside, what advantages do not favor women? Life expectancy, medical outlays, social security payments, school performance, college entry, nice clean jobs, risk-free whining about the patriarchy?
"So they retreat to what they think of as the ancient world, and it’s a complete Fantasyland."
Who they? Probability of non-righty commentary on the right devolving into othering BS: 1.
"It’s not about trying to retreat from an egalitarian society"
True, since you can't retreat from something that doesn't exist. The Roman Empire is actually quite useful in thinking about the depradations of an amoral elite lording it over a hierarchical society while maintaining the illusion of common citizenship.
The Babylon Bee has a humorous take on the subject:
"Man Who Hasn't Thought About The Roman Empire In Over A Week Worried He Might Be Trans"
Left-wing ideology: democratic/dictatorial state with empire expansion, human rites, redistributive change, etc.
I doubt that anybody thinks about the Roman Empire.
Toga! Toga! Toga!
Those are good answers!
But its weird to find something men are interested in, and have to turn it into kind of an anti-male bash. They can't be intellectually curious about a fascinating time in history. No, it has to mean men are bad somehow.
Which in it's funny way, is evidence for their own theory.
How many times a day do you think liberal men think about Donald Trump? More times than they think about masturbating?
How many times a day do liberal men masturbate while thinking about Donald Trump?
Outside of sports what new content is out there that appeals to men? Who makes content for men?
Related: Who makes any men’s content for men?
The modern age repeats cycles from the past in highly imperfect iterations due to social forces and behaviors having some commonality over time. I found Dan Jones' "New History of the Middle Ages" several years ago to be illuminating in this regard. As was Christopher Kelly "The End of Empire: Attila the Hun & the Fall of Rome."
Jones was good at showing how the adjacent empires of Persia and the German tribes and Asian hordes overthrew the interior empire of Rome and later threatened Christendom for a millennia and how Islam and Christendom ground against each other for centuries and that the Mediterranean has been the great arena until the North Atlantic divided Europe into a commercial society looking towards the Atlantic, towards the East, while staying rooted on the northern shore of the Mediterranean — where it all remains today and continues to be threatened from ancient forces from both south and east. And so on!
Kelly was fascinating because he showed how migratory pressures put the Huns on the northern border of the Roman Empire and then how a very shrewd warrior king could dismantle the empire by alternatingly striking west across the Rhine into Gaul and also southeast through Slovenia into northern Italy while also periodically threatening the eastern empire at Constantinople. The barbarians used concentration of force and mobility on the periphery to divide and conquer the Romans on their once invincible internal lines of communication.
The present book "Pax" by Tom Holland looks equally fascinating since it explores the distribution of power between the emperor — a central executive authority — and the Senate, a body representing the disparate power centers of a sprawling and complex empire. And then there is the distribution of power between the capital city -- the center of an empire -- and its provinces, often the larger base of imperial power due to its broad productive power. Here, peace is the absence of conflict between contentious power centers. And then the ambition of individual personalities always attempting to incarnate the power latent in the social structure into personalized power is a central saga. The apex of power — the emperorship — never fails to attract.
So each literary journey back to the Roman world affords a new look at an old and rewarding masterpiece.
Now I get it. So many men think about Rome because this guy has a podcast with an audience.
Could apply to any podcast about gardening, or home repair ,or politics, or baking, or any with specificity.
There is a series about Rome on Netflix. Pretty interesting, has violence and nudity.
"Everybody’s talking ‘bout the early Roman Kings"
The Romans screwed up and we can exactly how they screwed up. We are making the same mistakes. We should learn from the mistakes of the Romans. First thing to do is to shut down the border and then deport every illegal that came here during the Biden Administration.
'I can’t imagine that. Donald Trump thinks about much of anything but himself.'
This guy is an incredible mind-reader.
What number am I thinking of?
I can’t imagine that. Duncan thinks about much of anything but little boys. I think he’s just on a loop thinking about little boys and how great little boys are.
Wow, I can read minds too! This is awesome!
Always amusing how an expert in one area is a moron in other areas.
He has no idea why most men are interested in Roman history.
The answer is “I don’t know.”
Instead he spouts a typical Progressive Pussy answer.
"Why Are So Many Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire?"
Premise assumes facts not in evidence.
Please quantify 'many' and cite sources.
Please define how 'obsessed' is determined in this instance.
This conversation, regardless of its other merits, is nothing more than a college bull session on a hypothetical.
"Do you think there’s an element of like, 'This is a time where men could really be men,' that’s appealing to men about this?"
I have no idea what you're talking about
If Donald Trump is always only thinking about himself, how is he able to connect with people the way he does? You'd have to think he just has star power, and half the population consists of people who go on for years and years dedicated to a guy because he's rich and famous and puts on something like a show. It doesn't make sense.
I agree with David Begley. The United States is what the Founders imagined Rome could have become. They all knew their Gibbon (Decline and Fall) quite well. So there was a "Let's try this again" mindset.
Recognize the need for a balance of power between Province and Capitol. Put the military permanently on a leash held by civilians. Nepotism almost always ends badly. Have elections where Vox Populi is heard. Don't be too picky about what Deity people worship so long as their duty to the state is not in conflict.
We are of course screwing up several of these important factors on an Imperial scale. But the basic format of a multi cultural entity that goes beyond the boundaries of a valley or an island or even a continent remains solid.
Tacitus
'If Donald Trump is always only thinking about himself, how is he able to connect with people the way he does?'
I have only read that Trump is very comfortable and connected to 'regular' folks, especially the blue-collar guys (sorry, they are 99.999% guys) who work construction jobs on his projects.
That he knows people's names and understands they work they do.
That's important in any leadership position if you want to engender loyalty.
What about the fall of Constantinople in 1453? Or the Battle of Corinth? Or any of the Crusades (but especially the fourth)? And is it even okay to talk about the fall of Roman Empire? It comes off as fascistic. Recall Benito Mussolini:
“To celebrate the Birth of Rome means to celebrate our kind of civilization, means to exalt our history and our race, means to lean firmly on the past in order to project better onto the future... Much of what was the immortal spirit of Rome is reborn in fascism.”
!!!
In this whole weird conversation about men thinking about Rome, I haven’t heard anyone mention the most famous Rome-ophile, Mark Zuckerberg. Lots of articles out there detailing the Zuck’s obsession with Rome and not-so-secret desire to be as a Roman emperor such as Augustus or Tiberius.
So now “thinks about more than most women would expect” has become “obsessed with?” Never mind all the perfectly reasonable answers men have given about Rome figuring prominently in a general interest in history and Western civilization. No, never mind all that. It’s because we miss being part of a real patriarchy.
These people are a cancer.
The US is going to piss away at least $400 billion on the Green New Deal and the upshot of it is that we are turning our power grid over to the ChiComs.
Every time I appear before the OPPD Board, I can’t get over how dense the Directors are. But they command a company with $1.5b in revenue.
Idiots in positions of power are why we are failing.
This is a small-scale repeat of what happened with the NFL and NBA: exposing the fact a performer misunderstands and dislikes his fans.
One always has to wonder whether there's a big element of projection in these cases.
Why do I anticipate a thorough denunciation from all the best people of all things "Roman Empire" at the exact peak of bot-generated online interest in "Roman Empire"? And a scolding for wrongthink, or perhaps calls for execution, for all males who ever once thought anything even in passing about the Roman Empire?
It is kinda obvious this is a setup.
Ann Althouse said...
"If Donald Trump is always only thinking about himself, how is he able to connect with people the way he does?"
As soon as people start talking like that, I just zone out.
The amount of projection involved in the thinking of liberal and anti-Trump men is absolutely astonishing. Everything from small penises to economic insecurity to failed marriages to autocratic impulses gets dumped into the Evil Orange Man Basket.
THe idea that reading history is engaging in a "Retreat from the real world" is most PHilistine thing I've ever heard.
If you want to know why the contempory world is the way it is, you need to read history. You can't know where you are, if you don't where you were. There's a reason why all tyrants, including the weird SJW/leftwing gang that currently controls USA thought and culture, tries to censor history and rewrite it.
YOu know whats a fantasy? Reading fiction, listening to music, going to movies and watching TV and sports. That's a true retreat from the "real world".
Having said that, there's nothing wrong with "fantasy", as long as its done in moderation. We can spend some time in our "fantasy world" as long as we spend most of our time in the "real world". All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
I hadn't heard of Mike Duncan until recently, but if his answer about why other guys are interested in Rome is an indicator, I think I'll skip his podcasts.
It's not enough for some people, to share an interest or enthusiasm. No, the interest and enthusiasm must come from a correct place, and have proper goals.
As a LLStudent of History, I've observed that a lot of people who study the past are sheepish, afraid that such an obvious conservative inclination as an interest in what came before might be misinterpreted as a conservative inclination. Can't have that!
Better to natter and whinge about other people's motives.
Remember about a decade ago when some guy’s multi post reply to a Reddit what if question went viral - what would it be like for a modern armored battalion to be zapped back to Ancient Rome? I thought some one even bought the movie rights. I’m still waiting for the movie
I think I've spent much more time wondering what Velma looks like naked than I've ever thought about the Roman Empire.
In conclusion. If you sit around thinking about the Roman Empire and you don't teach history you're a beta male.
It crosses my mind occasionally.
The reason there is ANY discussion of Trump as a Roman emperor is because some Italian festival made a massive puppet of him in a Warhammer theme. Warhammer has an Emperor.
It was also one of those things where lefties think its makes Trump look bad, and then righties decide to appropriate it as "bad ass!"
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-warhammer-statue-italy-god-emperor-warrior-twitter-parade-a8787116.html
"Started listening to an episode or 2 or History of Rome but could not get into it.
But I REALLY liked his "Revolutions" podcast series. Over 3-4 years he covered American, French, Haitian, South American, European, Mexican and Russian revolutions. Terrific series, I highly recommend it."
I wonder if he re-did his earlier episodes...because when he started he was just learning how to podcast and had errors and less quality.
There is also a podcast of the Byzantine section by a Brit which is good, too.
Where would the tank battalion in 53 BC get fuel? Or more ammo? Batteries for their night vision? Spare track block?
They could certainly make a big impact in a short period of time, but how could they sustain and maintain?
How could they make even a short road march to a neighboring Italian city state, let alone get to Gaul or Germania as a coherent combat effective unit?
They would wind up like The Man Who Would be King….
Nw a WW2 straight leg infantry battalion could make mre ammo out of brass and lead, with saltpeter/charcoal gunpowder.The loose tolerances of the Garand, 98k, Enfield, or Mosn-nagant would hamdle homemade ammo fairly well. They could sustain indefinitely and even make more rifles to outfit the legions….
Even 18th-century regulars could almost instantly adapt to the Roman environment and be force multipliers for whichever faction thry joined.
But a tank battalion? Flash in the pan.
JSM
"Do you think there’s an element of like, 'This is a time where men could really be men,' that’s appealing to men about this?"
It just couldn't be that Rome is the most thoroughly documented fall of a civilization and we want to study why to avoid its pitfalls.
Does the interviewer (aka Rolling Stone) think there's an element of 'I find the failing of our culture and country appealing.' in his outlook?
@Crack Emcee,
Ask yourself, Why are you zoning out? Is it because of the Crack? Isn't zoning out an involuntary action? And if involuntary, why are you doing that?
Frankly, I prefer voluntary reactions, actions, and thought. I'm an autonomous being; the universe doesn't determine what I do or think. (Unless I'm struck by a meteorite.)
'I think I've spent much more time wondering what Velma looks like naked than I've ever thought about the Roman Empire.'
Some things are important...damn those cartoon clothes!
"I think I've spent much more time wondering what Velma looks like naked . . ."
Yewww.
I was having such a nice Sunday.
This is newspaper noise.
Men don't ponder the Roman Empire.
Now that pair of tight jeans over there.......I think she has coins in her pockets....... I do ponder that.
The White House, the Capitol building, and several other major landmarks in Washington are built in the neoclassical style. If you follow politics at all, you interact with Greco-Roman culture every day, whether you realize it or not.
I have listened to the Mike Duncan "History of Rome" podcast in its entirety. Highly recommended.
And anyone who is concerned about Mike Duncan injecting his own politics into his "History of Rome" podcast, when I listened to it I had no idea what his political leanings were.
Oooh! How about this?
What if Lee had a B-52 at Gettysburg? Or, or, the ANV was armed with AKs by time-traveling South African racists?
I hate those guys.
The whole "God Emperor" thing with regard to is a reference to the Dune Universe. Frank Herbert's fourth book is God-Emperor of Dune.
(spoiler alert)
Paul's son Leto II turns into a giant human / sandworm hybrid who rules the galaxy as a pharaoh for 3000 years so that humanity will not go extinct.
It's a good book if you can get past the protagonist being a giant worm.
I don’t know a single person, male or female, that is obsessed with Ancient Rome. I only know one co-worker that watched the show
Do journalists just make stuff up?
"Remember about a decade ago when some guy’s multi post reply to a Reddit what if question went viral - what would it be like for a modern armored battalion to be zapped back to Ancient Rome? I thought some one even bought the movie rights. I’m still waiting for the movie"
In 2015 the Japanese anime series Gate answered that question when the Self Defense Force went up against a Rome like empire in an alternate universe.
"I think I've spent much more time wondering what Velma looks like naked than I've ever thought about the Roman Empire."
Bad news, Rusty- Velma is trans.
I don't think about "the Roman Empire" all that often, but my mental map, so to speak, is full of reference points and signposts from the Roman period (from the late Republic up through the Fall of Constantinople), whether it's people, buildings, events, etc. So Rome-related topics crop up all the time for me.
To take an example, when I think about "abortion," it reminds me of (1) the Roman law giving the father absolute power of life and death over his offspring (2) the law, perhaps from the Twelve Tables, commanding that a baby born a monster be killed, (3) and that contraceptive plant, siplhium, that the Romans possibly harvested to extinction. Maybe I don't mention any of those things, but I certainly think them. If I see an article about the transgender craze, I am inevitably reminded of the debaucheries of Nero, who had the boy Sporus castrated and paraded him about as a woman, and (on the flip side) imitated the cries of a maiden while having sex with Dorypheros. If I read about a military disaster, I think about Teutoberg. If I read one of those split opinions from our Supreme Court with different combinations of justices joining different parts, I think of the absurd Roman law on citations, which required the same sort of totting up of the opinions of various jurists. If I think about citizenship, I am reminded of the Social War on the one hand, and Caracalla granting citizenship to all free men in the Empire, on the other.
So am I thinking about the Roman Empire? Well, yes -- all the time I guess. But I'm not sitting down and thinking about "the Roman Empire." It's just part of my mental world. That I'm right-wing is probably why those bits of information -- facts, legends, "the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome," etc. -- stuck in my brain in the first place. Or perhaps I'm right-wing because those bits of information are there. But I'm not sitting around daydreaming of life as a Roman legionary. That life sounds horrible.
The Roman Empire? For me it is interesting how this small city state came to dominate the Mediterranean world, extended elsewhere, and its intitutional legacy carries on.
What other ancient empire has so much legacy in so many fields? Egypt is an example, but few others ever looked back at Egypt and "That's what we should do." Greece is the closest but they got absorbed into Rome. Rome is the model able to export itself to others and not xenophobic and inward looking.
For example, who truly wanted to import the Aztec model? It was too self limiting. Rome is the go-to, even the conquerors of Rome wanted to be Rome.
Thanks to Althouse for quoting Mike Duncan. I should have known anyone interviewed by RS would be a half-educated libtard. Spared me the time of listening to his podcast. Here's some wit and wisdom from Mr. Duncan:
My mother long ago taught me that if you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.
Then again, the Republican Party back in those pre-Tea Party days was a different critter. I wonder what Mom would think of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson if she were here now.
Well, here we are together all sitting on the floor, as my kids sang in pre-school. The 2024 election is still a year and a half away, and like a toilet bowl that refuses to completely flush I note Donald Trump has resurfaced once again.
The only thing I think about the Roman Empire is how when they withdrew from Britain and subsequently western Europe, the industrial farming collapsed as key knowledge holders moved out. This forced people to leave the cities and try to reinvent subsistence farming. And thus what the lazy Victorian historians called the "Dark Ages". Dark because there weren't a lot of contemporary authors for the Victorians to steal from and so they just said it was "dark" and people were ignorant. No, the people were trying to learn how to survive.
Now similar failure of the industrial farms could happen in the US, the world, today with the anti-fossil fuel idiots. But we'll want to corral them in the cities so they suffer the consequences of their college-addled idiocy.
Me, I'm kinda interested in WESTERN CIVILIZATION and, you know, Rome was a part of that.
Blogger Harun said...
I wonder if he re-did his earlier episodes...because when he started he was just learning how to podcast and had errors and less quality.
He may have, I don't know. I don't remember any issues with quality. I started listening to the Rome podcast after having spent several years with the weekly Revolutions podcast. My problem was not style or technical, I just was not interested in Rome.
Similar with Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts. About 1/3 are ancient greek, roman and persian history and the like. I've never found those interesting enough to listen all the way through though I used to try. But his podcasts about history after 800-1000 AD to present may be the second best podcasts in the universe. IMHO.
John Henry
Yancey Ward said...
"I think I've spent much more time wondering what Velma looks like naked than I've ever thought about the Roman Empire."
"Bad news, Rusty- Velma is trans."
Jinkies!
If “men are the only people who can be attacked, and women have all the advantages in the world “, then - what more could a man ask for?
I'm just going to assume that the interviewer, EJ, as a middle-aged NYC dog-mom doesn't know many if any men whose personalities derive from The New Yorker. Else she wouldn't have asked as foolish a question, framed as she did.
Like "perhaps women like the "50 Shades" series as much as they do because it is a repudiation of feminism, matriarchy, and they genuinely wish to be subservient drones?
Brick Rubbledrain said...
"If “men are the only people who can be attacked, and women have all the advantages in the world “, then - what more could a man ask for?"
You're not factoring in the poor sportsmanship and the nagging.
Lots of articles out there detailing the Zuck’s obsession with Rome and not-so-secret desire to be as a Roman emperor such as Augustus or Tiberius
Ewww. Epstein's island as the new Capri, and Zuckerberg as Tiberius doing unspeakable things to children of both sexes? Be better, Zuck. If you can't be Augustus, at least choose to emulate Constantine or Trajan.
I hadn't heard of Mike Duncan until recently, but if his answer about why other guys are interested in Rome is an indicator, I think I'll skip his podcasts.
You're missing out. He does not inject modern politics into his podcast. It's a painless way to learn Roman history in depth. I listen to it on long drives by myself (the wife won't tolerate it.) Am at Antoninus Pius now, episode 80-odd of 189 in total.
"Why Are So Many Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire?"
[citation needed]
Thanks for the recommendation, Hassayamper. And for other comments pos and neg.
I'll sample a podcast, eventually, and report back, even more eventually.
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