The Cult of Mary Beard (2018)

cafard 2021-08-18 19:37:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I wasn't aware there was a cult of Mary Beard: perhaps you have to be in Great Britain to be aware of it. The author certainly seems to be a paid-up member.

I did recently read and enjoy SPQR.

2021-08-18 20:01:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

calderapenguin 2021-08-18 20:47:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Her shows too easily slip into Historian's Fallacy.

It pays the bills I guess, but there's always something untowards about TV intellectuals. It's like getting your science news from Neil deGrasse Tyson.

the_biot 2021-08-18 20:40:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Just because The Guardian has an article saying so, doesn't make it true. It's a propaganda rag, not a newspaper.

Getting your news from multiple sources is a good thing, but exclude the extremes from all sides.

somewhereoutth 2021-08-18 20:47:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The Guardian would only appear extreme to those who's world views have fallen off the other side.

A simple question helps get things back on keel:

"Do you care about other people beyond those that directly benefit you?"

toyg 2021-08-19 07:22:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> The Guardian would only appear extreme to those who's world views have fallen off the other side.

Eeehh... I'm a long-time leftist and I used to think that, but over the last decade I've grown to be much more skeptical of the Graun. On issues of sexual identity in particular, it occasionally reads like some breathless pamphlet produced by university hotheads; and their treatment of Assange and Corbyn has been utterly shameful.

andybak 2021-08-18 20:46:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Judging the extremes rather depends on deciding where the center lies.

thrower123 2021-08-18 22:10:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The Guardian ought to be blacklisted here. The articles are terrible and predictably devolve into flamewars in the comments.

dang 2021-08-18 19:43:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Discussed at the time:

How a late-blossoming classics don became Britain’s most beloved intellectual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16269954 - Jan 2018 (92 comments)

nsonha 2021-08-19 04:30:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

is it just me or there is something off about The Guardian website? The 4 stripes borders that they have everywhere in their design, they look ugly and, as a webdev, creates the impression of a css bug, even though they're not.

js290 2021-08-18 19:14:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"One nonwhite can substitute for another. If that’s not racial supremacism, what is?" https://medium.com/east-med-project-history-philology-and-ge...

calderapenguin 2021-08-18 20:45:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"Last year, when a far-right conspiracy theorist attacked a BBC cartoon...."

lol. You mean Nassim Nicholas Taleb? Who is probably better known than Ms. Beard?

Good Lord, is there any reason to even read a newspaper anymore? They're all just propaganda pamphlets.

jimnotgym 2021-08-18 19:28:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

When all of thay stuff between her and the black swan bloke (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) happened, I was amazed with how he sought to bully her with his opinion, how he tried to drum up hate towards her, and his utter contempt for field other than statistics. I realised then that this was exactly why she had to write 'Women and Power' etc.

gremloni 2021-08-19 00:43:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I honestly buy his perspective on her. I also feel like you’re severely misrepresenting academic discourse as “bullying”.

2021-08-19 10:29:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

AzzieElbab 2021-08-18 20:17:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think he just called her a fraud, and honestly, I never seen him making a mistake in this regard. Here:

https://medium.com/east-med-project-history-philology-and-ge...

pretty entertaining twitter thread https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/892567659342114816

andybak 2021-08-18 20:54:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's possible that she's nice and wrong and he's right but a dick about it.

It's also possible that there's more nuance to this than that.

marcellus23 2021-08-18 20:45:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Mary Beard is absolutely not "a fraud" just because you disagree with her view on diversity. (fwiw I also don't particularly like that tweet of hers, but come on.)

AzzieElbab 2021-08-18 20:58:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

well, I guess neither of us is a member of same ethnic group as Taleb. For him that was personal

marcellus23 2021-08-18 21:30:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

So? That makes it okay to call a distinguished scholar a fraud? (is that a claim Taleb ever made? or just you?)

booleandilemma 2021-08-18 22:26:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Part of Taleb’s philosophy is “if you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud”.

I don’t think he calls people frauds lightly.

AzzieElbab 2021-08-18 22:17:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

absolutely. He demonstrated her claims to be both baseless and racist