Noble Obligations & Skin in the Game: The Harsh Reality of War in Medieval Times
I was thinking of how important history is and how damaging ideologies take hold in society. The first thing dictators and ideologues do is to go to the history books & rewrite it to remove context and justify their views. This happens everywhere and every country.
I happened to chance upon a fascinating and really eye-opening tweet thread by @rfhirst on warfare in the Dark ages/ Middle ages. How it’s been so cleaned up and glamorized by Hollywood. The reality is that it was ugly and brutal. Just follow this X thread: https://twitter.com/rfhirst/status/1762973688570520056
He examines the archaeology of the man of Kent, a 20-25 year old Anglo Saxon male who died due to combat. He died horrifically, with over 30 wounds across his body. Remember that back then, warriors fought with blades, swords and axes, and fought face to face and in mass numbers of men.
@rfhirst goes on to write:
“The reality of death in medieval combat ought to be widely known, not for sadism but as an antidote to certain modern attitudes which conceive of the Middle Ages as that time when Lord Knobhead grew fat on cheese and wine whilst the peasants broke their sorry backs for a carrot.
A cynical attitude which sees past warrior-aristocrats as undeserving of what luxuries they enjoyed is easy to hold when one's concept of their raison d'être is informed by the simplified & sterilized depictions of modern media; almost nonchalant, unskilled, open and accessible.
Plentiful food and fine clothes, lands and titles of honor were bought at the price of abandoning all hope for a long life, so few lived to see 30 winters, and having to time and again witness horrors which lay beyond our comprehension - horrors which no cynic today could endure.
In speaking so of the horrors of war it ought not be thought that this detracts from past heroism. If anything it bolsters it, magnifies it, and commands from the modern reader with true knowledge a solemn respect for each and every man who mustered on through the heat of battle.”
The first lesson I take from this, is that we are super lucky to be living in present times. The second important lesson is that most of the super successful did not cheat someone to get to where they are at (some do but I find this is a tiny minority who usually end up going to jail). They literally live and die by the metaphorical sword. It’s high risk and high gain. Yes, if the business they start ends up succeeding they do well. But they go through a lot to get the business up and running. If the business fails, they suffer the consequences.
We should be venerating successful entrepreneurs & bosses. We don’t actually know what they go through or hide employees from. And they usually do it right. They support families through the jobs they create and the value they provide to customers. Business owners carry the load and the stress of the business. They don’t get to have time off or have weekends off unlike employees.
The brain damaged anti-capitalist and socialist movement taking off in America is dangerous and risks ruining the prosperity that has made America so amazing. Remember how well socialism worked in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Cuba or Argentina. We need to remember this. And we need to treat our entrepreneurs better. Not every founder, like the noblemen of old, is an oppressor. We miss many aspects and context of what they do for us. In fact, they may be doing the most honorable thing possible.