Really? !roughromanmemes@piefed.social seems to be mostly made of history nerds posting mostly stuff like this.
I’m definitely progressive in the vast majority of my political leanings and still enjoy memes about historical happenings from a modern perspective
Just a few more because these are pretty great
Caesar salad is just another thing that the white man stole from a person of color. Now everyone thinks it was Julius that made the salad instead of some rando from Mexico. What fools we have become.
It’s a meme based on widespread misconception. Chill out bro.
Well, it’s lemmy.
That explains why they hate my reaction to seeing a cybertruck. I hold my thumb out horizontally, until I know I have their attention. I then rotate it to a thumbs down. The sheer amount of road rage, at having had ancient roman iconography used against them, warms the cold dead cockles of my heart.
👍
No, 👎. Lol
Only tidbit I have about that is the thumbs down meant you weren’t allowed to kill the person despite how the movies play it but I didn’t take latin long enough to confirm that.
That’s correct, but I suspect they either don’t know that, or are the type that wouldn’t see that as approval for a good fight, but would see it as the denial of their “righteous kill.”
Mythologized history to serve their racist worldview:
Right, ancient Greece and Rome were actually quite diverse and the concept of “whiteness” didn’t have much meaning thousands of years ago. Race, as we know it, is a fairly recent category. But the far-right relies on this construct of Western civilization, which for them means white civilization and culture. So they craft a narrative that begins with Greece and Rome and then continues into the medieval period up through the emergence of modern Europe.
What’s funny is Rome and Greece (and probably every other ancient culture) mythologized their origin history, too, due to lack of history records from that far back, or just by plain human nature. Nothing new under the sun.
Edit: I meant the more human-centric origin myths, e.g. like the Romans believing they were totally the decendants of Aeneas and the Trojans fleeing Troy’s destruction.
No. No. They were really decended from gods and raised by wolves. /S
Honestly the best explanations for Greek and thus Roman myth is a mix of patrical worship (story from dad, become from grandpa, from great grandpa, from ancestor, from the ancient, from myth, mixed with ruling caste families becomes our mythos).
That mixed with stories about concepts war, beauty, death, getting personified for story sake but then with enough personality now the afterlife is married and has a dog because his wife is on business trips all the time.
I meant the more human-centric origin myths, e.g. like the Romans believing they were totally the decendants of Aeneas and the Trojans fleeing Troy’s destruction.
Paging @PugJesus
I think he’s piefed.social if you want to summon him and probably would get a kick out of this.
I wish I knew how to do that. I abandoned reddit just so many others as soon as they started their API nonsense, so I’m really just here for the memes. And yes, he would enjoy it greatly.
Same here, I miss it sometimes, but Voyager has a nice system for tagging folks. Looks like the sintax is [@ UserName @ host.instance (https://host.instance/u/user )] . Remove spaces
@PugJesus@piefed.social PJ sorry for the somewhat out of context, but Argues here wanted you to see the overall thread.
Brilliant, thanks! I apologize for my incompetent manner. I use Connect only because as I fled reddit, it was probably the first Google result lol.
Oh is he alt-right?
No. He’s a history nerd regularly posting history nerd shit for our own enjoyment.
He just loves Roman history, WW2 history, the space fascist future of 40k, and criticizing the past sins of socialism more than the rise of fascism while completely ignoring all sins of capitalism.
It’s fine I’m sure. Just a turbolib. He believes in democracy. Probably.
He just loves Roman history
As I said, a history nerd.
WW2 history
Uh…what ? So still a nerd but for some reason we’re making a leap between ancient history and WW2 and skipping over all the medieval history content he’s posting. Sure, I guess.
the space fascist future of 40k
So a massive nerd. Painting tiny figurines under a magnifying glass and battling other nerds with measuring tape is top tier nerd shit not pining for fascism shit, although these people exist and are extra visible when they reveal themselves I’ve yet to meet one IRL in 26 years interacting with 40K nerds.
and criticizing the past sins of socialism more than the rise of fascism while completely ignoring all sins of capitalism. It’s fine I’m sure. Just a turbolib. He believes in democracy. Probably.
So he never said or done anything warranting to insult the guy of being far right, but you imply he might be guilty of thought crime for not showing enough leftist credentials to satisfy your own personal standards. And somehow this whole gratuitous character assassination is ok because you made it quippy at the end ? Yikes.
Fucking lol, stay gullible.
What they said.
Unfortunately this makes sense - the original Italian and German fascists were also obsessed with it.
Fascism weaponizes history by creating a narrative about past greatness that was lost because [ENEMY] took it away from them.
So for Italians, the Roman Empire was their past greatness for fascists (and where they got the name fascist from). For Germany, it makes less sense, but in their version of history ,the Holy Roman Empire was the “First Reich” so there’s somewhat a connection there.
For American fascists it makes less sense. While some Americans can trace their ethnicity to Italy (and therefore the Roman Empire) it doesn’t seem to be an Italian American thing. Probably it’s just due to Romans being ridiculously misogynistic and liking the aesthetics of it.
This is likely one of those cases of X is Y but not all Y are X. Roman history memes can be amusing for anyone.
Being obsessed with Roman and/or WWII history is a red flag, but not a conclusive indicator (unless the obsession with WWII involves praising Nazis).
#NotAllRomanMemes
I thought almost everyone had a mild obsession with Romans
I mean, they’re kinda neat but I don’t consider them all that important to modern day life.
I prefer to romanticize the three kingdoms period of China.
Why do you think those losers always side with the Legion in Fallout New Vegas?
Because fascism was literally based on imitating a deliberately misunderstood Roman Empire?
Unforgivable
Always was curious what the deal with the alarming amount of Roman and military memes that pop up.
That shit is just such a bizarre fetish of some people.
Whole groups of men dressed in skirts that only want to spend time with other men in skirts?
Have you not seen the ones with the Roman anime girls? Some really messed up shit. Lots of racism and sexism with a dash of kink.
I’d be cautious of any users participating in roman meme or military meme communities. It’s a big red flag.
It is not. I can be interested in history & military history without being alt right.
And as another user said, i doubt the romanmemes or historymemes communities here would tolerate it.
Fuck, I guess I’m glad I didn’t follow the history memes to the new instance. I thought all the romaboo stiff was just nerds being silly.
Yeah the anime girl Roman memes are certainly the cherry on top the crazy cake. Some incredibly weird and hateful fetishes were in some of those.
I could not for the life of me figure out what those were kicking on about
staning Rome has always been a fash tradition.
Their kindred love of lead poisoning
This is an interesting prompt. I am fascinated by ancient Rome, both the memes and serious history, and I know for sure that I’m not a member of the alt-right (you might not believe me but that’s irrelevant to my analysis of myself). So why do I find Rome so interesting?
Part of the reason is due to the fact that Rome was powerful. I suppose that I share this with the alt-right but I don’t think that it is an inherently alt-right way of thinking. Ideologies, forms of government, and ways of organizing society must be able to compete in terms of raw power. Ancient Rome was, in these terms, exceptionally successful. It isn’t sufficient for my modern-day values to be in accordance with my moral sense, which is very different from the moral sense of an ancient Roman. My values must also lead to, or at least be consistent with, a society that is able to exert more power (military, economic, and cultural) than other societies organized along different values. Looking at Rome is a way to see what that can look like.
With that said, the western world, organized largely in accord with liberal values which I share, has been not just the best place to live in all of human history but also the most powerful in this sense. I think the alt-right, to the extent that they prefer other values (like ancient Roman ones), are largely fools: the west in general and the USA in particular are far stronger than Rome ever was. This ties into the second part of the reason Rome is interesting: the Republic ended not at a time when it was under threat from external enemies (it was, in many ways, at its strongest when it was the most threatened) but rather at the height of its wealth and power - most of what we think of as the “Empire” was already conquered by then. Then the Empire declined and fell largely because of infighting (although the full explanation for the collapse is a lot more complicated and, frankly, beyond my level of historical expertise). Romans were each other’s worst enemies. And when the Empire fell, it fell far. Things got a lot worse, not just for the Roman elite but for almost everyone, rich and poor. We’re a lot higher up than they ever were so we have a lot further to fall, and yet a lot of people are willing to risk the integrity of our society due to a short-sighted view of history that fails to appreciate how good we do, in fact, have it. The alt-right is among these foolish people - I am lower-case-c conservative because I oppose making large, sudden changes, but the alt-right is not conservative in this sense.
Then the final part of the reason is that Rome is both alien and familiar - Roman ideas and aesthetics were deliberately preserved and spread, so that they are familiar to me in the modern day. Other ancient empires like China are also a source of useful lessons, and I’m sure they’re fascinating to people who know enough to appreciate them, but to me they are far more alien and so I don’t. If I were a professional historian, that wouldn’t be an excuse, but I’m not so I prefer to read and think about Rome.
With that said, the western world, organized largely in accord with liberal values which I share, has been not just the best place to live in all of human history but also the most powerful in this sense.
Hard [X] Doubt on that one.
Are orgies and homo sex in style again?
I think that male-supremacism/mysoginy is the common-principle, underlying Roman Empire cult & the alt-right.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2445637#abstract
_ /\ _
Romans saw sex mainly through a lens of power and domination. They were okay with a man of higher standing penetrating a man of lower social status but if it happened the other way around, the high status man would suffer loss of his masculine honor. With a similar mindset, older men would mentor adolescent men and it was acceptable to engage in sexual acts with them (pederasty).
Its interesting because its not entirely homophobic but still a disturbing way to see the world.
The Kama Sutra was written at around this time and acknowledges same sex marriages as legitimate however, additionally, Vātsyāyana writes positively about sex workers (advising men how to engage with them respectfully) and heavily emphasizes female pleasure (with specific emphasis on female agency and consent), going as far to say it is crucial to living a fulfilling and meaningful life for both partners.
When the text was transmitted to the West they took out all that “political” stuff and focussed on sex positions.
