My brother in law, Brian Parra, has launched a groovy new podcast, There’s No Time to Explain. And I was his first interview subject (episode 1). It’s an example of my favorite kind of podcast, where we both chat about all kinds of things that mostly aren’t the usual things I’m talking about over and over.
As Brian describes the episode, “we talk about [Richard’s] life as a freelance historian and traveling author and then our conversation turns to the idea that we wage war very differently depending on our cultural ideas.” But boy is there so much more! The first part is a lot about making a living as an independent artist. Then we get to what he asked me on to talk about, which was an obscure remark I made on another awesome podcast, the MABOOM show (I think this episode, which is my favorite of the three I did with them), about how national cultural values might be reflected in the design of our battletanks.
I’ve had so many people ask me about that, since on MABOOM I just mentioned it and moved on without explaining because we had to get back on topic. Well, Brian got the chance to ask me about it on his show, and it becomes the linchpin launching the rest of the show, inspiring us to talk about many other aspects of how differences in culture change how people think about war, bravery, even suicide. Many points come up relating to how this has led to certain evils in our politics and economics, affecting public war policy and the manipulation of voters. And one thing that he eggs out of me is one of my least-told sea stories from the Coast Guard, about how we broke the law (well, civil law anyway) for the good of our country…and it’s not my story about saving dolphins many have already heard (yes, maybe I’ll tell that story more publicly someday); it’s about how we said fuck you to the military industrial complex by disregarding a graft-ridden contract to do what’s right under cover of night. Of course officially that never really happened. Oh no. I am totally making it all up just to impress the ladies. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
But then this episode ends with a special segment Brian intends to close every episode with, which is having his guest do something weird from a list of weird things he has, and the one I chose from his list was “obscure movie review.” I give a brief review of the excellent but definitely obscure silent film The Call of Cthulhu (produced in 2005).
So you might enjoy this one! Not your usual podcast fare.
Corrections to note: On the Historicity of Jesus was published at the University of Sheffield (the peer reviewed publishing company is an independent entity but run by Sheffield faculty on the Sheffield campus). Following Brian’s lead in the heat of conversation we didn’t notice we said Bonzai pilots when we meant Kamikaze pilots. My stepdad Hal designed avionics software for fighter jets, not the jets themselves. M1 Abrams tanks cost millions of dollars, not a billion. And the co-host with Sean Taylor of the MABOOM show is Jim Eliason (not Jim Elias). And of course MABOOM stands for Make a Believer Out of Me, not Make Me a Believer! Also, in case it isn’t obvious, this show was recorded a couple years ago, when I was still married.
Very cool! Will put it into the Podcast queue
Great podcast episode, Richard!
I was thinking about your podcast comment on how people are often distanced from war, not even knowing people in the military. Do you think the military’s decision in recent years to deploy Army National Guard troops overseas will affect how distanced the public feels from war?
Not significantly, IMO. Because even those troops are not numerous enough. They are pretty much just extensions of the federal military, in terms of who joins and how many and what they do (and how few voters know anyone close to them who is in service). So everything we say in the podcast remains true even if you lump all our militaries together.
Hi, I was wondering if you could comment on the correct/acceptable pronunciation of biblical books that have a number, e.g. ‘1 Kings’ or ‘2 Peter’. It had never even occurred to me to read the number as a cardinal (‘Two Peter’) instead of an ordinal (‘Second Peter’) before I came across your presentations. I found it weird at first but quickly came accustomed to it, and without much further thought I assumed it to be a variant reading. A few days ago, though, the question came back to my mind when pundits across the country were deriding Donald Trump for using the same way of reading (‘Two Corinthians’) in a speech to some religious audience. In came the jokes akin to “Two Corinthians walked into a bar…”, and now I’m really confused over the whole issue since you and Trump are the only people I’ve heard calling the books by cardinal numbers. Is this some NYC thing? Are both equally valid? Is the cardinal more academic? Any insight is much appreciated.
It is a matter of regional dialect. It’s common in American pastoral tradition to use the ordinal. But they still often use the cardinal in England. I was educated by British professors and British television, so I grew up using the cardinal, and in fact I usually do (I’m surprised if you found video or audio of me using the ordinal; but I don’t pay much attention to the distinction, so maybe I have). I never significantly breathed the atmosphere of church or televangelism sermons in America, so I was aware of but not much exposed to the cardinal tradition.
In Trump’s case, there is a two-way irony: that his audience doesn’t know of the UK dialect tradition is yet another example of American insular cultural ignorance; but that his choice wasn’t based on being British or educated by British professors or a fan of the BBC, but on him simply not ever having heard these phrases ever spoken, is indeed evidence he is bullshitting the audience when he claims to be a churchgoing bible admirer. So, on the one hand, they were right…this slip exposed him as “not one of them.” But only by accident. Had he been raised on BBC C.O.E. sermon broadcasts, they’d have been wrong to conclude he was ignorant and insincere from using the cardinal pronunciation. Although the idea of Trump having religiously watched C.O.E. sermons on the BBC for decades til now is hilarious to imagine on many levels.
The ‘Abrams’ – 7 gallons to the mile and in GW1 fuel dumps had to be deployed forward of them. ‘Monkey Models’ – Soviet ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ were sold junk; what was going to roll into the Fulda Gap was a whole different kettle of fish; they still had intrinsic design faults that couldn’t be hand-waived but what Third Shock Army had was an order of magnitude better than what Saddam was fobbed off with. The same goes for the doctrine and the officers. In 1939 the Heer was telling itself the Red Army was rubbish; meanwhile Zhukov, way beyond German eyes at Khakin Gol in Mongolia, was handing the Japanese Kwantung Army it’s head. The West has had a habit of hearing what it wants to hear and the GRU a habit of reinforcing that point (maskirovka). It is probably a good job the balloon never went up.
I wonder how much of this is down to not facing an existential threat? North America is insulated by three thousand plus miles of ocean on either coast. Even if the Coast Guard was the USA’s only naval arm and the ANG the only airforce, the idea of the US being seriously threatened by anyone is absurd. By the time anyone has solved the logistics of landing a half-million man army unopposed… well it wouldn’t be unopposed anymore. You only have to look at what America had under arms in 1939 as opposed to 1943 to see that
Another American national trait is profligacy. Compare US energy expenditure with Japan. No wonder ‘Abrams’ is a gas guzzler. The gearbox is inefficient also; ‘Merkava’ delivers far more horse power to the axle. The USA still builds main battle tanks; Britain abandoned and no longer has the ability to either build or design MBT’s. I wonder what that says about our culture? Nothing good I am sure. If you think US defence policies and spending are a little challenged, just be grateful our muppets are not in charge over there.
If you are not taking something seriously and there is no reason to take it seriously, you shouldn’t be surprised if it turns out looking as if no one can be arsed. The vast majority aren’t. I doubt the rest of the world would actually want the USA (or us) to take it more seriously either. The US military is a big enough threat to life and limb as it is. Keep wasting that money on ‘Abrams’, F35, ‘Zumwalt’, the Littoral Combat Ship, and their ilk. Don’t mention the ‘Legend’ class to Sec. Nav. Let’s try and keep the world safe from “Democracy”, eh?
I liked what you had to say about patronage but before we get carried away, in a global context even the poorest North American/North West European is very probably an aristocrat.
I went and listened to Trump ramble on. If you write it down it is even more bloody awful than listening to it. He appears to have been speaking from post-it notes! Big crowd at Liberty U but they seemed subdued and only going through the motions. I got the sense they were making the best of a bad job. I hope your country’s voters cotton on to what is going on here: you do not need a party machine or even a coherent platform to go a long way. Marry that with crowd sourced micro funding and there seems no reason not to escape the Two Party paradigm altogether. In OHJ I think you succeeded in presenting the minimal coherent historicist argument for Jesus. I am sure there is a minimal coherent American conservative political argument to be put as well. Since the Republican party has failed to do this (as must be obvious to anyone who has thought about it) perhaps someone of a critical mind and democrat/socialist leanings ought to step up and do it for them? I am not suggesting you for the job but you might pass the word on.
Listening to Trump Tripe emphasises how important critical thinking and well thought out alternatives to the current politics (and everything else!) are. You get the governments and legislatures you vote for: if you do not know how to think you will continue to elect Bushs and Clintons because you will not adequately know how to judge or select your candidate or their policies. That makes those who teach critical thinking rather important and those that do so beholden to no one more so again. Keep up the good fight Richard; it is appreciated.
PS, you’re a fan of the Beeb? I cannot begin to understand how crap US TV must be to come to that conclusion! LOL!! This must be a “Democracy is the worst form of government except for the alternatives” thing.
I don’t know where you got the idea I’m a Beeb fan. I don’t even know his music. If Brian used any, it was ironic.
When Steve Watson said “The Beeb” he meant to refer to BBC, not Justin Bieber!
Ah. I was unaware of that slang. 🙂 Thanks! That makes soooo much more sense now. Still silly. But much less so.
During that podcast. You seemed to be pontificating about things that you know little about. The M1 Abrams is not a billion dollar tank. Depending upon what year they were produced, they cost about $5 million a piece to produce. So you see way, way, off there.
Also I strongly disagree with your claim that the military intentionally designed the Abrams without regard for protecting the crew. The actual battle record of the Abrams refutes your claim. The army needs to protect the crew-losing even one crew member makes the tank combat ineffective. It’s not like tank units drive around on the battlefield with replacement tank crew members.
Also, your Coast Guard story was quite the letdown. From your post I was expecting a story that was exciting or funny. Instead you tell us that you replaced a broken button on a sonar system. Lame. I guess coastie are easily amused.
Yes. I was being hyperbolic on the dollars! Good point. I’ll add that to the list above.
But I mention in the podcast that of course the American tank is designed to protect the crew; the issue is, rather, that they designed it so the tank can be reused if those safeties are overwhelmed. It’s not designed like the Merkava, where the Israelis made choices that sacrifice the tank for the crew. (Although of course it’s not magic; Merkava crews will not always survive; the question is of trends in design choice.)