So, my expectation was that you would either specifically defend the author's wording or provide some rationale as to why such exaggerations (if you agreed they could be viewed as such) did not amount to the author overstating his case. Instead, you responded with his credentials.
No, I responded with short critical article that addresses your question which I assumed was within your ability to comprehend.
Given it’s a question of subjective preference regarding definitions of ambiguous terms and I’d already explained my views on why they were acceptable imo there’s not much to add.
It’s basically semantic quibbling.
Heart just means “not on the remote fringes”.
Empire is a political unit established by conquest where different groups are brought under the control of a dominant power.
America is commonly considered an empire in scholarly literature, and it would certainly not be objective to consider various NA tribes to be imperial powers then deny that America was.
The more debatable status is that of the NA tribal empires.
If you didn’t want to read the linked article, just could have just said that instead of going through the charade of pretending it doesn’t exist and repeating the same ridiculous strawman ad nauseum based on you pretending it doesn’t exist.
You are intelligent enough to be able to infer that presenting a critical review of a text is not a demand that you uncritically believe the text in question.
Can you explain in simple language why you would actually think that it is?
So, you say that “he has less reason to have an agenda that[sic] the pop culture American version” by virtue of his being a Finnish professor at Oxford. Why? Why should we accept such an assumption? Why flaunt his credentials other than to say we should take his word for it, or rather, accept his word choice as valid and appropriate by virtue of his credentials?
The 2 things being compared:
1. Pop culture national history
2. A respected scholar in a particular field
1 is a notoriously agenda driven area as it is closely tied to identity. Popular religious and national histories are massively imbued with myths and significantly bolster particular senses of identity.
The stories nations tell about themselves and their place in history are not usually primarily focused on the neutral interpretation of facts.
When you claimed Cortes was seen as a god, this is you repeating agenda driven history closely tied to European supremacist beliefs (not that you mean to use it for that purpose).
My point was that when you yourself uncritically rely on agenda driven popular history, you might want to reflect on that before assuming agendas in other people presenting alternative narratives.
Pop culture national history is largely about reinforcing a sense of identity and factual accuracy is not particularly important ( how many people judge who is correct in the 1619 Project controversy based on careful analysis rather than ideological prejudices?)
Of course Scholars have their own biases, some even have clear ideological agendas, but they still need to be judged by the standards of their discipline and obvious and consistent agendas that distort evidence tend to reduce your credibility. In pop culture history, being able to “hit the right cultural notes” is far more important.
Having an ideological agenda is often a plus point in pop culture history, especially as it relates to emotive issue issues of identity.
Noting that national pop culture history is more likely to reflect an agenda than a respected scholar, is like noting Fox News is more likely to reflect an agenda than a scholarly journal.
And noting this would obviously not be a call to uncritically believe everything in scholarly journals.
Here I have to ask why you simply reference this article. Why not explicitly state what the reviewers' concerns were with the book and provide your rationale as to why the reviewers criticisms may or may not be applicable to our discussion? You have no problem cutting and pasting text from sources you feel bolster your arguments. Why not in this instance?
Because sometimes I have other things to do than summarise short articles for Mike off the internet relating to questions I’ve already answered because he isn’t interested enough in the topic to read them himself to better understand the thing he is talking about.
Why not just read it yourself instead of wasting time whining about it and constructing strawmen?
If someone is not interested enough to spend 5 mins reading about a topic, it’s unlikely they are interested in revising their views on it.
This is particularly true when they prefer quibbling than actually discussing the topic in question.
The other quotes were from books, and “buy and read a book” is different to “here is a short article that deals with your question in a balanced manner so you don’t have to take my word for it given I’ve already explained my perspective” (which is generally considered a good thing in discussion but, for some reason, you seem fixated on casting as some kind of devious ploy).
Well, I find issue with your use of the authors credentials which you do not seem to share
We use a variety of methods to critical evaluate the credibility of information sources.
Credentials would be one of these.
Hence you probably trust a qualified doctor more than a plumber for medical advice.
Suggesting that, on average, a doctor is more likely to be able to give good medical advice than a plumber is not a call to uncritically accept everything doctors say.
