Are men the cause of wars and violence?

Great Debates
41

Mikeylikesit:

I have not tried to discredit you. I have challenged your statement. You spent two paragraphs providing a thumbnail sketch of an entire society. When challenged, you noted a single burial site.

Against this I will note that the tales in Greek Literature of the Amazons living on the shores of the Black Sea date to some of the earliest Greek sources (usually clearly oral traditions such as Homer). By the time that later stories were being created as written tales (6th - 4th century BCE), the Greeks had actually explored the Black Sea shores and the Amazons had “disappeared.” With no Amazons where legend had placed them the Greek stories focussed on how various Greek heroes had overcome them.

This does not indicate that there could not have been a clan, tribe, or nation that was dominated by women warriors. (Of course, a society that simply incorporated women warriors could easily have been transformed by rumors into one in which women were not only dominant, but men were slaves.)

There is, however, no large body of corroborating evidence that such a group existed. That does not mean that they did not exist and if you have evidence (of a complete society, not a single warrior) we would be glad to look at it.

(By the way, while I was challenging your statements, not denying your credibility, your appeal to your “credentials” is a pretty quick way to get laughed out of this forum. Did you notice how we all bowed down in deference to FORMERAGENT and his “credentials”? If you have information, please provide it. If you have a distant memory, feel free to post it (but please acknowledge its current lack of support). If you have “credentials,” please tape them to your wall and enjoy yourself, admiring them.)

Tom~

42

AMAZON means “without (a) breast”.

They supposedly removed a breast on their bow pulling side to aid in archery.

I think this is from Herodotus. Much hoha, but often he is on base.

I still haven’t resolved to my own satisfaction whether they really existed - but I haven’t read that racy book mentioned above.

Humans probably all have an inherent defense capability, male and female. In many situations of local warfare, if the women didn’t pitch in in the fight, they might die too, thus ending their genetic line. However there is the tradition of rape, which would enable more meek females to pass on their genes (and how can we know that “gene” is only expressed on the female chromosome and not passed to male children?).

Obviously, this issue of female aggression is far more complicated and subtle than a simplistic approach can explain.

Let’s run an experiment, let some women have power and see what they do with it. See references to aggressive females above.

43

Revtim: THAT was funny!!! :slight_smile:

44

Wow, I let my mean dog off his leash. Sorry all, I am a bit on the “raw nerve” side after all the bashing of late, Tom I didnt mean to bite so hard, my apologies.

Yet the reference to Former, hurts, yet again. I think we can all sustain just enough brain usage by now to see I am not that individual, so lets all drop the references. Thank you ever so much.

As of this post you are all forcing me to the library in the near future, as I cant stand this. :slight_smile:

45

Sorry, but my long-standing interest in Amazons is predicated on this image, and I refuse to give it up!

46

Really? What article? Where was it published? Who co-authored it with you? When? Is it available on line? If not, please provide the citation and we will be happy to look it up in hard copy.
The SDMB is a superb forum for those with expertise to share their knowledge, and I am certain that all those present will be delighted to be informed by an expert of such renown.

Felice

“Everything, once understood, is trivial.” -WES

47

Felice-

Everyone hates a smart ass. Might I also add, that some of us here are employed and work during the day and use this as a “retreat”. Therefore, to run around all day in search of quotations and support, and books, and other things is very unrealistic.

The article is published in The Quarterly Anthropological and Archaeological Gazette of Northern California Community Colleges.

The fellow writers are Nanda and Jane Winsberg, and also Wrightson. It was published fall semester of 1997. It was then used by Alice Kingsnorth in the following semester to base the class on “powerful women in history”.

(Bowing) thank you thank you, you are too kind

Now Dr Niles Crane and I will take our sarcasm outside for a 15 minute break.

48

dlv & David B,

Since the old canard about Mrs Thatcher starting the Falklands War has reared its head here, I’m posting a link to the Women Leaders and War thread. My second post in that thread was a response to Kyla making the same suggestion.

MikeylikesIT,

You just don’t get it, do you? People here are not going to fall for your vague and self-important pronouncements about your (unspecified) “credentials” and expertise. It is just no good to say, “I am an expert so you have to believe me”. If you were an expert on this or any other subject you would be able to back up your assertions with something more substantial that vague references to a book you can’t even remember the title or author of.

Or did your neighbour, the archaeologist, tell you over the fence this morning? Yes, that must be it.

By the way, tell us, what are your “credentials”? If you want to appeal to your own expertise, lay it on the line: what qualifications do you actually have?

49

'suse me, but I am still waiting for those peer-reviewed articles discounting hormones as a behavior modifier. Anyone? Argument without proof is just rhetoric. Persuasive at times but NEVER convincing.

50

TOM-

Go search my posts in the pit, you will find my credentials there. As I will not take the time nor effort, to post them again for such a “well mannered” person.

Oh and the neighbor bit, go see that thread again, so you can apologize right about now.
Cause you owe it to me, smart guy.

51

Mikey,

You have conspicuously failed to address my point. You described yourself as “an expert in this subject” and invited Tom (of tomndebb) to “check [your] credentials”. Yet you were unable to quote accurately one single source to back up your assertions. What kind of “expert” does that make you?

Reading one book on a subject (or even colouring in the pictures) doesn’t make you an expert, sunshine.

You claimed elsewhere to have a Bachelor of Science degree in history and when you were challenged you insisted that it was a typo. You also claim to have some qualification in philosophy and to be an engineer and a professor. So what? Even if any of this were true, it doesn’t make you an expert on Amazons or anything else.

My point (and I will state it again very carefully because you are obviously hard of thinking) is this: If you want people to believe you, you have to be prepared to provide some kind of evidence or proof of what you are asserting. Evidence might include, for example, a reference to a recognised authority on a subject (e.g. a dictionary, in the case of word meanings; a peer-reviewed journal in the case of scientific questions; or a newspaper article in the case of current events). Proof would generally consist of valid logical reasoning from principles which are not in dispute.

But you have failed to do any of these things. Rather you have said, “But I am the great MikeylikesIT, leading world expert on every subject under the sun. How dare you lesser mortals question me? Look at my credentials! Besides which, I read it in some legal papers/my neighbour told me/I contributed to the publication of an article on it”. By the way, what does “participated in one such [article’s] publishing” mean? Did you write it? Proof read it? Deliver copies door-to-door?

This leads me onto the point about your neighbour. You began the You be the judge thread by saying “I was reading a piece of legal work this morning …”. We now know, after 24 hours, that this was in fact a story you heard from your neighbour. So why didn’t you do the honest thing and begin the thread by saying, “My neighbour, who is a lawyer, told me an interesting story this morning …”?

Let me tell you why: You wanted to give the impression that you happened to be reading a learned legal journal, because that’s just the kind of polymath, Renaissance man kind of guy you are. You couldn’t resist the temptation to puff yourself up just a little bit and lead us to believe that you were just a little bit more learned, better read, more erudite and urbane than you really are. To your credit, it seems that you have now come clean, but I am not going to apologise to you for doubting your veracity when you have said something that could, at best, be described as disingenuous and at worst as an outright lie.

Now, just in case all that was a little complicated, let me provide a simpler, summarised version:

Tell the truth. Learn to back up your assertions with facts and reasoning. Don’t stand on your dignity and harp on about your expertise in a subject in which you manifestly have none.

I hope that this advice has been helpful.

52

Mikey was right about one thing, TomH. You are a smart guy.

53

What happened to Mikey? It says “unregistered” under his name. Can you get booted for not citing your sources now?

54

I saw somewhere that he asked to be removed after he received “death threats” against himself and his fiancee.

We have now had at least three separate incidents of death threats or purported death threats seeming to originate from this MB in the last two weeks.

If some joker here thinks it’s funny, it is not and I wish he/she would quit. Now.

If some fool is doing it for the purpose of genuine harrassment, I wish that the recipients would save the stuff and forward it to whatever authority (not this board) would have the best chance of restraining this clown. (A lot of e-mail can be tracked to the source even when it has been spoofed if the spoofer is just a bit clumsy.)

Tom~

55

Death threats?

I assume, Mikey presented some evidence of this. It’s not like him to make unsubstantiated claims.

I think there’s a much simpler explaination, Tom.

56

I have the same reaction you did, but I’m pretty sure I saw a post from DavidB that he had disestablished the ID at Mike’s request, but was not going to delete all the threads because of the sheer numbers of posts on them. :::shrug:::

Tom~