Origins
Among my many interests is the people known as Indo-Europeans. First, because I’m interested in languages, and the Indo-European language family is well-studied (besides containing my native language and others of interest to me). Second, because I’m interested in ancient history and the migration and interaction of peoples, especially insofar as this helps explain “how things came to be.” A lot of interesting work has been done on this field, not only in linguistics and archaeology, but now in examining DNA. And, of course, the squishier fields of comparative literature/folklore/mythology form part of this story too, and I see a lot on those topics go by.
To say that this field of interest is planted thick with cranks would be an understatement. Not just outright racists (a la Nazi Aryanism), but other culture-promoters and connect-the-dots explainers of the world abound. But so it has always been. Before we had solid evidence and reliable techniques for investing the origins of ancient peoples, we had other sources to help us explain where people came from. There was the Bible, and you can find enormous loads of fascinating weirdness built upon the genealogies of Genesis and later, the hunt for the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Not long ago, I had to gently explain to a friend why the Danites could not possibly be the ancestors of the Danes. Nor was the Bible the only explanatory tool found to hand: Snorri Sturluson, the medieval Icelandic scholar who compiled the Prose Edda, was a Christian, but he was also an educated man who knew the stories inherited from Greece and Rome. In trying to explain the Norse myths handed down among his people, he explained that the AEsir (the Norse gods) were Trojans who migrated to Scandinavia after the sack of Troy. He was one of the first to try to use euhemerism (the mythologization of great men/ancestors) as a tool to explain the origin of pagan gods.
In the early modern era, we find philosophers trying to explain the origin of society. These are our first social scientists, but another name for them might be mythmakers. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and later Marx can all confidently tell you how human society came to be, and what can be done with it. Debating the State of Nature can sometimes sound like an exegesis of Genesis. Meanwhile, as Europeans (and Americans) came to encompass the globe through discovery and trade, they had to account for why they dominated the world and other races and cultures did not. Once again, the cranks came up with all kinds of plausible explanations which are embarrassing to read today. Modern scholarship, encumbered as it is by woke theories about everything, also produces cranks in abundance. Racial/ethnic and cultural ideas spring up to explain the world around us and how it operates, though with a different set of values from the ethnologists from around the turn of the Twentieth Century.
There is just something in us that wants to know how things came to be, why things are the way they are. But then we want to use what we find to justify (or overthrow) the status quo. Therein lies the difference between curiosity and crankery. Appealing to esoteric knowledge to enhance one’s status, or one’s group’s status, is as old as the hills. Hunting for one’s ancestors is a harmless (and fascinating) pursuit; being excessively proud of one’s ancestors (and assuming that certain connections entitle you to something not given to others) leads to snobbery, if not something worse. All the hubbub about identities in today’s world is simply the same game. Being interested in “people like us” is a natural interest; using myths about “us” (whether defined racially, culturally, sexually, or otherwise) to contest for power is pernicious.
To say that this field of interest is planted thick with cranks would be an understatement. Not just outright racists (a la Nazi Aryanism), but other culture-promoters and connect-the-dots explainers of the world abound. But so it has always been. Before we had solid evidence and reliable techniques for investing the origins of ancient peoples, we had other sources to help us explain where people came from. There was the Bible, and you can find enormous loads of fascinating weirdness built upon the genealogies of Genesis and later, the hunt for the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Not long ago, I had to gently explain to a friend why the Danites could not possibly be the ancestors of the Danes. Nor was the Bible the only explanatory tool found to hand: Snorri Sturluson, the medieval Icelandic scholar who compiled the Prose Edda, was a Christian, but he was also an educated man who knew the stories inherited from Greece and Rome. In trying to explain the Norse myths handed down among his people, he explained that the AEsir (the Norse gods) were Trojans who migrated to Scandinavia after the sack of Troy. He was one of the first to try to use euhemerism (the mythologization of great men/ancestors) as a tool to explain the origin of pagan gods.
In the early modern era, we find philosophers trying to explain the origin of society. These are our first social scientists, but another name for them might be mythmakers. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and later Marx can all confidently tell you how human society came to be, and what can be done with it. Debating the State of Nature can sometimes sound like an exegesis of Genesis. Meanwhile, as Europeans (and Americans) came to encompass the globe through discovery and trade, they had to account for why they dominated the world and other races and cultures did not. Once again, the cranks came up with all kinds of plausible explanations which are embarrassing to read today. Modern scholarship, encumbered as it is by woke theories about everything, also produces cranks in abundance. Racial/ethnic and cultural ideas spring up to explain the world around us and how it operates, though with a different set of values from the ethnologists from around the turn of the Twentieth Century.
There is just something in us that wants to know how things came to be, why things are the way they are. But then we want to use what we find to justify (or overthrow) the status quo. Therein lies the difference between curiosity and crankery. Appealing to esoteric knowledge to enhance one’s status, or one’s group’s status, is as old as the hills. Hunting for one’s ancestors is a harmless (and fascinating) pursuit; being excessively proud of one’s ancestors (and assuming that certain connections entitle you to something not given to others) leads to snobbery, if not something worse. All the hubbub about identities in today’s world is simply the same game. Being interested in “people like us” is a natural interest; using myths about “us” (whether defined racially, culturally, sexually, or otherwise) to contest for power is pernicious.