Yakub would be proud that’s such a condemnation of Viking brutality! Evil white people, amirite!?
Seriously though, I think you generalized this Viking tendency towards ruthlessness a little too much. Are you familiar with the theories that Viking Berserkers were pretty much incels and low lives, rounded up and sent abroad as a utilitarian strategy? I think that would be a better explanation.
My intuition from not knowing enough about ancient Nordic communities is that they were people trying to survive and raise families in a world not too different from now in terms of brutality.
It’s true that a more violent world causes people merely out of self-defence to be more violent or ready to commit violence, but my argument is essentially that the Vikings were amongst the chief aggressors. Not only that, but when they rejected that constant will-to-destroy, they did quite well in Iceland. . . As for the below comment >the world is violent today. . . I think the world is indeed still quite violent, but we must say that in the areas where the Vikings dwelt & fought—Norway, England, etc., it’s certainly less violent. All places have their problems, but, for example, in England today, there isn’t much risk of thirty men with swords & spears rushing into town & murdering half the population, thereafter stealing its cultural wealth…
Yakub would be proud that’s such a condemnation of Viking brutality! Evil white people, amirite!?
Seriously though, I think you generalized this Viking tendency towards ruthlessness a little too much. Are you familiar with the theories that Viking Berserkers were pretty much incels and low lives, rounded up and sent abroad as a utilitarian strategy? I think that would be a better explanation.
I really enjoyed your prose.
God I wish I was born a Viking.
My intuition from not knowing enough about ancient Nordic communities is that they were people trying to survive and raise families in a world not too different from now in terms of brutality.
It’s true that a more violent world causes people merely out of self-defence to be more violent or ready to commit violence, but my argument is essentially that the Vikings were amongst the chief aggressors. Not only that, but when they rejected that constant will-to-destroy, they did quite well in Iceland. . . As for the below comment >the world is violent today. . . I think the world is indeed still quite violent, but we must say that in the areas where the Vikings dwelt & fought—Norway, England, etc., it’s certainly less violent. All places have their problems, but, for example, in England today, there isn’t much risk of thirty men with swords & spears rushing into town & murdering half the population, thereafter stealing its cultural wealth…