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Radio War Nerd EP #544 — Byron & the Greek Revolt, Pt. 2: Fame & Infamy (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-24 01:37:18
Imported:
2025-08
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Content

In the second part of the War Nerd's series on Byron, the Greek diaspora prepares for revolution, while Byron rebels against proto-Victorian England, achieving fame & infamy.

Listen to part 1 of Byron and the Greek Revolt (EP #542)

Total time: 1:27:16Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

William

“It’s a shame we can’t follow them all out” Oh yeah? Why’s that? You guys only have a limited number of episodes you’ll ever do?

Marie S

I don’t understand the war nerd saying “I don’t understand why ppl don’t like Byron.” The man was totally abusive/manipulative to every woman he was ever with! He took his daughter Allegra away from her her mother (Claire claiming— herself barely an adult) and refused to allow her see the daughter… who later died of an illness. I know it’s not the done thing to put 21st century morality on historical figures. But truly the guy seems like he was just a jerk to women in his personal Life.

drizzly_november

How do you mention Castlereagh in an episode about Byron without reciting his obituary doggerel, one of the great, dance-on-your-grave owns in the English language: Posterity will ne’er survey a Nobler grave than this: Here lie the bones of Castlereagh: Stop, traveller, and piss!

Katherine Liddy

There weren't that many British authors of the 19th century who *weren't* jerks to women. I doubt Matthew Arnold, Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, or 90% of British male writers would pass a 21st-century sensitivity-to-women test. Yet they were all beloved and Byron was ostracised.

CR

It’d be funny if the tenth anniversary show featured a surprise eXile reunion.

CR

Anyway, it’s weird how the Anglo-American proclivity to favor and prop up highly hierarchical, heavily authoritarian regimes (contra “totalitarianism. Thanks ambassador Kirkpatrick. How did we get all the shitty Irish in government like her, Regan, Clinton, Biden, et al.?) was never taught or acknowledged or true according to the establishment media and institutions.

a clash of purple

It's a lot of cognitive dissonance... That's what future ruling elites learn at their fancy schools. They're supposed to learn how to not only mouth platitudes about democracy and human rights, but to genuinely believe that you have to do bad in order to achieve less bad outcomes. You always have to justify the evil you were going to do anyway by manufacturing facts that show that any alternative is somehow worse. My liberal friends aren't exactly pro-Israel, but they don't think the genocide in Gaza is a big deal because "Trump is even worse than Biden" and "the Palestinians would kill all the Jews if they could." In order to uphold your moral principles you have to violate them. In order to prevent deaths you have to kill people. "It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it." And in order to safeguard democracy we need ruthless militarism and dictatorships all over the world, possibly including our own country. Because it's dangerous to have good intentions; if you set out to do anything with good intentions it's bound to at least fail, if not become Stalinism. The only way to do good is to be selfish, ruthless, and amoral. Besides it's human nature to be lazy and tribalistic, so the idea that people could get along or work together is foolish and dangerous. True democracy is dangerous because regular people are stupid and gullible, unlike the educated elites, and if you give them power then they'll immediately kill all the minorities and elect a demagogue. Etc., etc., etc.... Anyone who knows American liberals has heard all this inane bullshit repeated ad nauseum. Frankly, in a way, I prefer the reactionaries. At least they're honest about "We're evil, we're genocidal, fuck you, got mine."

a clash of purple

If the question is whether this or that historical figure was a good or bad person, I think it's probably safe to just dismiss all English people as demons on earth until proven otherwise.

JoR

I feel like most of the people you mentioned might as well be Martian with how far removed they were from their Irish ancestory. And just that environment in general

Steven Thomas

One of the really fascinating insights I've heard regarding US anti-intellectualism is relating to the fact that we have been so thoroughly neoliberalized that nobody can believe that an educated, capable person would choose to take a low paying career in order to do some sort of social good. Teachers are dangerous because they're clearly selfish and scheming, but they're good at hiding it because of their Cultural-Bolshevist education. Thus, the whole "every male teacher is inherently a groomer" took off like wildfire because it resolved that tension with a simple explanation: everyone who wants to teach must do so because they are a pedophile. My selfishness must be universal and nobody can be any different than me, so there must be some nefarious ulterior motive beneath that veneer.

xnfec

Adam Curtis covered this in his series "The Trap" where he had film of interviews with James M. Buchanan of George Mason University which proposed this exact strategy. It followed the common practice of naming something in such a way as it does the opposite of what its name suggests. In this case "Public Choice Theory"

Nigel O'Connor

Worth noting that during his grand tour Byron was vocal in opposing Britian's theft of the Parthenon marbles as a culturally criminal act, at the time of their extraction by Elgin.

Alexandros

If I remember correctly he wrote a poem (a "diss track" in modern rap terms) where he denounced him as a Scottish barbarian or something along these lines :P

aqueous_steve

Am I crazy or was there a link to order Pleasant Hell in the description of this episode at one point?

JoR

I think they did an audio book for a while so it might’ve been that

CR

I mean Vladimir Putin.