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Radio War Nerd EP #219 — Pandemics & War (Patreon)

Published:
2020-02-28 18:30:42
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: February 25, 2020

A brief survey of pandemics & wars, from Ancient Athens to the "Spanish Flu"...

Total time: 2:10:31

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Ellen Harold

Renzo & Lucia. Read this twice in Italian lit. class. But so, so long ago. Repelled because of Manzoni’s reactionary politics & religion. But maybe now could appreciate the historical aspect and also basically gentle and conciliatory (in a good way) temperament of the Milanese of all persuasions as I have come to see it. Still kind of put off by counter reformation, in my heart of hearts, though.

Robert Rowe

"Honored citizen". Fuck you young punks! Get off my lawn or I'll beat the living coronavirus out of you with my cane.

Richard Kim

Regarding John’s skepticism about the Antonine Plague’s variable effect on the Romans vs Germans, one should keep in mind that for most of human history during which urban settlements have existed, city-dwellers have had lower life-expectancies than their rural counterparts, something known as the “urban graveyard effect.” This need not have been true for every single pre-modern city, but it was probably true for most. Much of this has to do with the lack of modern hygiene and sanitation making living in crowded conditions far, far worse than one might imagine, but it also has to do with basic epidemiology in which most pathogens require a certain density of hosts to actually spread. This is what makes it possible for mathematical modelling used in epidemiology to calculate the population density required for a given pathogen to cause an epidemic. I thought Kyle Harper’s recent book, Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire had a pretty nuanced argument regarding the effect of the Antonine Plague and other epidemics on the fate of the Roman Empire that I don’t find all that deterministic as some environmentalist historical narratives do. Also, to throw out some epidemic-related information for East Asia, one of the most important works in pre-modern East Asian medicine is the text, Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage). Shanghan (Cold Damage) is a wide category of disease that doesn’t really line up to modern categorizations but would include fever-causing diseases such as flus. In any case, the author Zhang Zhongjing lived during the fall of the Han dynasty-3 kingdoms era (covered before in RWN Ep. 94), and he was motivated in writing the treatise because the large epidemics raging across the country had killed two-thirds of his whole clan (some 200 people). It’s quite likely that despite all the famous battles of this era with its exaggerated numbers involving armies several hundred thousand-strong, the wars simply made the populace more susceptible to famine and disease, which is what really killed so many people (roughly between a third to two-thirds of China’s entire population). Another interesting fact is that although the Mongols likely spread the plague to Europe, they and their fellow steppe brethren were exceptionally vulnerable to certain Old World diseases such as smallpox due to less frequent contact with diseases that could only be sustained to the point of becoming endemic in population-dense settlements of sedentary civilizations, where a good percentage of people had developed immunity. Historian Peter Purdue has a section in his book about the Qing conquest of Central Asia detailing how it was affected by smallpox, which can be read here: http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2014/03/smallpox-on-steppe.html

Annibale

I think you may have misread Manzoni's politics. "Betrothed" makes a very clear political difference between what Manzoni saw as the corrupt, reactionary and ineffective semi-colonial Spanish rule of Milan vs what Manzoni saw as the far more illuminated and progressive Venetian rule. The comparison is explicitly stated by Bertoldo (Renzo's cousin) in chapter 17, when he describes the measures taken by the Republic to alleviate the famine effect, contrasting them with the anarchy and riots who Renzo witnessed in Milan and elsewhere. Manzoni did extensive studies on the social and economical situation of XVII century northern Italy in preparation for the novel and used Melchiorre Gioia's "Trattato di Economia Statistica" (definitely not a reactionary source!) to understand the reason for the mass worker migration from Milan to the Venetian Republic that happened pre-1631, and that Renzo was part of. Part of Manzoni's effort was to make the novel accurate, but a lot had to do with Manzoni's dim view of Austro-Hungarian rule of Milanese during his own lifetime, and the parallel he makes with the Spanish XVII° century rule

Annibale

Manzoni was a liberal catholic (which meant a lot in mid-XIX century Italy) and both him and "Betrothed" were VERY bitterly attacked by the right-wing Catholics as far an in mid-XX century, and the book became a source of political contention at least until WWII. Manzoni was accused of have been "poisoned" by Enlightenment, and to be a liberal in catholic's clothes, because of his various portraits of corrupt, cowardly or inept members of the clergy, the obvious attack to the Milanese ruling class (Rodrigo, Azzecca-Garbugli, L'Innominato), his reductionist views of 30 Years War (that in XIX century was still seen in many Italian quarters as "us vs them"), and the way "Betrothed" portraited Renzo and Lucia's woes as the result of social oppression and a corrupt ruling class (instead of merely the will of God which they are supposed to suffer without opposing it). The main accuse to Manzoni was to have been a sort of Trojan horse to make "social issues" palatable to some of the Catholic world after the fall of the Pope temporal power in 1870 (when Italian society became divided in rigid anti and pro-Pope formations) and thus have helped to undermine the Pope's role. The idea Manzoni's religion could have been politically "reactionary" was something that became popular only after Gramsci attacked his views as "paternalistic".

Ellen Harold

I think part of the problem was my teacher, though a good and competent one, was a devout but not very liberal Catholic and she pretty much ignored the historical background, interpreting the novel flatly as a moralistic tale of individuals making choices between right and wrong actions in situations over which they had been placed by Providence (i.e., God's will). Thus, the nun of Monza, forced into a convent against her will, ought to have passively acquiesced to her fate and tried to be a good nun, rather than rebelling and taking a lover. (I don't remember, but I think, even though he is sympathetic to her plight, Manzoni explicitly says this--but maybe it was our teacher, who loved to point out how one wrong decision led inexorably to another.) We were taught that Manzoni absolutely rejected the enlightenment, BTW. But I guess historicism is sort of an Enlightenment phenomenon -- though also a Romantic one. I can see how Gramsci could have considered Manzoni's views paternalistic. Manzoni, along with many, perhaps most, 19th liberals believed that the upper classes were not doing their duty and treating the lower classes fairly, and that if they did, all social problems would be solved. He did not suggest that Renzo and Lucia, for example should have been taught to read and have some input into social reforms, as Gramsci perhaps would have. For Manzoni and most 19th century middle- class people, reform could only come from the upper classes, like Cardinal Borromeo. However, I personallybelieve that even top-down reforms are a good thing, and am not sorry that monarchs and aristocrats did things like building parks. & sewers, & libraries, & instituting post offices, and reforms such as half-pay for veteran soldiers (as Napoleon did) and the like, even if it was top-down & "paternalistic". Most of these reforms were beneficial, though some were not, such as trying to make everyone in the Austro-Hungarian empire, all bureaucrats, at least, speak German, though arguably it might have been more efficient.

JB

Hi there - recent subscriber. How do I get the RSS feed?

David Maginnis

If a west coast meet up does happen will it be announced somewhere on the Patreon for those of us not involved with the Facebook group?

Annibale

Teaching that Manzoni rejected Enlightenment means you're not a good teacher of Italian literature. Manzoni suffered most of his life from a crippling form of depression, plus something that resembled a bipolar disorder and severe anxiety attacks. Early in his life he embraced a very juvenile form of "cult of reason", (you know, the whole mix of Voltaire, anticlericalism, cult of the classics, bad poetry etc). The reasons why he moved from this to his later peculiar form of Catholicism (deeply influenced by Giansenism) are still controversial and not well understood. He suffered from a string of personal tragedies, and this made his mental problem worse - at some point he realized "reason" wasn't helping him, and this may have been a problem. Another reason was to have married a deeply religious woman (a protestant who converted to catholicism). Another may have been a religious vision he had while in Paris. In any way, while his religiousness never really faltered, he remained a troubled Catholic all his life (a more commonplace figure during the XIX century that people think). I think that a lot of people later associated Manzoni with "old school" religiosity because everybody at some point started to see "Betrothed" as the non plus ultra of sugar. Which is not, if you really read the book.

Annibale

"Monaca di Monza" -> book most controversial character, left and right. Right-wing Catholic hated her because they wanted a more conventional religious figure. Liberals hated her because they wanted a more conventional and lurid anti-clerical story. The problem is that the story of the "Monaca di Monza" is true, and Manzoni simply wanted to create a realistic character as he saw "realism". "Suor Virgina" is a flawed person because real people are flawed (everyone is flawed in "Betrothed" - including the saintly characters). Our problem is that we always want to see the world reduced to saint or villains, and this is something true now as it was in Manzoni's time. Manzoni has definitely his views on the Monaca, but he's remarkably honest on telling the reader that these are his views, not necessarily those of the character or the real life Gertrude.

Ellen Harold

So many of us have great books ruined for us by mediocre teachers in our youth. The second time I read Promessi Sposi the professor simply bemoaned the fact that the novel was not highly regarded in the Anglophone world because of anti-Catholic prejudice! Never mind that Pope and Dryden and many other English greats were Catholic.

Jake Palmer

Are you subscribed at $5+?

Jason Thompson

As someone who's seen way too many zombies movies, totally loved & agree with the comments about Romero & the infection/zombies meme. Possibly the biggest difference between Romero's zombies and the 28 Days Later ilk (besides the speed) is that in Romero's universe, everyone who dies (from any cause) becomes a zombie. Thus, as you point out, it's essentially about the inevitability of death. In virus-zombie stories, there's always plots about keeping out the infected, and walls, and borders, and it leads to an "us vs. them" contamination-fearing mentality which leads to some very right-wing places (the unbelievably grotesque "Palestinian zombies climbing the West Bank barrier" scene in "World War Z", for the most obvious example). Not that I don't viscerally enjoy both types of zombies, but....

Dan Farchione

Why wasn’t the HIV pandemic mentioned?

Karl Mathew Prager IV

The first thing I thought as well when they said they could not remember a big pandemic after the Spanish flue.

Chuck Petras

Is there a civil war unfolding in China under cover of #COVID19? Before the "outbreak" the democracy movement in Hong Kong was getting some feet. Now that movement is getting starved for media exposure. I think the Chinese regime realized that the optics of Tiananmen square with tanks running over people didn't play well on the world stage. Losing the virus - either faction could have done this - provided cover for the regime to roll up the opposition. I wouldn't be surprised if those handheld temperature scanners were also biometric readers and tied into the social credit score (loyalty score). https://www.jenniferzengblog.com/home/cellphones-in-the-funeral-home

Peter Queckenstedt

I'm reading a book now called 'The Sad Tale of The Brothers Grossbart' by Jesse Bullington that feels very much in the vein of RWN tastes. It's about a pair of foul German brothers in the 1300s who go on a quest to become grave robbers in Egypt and keep escaping doom along the way. In one chapter there is a town that has been wiped out by plague but of course this is medieval Europe so the plague is at the hands of a demon suitable for a Bosch painting.

Chuck Petras

More on the Chinese Civil War… The Mandate of Heaven/1/2/ is a Chinese political and religious doctrine used since ancient times to justify the rule of the King or Emperor of China. “When heaven is unhappy with the emperor, it signals its displeasure by raining down disasters such as floods, plagues, and swarms of locusts. The philosopher Mencius said a ruler could loose his ‘mandate of heaven’ if he neglects his responsibilities to care for the ordinary people.”/3/ “Following the madness of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, China’s new Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping—the most important person of the late 20th century who most Westerners know absolutely nothing about—heroically managed, against the odds, to stabilise Communist Party rule, pulling the country back from the precipice of anarchy. Realising things simply could not go on as they were, Deng, in one of history’s great ideological sleights of hand, transferred his party’s claim to the ‘Mandate of Heaven’, the traditional Chinese justification for each successive dynasty’s right to rule, from radical Communism to capitalism and nationalism. The Communist Party would no longer base its political legitimacy on ideological fervour, but on the organic Chinese cultural traits of mercantile prowess and national pride.”/4/ “There are telling signs that this is the fate the Coronavirus might also bestow on Xi Jinping. Already, there has been vocal anguish and outrage following Dr. Li’s death, while stories of local party officials selfishly hoarding desperately-scarce masks and protective clothing at the expense of brave frontline health care officials have provoked condemnation. The economic consequences will also be severe, at a time when the Chinese economy is already slowing and a trade war with the US endures. Beyond the immediate fallout, there may well be one more casualty of the Coronavirus: the Party’s claim to competence. And if the Pillars of Heaven begin to wobble, we may yet look back on this moment as the beginning of the end for yet another Chinese imperial dynasty.”/4/ “The current upwelling of negative sentiment must be taken seriously, even though it is not yet clear what it will signify. Xi has managed to gain unilateral command of the Party and state structures by rigidly controlling the flow of information. However, in the present crisis the absence of free-flowing information has helped allow this epidemic to spread and become such a menace. And Xi's failure to contain it will affect how his people view both him and his latter-day heavenly mandate to rule, long after the threat of this spreading disease has been brought under control and the economy begins to recover.”/5/ /1/- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven /2/ - https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-16/op-ed-xi-jinping-has-ruled-china-by-imposing-tight-societal-controls-but-they-dont-work-on-coronavirus /3/ - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-tests-xis-heavenly-mandate-but-proves-a-godsend-for-his-surveillance-state/2020/03/03/454f6880-59fb-11ea-8efd-0f904bdd8057_story.html?outputType=amp /4/ - https://capx.co/over-the-coronavirus-xi-loses-the-mandate-of-heaven/ /5/ - https://www.arcamax.com/politics/opeds/s-2328657 -30-

Tupac Chopra

John: That Belisarius episode -- do it.

Mark Ames

That scene in WWZ was the worst—I read part of the book and had to grudgingly admit that it was a good idea for a sff/horror novel (Mel Brooks' son wrote it), though I didn't like it. But yeah, the zombie flix genre turned into these libertarian survivalist fantasies, which Day of the Dead dealt with in-advance of all the rot that came after.

tenantofthhouse

Apropos of nothing in particular... you guys do absolutely incredible work. Also: please tape and release the TrueAnon show! As a paid subscriber to both of you, I feel like it'll get out somehow, but I hate to think we might miss out.

Eamon

As a subscriber of both as well, I completely agree

radiowarnerd

That's true. I lost my only remaining friend from high school in that. But what we were thinking was pandemic in the quick/contagious sense, and HIV was a strange, slow plague, with years sometimes for symptoms to appear. It definitely had cultural effects--the disappearance of a whole culture in the Bay Area--and may have had military repercussions as well, in other parts of the world. We should do a show on it.

radiowarnerd

That sounds great! I'm ordering it on Kindle now.

Amy

Thank you, just finished the ep and came here to WTF Re HIV not getting a mention in the context of “pandemics post Spanish flu”.