dravpadi replied to your post: The only thing more annoying than people on this...
why? isn’t it better for people who have no clue about the topic to know all sides?
Sure, but the problem is that on Tumblr especially, there’s a very very condescending and superior attitude about “correcting” misconceptions that people have. It’s not about educating people on all the sides, it’s more about being able to say, “I got a BA in Classics and I know some obscure facts so I finally get to flex my fingers and show off.” And a lot of those people take a certain tone in their response which makes it seem like they’re presenting an unequivocal truth (usually the reason why they drop their credentials) when they’re just as likely to be peddling misinformation as anyone else, usually because they’ve either misunderstood something they were taught in class or because they themselves didn’t bother considering certain aspects of what they’re talking about. And this happens a lot too.
Like, I’ve corrected people before on this website, and I get that it’s frustrating when people are ignorant or unwilling to consider the facts because they prefer a particular narrative. But there’s a difference between presenting all the sides and theories, and acting like what one person has to say or has learned is the be-all/end-all, especially in a field like the antiquities.
Fwiw, I’ve seen multiple people over the years debunk the whole “Egyptians are black” line of thought. And they’re not wrong, but the truth is that the realities of racial politics, especially in the field of classics, is a hell of a lot more complicated and difficult to discern than most people realize, especially on Tumblr. And the truth is that both the debunkers and the people making the claim don’t seem to get that either.
