Questions to Malte

[pokeplayer984]

Out of all the people throughout history, which among them do you find the most inspiration to work on something?

[Pangaea]

I started something, but I'm afraid I won't finish it in time. One reason (apart from general lack of spirit while I don't have a job) are computer troubles. I meant to do that image (of which I finished a raw pencil sketch with my graphic tablet (first time I would really put it to good purpose). However, the computer just doesn't allow me to configure the tablet (specifically to change the settings so that one point on the tablet remains fixed to a point on the paper). Every time I try to open the file where such configurations would be made I get some notification about rundll32 and the program is never opened. Installing the most up to date driver for the tablet did not lead to any results either. Sometimes the only reason for me not to smash my computer against the wall is the awareness that I would deeply regret this the next moment and many moments after

Sorry to hear that (And I know exactly what you mean about the computer ). Well, the good news is, it doesn't have to be newly created artwork. pokeplayer says you can submit older art pieces as well.

As long as I'm discussing art, here's another question on the subject (and forgive me for treading on the thin ice of Lake Superlative here): Out of all of the different art mediums you've used (drawing, watercolor, soapstone sculpting, casting metal figures, embroidery, etc.), which ones have you found  the most enjoyable, the most frustrating, the most challenging, the most time-consuming to work with?

[Malte279]

Thank you for your questions

Out of all the people throughout history, which among them do you find the most inspiration to work on something?

Well, there are some people in history for whom I feel great respect or even admiration. However I am guarding against a kind of adoration that would make an objective look impossible.
It is important to keep in mind that these people were still people and often had dark sides to them. In a way this makes them all the easier to relate to because they are of the same matter as all of us and also with some of the flaws. It is the positive aspects though that serve as examples for us. Lists of positive examples could be endless, but here are some that I can think of spontaneously (there are many more):

Hans and Sophie Scholl for their courage to do what was right in a society where right had been abandoned and standing with their lives for it.

Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Alva Edison I admire for creativity.

I admire the work of Albert Schweitzer as his charity came less conditional and less dogmatic than the work of some others whose charity as such would be no less admirable than his.

Well, the good news is, it doesn't have to be newly created artwork. pokeplayer says you can submit older art pieces as well.

I submitted some images for the video including an incomplete version of the image I started just recently. I guess if I did manage my graphictablet I could work a lot faster. But I didn't get the hang of it and the mouse work in roughly correcting all the major shortcomings of a pencil drawing that is supposed to be turned into a photoshop image is dreadfully time intensive.

and forgive me for treading on the thin ice of Lake Superlative here

I just love the way you put that
It is indeed difficult to say. I think though that the carving of soapstone is particularly enjoyable for me. But due to the amount of dust it produces it is also something that I can rarely do.
As for time consuming there are two candidates I think. The embroidery is probably the most time consuming of all. The other candidate might be making tin figures, but not from existing positives (like brooches etc.) but by modeling figures yourself. I don't think I ever posted about the Cera figure I have been working on. From wax I made a head of Cera (and I am kind of proud how well it worked out) from which I took a mold (a mold of three components, the most tricky one I did so far. I also made a mold for her body (because of the shape of Cera (the four legs in particular) all the parts needed to be made separately). And then I realized that the wax I was using wouldn't work out for her legs because the thin part where her shoulders join the rest of her body couldn't be created with sufficient accuracy. So yes, this was a very time consuming project and also frustrating for not being finished. Generally the making of the molds is exciting but also with a great potential for frustration. If you get just a bit too much of the very smelly and toxic volcanizer to the caoutchouc it will harden too quickly to show the details of a figure, if you add just a bit to little it will not harden enough and will remain a smeary mess beyond all recognition and if you get the amount right, you really want to make sure that the volcanizer is well stirred into the caoutchouc to avoid "soft-spots", but you don't want to stir too long either for it starts to harden the moment you add the volcanizer. Given the fact that the stuff is not just toxic and messy but also very expensive the potential for frustration is very high here. The use of the finished molds though well compensates for that

PS: I should add that soapstone carving also has a potential for frustration if the stone breaks at a late stage of the carving because of any porous inclusion (as happened in case of a figure of Ducky lying on Spike's back).

[Mirumoto_Kenjiro]

With all of the interesting information of just about everything you obtained, did you obtain it through schooling, work, or a personal hobby?

[Malte279]

Thank you for the question

A mixture of all that I would say, but I daresay that most of the knowledge came through private hobby and reading (I have been a rather constant customer of libraries since I was about seven or eight years old) while most of the methods came from school and university education.

[Amaranthine]

Hey Malte, are you feeling any better from what happened?

[Malte279]

Thank you for the question. As for the coma, that one was not so dramatic. It looks kind of spectacular again (face bumped and bruised and all that) but all of the injury is rather superficial. I found that apparently I must have fallen on an electric plug with my head which caused a little laceration. One of the plugs was bend and there was some hair from my head sticking to it. Anyway, the coma really is my least concern these days. I am not doing well at this time, but this is for the continuing lack of success with my search for a job

[Pangaea]

I’m so sorry about your current situation, Malte. I wish I could do something to help.

I hope answering this next question won’t in any way aggravate your mood, but I was wondering, what are some historical myths and misconceptions that you, as a historian, find particularly annoying that people continue to believe and accept as fact?

[Malte279]

I hope answering this next question won’t in any way aggravate your mood,

...not at all. You know I love history questions. So thank you for it
As for historical misconceptions, they usually don't annoy me very much because the existence of such misconceptions often gives the historian the opportunity to do the historian's job
Some myths are particularly persistent and sometimes kind of unfair however. For example when thinking of the middle ages in Europe many people will think of witch burnings and extremely brutal jurisdiction. Now make no mistake, the middle ages were in many ways rather brutal but many of the things which we associate with the middle ages were a lot more common in the supposedly more enlightened early middle ages. If we set the end of the middle ages to around the year 1500 (it was of course a gradual progress from one age into the other but the middle ages are rarely defined as ending much later than 1500) we will find that witch burnings and the like were at their major peak throughout the following 150 years while most of the cases of which actually did take place in the middle ages really took place throughout the 15th century. Also religious conflict with all its cruelty reached its climax in the centuries after the middle ages. I'm not saying that the middle ages weren't a rather miserable age to most of those who lived then, but the idea of a sudden influx of civilized and enlightened spirit at the beginning of the renaissance is often exaggerated.

I think when it comes to historical misconceptions I am annoyed after all when it comes in the form of movies which boast with alleged historical accuracy but then fail to even make any serious attempt to live up to that claim. Now I acknowledge the fact that for movies it may be important to make compromises in order to keep the audience interested. However, in that case they ought to be a bit more honest about the "liberties" which they took. Even movies which are very poor in terms of historical accuracy can stir up the interest of people enough for them to get informed about the real events, which is certainly a good thing, but all to often people take what they see for facts and then it would be really good if the movie makers didn't come up with ridiculous claims of an authenticity which the movies in question never even tried to achieve. Sometimes I also fail to understand why some deviations from the historic truth are brought into a movie when sticking closer to historical events might have made the story a lot more interesting.

Another thing that can be problematic is that sometimes interpretations of historical events become so emotionally heated that it becomes tricky to represent a certain opinion on it. A good example for this would be the beginning of WW1. In the aftermath of the war Germany had to declare its sole responsibility for the war. Since then historiography has moved on and the more accurate lists of motivations for all of the nations involved have come up. However, I am sometimes under the impression that some people over here make too much of a point out of emphasizing Germany's not being solely responsible for WW1. Of course Germany was not so unquestionably and exclusively responsible for WW1 as it was for WW2, but looking at the actions taken by the nations in late July early August 1914 I can't help feeling that Germany did have more than an "even share" in responsibility for the outbreak of WW1. Encouraging Austria-Hungary to make demands which would obviously lead to war and then invading neutral Belgium would in my opinion put Germany on a more active level of warmongering in those days than many of the other nations. The universal enthusiasm for war (be it for French wishes to make up for 1870/71 or British concerns about the maritime build-up) is on a much less intense level of the same story in my opinion.

[Amaranthine]

I know we haven't really talk about religion too much on our MSN chats Malte, so I just wanted ask:

What's your opinion on religion as a whole? Or I guess to explain it a bit more, do you think religion is essential to human beings? Or is it something that you think doesn't necessarily needs to be around in life? It's just a security thing for human beings?

[Malte279]

It is a question that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no.
I think that this depends very much on the individual. To some people religion is an absolutely integral part of their lives, to some it is part of their lives but not as important as it is to others, and some people discard religion altogether.
I think that true religious faith is not really a matter of choice. Some people will state their believe or even try to convince others of it but more because it is what most people around them are saying or teaching them rather than because of very deep personal conviction. The same can work around the other way of course with people stating that they don't believe because they don't think much about it.
In human history religion has of course been a crucial factor for both good and bad.
I have way too much respect for the comfort that individuals can find in religion to just discard it as nonsense the way some people do. Perhaps even the most frequent question on whether there is a god, or several gods, or no deity whatsoever is not as important as it seems so long people can find comfort or encouragement in religion. But this of course is entirely about the personal and private faith of the individual.
Sadly there is also the dark side of believing and not believing in the form of forcing either down the throat of everyone else. Religion has been terribly abused in order to keep large majorities quiet about the injustices these majorities have suffered from minorities (so while I couldn't sign it in every context and for every person I sure do see where Marx was coming from when he called religion "Opium for the people"). Religion has been even more terribly abused by people who insisted that their own faith was the only one and that others had to die unless they had the same faith about what was going to happen after death (no logic in that at all). It doesn't matter at all if people shout "Deus vult!" or "Allahu akbar!" or whatever else when killing or torturing others on behalf of their faith or whatever they may shout when killing or torturing people unless they state that there was no god (a relatively recent development but one that has also left a horrible trail of blood already).
I think that this insistence of the own faith being the only path to paradise is at the core of all the religion based suffering (whether we are talking of the worst form of people being slaughtered for their faith or lack of such or whether we are talking about the not quite so terrible form of religious suffering (but also one that can ultimately lead to bad ends) of humans being forced to attend religious services against their will or convictions by their parents, clerics or other authorities).

I do not know if there is a god or not.
I do not think that we should make our striving for leading a good life so dependent on whether or not there is a god.
If tomorrow I knew with absolute certainty that there was no god or after life I would not draw the consequence of leading a bad life against my fellow humans ever after.
Although I do not know if there is a god or not I pray sometimes. But I do not pray to be "on the save side" but because I am aware that there is so much for me to be grateful about that it is not the decisive question whether or not there is a deity, or several deities, or no deity at all to whom my gratitude would go. I would be grateful either way. Prayers can also be prayers of hope for something to happen on the own behalf or the behalf of others of course. But even in case there was no deity to decide about these prayers they are still helping to become aware of what one is striving and hoping for in life. There is no wrong in that either way.
Now if indeed there is a god, or several, or an afterlife I never understand why people think that there must be but one single very narrow way to salvation rather than several. Is a human automatically more qualified for paradise by being a Catholic, a Protestant, a Shiite, a Sunni, a Jew, an Orthodox, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Taoist, a follower of the teachings of Confucius, or a follower of any of the hundreds and thousands of other religions or subbranches of religions, or non-religious ways to lead ones life in an integer way? I don't think so.
I have brought up the image before, but I can do so again. If there is a paradise I can imagine it like an island in a river with humans crossing the river over one out of many bridges, on boats, or rafts, or swimming, or walking over the water, or crossing the river in many other ways. All the ways lead to the same island. But unfortunately many people feel that everybody must cross the river on their own route. Perhaps it is out of an extreme concern for the other humans that fails to see that they are just fine on the bridges, or vessels, or ways they take. Perhaps it is also because some humans are scared that if there are other ways to the same destination there might be something wrong with their own way. So some of them try to get everyone to use the own way. They will go so far as to try to bring down the bridges of others, or sink their vessels, or drown them rather than see them go their way on a route different from the own. These people so focused on getting others to take the same way as them and stopping others from taking a different route may end up so hooked up in this that they fail to ever go their own way to the end and reach that island of salvation.
I don't know if there is a god, but I find it very hard to imagine that if there is a god this god would condemn everyone unless he or she walks on a path very narrowly fenced of by one particular religious scripture. I think that if there is a deity grand enough to create this whole universe in which humans are but one out of million species on one out of innumerable planets, within one out of innumerable galaxies... I cannot imagine such a deity to be so narrow minded as to accept only a very narrow selection, of a selection, within a selection, inside a selection of people based on a single religious code rather than a life that seeks to maintain all this marvelous evolving creation.
I don't know if there is a god, but if there is I don't think that god is well represented by any people who can't life with the idea of others living a life in a way different from their own.

Thank you for the question Amy

[Mirumoto_Kenjiro]

I hope you get well soon.  I know you'll persevere (sp?).

Anyway, I'll ask you the same silly questions I gave F-22.  What is your favorite (or your top 3) of the following:

Aircraft (any type and era)

Vehicle (any type and era)

Ship (type or name and era)

Firearm (type and era)

Ancient Weapon (type and era)

General or Leader (any era)

Battlefield or Battle (any era, history wise)

[Malte279]

Oh dear, oh dear. For someone who keeps pointing out his problems with superlatives such as "favorite", "best" etc. this is quite something to swallow
And in comes also the need for the historian to maintain an objective, critical distance to historical characters to avoid either admiration, contempt or whatever other sentiment to critically examine actions etc. of a given historical character.
Also with military matters, weapons etc. it is such a case. The fascination which weapons can exert is far from unknown to me, as is the interest in combat that results in a very large percentage of our media (be it fiction or nonfiction) dealing with people fighting and killing each other. I think war is one of the most horrible states mankind can be submitted to by mankind itself and yet it is one of the consistent threads running through human history. I do hope that the day will come on which that fatal blood red thread can be cut. There is a screaming insanity in thousands and millions of people who never even met each other before and who under different circumstances might find that they have a lot in common killing each other and committing acts for which they would be tried and punished in more civilized circumstances than war poses.
However, I am also realistic and well aware that idealism of some cannot rid the world of war. It takes the strong opposition of large majorities of all involved parties against wars in order to prevent them (and we have seen that even huge protests are not always sufficient to stop wars though I do believe that protests in the 1980s did contribute to keeping the Cold War from getting hot). On the other hand it takes just a few people of influence in favor of a war and a passive majority (which might even dislike the idea of war but not enough to do something about it) to get one country to start a war compelling another country to defend itself thus "joining" the madness whether they want to or not. For all this I do not see the world getting rid of this scourge of mankind in the foreseeable future but one ought not to ignore the great progress that has been made in parts of the world. The day might come when we are gone...
Anyway the main point of all this is that the admitted interest and fascination in military history is absolutely NOT the result of any embracing or lenient stand on the concept of war, the annihilator of humans and of what humanity ought to be.
However, I would deny my enthusiasm for history in general if I didn't take this awesome chance for talking about history. Rather than responding in this thread where it would be a response that might not provoke any further discussion or gain of knowledge or insight I will start an own thread on matters of military history in which I'm going to respond to the questions put up not necessarily with a list of "favorites" but rather with random (but hopefully somewhat structured) thoughts on the matters in question.

[Mirumoto_Kenjiro]

Again, I didn't realize your philosophy on such subjects.  As far as that question goes, you don't have to answer it at all if you don't want to.

[Malte279]

I opened a whole thread on it in the AM section so there may be a lot of questioning, answering, and discussing on military matters. More than there might have been in this chat. It is just that superlatives are something I rarely work with and that I try to maintain a critical distance to historical topics. So I would not end up just naming a a ship, a plane, a general or the like as a "favorite" but instead write some more lines on what I find interesting about the given thing or person without designating either as my "favorite"

[Pangaea]

Have you tried using silica gel, anhydrous calcium chloride, or other desiccants to help with your mildew problem? I’m guessing you’ve already done some research on mildew and how to control it, but, on the off-chance that it would help, I did a little searching of my own, and found a page that recommended this and other methods of controlling mildew.

[Malte279]

Have you tried using silica gel, anhydrous calcium chloride, or other desiccants to help with your mildew problem?

I haven't used those so far. Reviews from forums about mildew problems seemed to be rather disappointed with them. Actually I did ask for such means in a building center, but they didn't have any of it at the time.
For a while I put out salt on plates resulting in big solid pieces of caked salt (I actually made some imprints of LBT figures in the salt on one plate so these imprints would be there after the salt caked together because of the air humidity ), but whatever humidity the salt took to cake it did not lower air humidity in my room.
For some days the weather was dryer resulting in the humidity staying under 70%. In the last days there has been more rain again. I borrowed an electric air dehumidifier from my dad but I rarely use it (only when no opened windows can get the humidity below 70%) because it gobbles up so much electricity.
However when I was in the building center I got plexiglass plates to replace the press board plates in the drawers under my bed (the worst source of the mildew) and got rid of the mildew catching press board. It does make me feel a lot better as the other mildew I have come across so far was only in tiny spots and only at an air humidity above 75% which hasn't been the case for a while now. I hope for the weather to get dryer again.
Thank you for your help Pangea. I really appreciate it

[Pangaea]

Thank you for your help Pangea. I really appreciate it

You're welcome. Good to hear things are a little better, and I hope they continue to improve.

Have you tried using silica gel, anhydrous calcium chloride, or other desiccants to help with your mildew problem?

I haven't used those so far. Reviews from forums about mildew problems seemed to be rather disappointed with them.

Disappointed in the desiccants' impact on humidity levels, or disappointed in their effect on the mildew itself? (You probably know this already, but I think the desiccants aren't supposed to get rid of the mildew so much as to dry out the air and make it easier to control the mold.)

Also, how badly has the mildew affected your books? Has there been any irreparable damage?

[Pangaea]

Bumping this thread with another question:

If you'll pardon another ice-fishing trip on Lake Superlative (and the fact that this question is kind of similar to one I have asked you before), what would you consider some of the most widespread or enduring historical myths or misconceptions?

[Malte279]

Also, how badly has the mildew affected your books? Has there been any irreparable damage?

Uh oh, I had totally overlooked that one before. Luckily there was no lasting or irreparable damage on the books.

what would you consider some of the most widespread or enduring historical myths or misconceptions?

Again I will dodge the superlative by just stating that the myths I would name are extremely common but I could not name one that would definitely be the most far spread. One can hardly test how far spread such a myth is and I also reckon that some myths may be very prominent in some regions while they would not be as well known in other regions of the world.
However, apart from the previously mentioned "horned helmes" of the vikings here is another very often heard myth: "In the middle ages people believed that the earth was flat and sailors were in the believe that they could drop from the earth if they came to close to the edge."
That claim is mostly nonsense from what we can tell from the sources. I say "mostly" because there have been a individuals who did believe in a flat earth, but those were few in comparison to the many who recognized the round shape of the earth (and this included members of the clergy such as Thomas of Aquin). Of course we don't have any sources from the huge majority of the medieval population who couldn't read or write and we don't know of course if a serf peasant who worked hard and was worried about producing enough food for his dues and his family wondered at all about the shape of the earth. Apart from written texts there are also such symbols as the globus cruciger which was used early in the middle ages already symbolizing the earth ball in the hands of a ruler. Funnily enough one of the most popular images that can be found in many school books as an example for the medieval view of the world was really made in 19th century (a time in which there were two kind of conflicting interpretations of the middle ages the one showing it as "romantic and unspoiled" the other showing it as "primitive and barbaric).
Speaking of barbaric, it is true that the middle ages knew extremely cruel and brutal punishments. However, such cruelty was certainly not invented in the middle ages and one would have a hard time trying to make a claim that with the end of the middle ages the cruelty decreased. Quite the contrary, the huge majority of the witch burnings and most of the cruelties executed by the inquisition (the institution was indeed founded in the middle ages) which are so often associated with the middle ages took place in the early modern age which arguably also saw an increase of religious fundamentalism that is so often linked to the middle ages.
Many of the historic misconceptions are not quite so well known, not quite so easy to to prove or disprove, or are simply a matter of debate that would take a very long time to settle. Often acts of propaganda have a very lasting effect on the image of history we have in mind. An example is the battle of Agincourt 1415 in which (thanks to Shakespeare) we believe the English were outnumbered 3 to 1 by the French but won mostly because of the superiority of their longbows. While nobody argues the fact that Agincourt was a huge victory for the English modern research of the carefully kept pay rolls suggest that in fact the ratio is likely to have been more like 1.5 to 1 for the French and there also is a likelihood that the effectiveness of the longbow (which in tests on the modern armor of 1415) failed to penetrate the same at the long distances that we tend to picture in our minds) was but only one factor that led to the French defeat.
Another battle which some historians said was likely to be more like a little skirmish on a beach rather than a Europe saving battle is the battle of Marathon. Some historians say that it was likely blown up by the Athenian propaganda who were in need of something to base their claims on leadership over their Spartan rivals on. I must admit though that I do not know the arguments on both sides and therefore cannot offer a competent opinion on this one.
Many "historic events" (usually the heroic ones) probably never happened or at least not in the way we assume they did. For example the charge of the Scots Grays in the battle of Waterloo which has been immortalized in many paintings (the most famous of which is often used as a cover for the board game "Risk") and also depicted in movies. It probably never happened in the way it is depicted. The popular image has the Scots Grays (cavalry) charge over a long distance into the French infantry with some soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders (infantry) clinging to the stirrups of the cavalry to be "carried into battle". The candy of the whole attack was that the imperial eagle of the 45. French regiment was taken in the charge. A regiment known as the "invincibles". That name however was never heard with reference to the said regiment and was apparently brought up by Sir Walter Scott (a man who generally wrote books that are very readable but tend to distort historical facts to a degree that is really painful to the academics ). However it was not just that minor detail of the name, but also the fact that at the time of the cavalry charge the opposing lines of infantry were barely 10 meters apart from each other. The charge cannot possibly have done in full speed gallop as it is usually depicted at that short distance. And the "heroic legend" of the Gordon Highlanders clinging to stirrups to be carried into battle (something I have seen on a picture in Edinburgh Castle) would have had dire consequences in the highly disciplined British military of the time. The fact that the soldiers in question would have had to face court martial for leaving battle line without order (a crime for which soldiers could actually be sentenced to death!) makes it rather unlikely, moreso even than the fact that one doesn't cling to stirrups of slow moving horses in the hope to cover a distance of some ten meters any faster...
Uhm... I notice I got totally of topic here. Most probably haven't ever heard of the Scots Grays any their charge at Waterloo, so this one definitely wouldn't be anywhere near that superlative you were asking for Pangea