I haven’t read an enormous number of academic papers before, but this was easily the most entertaining read of them all. Of course, I don’t want to suggest that it favoured entertainment over information, because it’s a well researched and informative piece of writing – there’s just something very satisfying about seeing the hateful perspectives of regressive people unravelled and debunked.
People who subscribe to far-right political beliefs always seem to point to history and say “Well, we had those same beliefs hundreds of years ago, it’s arrogant to think new so-called progressive perspective should supplant them” but so often, this is done with a misunderstanding, or intentional misrepresentation of how the actual history played out. Rory does an excellent job of highlighting some modern examples of this.
There are modern far-right groups who claim to be continuations of medieval military orders, perhaps in an attempt to make themselves seem more prestigious or respectable, but who are really entirely unrelated and tend not to even follow the same ideologies. The most embarrassing thing that Rory highlights is the fact that in a lot of cases, there’s evidence that the actual, historical medieval orders had a more progressive attitudes towards women, or people of other races.
Not only does it do a good job of highlight these groups’ ignorance (or dishonesty), but it’s a good reminder that history is rarely as simple as people try to make it out to be – and those who do so are usually doing so with an agenda. Overall, it was a really interesting piece of writing and I enjoyed reading it.
Rating: 8.7/10
