Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.

Tag: history

The Day the Music Burned

“The vault fire was not, as UMG suggested, a minor mishap, a matter of a few tapes stuck in a musty warehouse. It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business.” #link

Pop culture today is obsessed with the battle between good and evil. Traditional folktales never were. What changed?

“Good guy/bad guy narratives might not possess any moral sophistication, but they do promote social stability, and they’re useful for getting people to sign up for armies and fight in wars with other nations. Their values feel like morality, and the association with folklore and mythology lends them a patina of legitimacy, but still, they don’t arise from a moral vision. They are rooted instead in a political vision, which is why they don’t help us deliberate, or think more deeply about the meanings of our actions. Like the original Grimm stories, they’re a political tool designed to bind nations together.” [c/o LinkMachineGo] #link

What do Irish people consider their date of independence?

1916 is when independence was declared. When was it achieved? Arguably, as a society, we’re not quite there yet. I think back to history class in school, reading about how Irish unionists dismissed Parnell with the slogan ‘Home rule is Rome rule’; sectarianism aside, they were right. #link

History (1453–2001)

On a related note to my last post, here’s Mishaal Al Gergawi’s digest of what he learned from reading modern history. (The thing he notes about people from a distance being less compromising rings true for me, as an Irish person who sees Irish-Americans venerate the Republican armed movement without ever having to face the consequences up close.) #link

Bill Wurtz covers the history of the entire world in under 20 minutes. [c/o Kottke.org] #video