Someone told me these were lost stone working techniques when I visited. This makes so much more sense! The rocks are so large and smooth and fit together so perfectly, it is arrestingly beautiful.
I hate these types of claim. We know roughly what techniques could have been used. The mystery is maybe in why they went to such a great amount of effort. These buildings would have required many decades to construct and involved thousands of workers.
Yeah, it's a bit like claims that "we don't know how they built the pyramids" and such. There are multiple competing theories. The fact that we don't know, for certain, exactly which one matches what was done thousands of years ago doesn't mean the technique has been "lost." There's no engineering mystery here, just a gap in historical knowledge.
How the stones of the pyramids were worked is no great mystery. The interesting part is how they were lifted into place. The external-spiral-ramp and one-long-ramp theories both seem extremely unlikely. Internal-ramp seems plausible but isn't yet mainstream.
Since Machu Picchu has been at least partially restored up to an arbitrary level of "ruin-ness", I wonder how much of this impression is due to that vs. the original construction.
I have the impression that the place has been optimizing for maximum tourism, not preservation, for some time now.
Visited there a few years ago. Our guide explained to us that the indentations in the walls, that are like windows that only go halfway through the wall, were earthquake proofing technology. He said it dampened the propagation of shock waves through the rock wall to avoid catastrophic damage. Pretty cool stuff.
It’s an incredible place, I wish everyone could go see it with their own eyes, like so many things out there. Sad to see the note of over tourism at the end, and the plans for a new airport.
The road less traveled has always appealed to me, but by traveling those roads, I kind of ruin what I like the most. Don’t know how to reconcile that. Like, I loved hearing how the town at the base of Macchu Picchu only allowed bringing in supplies by horse to restrict the development to a reasonable pace. (At least at first–now there’s a train.)
But, in the interest of that road less traveled, I’ll throw out a recommendation for the Salkantay trek to get there from Cuzco. It approaches it from the opposite side than the Inca trail. You’ll get less ruins on the way there, but the villages and wilderness were outstanding, not to mention Mt Salkantay.
The pass by Mt Salkantay was just over 15K ft at the highest point. I’d been training in Colorado so didn’t get sick, but definitely felt it! One person in our group did get a bit sick, our guide had him huff some kind of tincture. The coca candies/tea helped a bit as well.
Edit to add: the first day in Cuzco is pretty rough though, spent all day lounging and napping. It’s around 11K ft.
I visited in December 2017 and was worried about altitude sickness, but was quite rushed the days before the trip and didn’t have a chance to get sickness pills from my doctor.
I personally didn’t feel any symptoms, and neither did my friends. We’re all active and healthy people in their 20s.
The only real impact was reaching a shortness of breath much more quickly: hiking and such was certainly a lot more difficult than I’m used to at sea level. I had the same type of experience ski touring in Colorado; never really feeling satiated from breathing during vigorous activity.
Once, in a car, we were passing a mountain and the road was zigzag, going up and then down on the other side...definitely felt blood pressure changing. My ears were popping, I guess were moving too fast for the body to adjust. Everyone had the same symptoms, so I felt better :)
I didn't, but by the time I visited Machu Picchu I had already spent a couple of weeks at altitude, including climbing a 6,000 m summit.
Altitude sickness is a weird one, I'm a smoker and don't exercise, yet I was affected less than my friends who were all non-smokers and exercise regularly.
I found that we were not affected by it at all, apart from occasionally out of nowhere just needing to take a really deep breath every now and then. This would be at really odd moments where I was not really exerting myself - e.g. sitting at the dinner table. We still drunk the cocotea etc though for the "authentic" experience! For what it was worth, we were not especially fit and a bit overweight at the time.
We spent a few days in Cuzco taking it easy to acclimatise. We were more worried about getting sick from taking showers or drinking local water than the altitude. There is some cool blockwork to see in Cuzco too (although it is quite a steep walk up to the citadel)
The only thing that made me sick was the anti-altitude medication. That stuff is nasty.
Oh, sure, I got exhausted crossing the Dead Woman's Pass but considering I had just walked up the side of a mountain, that's not so surprising. A week in Arequipa and a week in Cusco before trekking to Machu Picchu is enough to acclimatize your body. If you fly in and take the tourist bus to the snapchat opportunity, things might be different.
One thing I'll assert is that a couple of weeks later I ran my best ever time in a road race.
I spent a night in an altitude sickness clinic in Cusco on my way there! When we’d arrived (I was traveling with a large group for my friend’s wedding) we had some tours planned. They tell you not to hike, not to eat a big meal, and not to drink alcohol. So of course most of us did all three.
I’ve never had problems before even at similar altitudes, but my O2 sat got down to nearly 80 by the time I was put in the ambulance. It wasn’t pleasant.
But, a night hooked up to oxygen and I was fine. The hospital mostly catered to people with altitude sickness (even the locals get it, and it is seemingly random in who gets it and when) and was nicer than my hotel.
I got an ambulance ride there and a night in the hospital. They made me sign a waiver saying I agreed to pay it no matter the cost, and I was thinking about how many organs I’d have to sell to pay for it. Final price: $130. The place was cheaper and nicer than my hotel, and with decent meals and all the oxygen you can huff, so next time I’ll just book it.
Edit: one piece of advice. If you’re going to somewhere with that altitude, get a cheap pulse oxymeter on Amazon first! The hotels don’t have them.
We went to Machu Picchu around 10 years back, and as I'm slightly asthmatic I was a bit worried about the altitude sickness.
I'd read beforehand than coca leaves help prevent it, and made sure I drank lots of coca tea during our time there.
I don't know if it was the coca, but I barely felt the effects of altitude. We even went up the mountain beside the ruins (Huayna Picchu?), and it was no problem at all (at the time I was of medium build, but not particularly fit).
Cocoa tea tastes quite nice anyway, and the locals swear by the stuff - I recommend it.
On Salkantay (which can be a luxury trip, the facilities are first-rate), you start at Cuzco for a day or two which is a higher elevation than MP. But the pass is ~15k, which takes a few days to hike to on the trail.
Getting over the pass was still a major chore for many in our group. The last 1k uphill was walking 100' and taking a minute break. People who raced up or down got sick.
For anyone contemplating going, it’s worth visiting a doctor for a script to get acetazolamide (trade name Diamox).
Heed the advice to eat very little and avoid/reduce alcohol. The number of people we saw ruin their holiday for the sake of a big meal and a couple of beers.
Wikipedia says Machu Pichu is only 2,400 meters / 7,900 feet altitude? That's not that high.
I mean, sure, try to acclimate somewhere if you're coming in from sea level, but much of Colorado is at that elevation, and the peaks are above 14,000 feet. Traveling to ski at Telluride is more elevation.
The issue is probably not Machu Picchu, but the arrival to Cuzco (which is where most people travel to Machu Picchu from).
Cuzco is at ~11,000 ft, and most people arrive via a short flight from Lima, which is at sea level. So you do gain a bit of altitude in a pretty short amount of time.
That's right. Before I went, I spent at least a 18 months hiking trails in Colorado with similar profiles to the one we'd do on the 1 day Inca trail which led to a 2nd day at MP. I also ski a decent amount every year here in CO.
I can say with certainty that it wasn't enough to keep up with our Inca guide or even to tackle the hike with no complaints. While I'm sure it helped considerably to prepare for months ahead of time, I personally feel that there's some other unquantified difference between here and there that makes it just a bit harder. But try it and let me know if it was just a walk in the park. Just don't drink the coca tea the night before you start your hike like I foolishly did.
We also did hyanu piccu, which is absolutely amazing and an additional hike that is like a sprint at the end of a difficult race. It doesn't take long, but at the very least can give you a great carido workout.
I take this to mean that you can actually go visit the site shown in the photo? The only pictures I recall ever seeing of Machu Picchu have been the ones overlooking it from far away (like in the article). For some reason I thought normal people couldn't get much closer than that.
Yes, you can walk through most of the ruins. A few were roped off for restoration/excavation.
You can also climb up Huayna Picchu, the tall, sharp spire that sits behind the ruins from the classic vantage point. There are ruins at the top too, and you feel like you're floating in the sky.
You can and it is sort of a tourist trap.
It is quite expensive to get there and not super easy and despite this when you get there you end up being one of the couple of thousands people visiting it every day.
It felt way more people were there when I was visiting...
The closest villages are setup for tourism, hotels, restaurants all over the place, ugly buildings built just for the purpose (often unfinished) in an otherwise beautiful valley.
I am aware I was one among many but I wish the Peruvian government would regulate an protect more the site.
I am guessing now it is the moment to go there though...
The photos of Machu Picchu from above are pretty iconic, but yes, you can wander around the ruins too. We went around 10 years ago and the atmosphere in the ruins was amazing, you could almost feel the history of the place. Also, there were lots of alpacas roaming the ruins too - someone mentioned they helped keep the grass short!
The landscape and far away shots are more iconic, but you can absolutely get closer and see the ruins. They were forcing one-way traffic for tourists within the ruins and there are some restricted areas when I was there last year.
If you do decide to go, you should consider the Inca Trail, which (historically) has sold out ~6mo in advance as the govt limits # of people on the trail. We were among the first people to enter the ruins in the early AM and we had the place to ourselves briefly.
The place was overrun with tourists within an hour and it was quite jarring after being able to enjoy the peace and beauty of the mountains for a few days. The journey to get to Machu Picchu was better than just visting the ruins alone, imo.
Did you know the way that we commonly interpret this poem is actually the opposite of how Frost intended it? The article I quote below makes the assertion that this poem is one of the most popular yet misunderstood poem of all time:
"This is the most remarkable thing about “The Road Not Taken”—not its immense popularity (which is remarkable enough), but the fact that it is popular for what seem to be the wrong reasons.
Most widely celebrated artistic projects are known for being essentially what they purport to be. [...] When we read Joyce’s Ulysses, we correctly assume that it’s a complex story about a journey around Dublin as filtered through many voices and styles. A cultural offering may be simple or complex, cooked or raw, but its audience nearly always knows what kind of dish is being served.
Frost’s poem turns this expectation on its head. Most readers consider “The Road Not Taken” to be a paean to triumphant self-assertion (“I took the one less traveled by”), but the literal meaning of the poem’s own lines seems completely at odds with this interpretation. The poem’s speaker tells us he “shall be telling,” at some point in the future, of how he took the road less traveled by, yet he has already admitted that the two paths “equally lay / In leaves” and “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.
According to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance).
The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. “The Road Not Taken” may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, “the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But we could go further: It may be the best example in all of American culture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing." [1]
I'm not sure how widespread the agreement about the alternate interpretation is. (I've never seen anything where Frost himself stated how he intended the poem to be taken.) But I've always tended to believe it since hearing it from an English professor of mine back in school.
"Frost wrote the poem to tease his chronically indecisive friend, Edward Thomas, who misinterpreted the meaning and enlisted in the military shortly thereafter, only to be killed two years later in WWI."
"Asked by Richard Poirier about Thomas (in an interview conducted in 1960, i.e. fortythree years after Thomas’ death), Frost said they found fellowship in isolation and in their “instinct against belonging” to literary crowds, specifically the one centered on Ezra Pound, a devil’s name to conjure with in 1960. This included, which is a fact of relevance here, T.E. Hulme, about whom Frost was carefully, cagily, discreet [Poirier et al 876; the passage is quoted in Orr, 153-54]. We know also from letters in the early-1920s that Frost was ambivalent about Siegfried Sassoon – Louis Untermeyer, for example, irritated him by his lauding of Sassoon and dispraise of Thomas. Hulme and Sassoon were of the Tory landowner type Frost considered the worst of Englishmen, but both displayed unusual bravery. In Sassoon this was linked very publicly with his determination to give the lie to traditional structures of English authority. This was another world Thomas, an inveterate tracer of the lines and demarcations of rural England, haunted the margins of; these were standards by which he could feel himself judged and Frost likely could not help but judge him. To make a decision like Thomas’ decision to enlist is to ‘prove’ in a double sense: to elect to undergo trials in which one’s metal will be tested; and to assert an identity that, the trial not undertaken, will continue to be frayed by self-recrimination and regret. After Thomas’ death Frost, grieving, denied that he had had a hand in it. I believe he was being disingenuous, albeit in circumstances that make me not want to press the case further than I have pressed it here."
> The road less traveled has always appealed to me, but by traveling those roads, I kind of ruin what I like the most. Don’t know how to reconcile that.
Perhaps by instituting hard caps on the number of visitors while selecting visitors via a lottery system or by making the sites more accessible remotely.
Or by going to less famous places. The world is big, there is lots to see, and frankly the “top destinations” are mostly miserable to visit because of the crowds.
Very true. Antelope canyon in NM is one of the worst I’ve seen. Totally crammed with people and you have to move through it quickly. There are many like it around the area, but they don’t have the little tourism setup to drive you there etc. There is also the concern of people going to them without understanding you can die in flash floods.
But you are right, there is so much to see. Part of appreciating it all is a matter of your own perspective,, not just because it’s where everyone else goes.
Machi Picchu was one of the few items on my world travels bucket list that was actually more spectacular and awe-inspiring than expected. Many famous landmarks are nice but kinda just ok when you are up close. Machi Picchu is a whole other category. The trip to get there is a journey itself whether you trek or take the scenic train from Cusco.
I tell all my friends that if they only go to one major world landmark before they die, Machu Picchu is a good choice.
I have the same experience and I was there twice... Didnt get less epic. I recommend Peru, Equator and Bolivia to everyone I meet... I also recommend Iguazu, it is not human made but not less epic than M.P.
I lived in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia for like 6 months each. I've lived in or visited over 100 countries so far and those are still in my top 10 favorites.
I travelled through the Andes, Amazon rainforest etc... and while it was amazing overall, I wasn't impressed with Machu Pichu. There are way older and better built things all over Asia and Europe.
I haven't seen as much as you, I'm sure, but I did like MP more than Angkor Wat. They are roughly the same timeframe but MP felt like AW done with Expert Mode turned on and at altitude. Would love to hear a couple from your list that I might consider.
The train ride is great, and if you manage to get the seats at the front of the train, it's absolutely incredible, as the front carriage has a full height glass window.
We booked the train a year in advance to make sure (yes, you need to if you want the best seats!), and the seemingly impossible trip through dense jungle was truely amazing. Highly recommended trying to book it well in advance!
It would be interesting if the mountain that Machu Picchu was built on -- was actually a Pyramid or some other man-made structure at one point in time in earlier history, and if so, if there are possibly any artifacts buried deep underneath...
> “It would be impossible to build such a site in the high mountains if the substrate was not fractured."
No, that's not what you have demonstrated. Because A is much more likely than B, doesn't mean B is impossible. Maybe I'm pedantic here but I feel this logical fallacy undermines the quality of the researcher's arguments.
Sorry, did not mean to discredit. What I meant was: The researcher did all this work to build up a chain of arguments to support their hypothesis and then basically says "every other hypothesis is impossible."
>> It was discovered by western science in 1911, when Yale professor Hiram Bingham III was tipped off to its existence by locals and led to the site, then overgrown with vegetation.
So... it wasn’t “discovered” by western science if it was known to locals all along... why not simply state that western scientist learned or were aided by locals into the site?
Hyperbole. The right’s favorite pass time. Also, thinking their grasp of the English language is great. Ie trump being a perfect example.
This is about language though. Eurocentrism is about making everything relative to what the west thinks, even when it’s “understanding” is very limited. Like going to explore other cultures and reporting back with authority when there’s plenty of local expertise that should be sourced.
Take the theory of decline of the Ottoman Empire as an example to this type of anti-intellectualism, but there so many mistakes to learn from.
The particular sentence in the article is only slightly uncommon in terms of difficulty, so I don't really see how I've implied that my English is 'great'. Passable, maybe. We might have different standards.
Nice high-brow segue from "you're obviously a Trump supporter" to "civilisation is in decline due to anti-intellectualism", though. Hint: I'm British. Talk about ethnocentrism.
I'm not really sure how I can constructively help you with the sentence in question without literally parsing the tokens for you and identifying the parts of speech, objects, subjects, etc. Seems like that would be a waste of time, given you've already arrived at your own immutable conclusions.
>> civilisation is in decline due to anti-intellectualism
clearly you have no idea what is the Ottoman decline paradigm, nor why this reference was used in this context. I can only quote you: "I'm not really sure how I can constructively help you"... maybe google?
In this case the journalist clearly meant "western science" was slow on the uptake and needed locals to point them on the way...and as late as 1911 at that!
Hardly. We don't often use Chinese words in English regardless of the context, presumably because English speakers find the terms difficult to remember or hard to pronounce.
Chinese does exactly the same thing. I mean, is 盲文 [1] 'yellow' (euch--your terminology) washing? It meets the same standard.
And how about China claiming to have invented high-speed rail, mobile payments and ecommerce? [2] No cries of racism for that one? Strange.
There are many parallel examples.
Edit:
[1] 盲文 lit. blind language aka Braille in English, after its creator.
What? I don't read Chinese but Google translate tells me that 盲文 is Braille, and individually it breaks down to "Blind text".
The same standard would be if China took the word "Braille" and then in Chinese, it is named after the first Chinese person who read Braille.
If you think English speakers have an easy time saying "Siraitia grosvenorii", the scientific name, named after the "discover" Grosvenor, then you have some serious delusions.
Well, it certainly wasn't a bunch of guys with spears living in huts that put men on the moon - - go figure. Those with superior brains deserve the recognition and the spoils.
"Today, it faces very modern threats including overtourism, a problem that will only be exasperated by plans for a new airport in the region."
...I don't think that's what "exasperated" means. The author may have been exasperated that the problem is likely to be exacerbated by the building of the airport, though.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadI have the impression that the place has been optimizing for maximum tourism, not preservation, for some time now.
It’s an incredible place, I wish everyone could go see it with their own eyes, like so many things out there. Sad to see the note of over tourism at the end, and the plans for a new airport.
The road less traveled has always appealed to me, but by traveling those roads, I kind of ruin what I like the most. Don’t know how to reconcile that. Like, I loved hearing how the town at the base of Macchu Picchu only allowed bringing in supplies by horse to restrict the development to a reasonable pace. (At least at first–now there’s a train.)
But, in the interest of that road less traveled, I’ll throw out a recommendation for the Salkantay trek to get there from Cuzco. It approaches it from the opposite side than the Inca trail. You’ll get less ruins on the way there, but the villages and wilderness were outstanding, not to mention Mt Salkantay.
Edit to add: the first day in Cuzco is pretty rough though, spent all day lounging and napping. It’s around 11K ft.
I personally didn’t feel any symptoms, and neither did my friends. We’re all active and healthy people in their 20s.
The only real impact was reaching a shortness of breath much more quickly: hiking and such was certainly a lot more difficult than I’m used to at sea level. I had the same type of experience ski touring in Colorado; never really feeling satiated from breathing during vigorous activity.
Altitude sickness is a weird one, I'm a smoker and don't exercise, yet I was affected less than my friends who were all non-smokers and exercise regularly.
Not that I would suggest taking up smoking to go on a mountain hike.
We spent a few days in Cuzco taking it easy to acclimatise. We were more worried about getting sick from taking showers or drinking local water than the altitude. There is some cool blockwork to see in Cuzco too (although it is quite a steep walk up to the citadel)
Oh, sure, I got exhausted crossing the Dead Woman's Pass but considering I had just walked up the side of a mountain, that's not so surprising. A week in Arequipa and a week in Cusco before trekking to Machu Picchu is enough to acclimatize your body. If you fly in and take the tourist bus to the snapchat opportunity, things might be different.
One thing I'll assert is that a couple of weeks later I ran my best ever time in a road race.
I’ve never had problems before even at similar altitudes, but my O2 sat got down to nearly 80 by the time I was put in the ambulance. It wasn’t pleasant.
But, a night hooked up to oxygen and I was fine. The hospital mostly catered to people with altitude sickness (even the locals get it, and it is seemingly random in who gets it and when) and was nicer than my hotel.
I got an ambulance ride there and a night in the hospital. They made me sign a waiver saying I agreed to pay it no matter the cost, and I was thinking about how many organs I’d have to sell to pay for it. Final price: $130. The place was cheaper and nicer than my hotel, and with decent meals and all the oxygen you can huff, so next time I’ll just book it.
Edit: one piece of advice. If you’re going to somewhere with that altitude, get a cheap pulse oxymeter on Amazon first! The hotels don’t have them.
I'd read beforehand than coca leaves help prevent it, and made sure I drank lots of coca tea during our time there.
I don't know if it was the coca, but I barely felt the effects of altitude. We even went up the mountain beside the ruins (Huayna Picchu?), and it was no problem at all (at the time I was of medium build, but not particularly fit).
Cocoa tea tastes quite nice anyway, and the locals swear by the stuff - I recommend it.
Getting over the pass was still a major chore for many in our group. The last 1k uphill was walking 100' and taking a minute break. People who raced up or down got sick.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetazolamide
I mean, sure, try to acclimate somewhere if you're coming in from sea level, but much of Colorado is at that elevation, and the peaks are above 14,000 feet. Traveling to ski at Telluride is more elevation.
Cuzco is at ~11,000 ft, and most people arrive via a short flight from Lima, which is at sea level. So you do gain a bit of altitude in a pretty short amount of time.
I can say with certainty that it wasn't enough to keep up with our Inca guide or even to tackle the hike with no complaints. While I'm sure it helped considerably to prepare for months ahead of time, I personally feel that there's some other unquantified difference between here and there that makes it just a bit harder. But try it and let me know if it was just a walk in the park. Just don't drink the coca tea the night before you start your hike like I foolishly did.
We also did hyanu piccu, which is absolutely amazing and an additional hike that is like a sprint at the end of a difficult race. It doesn't take long, but at the very least can give you a great carido workout.
You can also climb up Huayna Picchu, the tall, sharp spire that sits behind the ruins from the classic vantage point. There are ruins at the top too, and you feel like you're floating in the sky.
The closest villages are setup for tourism, hotels, restaurants all over the place, ugly buildings built just for the purpose (often unfinished) in an otherwise beautiful valley.
I am aware I was one among many but I wish the Peruvian government would regulate an protect more the site.
I am guessing now it is the moment to go there though...
I don't see how it's a tourist trap. It's definitely hard to get there but it's completely worth it. I literally cried when I got there.
Go to a lot of the museums and sites near Cusco before going there, they are great and you learn the imperial history.
If you do decide to go, you should consider the Inca Trail, which (historically) has sold out ~6mo in advance as the govt limits # of people on the trail. We were among the first people to enter the ruins in the early AM and we had the place to ourselves briefly.
The place was overrun with tourists within an hour and it was quite jarring after being able to enjoy the peace and beauty of the mountains for a few days. The journey to get to Machu Picchu was better than just visting the ruins alone, imo.
Did you know the way that we commonly interpret this poem is actually the opposite of how Frost intended it? The article I quote below makes the assertion that this poem is one of the most popular yet misunderstood poem of all time:
"This is the most remarkable thing about “The Road Not Taken”—not its immense popularity (which is remarkable enough), but the fact that it is popular for what seem to be the wrong reasons.
Most widely celebrated artistic projects are known for being essentially what they purport to be. [...] When we read Joyce’s Ulysses, we correctly assume that it’s a complex story about a journey around Dublin as filtered through many voices and styles. A cultural offering may be simple or complex, cooked or raw, but its audience nearly always knows what kind of dish is being served.
Frost’s poem turns this expectation on its head. Most readers consider “The Road Not Taken” to be a paean to triumphant self-assertion (“I took the one less traveled by”), but the literal meaning of the poem’s own lines seems completely at odds with this interpretation. The poem’s speaker tells us he “shall be telling,” at some point in the future, of how he took the road less traveled by, yet he has already admitted that the two paths “equally lay / In leaves” and “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.
According to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance).
The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. “The Road Not Taken” may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, “the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But we could go further: It may be the best example in all of American culture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing." [1]
[1] https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misr...
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/555959/robert-frost-...
--
"Asked by Richard Poirier about Thomas (in an interview conducted in 1960, i.e. fortythree years after Thomas’ death), Frost said they found fellowship in isolation and in their “instinct against belonging” to literary crowds, specifically the one centered on Ezra Pound, a devil’s name to conjure with in 1960. This included, which is a fact of relevance here, T.E. Hulme, about whom Frost was carefully, cagily, discreet [Poirier et al 876; the passage is quoted in Orr, 153-54]. We know also from letters in the early-1920s that Frost was ambivalent about Siegfried Sassoon – Louis Untermeyer, for example, irritated him by his lauding of Sassoon and dispraise of Thomas. Hulme and Sassoon were of the Tory landowner type Frost considered the worst of Englishmen, but both displayed unusual bravery. In Sassoon this was linked very publicly with his determination to give the lie to traditional structures of English authority. This was another world Thomas, an inveterate tracer of the lines and demarcations of rural England, haunted the margins of; these were standards by which he could feel himself judged and Frost likely could not help but judge him. To make a decision like Thomas’ decision to enlist is to ‘prove’ in a double sense: to elect to undergo trials in which one’s metal will be tested; and to assert an identity that, the trial not undertaken, will continue to be frayed by self-recrimination and regret. After Thomas’ death Frost, grieving, denied that he had had a hand in it. I believe he was being disingenuous, albeit in circumstances that make me not want to press the case further than I have pressed it here."
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/83078845.pdf
Perhaps by instituting hard caps on the number of visitors while selecting visitors via a lottery system or by making the sites more accessible remotely.
But you are right, there is so much to see. Part of appreciating it all is a matter of your own perspective,, not just because it’s where everyone else goes.
I tell all my friends that if they only go to one major world landmark before they die, Machu Picchu is a good choice.
Your opinion is valid but in this case because isolated societies developed independently, the “oldness” is somehow relative.
My opinion is that MP exceeded my expecations. So did Taj Majal. It’s just something in our personalities.
We booked the train a year in advance to make sure (yes, you need to if you want the best seats!), and the seemingly impossible trip through dense jungle was truely amazing. Highly recommended trying to book it well in advance!
No, that's not what you have demonstrated. Because A is much more likely than B, doesn't mean B is impossible. Maybe I'm pedantic here but I feel this logical fallacy undermines the quality of the researcher's arguments.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10111087-turn-right-at-m...
So... it wasn’t “discovered” by western science if it was known to locals all along... why not simply state that western scientist learned or were aided by locals into the site?
This is about language though. Eurocentrism is about making everything relative to what the west thinks, even when it’s “understanding” is very limited. Like going to explore other cultures and reporting back with authority when there’s plenty of local expertise that should be sourced.
Take the theory of decline of the Ottoman Empire as an example to this type of anti-intellectualism, but there so many mistakes to learn from.
Nice high-brow segue from "you're obviously a Trump supporter" to "civilisation is in decline due to anti-intellectualism", though. Hint: I'm British. Talk about ethnocentrism.
I'm not really sure how I can constructively help you with the sentence in question without literally parsing the tokens for you and identifying the parts of speech, objects, subjects, etc. Seems like that would be a waste of time, given you've already arrived at your own immutable conclusions.
clearly you have no idea what is the Ottoman decline paradigm, nor why this reference was used in this context. I can only quote you: "I'm not really sure how I can constructively help you"... maybe google?
Take for example the Monk Fruit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siraitia_grosvenorii
Known in China...but scientific name attributed to the westerner who "found it" in the 1930s.
It's very common if you are cognizant of it.
Chinese does exactly the same thing. I mean, is 盲文 [1] 'yellow' (euch--your terminology) washing? It meets the same standard.
And how about China claiming to have invented high-speed rail, mobile payments and ecommerce? [2] No cries of racism for that one? Strange.
There are many parallel examples.
Edit:
[1] 盲文 lit. blind language aka Braille in English, after its creator.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_new_inventions
The same standard would be if China took the word "Braille" and then in Chinese, it is named after the first Chinese person who read Braille.
If you think English speakers have an easy time saying "Siraitia grosvenorii", the scientific name, named after the "discover" Grosvenor, then you have some serious delusions.
If it was well-known to academics or other notable groups of non-locals inside the country then "discovered" would be less appropriate.
https://youtu.be/BWeFHddWL1Y
And then NPR Columbused Columbusing with this article:
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/06/328466757...
(This was an early example of the race-based cultural wars that have gotten huge on Twitter in the past few years.)
http://multimidia.ufrgs.br/conteudo/frontdaciencia/Fronteira...
...I don't think that's what "exasperated" means. The author may have been exasperated that the problem is likely to be exacerbated by the building of the airport, though.