A Post-Election Update (November 17th, 2024)

Hello everyone! I apologize again for my lack of recent posts. I am still devoting most of my available writing time to working on my novel, which is slowly, but surely, progressing. I am no longer confident that I will have a complete draft by the end of 2024 due to the amount of revising I have been doing, but I am still expecting to have a complete draft by sometime in early 2025. Regarding this blog, I have had a post about Netflix’s Kaos saved as a draft for months now, but I still haven’t finished it. I am also hoping to make posts about Gladiator II and The Return, which are both coming out in the next few weeks. I have also been seriously considering the idea of trying to start a YouTube channel for a while now, but I know very little about video editing, I’ve been focused on my novel, and I haven’t gotten around to it.

Like many Americans and others around the world, I am filled with despair over the results of the 2024 U.S. elections. I thought about writing posts about the election both before and after it happened, but I feel so burned out over modern politics right now that I couldn’t bring myself to write them. Even so, I want to let all my readers know that I am currently safe and, although I expect that the situation in the United States will become much worse over next four years, I believe that I will be personally relatively insulated from the worst of it.

Related to this, I would like to announce that I am planning to delete my Twitter account in the near future, partly because I don’t like Elon Musk making money off of me and partly because the site itself has become so toxic and completely overrun with pro-Trump ads, right-wing extremist and Neo-Nazi accounts, and AI and cryptocurrency grifters that it is virtually unusable. The vast majority of the people whose content I was actually interested in have already left. The good news for those who want to follow me on social media, though, is that I already have an account of BlueSky. My handle on that site is @spencermcdaniel.bsky.social. If you want to follow me on social media, you can follow me there.

In the meantime, I am still planning to apply to PhD programs for the third time next month. This time, I am going to apply to more programs than I did the first two times and hope that I will have better luck.

Author: Spencer McDaniel

I am a historian mainly interested in ancient Greek cultural and social history. Some of my main historical interests include ancient religion and myth; gender and sexuality; ethnicity; and interactions between Greeks and foreign cultures. I hold a BA in history and classical studies (Ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature), with departmental honors in history, from Indiana University Bloomington (May 2022) and an MA in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from Brandeis University (May 2024).

30 thoughts on “A Post-Election Update (November 17th, 2024)”

    1. Thanks! I’ll honestly admit that I’ve felt really lost and not nearly as confident in myself as I used to be (to the extent that I was ever really confident). Part of the reason why I haven’t written as much lately is because I’m working on the novel, but it’s also become harder for me to write whole blog posts for some reason. I don’t know if it’s just that I’ve fallen out of practice, that my standards have become higher, that I’ve just lost the confidence to finish posts and publish them, or that writing blog posts isn’t giving me the fulfillment that it used to. I’m hoping that, when I finish the novel, I’ll be able to return to writing or perhaps YouTube videos or some form of content creation rejuvenated.

      1. I think most of us have come to that moment— when it seems like a track we’ve followed passionately has come to completion. I suspect the next wave is coming; you just don’t know what it is yet.

      2. Still, I definitely hope this blog doesn’t die anytime soon, but even if it does, we’ll still be able to see you in other ways.

        1. I am planning to continue writing the blog or at least making content in some form. There are a few issues, however:

          1. Writing this blog takes an enormous amount of time. Back in 2020 and 2021 when I was making a new post every few days, I was only able to do that because I was spending nearly all my time when I wasn’t in class or working on schoolwork writing posts for this blog. I had basically no social life and no other hobbies. Even then, I wasn’t researching my posts nearly as carefully as I should have been; I relied heavily on surface-level knowledge of the ancient evidence and intuition to formulate a lot of my arguments, I didn’t always think my arguments through as thoroughly as I should have, and, in some cases, I accepted other people’s claims and arguments without exercising nearly the level of skepticism that I would exercise now. Writing all those posts would have taken vastly longer if I had researched them as carefully as I wish I had.

          2. My readership is small and unlikely to grow. Back when I was writing on Quora, I would write long, detailed answers there that received thousands of upvotes and then I would cross-post them to this blog, which helped to maximize my audience. Back then, the majority of my readers were on Quora. Since I left Quora, my audience has shrunk to only a small fraction of what it was, since most of the people who followed me on Quora never subscribed to this blog.

          3. Although I am making some money off this blog, in financial terms, it is not nearly enough to justify me spending the amount of time that I used to spend writing it. Moreover, the amount of money I am making is unlikely to grow significantly unless I change what I am doing in a big way. I have always written this blog because I enjoyed it and I still do enjoy it, but the amount of time it requires to write and publish regular articles is effectively equivalent to a full-time job without anything close to a full-time salary and it takes away time I could devote to other projects that I also enjoy (like the novel I’m writing).

          4. I used to think that writing posts about ancient history online could benefit my academic career by bringing me attention, but, by this point, I’ve realized that, although this blog has helped my academic career in some ways, it hasn’t helped me nearly as much as I hoped it might and it is not likely to help me much in the future, since most academics don’t perceive the kind of public-facing articles I write on this blog as “real” scholarship or as having any serious academic value. Many scholars see projects like this negatively as an irresponsible waste of time.

          5. I know that anything I publish online will be stolen and used to train chatbots and there is nothing I can really do to stop this, which makes me feel less inclined to share content online in the first place.

          6. I have personally lost a lot of the self-confidence I used to have and, as a result, it has become much more difficult for me to write than it used to be.

          7. Related to this, my overall worldview has become so much bleaker, more pessimistic, and more cynical over the past few years, it has become harder for me to care about issues I once cared deeply about, and I have stopped feeling like anything I write actually matters in the grand scheme of things.

          Part of the reason why I’ve been thinking about starting a YouTube channel is because it might be a way to expand my audience, since a lot more people are willing to watch or listen to a twenty-minute video about ancient history than read a long blog post containing the same information. I could also potentially make more money that way. A problem, though, is that I know very little about video editing, I have anxiety about recording myself, and I imagine that researching, writing, recording, and editing YouTube videos will take even longer than it takes to research and write a blog post.

          1. Could you have told people on Quora that you were leaving? I doubt it, not without getting your answers deleted. You do still crosspost to Reddit, though (I think)?

            I look forward to your novel, you getting a PhD, and the day when you publish your first peer-reviewed paper.

            About points 6 and 7, I urge you to stay strong. I have felt like nothing will ever stop Trump too, even here from Canada, but he probably wants left-wing people to give up. We can’t give him what he wants, though, so we must keep our perseverance and maybe even our optimism. (Are there any non-political reasons for points 6 and 7)?

          2. Trump’s reelection is only one of many factors that lie behind points six and seven above. Those points actually have more to do with events in my own life, which I have mostly not written about online and which I mostly don’t plan to write about. Not getting into a PhD program and being currently only marginally employed are part of the issue.

  2. I’m glad you are still plugging away on your writing and your education. All the other Black persons I know are talking seriously about emigration. It’s really worrying. I thought the Vietnam War was bad, but this looks as though it might be America’s biggest self-inflicted wound.

  3. I am a reader of your work and am located in Canada. We too sorrow for the state of affairs south of our border and are fearful that the contagion will spread up here too. Thank you for your post – it is heartening to hear a rational voice from time to time.

  4. As someone without a Twitter account (and who probably won’t create one), the site barely lets me do anything. The days of being able to freely search for posts and read through threads on Twitter without logging in are seemingly over. But seemingly not on Bluesky.

    Your previous article about the right-wing’s attack on LGBT people remains as relevant as ever.

    What would make you insulated from the stuff happening in the U.S.?

    In any case, keep working on your novel and applying for a PhD.

  5. I feel similar to you regarding modern politics, though of course I’m also less affected by the election as a non-American. Good for us to get another update, and good luck to you with your writing, public scholarship, and PhD application!

  6. Thanks for this update. As Denise said, it’s so good to hear a rational voice! I’ve enjoyed all your posts and can’t wait to hear more about the novel. Keep up your spirits and your good work.

  7. Dear Spencer,

    You may be the very best at understanding, translating and explaining ancient writings. Any university should be delighted to have you as a fellowship student. When I was a child 75 tears ago, I had a talent for chess, long eroded by now. My favorite chess book for instruction as distinguished from the entertainment of a collected of masterful games was MY SYSTEM by Aron Nimzovich. I remember only one piece of advice in his book that seemed strange to me 75 years ago: “Reinforce your strong points!”

    By now, I’ve learned that in domains other than chess, Nimzovich’s advice is sound. I have in my random collection of books one by E.A. Speiser called GENESIS, which translates and annotates the first book of the Bible. I’ll bet you could produce a book that goes beyond his, and perhaps produce the best translation of the Bible ever, with commentary to match. Just a thought.

    Best wishes,
    Danny

    1. Thanks, but the truth is that I’m not even close to “the very best at understanding, translating, or explaining” ancient texts. I’m moderately talented at this for a twenty-five-year-old with only a master’s degree, but I’m nothing compared to most professors or even many PhD students. I only seem extraordinary because I’ve written so much publicly online in a relatively accessible format. I’m sure that most professors could write blog posts that are more informative than mine and just as well-written if they wanted to. Academia, though, does not reward this kind of writing for the general public and most academics regard it as a waste of time.

      I do appreciate the advice you’ve taken from Nimzovich. It is very good advice.

      1. Your style reminds me a bit of Bart Ehrman’s. I really appreciate how you both make important ideas accessible without condescension. I hope there will always be writers and thinkers like you who are willing to share their knowledge in such an interesting and satisfying way.

        1. I read a bunch of Ehrman’s books when I was a teenager and they definitely shaped my style significantly.

          I do plan to continue writing content for general audiences, but I’m still figuring out in what form I’m going to do it. Right now, I’m focusing on this novel.

    1. Thanks! I hope that the next four years will not be as terrible as I expect them to be, but I’m not very hopeful. The world is awful and it’s only getting worse right now.

  9. Hello Spencer,

    Happy to read you are carrying on, resilient as usual. I share your frustration with US elections. Those that voted the way they did, have not seen anything yet. They will come to regret.

    I wish to get in touch with you concerning a book that I am writing. I wish to have some advice. May I please have an email where you could be reached?

    Thank you.
    Best wishes,
    Panos

    1. I don’t share my email publicly because I don’t want random people to be able to send me spam or harassment, but I have your email from your comment here and I can send you an email if you would like me to. If I do, then I would ask that you please do not share my email with anyone.

  10. Excited by the thought that you might start a Youtube channel! I think the time you’ve spent not only writing this blog but also answering questions on Quora and AskHistorians have given you most of the skills necessary to make really informative and engaging videos.

  11. Oh!
    I have only now noticed your new post, and I must say that I am quite happy of having an update from you, though of course we are also having some contact with you through Bluesky.
    I am also extremely sorry about the deplorable situation in America, and I must say that I immediately thought about you when it all happened. I am happy to know you are doing relatively well, and I commend you for leaving the elongated muskrat’s domain – not that there is much left to do there…

  12. Well, I don’t share your political views, and I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe for the next four years–unless you move to the Mideast, Ukraine, Afghanistan, or one of the other places that have gotten much more unpleasant over the past four years.

    Of course, being safe is not the same as getting into grad school. The election doesn’t affect that issue. “How small, of all that human hearts endure,/The part which kings or laws can cause or cure.”

    1. “Unpleasant” is how you describe what is happening in the Mideast, Ukraine and Afghanistan and other war torn places? Breathtakingly, staggeringly insensitive. Shame on you.

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