[Civitate] Kritias (Patron: Abdülmecid I)

[Abdülmecid I]

Fellow citizens of the Curia,

Firstly, I would like to thank mishkin for reminding me of how much this specific candidate deserves to be given the citizenship for his exceptional contributions in the D&D fora. In what concerns the subject of the thread, Kritias, I personally consider him to be one of the most active qualitative contributions in matters of politics, history and even morality. He initially came to my attention approximately one year ago, during the heated discussions over the Macedonia Name Dispute. Kritias made a very positive impression, thanks to his maturity, serenity, sophistication and particularly interesting answers, always supported by coherent and convincing arguments often referring to certain perspectives I had not even imagined.

Kritias himself presents a very comprehensive list of his older and more recent contributions, so here I will only cite his latest thread, which examines the relationship between Orwell's 1984 and current right-wing narratives. It accurately demonstrates the scholarly level of Kritias, his reliance on solid arguments and duly referenced serious articles and his ability to resist against the temptation of a hostile flame-war. Especially in what concerns the latter, you can see how Kritias, in the discussion about Portland (linked by the candidate below), refuses to respond in kind towards clearly bad-faith debating and passive-aggressive trolling. On the contrary, Kritias' comments offer the site a sorely needed breath of fresh air, by increasing the quality of the debate and adding some new variety to a place somewhat marked by reactionarism and extremism. Therefore, I believe that Kritias' contributions to the political-historical section of the forum, as well as his older writings, match and surpass the requirements expected from the Civitates, which is why I confidently propose him for the citizenship.

Applicant's Paragraph

Dear citizens of TWC,

I’ve been a member here on the total war center since 2007 when I registered to lurk and download the impressive mods already underway. I remember I was completely fascinated by mods such as Hegemonia where upon its first release I tried an ambitious but ultimately failed AAR [here]. The majority of my time here was otherwise spent confined in a very small but very dynamic part of TWC, the play-by-post RPGs. Along other members such as Winter, Marie Louise von Preussen and We shall fwee…Wode to name but a few we built, moderated and enjoyed the long-running ‘You Are the Senate’ RPG in, my case, some of its many iterations [here]. During that time I was also offered the citizenship for the first time but due to my otherwise non-existing contributions to the site I was wisely told to expand my efforts to encompass the mainstream of the site and try again.

My main foray to the Discussion and Debate fora begun roughly a year ago following a hiatus and many on & off periods. My deep interest on the Balkan Powerkeg’s politics was my initial provocation when I saw a series of threads popping up with the intention of reviving Balkan irredentism and general tribalistic exhibitions [here, here]. Aside from my frequent interventions in the pit [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], I also have enjoyed immensely threads in the political academy [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], mores and monastica [1] and vestigia vetustatis [1, 2, 3]. My interests revolve around 19^th century national identity formation, the history of the Balkan states and mainly Greece, political philosophy and its economic parameters, and politics in general.

My interest in applying for a citizenship a second time lies in my firm belief that citizens of TWC set a higher standard of debate than any other site with political commentary I’ve seen on the internet. Despite heated debates, passions and a context of general misinformation I have and I always will count on the citizenry of the site to step up to their high standards with only a few dismissible exceptions. In that front I believe my limited contributions to the D & D section hint towards my ability to produce little in volume but volumes in context. I take pride in thoroughly researching a subject of interest besides jumping in discussions I have had some prior academic training in. To me, a good citizen should encompass the virtues of academic debate, respectfulness to the diversity of opinion and inspiration for further individual improvement.

Having said that I particularly consider the D & D fora and other discussion and debate threads off-site to be the ‘battleground’ so to speak, of a radicalization process of young men. To answer this I have and will continue to raise questions to confront black-and-white narratives regardless of my citizenship status, especially when they turn up in a site such as TWC.

Having stated my intention for the future, I would like to thank Abdülmecid I for considering me for citizenship and extend my thanks to all of you for devoting the time to consider this application.

Kritias

[Flinn]

hell yehaaaa the dude has my rug and my support!

Now I've found a couple of posts to nominate for PotF 14

[Love Mountain]

Support. You have a knack for finding good candidates Abdul. I like his respectful attitude the most.

[Veteraan]

Looks good to me.

[PikeStance]

One does not have to be "exceptional" to be a citizen. His contribution is diverse. Good posting and good attitude are qualities I see. Good enough for me.

SUPPORT

[La♔De♔Da♔Brigadier Graham]

Support! hes Abduls candidate!....say no more.

[Quintus Hortensius Hortalus]

Support.

[Leonardo]

We need new fresh minds in the Curia. Support.

[Aexodus]

Support, I liked his mention of ‘black and white narratives’ which poison the fora at the moment. Wish I’d approached Kritias sooner about patronising hehe.

[Hader]

Poll added

[Sir Adrian]

Having looked at the candidate extremely carefully I can summarize the following

PRO: 1. He's civil
2. Not an extremist (one has to check for that when talking of the mudpit), does not support ideologies harmful to the site, and human life in general, like feminism, incel, sjw, alt-right, etc.
3. refrains from using the political areas as a reinforcement for hie ego - he enters discussions to share his pov not to "win" them
4. his positions are rational most of the time or at least you can see where he is coming from

CON: 1. Overly verbose - researching him was a chore.
2. Some of his posts are rather disjointed. - ex the abortion post where the post and the conclusion he draws have no connection


Welcome to the Curia.

[Nicholas Rush]

Voted

[MIKE GOLF]

Voted.

[Hader]

Poll closed and member passed, congrats Kritias