Matthew P. Schmidt

My Blog

I’ve moved!

Aug 2, 2023 | Behind the Scenes, Declarations | 0 comments

For those of you who have wondered what has been happening, well, it’s a long story, but the short version is I’m moving all my social media to Substack.

Check it out here!

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What to the Modern White Guy is “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”?

I have always been inspired by the story of Fredrick Douglass, a slave who escaped slavery to become a renowned orator and author. His is not the story of a man who was second-rate, shooed into the spotlight only for his relative accomplishments compared to his past. What use would that be? No, he was not merely any random speaker, but Fredrick Douglass, a name that survives to this day in history books, no matter how often it is skimmed over.

The Taste for Realism

I have seen, and admittedly indulged in that fan activity I will call the Fact Checking Game. It goes like this: First, you take some work of fiction, particularly a popular one, and you find some fascinating idea or claim it has. Then you deconstruct it with real world logic, checking all the facts and invariably coming up with an unrealistic or at least implausible conclusion. At this point, bemoaning that the creator did not think of this may commence. As a sequel, you can find some plausible counterpoint, and argue with the proponents of the former conclusion until the cows come home.

This is not, in itself, a bad thing.