The Shadiversity SJW Conflict

If you aren’t familiar with Shadiversity then you either don’t watch much JewTube, or you rarely fantasize about disemboweling your enemies with two feet of sharpened steel. That is to say, he’s one of the premier historical experts on medieval swordsmanship and related topics of my generation, and like most “amateur” historians, his explorations are much more… experiential?.. than professional historians tenured to their armchair.

Shad got an SJW swarming, possibly not his first. He’s taken the right steps so far but alas, is also a nice guy to his enemies. I’m not. This post is both a shout-out of support and the smackdown that Shad really ought to have done. The wrong time to salvage a friendship is when the friend knifes you in the back.

h ttps://twitter.com/shadmbrooks/status/1701614455665115490?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Matt’s polemic, since he deleted his own copy:

Dear community, fans and members,

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

This is the kind of post I normally try to avoid.

Remember the first rule of social media etiquette, Matt: you don’t have to say anything.

You will notice that this morning I have removed a post that I made while I was away working and travelling yesterday.

At quite short notice, I was kindly invited to get together with a varied group of people to do some filming.

Out of which I made the above meme. Background, he got together with Shad & dudes for some live-action swordplay. Why not? Sounds like fun; however, I doubt this was as spontaneous an event as he claims, if he’d been “working and traveling”.

I don’t normally turn down such opportunities, unless I have some concrete reason. Even if I have factual and non-damaging disagreements with another person involved. I try to beat views that I disagree with, with facts and argument.

Bullshit. Matt attended the event, everybody had fun, then after he went home, out came the shiv. Textbook SJW move. They do it because EVERYTHING is politics in Social Justice. That paragraph was Matt doing reputation damage control after finding out that associating with Shad is doubleplusungood. He’s not talking to Shad or the medieval-reenactment community. He’s talking to the Commissar behind the klieg lights… probably his ugly girlfriend, if I know SJWs.

One of the people involved yesterday, it turns out, is highly “personally” offensive to a lot of people I care about. Both here and offline. I did not know the depths and complexities of the issues with that person before yesterday.

“I didn’t know he was unperson, O Great Cthulhu! Spare me and I will sacrifice him to you!”

I don’t care if somebody has historical views that I disagree with – I will argue with them.

Oxymoronic sentence.

But I do deeply care if a person has views that I deem to be venturing into the realm of bigotry, such as sexism, racism or homophobia. That is absolutely, and obviously, a line in the sand for me.

Yeah, because you’ll get a free toaster if you champion feminism just five more times. Fifteen more times and your girlfriend will touch your body briefly, then apologize!

I have interacted with this person over the years, including posting video rebuttals…

“I never agreed with him.”

arguments…

“I never agreed with him.”

responses, etc. on historical matters.

“I never agreed with him.”

I had not experienced anything negative with that person, other than disagreeing with a fairly large number of points that person has made…

“I never agreed with him.”

(as evidenced by my videos responses over the years, eg. what is HEMA?)

Historical European Martial Arts. Shadiversity went on the record in 2021, that HEMA is something you do. Matt objected, saying that HEMA is a gatekeeping organization that you must respect.

Segue

h ttps://hemadigest.com/2021/07/23/the-shad-drama-background-context-and-responses/

HEMA – Historical European martial arts – is generally accepted to be a movement aimed at reconstructing historical fighting systems that come from or are connected to the European continent. It is primarily focused on using historical treatises on fighting – a variety of documents, hundreds of which are available nowadays, many of them for free online, which were some variation of instructional books from the past.

It’s a gatekeeping bureaucracy and publishing house, not a movement.

Shadiversity, though, has another definition.

According to him, HEMA is everything you do that is connected to weapons and history. It doesn’t matter if you follow a historical source and try to recreate a historical system, or you just watch some videos of people online and look at any illustrations that show weapon use from history, you are doing some sort of HEMA.

Uh-oh! Is an unlicensed amateur not following your affordably-priced instructions?

It is important to note that in the past – in 2016 – Shad has visited a HEMA event and has fenced beginners and intermediate fencers. At the time he freely admitted he would join a HEMA club if one was nearby. Yet he has been offered help and teaching from local HEMAists in his region and has refused it.

I NAILED IT!

Due to the reactions to his video [link to in this article], Shadiversity made another claim – that HEMAists are elitists and want to gatekeep HEMA only to those who study the sources.

Emphasis theirs!

Skallagrim [a peer/rival of Shadiversity] eventually made a video on the topic of HEMA elitism as well. He concludes there is a certain level of elitism in HEMA on average, and some instructors take things extremely seriously and professionally. Some HEMA discussions online also can get toxic – which is true for any community.

The self-pwning is theirs, too!

Matt Easton, [a well-known HEMA instructor and pioneer,] was the first to react, without naming Shad specifically, with a detailed video on what history is and why the treatises are the most important point of reference that defines HEMA.

In short, the study of history is mainly focused on written sources – which is why the term pre-history exists, defining the period before written sources. Written sources require interpretation, but some can be quite specific and reliable, especially when the identity and life experience of the author can be confirmed by other sources. HEMAist trust fencing treatises also because many of the masters are known as teachers of fencing, some – as soldiers, others – as duelists.

…Matt makes the argument that without those treatises, HEMA wouldn’t be what it is today – which is certainly true.

Poof, gatekeeping. “History is based on written records, and our treatises are based on those records, so who is this Shadiversity to say or do anything else?” Simple answer: whatever the ancients did, must have worked. Shad didn’t just ignore HEMA’s published-for-profit manuals, he tried stuff out to see what worked, what could work and so on.

Consequently, amateurs on youTube routinely outperform credentialed experts. Much as I routinely outperform credentialed theologians: it’s not because I’m smarter, it’s because I try to live it.

That is probably the “factual and non-damaging disagreements” that Matt referred to in his post. Both sides had legit points, although if you proceed to read the comments, HEMA was not the kind of organization to tolerate a non-Converged outsider.

Which isn’t news to pretty much anybody after their first Renaissance Festival. SJWs have a particularly strong love for escapist hobbies because their daily lives are eating political shit for the privilege of convincing outsiders that it’s steak.

I read a recent article by two Australian “researchers” who talked about how much fun it was to ride their bicycles and mass-transit everywhere, and how car owners don’t know how secretly unhappy they are. They got paid to say that, but if they actually do ride their bicycles in the rain and cold with fifty pounds of gardening supplies or whatever, then here’s a fact, they aren’t as happy as me in a Toyota.

Then they showed a diagram of a 15-minute city with all the distances relabeled “20 minutes”. We knows, precious, yes we do! gollum

There is every chance that Matt DID consider Shad a friend, and even still does, but guess what? The needs of the State outweigh the needs of the few.

End segue

Shadiversity’s rebuttal:

Something very sad has happened.

Not sad. The wild animal showed his colors before he could do you serious harm. That’s fortunate, not tragic.

Matt Easton@scholagladiato1, a long-time collaborator and friendly peer in the Youtube sword community has just chosen to cut off all association with me, Shad, and my channel Shadiversity.

We had just had a great day collaborating with other wonderful sword content creators. It was a day of friendship, discussion and laugher. Upon sharing some images of the day and filming he received many hateful comments about me, I’m guessing of the type that grossly misrepresent and vilify my beliefs in an attempt to discredit and harm my reputation.

Shad is reportedly Mormon.

Without contacting me to find out the true ‘context’ of my extremely basic and commonly held conservative beliefs that I am outspoken about outside of Shadiversity, he has chosen to totally and completely excommunicate me from his association, even in spite of the kindness, support, respect and friendship I’ve shown him over the years of our association. Good will, benefit of the doupt, personal friendly interactions, and past kindness, mean little apparently.

When the SJW says the political is the personal, it means he will betray you if and when the Narrative requires it.

Matt isn’t the first person to do this, and perhaps I’ll talk about the others in the future.

I keep Shadiversity free from politics, all are welcome regardless of their beliefs, and I extend a hand of friendship to all, those that agree with my belief and more importantly, those that do not, including Matt. I believe this is essential to push for a more peaceful and tolerant world. I will watch, support, and be friends with those who have beliefs I find offensive.

Big mistake, Shad. You are offering pearls to human swine. The SJW has no concept of truce or friendship, or any kind of life outside the State and the Narrative.

That does not mean I will not stand up and be outspoken about my beliefs, nor should people censure themselves for the sake of my feelings, and people should not have to betray their beliefs just to be accepted by others. We just need to learn to get along with those that are different.

Matt doesn’t want to get along with you. That’s why he didn’t talk to you first. It’s why he doesn’t want to discuss if maybe sodomy IS disgusting, or if women truly are happier as uneducated babymakers in the kitchen.

He’ll discuss the finer points of meaningless trivia such as historical European martial arts, because it (probably) can’t be used as a political weapon against him.

If you, reader, wonder why SJWs tolerate such a totalitarian lifestyle, it’s because they scheme to do the same thing: gain power over their peers by enforcing the Narrative. Their gods are the people powerful enough to enforce the Narrative while publicly violating it at the same time, which is why they don’t get hung up about their leaders’ blatant hypocrisies.

For all those who do not want to hear me fight for what I think is right, I separate it from Shadiversity as best I can, and share such views on my second channel, Knights Watch or here on X/twitter. I only address it now because people like Matt can’t seem to understand this separation, nor associate with people who believe things they find offensive.

Correct. Matt doesn’t understand that separation. To his perspective, whatever is against the Narrative is an exploitable weakness. That’s why he is willing to lose friends in order to not be vulnerable to people exactly like him.

This. Is. Who. They. Are.

This is why the very first step of Christian salvation is internalization. “I, I alone, am responsible for what I do. There is darkness *WITHIN ME* that I choose to confront.” SJWs externalize that darkness instead, creating a world in which they seek out the sins of other people while covering up their own sins. They must die for their sins before you die for yours!

Because they reject objective definitions of good & evil, they must make do with subjective definitions… the Narratives imposed by the only agency their materialist eyeballs can see, the State.

Not very long ago it was far more common for people to get along and be friends, regardless of their run-of-the-mill political or religious views, even if they found them offensive.

That’s the western side of the Hajnal Line talking. The races of Man are different from each other.

And yes, my views are standard views most Christian conservatives have, regardless of how much people try and vilify and misrepresent them. I’m just outspoken and stand up for what I believe. Of course, people love to misrepresent my views in the vilest of ways, apparently it is better to strawman a person into a villain rather than address his views… I stand by everything I’ve said there, not the strawman villainous caricature people that hate me try to depict.

Yes, Shad! Never apologize! Never kneel! The SJW has no time for mercy!

What many ideologically possessed people who sit on the opposite political spectrum to me don’t seem to understand is that they hold views that I find equally and *personally* offensive as many of my beliefs are to them, although it seems they probably don’t have a correct understanding of my views seeing as many hear disingenuous hateful comments about me and take them as categorical truth. My point is I actually believe and practice tolerance and acceptance of people different from me. You don’t have to agree or celebrate someone’s beliefs or lifestyle to tolerate them and treat them with kindness, as you would anyone else. I would never consider disassociating myself with anyone due to them believing many standard left leaning views that I find offensive, or if they received online hatred from activists for having standard left leaning views. That would be intolerant, and I stand by my friends.

No, Shad! They are not your friends if they do not act like friends! I understand tolerating Matt after the 2021 conflict, his disagreement with you was kept within bounds, but now he’s made it clear that the price of associating with him in the future is you accepting child molestation, white replacement, gender inversion and every other wickedness that that wicked can invent.

Tolerance of wickedness, or of wicked men, is not a Christian virtue.

Matt cut himself off from you because you stink of Christ. Respect his decision by cutting him off in turn. The only “tolerance” you should show him, is forgiveness after repentance.

And for the record, repentance will look like Matt publicly confessing that God is real and hates fags after all. Which God does. Repentance does NOT look like “I’m sorry, can we forget that happened?”

My tolerance and acceptance cease when people demand I practice opposing beliefs (betraying my own beliefs) for the sake of their feelings…

Matt Easton and the others who’ve chosen to do this, are guilty of this and have revealed their own intolerance, but I will not cut them off as they are choosing to do to me. My hand is still extended to move forward in collaboration and friendship, even though they have beliefs I find extremely offensive, and have cast me aside as someone so vile to be a pariah to them, when I have done nothing but show them support and kindness throughout our entire association.

Aw, Shad. This isn’t going to end well for you. You’ve taken the right steps thus far, but for your own safety, cut them off.

I believe Matt is capable of being a mature adult and being a truly tolerant person, not one that claims to be tolerant while excommunicating people from his association for wrong-think and false vilification, claiming standard conservative and religious beliefs as extremism.

Upon what do you base that assertion? Not observable reality. Not even ‘what he said’.

Here is the reality. The people that are so intolerant and emotionally unstable to the point of not being able to be near people with views they find offensive, are a tiny minority. And yes, they seem like a larger group because they are so outspoken, and they overrun many online platforms. But in the real world they are the minority. Most people are not so delicate, easily offended, or hateful. This minority will complain online and claim hate speech against, what in reality is, bland political views, but all they need to be is ignored.

So do it, Shad. Dust him off and walk away. He wants to come back, HE builds that bridge, not you.

EDIT: I apologize for the misidentification and have replaced the original image.