[teiferer]

> they became civilized/baptized

How are civilized and baptized comparable concepts? The vikings surely had a civilization before christianity took hold and ascribing sone kind of higher ethics to christianity is also quite a stretch.

[vintermann]

"Civilization" is ill-defined anyway. What's certain is that long before they embraced Christianity in a form other European Christians would recognize as such, they admired Europe. Europe had great buildings, castles, cathedrals, palaces, walled cities, places of learning, markets, unlike anything in Scandinavia at the time. They wanted those things. And they could only get so far as pirates and slavers.

[pseudohadamard]

Did they though? Before they went native, the crusaders looked down on muslims who lived in palaces, took baths (the horror!), knew about hygiene, and so on. Did a manosphere looksmaxxing viking really care about places of learning and soft beds?

[vintermann]

I think you're maybe projecting modern ideas on them... Yes, it's easy to see from Norse poetry that "wisdom", knowing the secrets of the world, was extremely important to them. They were also fond of wealth, luxury goods and political power clearly.

Norse mythology is, like Greek mythology, extremely fatalistic. But there's also this idea that basically all power is stolen, and that fate will give the thieves their come-uppance. The first king got his power by murdering or dominating his brothers. The world as we know it was arguably created by a betrayal, if not a patricide - made from the body of the first giant - and his children are forever seeking revenge. The worm of spite gnaws at the tree of life, and is fated to eventually kill it. The closest thing to hope you have, is that old one eye might share some of his secret fate-postponing magic tricks with you.

So the natural conclusion when you hear of immensely powerful kings who seemingly get away with it, is that those guys must know some powerful secrets about reality.

[lukan]

"The worm of spite gnaws at the tree of life, and is fated to eventually kill it."

But then again, there is the new beginning. Ragnarok is not the end of the world in a christian sense, but it goes in circles.

[teiferer]

> manosphere looksmaxxing viking

That's more rooted in Hollywood than reality.

[lukan]

Interesting that you see it as a higher ethics to be OK with only enslaving non christians, because I really did not mean anything like that, as I do not see it as a higher ethic.

And like the other commenter pointed out, civilization is ill defined. I was mainly using it here from the christian point of view, where pagans are not civilized by definition. Not that the norse had not a complex society themself.

[fwipsy]

They had their own culture and technology, but that's not the same thing as being civilized. It also includes being, well, civil. Raiding and pillaging their neighbors is not civil.

> ascribing sone (sic) kind of higher ethics to christianity is also quite a stretch.

This is subjective. Even if you disagree with Christian ethics, and even if they were frequently violated, becoming Christian still could have reduced Viking violence against their neighbors. Shared culture would improve trust and encourage alliances and trade.