51–60 of 256 posts
The paper in question is 1619, but for Industrial Age metallurgy.
And one of the reasons that lies like this make it through the review process is because academics are afraid of challenging racialist narratives.
They win their jobs and promotions by toeing an ideological line.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ll do you you one better, replace everything with “bullshit”. History is susceptible to narratives because anything that isn’t clear cut (slavery, holocaust, etc) is open to subjective interpretation. It’s the conspiracy theorists that are the real wildcard in all of this. They will take the clear cut (slavery, holocaust) and make that open to subjective interpretation. Funny stuff.
I tend to think of subjective interpretation as "That was good" or "This is bad". But there's something required beforehand: definining what this or that is. It's not really a subjective process, but it certainly isn't objective either. Before you can decide whether or not William the Conqueror's invasion of the British Isles was a good or a bad thing, you first need a description of how the invasion was carried out…
Regardless, I suppose the bigger point I want to make is the truth for non clear cut things is only as true as the number of people that co-sign it. If there’s simply more people on one side, welp, that’s that. That’s the truth, as far as we know.
Right or wrong or true or false are almost not even in the equation (enter the conspiracy theorist).
I don’t know, based on what I just said, what do you believe?
You see?
> The discipline, or a sub-set of it, has become helplessly in thrall > to one of the archetypal narrative forms: Good vs Evil. Naturally, > the academics are on the side of the Good. I find that this sums up more academic works that I feel comfortable admitting. And not just in the arts, but also in some of the less rigorous sciences as well, such as history and psychology.
Today we have news for conservatives and different news for liberals. That's stupid. News doesn't need built in commentary. Now it seems like history is going the same way. We will have conservative history and liberal history. But I hope not.
It feels like you just described war propaganda. Americans lie one way, the Russians the other. The better question is why are we in a war over current events (to your point over the news). Left propaganda and Right propaganda, for some invisible war. The low hanging fruit to me appears to be the fact that propaganda is profitable, ::shrugs:: Just one more war machine that got repurposed for civilian use. Edit: this…
Most of this stuff isn't lies. It's different groups of people focusing on different parts of the same events. Most of the time when you get two competing narratives for an event, neither are actually dishonest, they're just a collection of events that tell a particular story that is of particular concern to a group. Usually the events all actually happened but their importance and relatedness are re-arranged.
I would find this piece more convincing if it had sampled stories from different sources in service of its thesis rather than focusing on a single work the author finds particularly galling, as there is no shortage of fictional narratives anywhere — look no further than US state-approved high-school history textbooks. Given the narrowness of the material cited, this piece seems to me like unequal application of skept…
There is, sadly, a vast difference in accuracy between a "state-approved high school textbook" and a "peer-reviewed scholarly publication". A state-approved high-school textbook is subject to myriad business and political agendas that practically, by definition, compromise its truth and accuracy. A peer-reviewed scholarly publication is supposed to have a chain back to actual sources and facts that anchors it in spit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels like you just described war propaganda. Americans lie one way, the Russians the other. The better question is why are we in a war over current events (to your point over the news). Left propaganda and Right propaganda, for some invisible war. The low hanging fruit to me appears to be the fact that propaganda is profitable, ::shrugs:: Just one more war machine that got repurposed for civilian use. Edit: this…
While I don't doubt that some of it is, calling it propaganda implies a deliberateness to me. Most of this stuff isn't lies. It's different groups of people focusing on different parts of the same events. Most of the time when you get two competing narratives for an event, neither are actually dishonest, they're just a collection of events that tell a particular story that is of particular concern to a group. Usually…
I’d argue we’re well past the days of distinct alternative narratives around events.
> The discipline, or a sub-set of it, has become helplessly in thrall > to one of the archetypal narrative forms: Good vs Evil. Naturally, > the academics are on the side of the Good. I find that this sums up more academic works that I feel comfortable admitting. And not just in the arts, but also in some of the less rigorous sciences as well, such as history and psychology.
I think that "helplessly in thrall to one of the archetypal narrative forms: Good vs Evil" sums up everyone commenting on this page who claims that their version of history is objective, while that of [insert opponent here] is not.
A couple of historians have already done the fact checking.
Edit: Oh I misread your post. You're referring to commenters critiquing ideological opponents, not the author.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> History is written by the victors Not necessarily; history is written by those that are literate. Here's some threads about it https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xcqgc/they_a... https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1903ac/is_hi... https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/516t6c/is_hi... https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2becnq/i_hea... https://www.reddit.com/r/history/co…
But do you realise that the research you present here is not actually evidence? It is a link to a historian's opinion. It would be like reading a quote from the guardian about how Bulstrode is presenting remarkable research. Meta analysis such as this, based on hearsay rather than personal verification and assessment of the actual evidence, is assuredly not the way to get to the truth of the matter.