Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories • Hacker News Board

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#121

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 6:27 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #118

thagsimmons wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading Windschuttle's "Fabrication of Aboriginal History" along with the heavily critical responses in "Whitewash" was a fascinating intellectual exercise. I went in quite neutral on the issue and came out convinced that, while there are some factual issues in Winschuttle's account, the thrust of his argument was correct and that Australian history was in deep trouble as a discipline. The essays in Whitewash show al…

If you want another example of this, Try "Haig's Command: A Reassessment" by Denis Winter. Winter had access to documents held in the Australian war memorial archives which strongly disagree with official war history, because they're the input texts before the official edit. He drives very hard to this being a whitewash by the establishment of Haig's command. The counter view is that it's entirely normal editing, He'…

But let's be honest, regardless of all the work Haig did after the warbto support veterans, militarily he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Sure, we argue from hindsight. Also true, the opposition wasn't much better. Also true, most WW1 commanders were better than what we make them today. And Haig was no Cadorna or Hötzendorf.

The big mistake Haig made, or the thing he didn't see, was IMHO how the war was fought and won on the Western Front. He wanted a breakthrough, instead he got a war of attrition. One the Entente was winning. Haig went from attempted breakthrough to winning, without realizing why his strategy worked. Because one can fight a war of attrition without sacrificing as much of your own men as the Entente did.

How the Entente reacted to the Kaiserschlacht so, well, that was the right reaction: let the Germans leave their fortified positions, outrun their logistics, and sacrifice some ground until the enemy runs out of steam. Then counter attack. That way, you don't even have to break through the enemies lines as they are already abandonned and unmanned. No idea how much influence Haig had on this so.

At least the authors you mentioned argue based on primary sources and facts. As oppossed to people using autobiographies and post-war memoires of WW2 generals.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#122

Post by dsign » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 6:31 AM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #115

paganel wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> claiming the research would benefit some minority or another, are inserted at a late stage after someone mentions that the application would stand no chance without them. Funny, it's similar to "forced" mentions of Marxism inserted apparently at will in social science books/papers written in Romanian back when the Wall was still up. Towards the later years of the communist government being in power those Marx inser…

Was Marx anything like Ceausescu?

I guess the OP is referring to how communist countries are/were big in personality cult and general brainwashing. Marx and his ideology when they were happy with the soviets, Ceausescu later when the political winds changed.

Generally though, people have a tendency to seek flags to rally behind, be it personalities, ideologies or religions. There is nothing surprising on that, given that the success of our species relies on coordinating large numbers of people. The problem is that, sometimes, it is very difficult or impossible for the individual to choose the "right" flag, whatever the definition of right may be. In communist and totalitarian countries, the problem is solved for the individual by allowing only one flag. In countries with good democracy, e.g. USA[^1], it sometimes happens that the population divides evenly between the flags available to them (i.e. Republicans and Democrats).

[^1]: The US' democracy has many faults, but it's a shining thing compared with a lot of countries in the world.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#123

Post by totetsu » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 6:37 AM UTC

I didn't read this (and i don't plan to) but; I thought that the oldest of human history was recorded aurally in songs, ballads and epics, where the more dramatic things were the better they could be remembered. So to call the incentive to be dramatic increasing, is to selective over which time frame you are talking.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#124

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 6:40 AM UTC

totetsu wrote: post #123

I didn't read this (and i don't plan to) but; I thought that the oldest of human history was recorded aurally in songs, ballads and epics, where the more dramatic things were the better they could be remembered. So to call the incentive to be dramatic increasing, is to selective over which time frame you are talking.

[deleted]

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#125

Post by paganel » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

dsign wrote: post #122

beebeepka wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Marx anything like Ceausescu?

I guess the OP is referring to how communist countries are/were big in personality cult and general brainwashing. Marx and his ideology when they were happy with the soviets, Ceausescu later when the political winds changed. Generally though, people have a tendency to seek flags to rally behind, be it personalities, ideologies or religions. There is nothing surprising on that, given that the success of our species re…

> Marx and his ideology when they were happy with the soviets, Ceausescu later when the political winds changed.

Exactly that.

If it matters, and while we're talking history of ideology, towards the latter years of the Ceausescu government real and genuine "local" Marxists had been sidelined almost completely, meanwhile there was a push for inter-war nationalism veering into what today would be called far-right.

The 6th volume of the "Military history of the Romanian people", published in 1989 under the editorship of one of Ceausescu's brothers, had details of the Romanian Army's involvement on the Eastern Front during WW2, meaning while we were on the Germans' side and fighting against the Soviets, on Soviet land. That had been considered more than taboo until then.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#126

Post by gilmore606 » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 6:49 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #50

lsmeducation wrote: post #35

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…

> invasion of the British Isles was a good or a bad thing

Why is this an important question at all?

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#127

Post by 10g1k » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 7:07 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #82

10g1k wrote: post #53

Australia's most famous historian, Charles Clark (called himself Manning Clark to be special) admitted before he died that he made things up, because he was more interested in telling a story fitting his own ideas, rather than reporting facts. They still name roads and such after the guy.

This is an exceptionally hot take. Manning was Charles Manning Hope Clark. You can verify this easily. His status in Australian history is mixed, because of the strong left/right axis of history as a field in Australia. Manning Clark was unquestionably of the left. The Australian, and its tame philosopher-historian Gerard Henderson makes much of this, and Manning Clark being awarded an order of Lenin for history by t…

I haven't read anything by Windschuttle. But Charles Clark famously declared that he was pushing "my kind of history", which was a poetic and spitually uplifting narrative in his opinion. Shortly before his death, he gave an interview about this topic, admitted he had fabricated many things, but believed his motive was sufficient excuse for doing so. You can equivocate all you want about inferring and complication, but he actually admitted it.

The "You're probably a [insert anything]!" is one of those pesky little logical fallacies intended to divert attention from the subject.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#128

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

skibidiboop wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference there is you can just look at the numbers and see that climate change is a slow-motion catastrophe. No amount of spin or storytelling can change the facts that temps are rising, icecaps are melting, Canadian forests are incinerating at record levels, etc. etc.

The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by the Iraqi military setting fire to a reported 605 to 732 oil wells along with an unspecified number of oil filled low-lying areas...The fires were started in January and February 1991, and the first oil well fires were extinguished in early April 1991, with the last well capped on November 6, 1991. It was predicted by experts that the fires would burn for between two and five year…

Ever heard the expression - only paranoid survives? Maybe it's a reasonable strategy to cry wolf 100 times, out of which 99 times no wolf materializes.

Look at the recent catastrophes, from 2008 financial crisis, to COVID, to the currently raging war - who would have guessed? So we might be emphasizing things in a way that is inaccurate and excessively positive.

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#129

Post by DoreenMichele » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 7:21 AM UTC

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #128

DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by the Iraqi military setting fire to a reported 605 to 732 oil wells along with an unspecified number of oil filled low-lying areas...The fires were started in January and February 1991, and the first oil well fires were extinguished in early April 1991, with the last well capped on November 6, 1991. It was predicted by experts that the fires would burn for between two and five year…

Ever heard the expression - only paranoid survives? Maybe it's a reasonable strategy to cry wolf 100 times, out of which 99 times no wolf materializes. Look at the recent catastrophes, from 2008 financial crisis, to COVID, to the currently raging war - who would have guessed? So we might be emphasizing things in a way that is inaccurate and excessively positive.

I have an incurable genetic disorder. I take extreme measures daily to address it. I have no problem with taking appropriate precautions in the face of issues.

But I see no reason to wallow in the negativity in this way. It does not appear to be curtailing anyone's carbon footprint.

All it appears to do is prevent us from having meaningful, constructive conversations because any attempt to talk about solutions gets shot down as "not enough" and "won't make any real difference" and "we are all doomed anyway, so why bother?"

Re: Historians have an increasingly strong incentive to tell dramatic stories

#130

Post by robertlagrant » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 7:23 AM UTC

cauch wrote: post #24

supazek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>made it past peer review I don’t think that’s an especially difficult thing to do. It seems any paper dealing with social sciences or history that fits the current narrative is lauded and “reviewed” favorably. I think the mechanism which facilitates this is relatively simple and similar to how USSR officials would rather bring good news than bad facts

But how could the reviewers have found the errors in this article? The article can tell "Cort was informed about the new techniques from a family member back from Jamaica". How do you verify that? The only way is to redo the all work from scratch, refound all the historical references and cross-validate each of them. It's a huge work. This article was later debunked by experts who have taken time and effort to do tha…

> This article was later debunked by experts who have taken time and effort to do that. But peer-reviewing does not allow reviewers to pause they own work to do such extensive checks.

Is this not a problem? Reviews from non-experts?