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One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

cnn.com

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Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#51

Post by jmclnx »

zelda420 wrote: post #25
DesaiAshu wrote: post #18

"Claiming that the 300-year dynasty was actually a myth is akin to saying the American Civil War never happened" Aren't republicans in Texas trying to rewrite history books to ignore lynchings and burnings of Black Wall Street and claim that slaves were treated pretty well? Seems like every country has factions who do this - right?

My daughter is a tx high school student and the books don’t mention slavery in context of the civil war. It’s framed as only a states rights issue, in which Texas is the honorable fighter of freedoms.

And I am sure there is no mention that Slavery was the # 1 reason for Texas Succeeding from Mexico.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#52

Post by Apocryphon »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #29

There are primary sources. There are archeological sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianling_Mausoleum There are also histories written just after the Tang Dynasty had fallen. It was considered good form for a new dynasty to write a historical review of the previous one, and there are two retrospectives on Tang, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Book_of_Tang And there is ironclad evidence from foreign sourc…

Every ancient empire did this with their primordial beginnings, from Romulus and Remus to Izanagi and Izanami.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#54

Post by scythe »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #29

There are primary sources. There are archeological sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianling_Mausoleum There are also histories written just after the Tang Dynasty had fallen. It was considered good form for a new dynasty to write a historical review of the previous one, and there are two retrospectives on Tang, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Book_of_Tang And there is ironclad evidence from foreign sourc…

>And there is ironclad evidence from foreign sources.

Including a rather unusual battle between the Tang Dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas

It's recorded that the Caliph, on hearing of the battle, said "What is this? A crossover episode?"

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#55

Post by talon8635 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #17

The same sort of arguments are playing out in the US, albeit on a shorter timescale. I couldn't say when it started, but it's extremely depressing that the history section in most general bookstores is just a locus for narrative warfare rather than scholarship. Of course, this phenomenon is by no means unique to these two countries. I know a Japanese author who has a small but dedicated following for his argument tha…

I’ve read plenty of good history/biography publishing in the past 50 years right up to last year. I’m not sure I understand your claim.

Narrative warfare… I guess the question is, what isn’t “narrative warfare”?

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#56

Post by EA-3167 »

guyzero wrote: post #33
graemep wrote: post #11

Its a Chinese equivalent of the phantom time theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_conspiracy_theory Its just as silly as phantom time and covers almost exactly the same period. The motive is possibly racist which makes it more sinister.

Back in the early 2000's, well before most social media sites existed, I had a coworker who shared with me a number of questionable theories, one of which was basically this. He also believed very passionately that plate tectonics was wrong. Unfortunately social media didn't invent brain worms.

Social media gave a geographically distributed population of the “quirky” and their natural predators the grifters a chance to mingle on a global scale. It didn’t invent anything, but it’s a vector for the pathogen.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#57

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

DesaiAshu wrote: post #18

"Claiming that the 300-year dynasty was actually a myth is akin to saying the American Civil War never happened" Aren't republicans in Texas trying to rewrite history books to ignore lynchings and burnings of Black Wall Street and claim that slaves were treated pretty well? Seems like every country has factions who do this - right?

I don't think that's very much alike at all. Denying the existence of a major dynasty is like declaring that Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson didn't exist, and all the historical traditions and documents to the contrary were invented to cover up the two terms Jefferson Davis served in the White House. I've never seen even the most strenuous Lost Cause advocates say something like that, because why in the world would you?

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#58

Post by rsynnott »

guyzero wrote: post #33
graemep wrote: post #11

Its a Chinese equivalent of the phantom time theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_conspiracy_theory Its just as silly as phantom time and covers almost exactly the same period. The motive is possibly racist which makes it more sinister.

Back in the early 2000's, well before most social media sites existed, I had a coworker who shared with me a number of questionable theories, one of which was basically this. He also believed very passionately that plate tectonics was wrong. Unfortunately social media didn't invent brain worms.

Plate tectonics was super controversial at one point. Would be a common one for conspiracy theorists of a certain vintage.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#59

Post by Apocryphon »

anigbrowl wrote: post #17

The same sort of arguments are playing out in the US, albeit on a shorter timescale. I couldn't say when it started, but it's extremely depressing that the history section in most general bookstores is just a locus for narrative warfare rather than scholarship. Of course, this phenomenon is by no means unique to these two countries. I know a Japanese author who has a small but dedicated following for his argument tha…

What's his explanation for what happened? iirc, immediately after Hiroshima the survivors had thought the Allies had used some sort of fuel bomb.

Re: One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

#60

Post by bryan0 »

KwisatzHaderack wrote: post #53

I think the bigger point here is that even the CCP, with it’s heavy-handed totalitarian controls on the Chinese web, isn’t able to entirely filter out misinformation.

Not sure why you're getting down voted but this does seem like the key point. There obviously is a major challenge in avoiding conspiratorial nonsense in societies with strong freedom of speech, but in this example we have China facing something similar.
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