3 ms·

It's not even a chinese invention. It's a human invention. We do it in the US. And so do the brits, europeans, etc. After "historians" were paid to write hist

It's not even a chinese invention. It's a human invention. We do it in the US. And so do the brits, europeans, etc. After "historians" were paid to write histories extolling someone and denigrate someone else. From columbus to everything before and after, "history" depended on who was in charge and who paid to do the writing. History is propaganda. > In some sense it is just what we choose to remember No. It's like the thousand swords of aegon. It's a lie we agree to tell each other over and over again until we forget it is a lie. History is propaganda. It is interpretration. There is no truth to it. Just perspective.

jklinger410 10y ago
While it is true that complete unbiased understanding of past events is impossible, that does not therefore make it unimportant to try for. The point of history is not agreed upon lies. That's an unethical concession. The point of history is to tell what happened. Not including other perspectives is exactly what it sounds like, a failure to properly retell history. Propagandized history is immoral. Even if your inner pragmatic, reductionist, contrarian instincts lead you to believe you should accept it just because that is what has happened in the past. There is no ethical reasoning behind it.
- Idontreddit 10y ago
  > While it is true that complete unbiased understanding of past events is impossible, that does not therefore make it unimportant to try for. Agreed. But as long as you understand that history is ultimately propaganda. There isn't an objective truth buttressing it. Just arbitrary biased interpretation. > The point of history is not agreed upon lies. It's an agreed upon "interpretation" by a small group of people who get a larger group of people to accept it. Different nations have different histories of the same event. The vietnamese history of the vietnam war is markedly different than the US history of the vietnam war. Same event, different "interpretation/propaganda". > That's an unethical concession. It's an honest observation. National histories are biased propaganda. To believe otherwise is to delude oneself. Perhaps some take the propaganda/history to extreme degrees, but nevertheless, all history is propaganda. > The point of history is to tell what happened. No. That would be just a list of events. History is INTERPRETATION. Saying that the Civil War began in 1861 is just a fact. Interpreting that as a war over slavery or a war to save the union or the war for state rights or whatever is HISTORY/PROPAGANDA. > Propagandized history is immoral. Then all history should be banned and replaced with a list of events. Think of it this way, history of the US from a white man's perspective is far different than history of the US from a native american's perspective. History of the holocaust would be much different had the germans won ww2 than what it is today. Same event, different history/interpretation. It's quite amazing that I'm getting downvoted for stating that history is biased and all history is propaganda. But then again, most people are brainwashed. Ultimately, we may laugh at the north koreans or the chinese or the russians or whomever, but we are really deep down, no different.
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    Something that is unusual about modern West is we make it possible to publish all the different perspectives, and we have an ethic in academia to study them objectively and try to figure out which is correct. I think that is a very good idea, and often it is possible to arrive at the truth, at least to some significant degree. So for instance, we can be quite sure that the Nazi idea that the Jews needed to be killed off because they were all evil demons was simply wrong.
    - Idontreddit 10y ago
      > Something that is unusual about modern West is we make it possible to publish all the different perspectives I think we have to stop patting ourselves on the back. Yes, we claim to allow it, but it's a bit more complicated than that. We aren't as open to questioning or "heresy" as you'd like to think. If you've ever worked in academia, you would know this. > and we have an ethic in academia to study them objectively and try to figure out which is correct. This is absolutely not true, especially in history and sensitive matters like race, sex, religion, etc. > So for instance, we can be quite sure that the Nazi idea that the Jews needed to be killed off because they were all evil demons was simply wrong. Not if the germans had WON THE WAR. That's the point. Look at how differently "history/propaganda" works when it relates to US:natives and Germany:Jews. Our history cast the natives as savage demons that needed to be wiped out for the advance of civilization and the creation of the US. We make allowances for the genocide of the natives by excusing it with "disease killed many of them" or that it allowed for the creation of the US. But for jews, we do not make such allowances. If you think we are open to different perspectives, try to get a book published that questions many of the claims of the holocaust. If jared diamond had written about the holocaust ( excusing the deaths of the jews due to the disease and starvation as a result of germany's poor performance in the eastern front ), do you really think the NYTimes/media and academia would have supported it? All history is propaganda. If the germans had won ww2, the holocaust would have been viewed differently. Hell the word "holocaust" wouldn't even exist. Holocaust was a term israeli jews invented in 1953 to "brand" the genocide. We don't have a branding for the native "holocaust". Or the armenian "holocaust". Or the rwandan "holocaust". Pick anything in history. Look at the "history" of the israeli/palestine issue. Look at the history of russia/ukraine. Look at the history of US civil war. Different sides have different histories/propaganda. There is no truth, just subjective and selfish propaganda. Or if you feel more generous, you can say that there are many truths and each side picks their own truths. But regardless, it's propaganda. I find it laughable how people are so resistent to the simple truth that history is propaganda. But then I realize that it's because they are victims of propaganda.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862303 and marked it off-topic.

jklinger410 10y ago

While it is true that complete unbiased understanding of past events is impossible, that does not therefore make it unimportant to try for. The point of history is not agreed upon lies. That's an unethical concession. The point of history is to tell what happened. Not including other perspectives is exactly what it sounds like, a failure to properly retell history. Propagandized history is immoral. Even if your inner pragmatic, reductionist, contrarian instincts lead you to believe you should accept it just because that is what has happened in the past. There is no ethical reasoning behind it.

Idontreddit 10y ago
> While it is true that complete unbiased understanding of past events is impossible, that does not therefore make it unimportant to try for. Agreed. But as long as you understand that history is ultimately propaganda. There isn't an objective truth buttressing it. Just arbitrary biased interpretation. > The point of history is not agreed upon lies. It's an agreed upon "interpretation" by a small group of people who get a larger group of people to accept it. Different nations have different histories of the same event. The vietnamese history of the vietnam war is markedly different than the US history of the vietnam war. Same event, different "interpretation/propaganda". > That's an unethical concession. It's an honest observation. National histories are biased propaganda. To believe otherwise is to delude oneself. Perhaps some take the propaganda/history to extreme degrees, but nevertheless, all history is propaganda. > The point of history is to tell what happened. No. That would be just a list of events. History is INTERPRETATION. Saying that the Civil War began in 1861 is just a fact. Interpreting that as a war over slavery or a war to save the union or the war for state rights or whatever is HISTORY/PROPAGANDA. > Propagandized history is immoral. Then all history should be banned and replaced with a list of events. Think of it this way, history of the US from a white man's perspective is far different than history of the US from a native american's perspective. History of the holocaust would be much different had the germans won ww2 than what it is today. Same event, different history/interpretation. It's quite amazing that I'm getting downvoted for stating that history is biased and all history is propaganda. But then again, most people are brainwashed. Ultimately, we may laugh at the north koreans or the chinese or the russians or whomever, but we are really deep down, no different.
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  Something that is unusual about modern West is we make it possible to publish all the different perspectives, and we have an ethic in academia to study them objectively and try to figure out which is correct. I think that is a very good idea, and often it is possible to arrive at the truth, at least to some significant degree. So for instance, we can be quite sure that the Nazi idea that the Jews needed to be killed off because they were all evil demons was simply wrong.
  - Idontreddit 10y ago
    > Something that is unusual about modern West is we make it possible to publish all the different perspectives I think we have to stop patting ourselves on the back. Yes, we claim to allow it, but it's a bit more complicated than that. We aren't as open to questioning or "heresy" as you'd like to think. If you've ever worked in academia, you would know this. > and we have an ethic in academia to study them objectively and try to figure out which is correct. This is absolutely not true, especially in history and sensitive matters like race, sex, religion, etc. > So for instance, we can be quite sure that the Nazi idea that the Jews needed to be killed off because they were all evil demons was simply wrong. Not if the germans had WON THE WAR. That's the point. Look at how differently "history/propaganda" works when it relates to US:natives and Germany:Jews. Our history cast the natives as savage demons that needed to be wiped out for the advance of civilization and the creation of the US. We make allowances for the genocide of the natives by excusing it with "disease killed many of them" or that it allowed for the creation of the US. But for jews, we do not make such allowances. If you think we are open to different perspectives, try to get a book published that questions many of the claims of the holocaust. If jared diamond had written about the holocaust ( excusing the deaths of the jews due to the disease and starvation as a result of germany's poor performance in the eastern front ), do you really think the NYTimes/media and academia would have supported it? All history is propaganda. If the germans had won ww2, the holocaust would have been viewed differently. Hell the word "holocaust" wouldn't even exist. Holocaust was a term israeli jews invented in 1953 to "brand" the genocide. We don't have a branding for the native "holocaust". Or the armenian "holocaust". Or the rwandan "holocaust". Pick anything in history. Look at the "history" of the israeli/palestine issue. Look at the history of russia/ukraine. Look at the history of US civil war. Different sides have different histories/propaganda. There is no truth, just subjective and selfish propaganda. Or if you feel more generous, you can say that there are many truths and each side picks their own truths. But regardless, it's propaganda. I find it laughable how people are so resistent to the simple truth that history is propaganda. But then I realize that it's because they are victims of propaganda.

dang 10y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11862303 and marked it off-topic.