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I tended to think Western history had been progressing toward the modern rule of law since the Dark Ages History always tells you as much about its author as i

I tended to think Western history had been progressing toward the modern rule of law since the Dark Ages History always tells you as much about its author as it does about its subject. That narration is, a sort of british (and american) propoganda from the British colonial era. The way they thought of history (of "Western Civilization") was (1) The "spark" starts in ancient greece. (2) It is handed Rome, who build inherit the empire (3) Rome falls (ignore the eastern empire) (4) Civilization rekindles in Italy (5) to torch passes to the British who spread it to the world. Everything culminates in the American-British civilization, and whatever British intellectuals thought was important about Britishness. It also plays down Europe's (especially western Europe) relatively small part in the history of "civilization" until relatively recently. The narration would be totally different depending on who wrote it. For example, think of it from a Middle Eastern perspective. Alexander's conquests would be seen as something akin to Gengis Khan's conquest of China. An outsider barbarian that invaded and ruled the Persian empire. That is, Cyrus created a great persian empire. Greeks captured it, and it continued. Rome captured it, and it continued. Then, western rome fell. But, these were mostly barbarian territories with roman outposts. You can't compare Roman Brtain to Roman Syria, for example. Syria was urban, literate and civilized. Britain was a barbarian island with some roman roads and forts. High status cultural influence (eg christianity) was imported from east to west, not the reverse.

kome 8y ago
Very good point. To this, I would add that the internet and the wide-spread use of English are reinforcing, instead of confronting, the anglo-american cultural bubble...
exelius 8y ago
Another spin on this: I grew up in Texas. As we all know, Texans are really proud of Texas. Part of this is because the schools spend 3x as much time teaching “Texas history” as they do teaching US history or world history (lol). Almost all of what is called “Texas history” is simply propaganda from the early to mid 1800s. Truth is, Texas was essentially American Mexico (nearly 100% Spanish-speaking) until we found oil there in the late 1800s. It was only ever it’s own independent country because the US was not militarily strong at the time and couldn’t afford a war with Mexico — which would have been the result of the annexation of Texas. But as a result of this state-mandated focus on “local history”, kids who come out of Texas schools are often woefully uneducated as to even Western European history. You just learn this concentrated version of American Exceptionalism that’s mandated by the board of education and has only a tenuous relationship to the truth. As a side note, it’s really weird to learn history in the context of a place that’s only had meaningful levels of population for the last 50 years.
- scarecrowbob 8y ago
  I grew up in the panhandle and what you're saying is true in general. Parts of my family have been in Texas since the early 1800s. "As a side note, it’s really weird to learn history in the context of a place that’s only had meaningful levels of population for the last 50 years." That's an interesting side note. I've seen clovis points that folks have dug up here that are 5K ro 10K years old... the anglos in Texas tend to think that there was literally no one here when this area has had folks living in it for millennia. One of the thoughts I keep returning to is how little we know about the history of the peoples who were living more than 400 or so years ago. I think about how transient even our own technology is. Considering what traces of our own culture would be available to people 10,000 years from now, I occasionally wonder if we'd be able to detect our own culture at that time scale if we didn't know what we were looking at.
  - Balero 8y ago
    "One of the thoughts I keep returning to is how little we know about the history of the peoples who were living more than 400 or so years ago." I'm assuming you're talking about in America pre European colonisation. In the rest of the world (especially China, Europe, India and the Middle East) we know about as much as we do about the history of people currently alive. We can read their diaries, what happened in their governments, poetry, stories etc (at least for the literate classes, but this is again true in the modern world). "Considering what traces of our own culture would be available to people 10,000 years from now, I occasionally wonder if we'd be able to detect our own culture at that time scale if we didn't know what we were looking at." We would be able to detect really quite a bit, though less than we would like. Anything electronic would be gone, but the fact that we had electronics would be obvious. As would the vast majority of print. Some writing (especially carving) would remain, as would some pictures in lucky circumstances. Most tellingly our cities and buildings would still be around, and you can tell a lot about a culture by the way they order their buildings, and by what stuff they had. This is all assuming we some how up and leave for 10,000 years like in Göbekli Tepe[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
    - 8y ago
candiodari 8y ago
I think it's better to see history as a series of cycles playing out over and over again. From no existing government, to aristocratic, military government, to trade gaining power, to some sort of consensus government, eventually leading to democracy, to trade decline, to oppressive government, to self-destructing government. Likewise and somewhat independent, society evolves from extreme liberal (like in some Greek city states, or the Roman empire, where you could rent a room in temple with a big bath where you could have sex. In the room above, a bull would be slaughtered so a stream of blood would drip down on your bodies. Note: this was marketed to women, not men, and came with an optional male partner, I think even the Kardashians would consider that going more than a bit too far), to absurdly conservative (pretty much all of Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, for example), back to liberal, back to extreme conservatism. And the amazing thing is that everyone, all these movements, from the puritans to today's women empowerment warriors, from the Roman Empire to Washington to Lichtenstein's government, see themselves as the first ones ever to do X, constantly, all the time, when in reality it seems to be a cycle that rotates around in about 1.5 to 2 centuries or so. And one the one hand that's true : there's something unique about almost everything, every movement. But 99% of what such movements stand for are duplicates of their former selves. It's just that the people in them are not at all aware of any of it. Say, society moving away from the Church was of course, according to those who did it, the first time ever this happened (not what had happened ~80 times before, almost always in times of large economic expansion). They were smarter than everyone and "reason" was going to save the world (mostly because it had a few successes). If you go back to the time of the French revolution, of course, you'd see that the same happened, and then ... the great economy faltered ... and despite all the reason in the world (note: governments "based on reason" can easily match governments based on faith in cruelty and pettiness. In fact I would say that despite the general feeling the reason "based" governments are the worse ones. And yes, by that I mean that in times of economic desperation they're worse, far worse in fact, than things like the inquisition). But no, the generations of the 1990s and 2000s are utterly convinced they are the first ones to ever see "the church for what it is", and that they'll just make the economy perfect and everyone happy and all will be well, because science and reason will save us all. And when listening to grandpa you realize that the 1920s were just like that ... and the 1960s. And the 1930s and 1970s-80s ? Oh well. But those were smaller cycles, sooner or later a big shift will hit us again. It's been a while. Coming up next: nope ... science and reason do not in fact guarantee a nice economy, do not in fact save us all. There was a nice economy, for reasons independent of religion, tolerance and this period will end, just like all other periods before it and people will flee back to faith, extreme conservatism, just like they've done so many times before.
sandworm101 8y ago
>> History always tells you as much about its author as it does about its subject. I know it has been popular, but that is a dangerous line of thinking these days. It is totally fair to say that an analysis of a complex historical event will be tainted by the views of the author(s). But such pieces aren't all history. It is possible to generate bias-free history pieces. For instance, we shouldn't say that every analysis of tree rings or ice cores is bias. That makes it too easy to dismiss a valid representation historical data. People who see bias everywhere aren't satisfied until they personally test the ice cores. They feel free to deny climate science because everyone with eyes on the cores is biased and untrustworthy. They also see bias in every record of a historical event, again proclaiming them untrustworthy. Since they didn't witness the event and all records are biased, the event either didn't happen or is permanently beyond any accurate understanding. As with ice cores, such people feel free to substitute their own version of history. It is dangerous to see bias everywhere. Doing so allows us to selectively dismiss anything and everything. We have to agree that there is such a thing as historical truth. To do otherwise is to deny history and all the lessons it has to teach.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  The difference between science and history is that science seeks to reduce the scope of its observations to remove bias particularly biases which are subconscious. The ability to do this depends a great deal on the complexity of the system. A tree trunk and pair of calipers is a pretty simple system. Once a couple people have measured the same tree and produced simillar measurements, we can be fairly confident in those measurements. But the actions of say a parliament are a system with orders of magnitude more complexity and thus we should trust almost no one's intepretation to be unbiased. This is the cursed paradox of history. We so badly want to understand people and societies and it is almost impossible to know we have come to that understanding with any kind of certainty. Side Rant: This is actually why I see psychology and sociology as dangerous. They often have the rigor of history and cloak themselves in the airs of science.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    >> Once a couple people have measured the same tree and produced simillar measurements, we can be fairly confident in those measurements. Really? I remember a fight about a year ago over whether or not it was hot on a particular day in DC. Half the US decided that they couldn't trust the biased weather reporting system. The perception of constant bias in all things meant we couldn't agree on a simple temperature record. A subset of these people cannot trust doctors enough to take vaccines or antibiotics. A further subset cannot even trust that the earth is round.
rezeroed 8y ago
Sounds like you're complaining that countries teach the history of their country. I would fully expect eg Britain to primarily teach the history that led up to current Britain, with side dishes of elsewhere's history. I would similarly expect eg China to do the same, and every other country to do likewise.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  It's expected but not appreciated. I grew up learning fairy stories about the magical rainbows George Washington shat at his enemies, the evil evil British. Learning that the people entrusted to teach you something were incurious ignoramuses reading from little more than a propaganda sheet is upsetting.
  - extralego 8y ago
    Very upsetting. Also, the delivery and form was so simplified. I feel like what we were taught in school had one of 2 forms: 1) Bite size good/bad characterizations of involved nuanced processes. 2) Objectifying factoids on the material day-to-day of shallow characterizations, like the practice of associating Native American tribes primarily by the shape of their houses. By jumping back and forth between the two, it did accomplish a surface appearance of depth, but ignored the spectrum as a whole that makes up humanity. (1) usually skipped over relational values and (2) failed to deliver on meaning. The few times this done a little bit less had enormous impact, like black history month, trail of tears, stories like Huck Finn. But comparatively, these leaped over massively critical nuances. Of course, we were just all-out denied anything about the French Revolution. There is no question this is why America is contending with such a problematic political arena. We are learning everything the hard way. The things that stir the pot are what make us human and understanding them are what allow us to progress. Being denied that is uncivilized.

kome 8y ago

Very good point. To this, I would add that the internet and the wide-spread use of English are reinforcing, instead of confronting, the anglo-american cultural bubble...

exelius 8y ago

Another spin on this: I grew up in Texas. As we all know, Texans are really proud of Texas. Part of this is because the schools spend 3x as much time teaching “Texas history” as they do teaching US history or world history (lol). Almost all of what is called “Texas history” is simply propaganda from the early to mid 1800s. Truth is, Texas was essentially American Mexico (nearly 100% Spanish-speaking) until we found oil there in the late 1800s. It was only ever it’s own independent country because the US was not militarily strong at the time and couldn’t afford a war with Mexico — which would have been the result of the annexation of Texas. But as a result of this state-mandated focus on “local history”, kids who come out of Texas schools are often woefully uneducated as to even Western European history. You just learn this concentrated version of American Exceptionalism that’s mandated by the board of education and has only a tenuous relationship to the truth. As a side note, it’s really weird to learn history in the context of a place that’s only had meaningful levels of population for the last 50 years.

scarecrowbob 8y ago
I grew up in the panhandle and what you're saying is true in general. Parts of my family have been in Texas since the early 1800s. "As a side note, it’s really weird to learn history in the context of a place that’s only had meaningful levels of population for the last 50 years." That's an interesting side note. I've seen clovis points that folks have dug up here that are 5K ro 10K years old... the anglos in Texas tend to think that there was literally no one here when this area has had folks living in it for millennia. One of the thoughts I keep returning to is how little we know about the history of the peoples who were living more than 400 or so years ago. I think about how transient even our own technology is. Considering what traces of our own culture would be available to people 10,000 years from now, I occasionally wonder if we'd be able to detect our own culture at that time scale if we didn't know what we were looking at.
- Balero 8y ago
  "One of the thoughts I keep returning to is how little we know about the history of the peoples who were living more than 400 or so years ago." I'm assuming you're talking about in America pre European colonisation. In the rest of the world (especially China, Europe, India and the Middle East) we know about as much as we do about the history of people currently alive. We can read their diaries, what happened in their governments, poetry, stories etc (at least for the literate classes, but this is again true in the modern world). "Considering what traces of our own culture would be available to people 10,000 years from now, I occasionally wonder if we'd be able to detect our own culture at that time scale if we didn't know what we were looking at." We would be able to detect really quite a bit, though less than we would like. Anything electronic would be gone, but the fact that we had electronics would be obvious. As would the vast majority of print. Some writing (especially carving) would remain, as would some pictures in lucky circumstances. Most tellingly our cities and buildings would still be around, and you can tell a lot about a culture by the way they order their buildings, and by what stuff they had. This is all assuming we some how up and leave for 10,000 years like in Göbekli Tepe[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
  - 8y ago

candiodari 8y ago

I think it's better to see history as a series of cycles playing out over and over again. From no existing government, to aristocratic, military government, to trade gaining power, to some sort of consensus government, eventually leading to democracy, to trade decline, to oppressive government, to self-destructing government. Likewise and somewhat independent, society evolves from extreme liberal (like in some Greek city states, or the Roman empire, where you could rent a room in temple with a big bath where you could have sex. In the room above, a bull would be slaughtered so a stream of blood would drip down on your bodies. Note: this was marketed to women, not men, and came with an optional male partner, I think even the Kardashians would consider that going more than a bit too far), to absurdly conservative (pretty much all of Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, for example), back to liberal, back to extreme conservatism. And the amazing thing is that everyone, all these movements, from the puritans to today's women empowerment warriors, from the Roman Empire to Washington to Lichtenstein's government, see themselves as the first ones ever to do X, constantly, all the time, when in reality it seems to be a cycle that rotates around in about 1.5 to 2 centuries or so. And one the one hand that's true : there's something unique about almost everything, every movement. But 99% of what such movements stand for are duplicates of their former selves. It's just that the people in them are not at all aware of any of it. Say, society moving away from the Church was of course, according to those who did it, the first time ever this happened (not what had happened ~80 times before, almost always in times of large economic expansion). They were smarter than everyone and "reason" was going to save the world (mostly because it had a few successes). If you go back to the time of the French revolution, of course, you'd see that the same happened, and then ... the great economy faltered ... and despite all the reason in the world (note: governments "based on reason" can easily match governments based on faith in cruelty and pettiness. In fact I would say that despite the general feeling the reason "based" governments are the worse ones. And yes, by that I mean that in times of economic desperation they're worse, far worse in fact, than things like the inquisition). But no, the generations of the 1990s and 2000s are utterly convinced they are the first ones to ever see "the church for what it is", and that they'll just make the economy perfect and everyone happy and all will be well, because science and reason will save us all. And when listening to grandpa you realize that the 1920s were just like that ... and the 1960s. And the 1930s and 1970s-80s ? Oh well. But those were smaller cycles, sooner or later a big shift will hit us again. It's been a while. Coming up next: nope ... science and reason do not in fact guarantee a nice economy, do not in fact save us all. There was a nice economy, for reasons independent of religion, tolerance and this period will end, just like all other periods before it and people will flee back to faith, extreme conservatism, just like they've done so many times before.

sandworm101 8y ago

>> History always tells you as much about its author as it does about its subject. I know it has been popular, but that is a dangerous line of thinking these days. It is totally fair to say that an analysis of a complex historical event will be tainted by the views of the author(s). But such pieces aren't all history. It is possible to generate bias-free history pieces. For instance, we shouldn't say that every analysis of tree rings or ice cores is bias. That makes it too easy to dismiss a valid representation historical data. People who see bias everywhere aren't satisfied until they personally test the ice cores. They feel free to deny climate science because everyone with eyes on the cores is biased and untrustworthy. They also see bias in every record of a historical event, again proclaiming them untrustworthy. Since they didn't witness the event and all records are biased, the event either didn't happen or is permanently beyond any accurate understanding. As with ice cores, such people feel free to substitute their own version of history. It is dangerous to see bias everywhere. Doing so allows us to selectively dismiss anything and everything. We have to agree that there is such a thing as historical truth. To do otherwise is to deny history and all the lessons it has to teach.

DubiousPusher 8y ago
The difference between science and history is that science seeks to reduce the scope of its observations to remove bias particularly biases which are subconscious. The ability to do this depends a great deal on the complexity of the system. A tree trunk and pair of calipers is a pretty simple system. Once a couple people have measured the same tree and produced simillar measurements, we can be fairly confident in those measurements. But the actions of say a parliament are a system with orders of magnitude more complexity and thus we should trust almost no one's intepretation to be unbiased. This is the cursed paradox of history. We so badly want to understand people and societies and it is almost impossible to know we have come to that understanding with any kind of certainty. Side Rant: This is actually why I see psychology and sociology as dangerous. They often have the rigor of history and cloak themselves in the airs of science.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  >> Once a couple people have measured the same tree and produced simillar measurements, we can be fairly confident in those measurements. Really? I remember a fight about a year ago over whether or not it was hot on a particular day in DC. Half the US decided that they couldn't trust the biased weather reporting system. The perception of constant bias in all things meant we couldn't agree on a simple temperature record. A subset of these people cannot trust doctors enough to take vaccines or antibiotics. A further subset cannot even trust that the earth is round.

rezeroed 8y ago

Sounds like you're complaining that countries teach the history of their country. I would fully expect eg Britain to primarily teach the history that led up to current Britain, with side dishes of elsewhere's history. I would similarly expect eg China to do the same, and every other country to do likewise.

DubiousPusher 8y ago
It's expected but not appreciated. I grew up learning fairy stories about the magical rainbows George Washington shat at his enemies, the evil evil British. Learning that the people entrusted to teach you something were incurious ignoramuses reading from little more than a propaganda sheet is upsetting.
- extralego 8y ago
  Very upsetting. Also, the delivery and form was so simplified. I feel like what we were taught in school had one of 2 forms: 1) Bite size good/bad characterizations of involved nuanced processes. 2) Objectifying factoids on the material day-to-day of shallow characterizations, like the practice of associating Native American tribes primarily by the shape of their houses. By jumping back and forth between the two, it did accomplish a surface appearance of depth, but ignored the spectrum as a whole that makes up humanity. (1) usually skipped over relational values and (2) failed to deliver on meaning. The few times this done a little bit less had enormous impact, like black history month, trail of tears, stories like Huck Finn. But comparatively, these leaped over massively critical nuances. Of course, we were just all-out denied anything about the French Revolution. There is no question this is why America is contending with such a problematic political arena. We are learning everything the hard way. The things that stir the pot are what make us human and understanding them are what allow us to progress. Being denied that is uncivilized.