4 ms·

History Is Written by the Losers (2016)

61 points by admp 7y ago

dang 7y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011872
DFHippie 7y ago
I was surprised not to see a mention of the Lost Cause narrative of the American Civil War.
- gwern 7y ago
  Are there any great historians of the South who push the Lost Cause while being acknowledged as great, on the same level as Machiavelli, Thucydides, or Sima Qian? If there aren't, then it's not an example and so there is no point in mentioning it.
  - DFHippie 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Archibald_Dunning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Archibald_Dunning
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - DFHippie 7y ago
    Machiavelli isn't mentioned in the article, so I assume you are including the comments, and this is what I was referring to as well. The thesis is "history is written by the losers". In the comments other examples are brought forward, including Machiavelli and Churchill. The Dunning School narrative is a prominent example of this, and is arguably more apt than these other examples because that is precisely its main thrust: to glorify the losers and denigrate the winners. Besides which, "whoever is mentioned needs to be as great as these three" is your own special rule for which only you are the judge, which is not a particularly convincing argument to anyone but yourself.
    - gwern 7y ago
      > Besides which, "whoever is mentioned needs to be as great as these three" is your own special rule for which only you are the judge, which is not a particularly convincing argument to anyone but yourself. If Tanner had meant 'any random historian', he would have said so and used them (and also disagreed with the example I provided of Machiavelli, who is a famous example of this trope). He used the most relevant examples, like Sima Qian and Thucydides, who he writes about extensively elsewhere, and note by the way the context here of the Thucydides Roundtable. It is a basic fact of linguistics that you choose examples to be as central and relevant as possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle). Nor am I sold on the Dunning example. It may be well known to you, but it's not that famous, and Dunning wasn't even from or educated in the South, much less was involved in the Civil War or Reconstruction in any way as a loser.
jhoechtl 7y ago
My mother tongue is not englisch. Does > We say that history is written by the winners. That is sometimes true. We have no Carthaginian accounts of their war with Rome; few historians today have much sympathy for Hitler. mean, that WWII history is written by the winners or loosers? Because as an Austria an least in can intensely confirm that the history I perceive is not written by the loosers.
- dropit_sphere 7y ago
  In that context, the author is giving examples of history being written by tue winners.
cryptica 7y ago
The other thing is that winners don't experience reality. Success doesn't teach you anything. It just makes your life easier and this ease can give people false confidence.
- sysbin 7y ago
  You're postulating that reality isn't multidimensional and or one reality is worth experiencing compared to another.
- canjobear 7y ago
  > Success doesn't teach you anything I can’t think of any sense in which this is true
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ksdale 7y ago
    I think an illustrative example would be certain young professional athletes who struggle when they reach the level where everyone is as good of an athlete as they are. Throughout their amateur careers, they excelled by being a far better natural athlete than everyone else, and may have not learned as much in the way of strategy and tactics because they could win regardless. I think another example could be very smart kids who breeze through school on raw intelligence and struggle when they reach something slightly beyond their natural abilities because they've never learned how to deal with difficult subjects. I don't think most success is this way, but I believe it can be.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- redtexture 7y ago
  Success is a path littered with many many failures on the way to constructing and finding success. A naive conception of success as a lucky singular event allows your statement. Some organizations, and nations after their thousands of failures, leading to success, forget their origins, and are by their wealth shielded from understanding the sources of their success and wealth, via turnover in personnel and leadership, and forget what they learned. Xerox (Haloid Corporation), for example transformed itself from a vulnerable photographic chemicals company under the thumb of Kodak, and risked the company in order to create a successful xerographic business. Its subsequent leadership failed to do the same in developing and furthering a wide variety of computer technologies that we rely on today, the ethernet, graphic computer interfaces and more via the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vezycash 7y ago
How about when the winner creates an official version of history? My own country took easy way out by banning history from being taught in secondary schools in an attempt to cover one huge blotch. And replaced History classes with what's essentially patriotism with a fancy name. They made previously compulsory subjects: Biology and Economics optional but this basically pointless subject IS compulsory for entry into tertiary institutions. History classes have been reintroduced recently but the textbooks are comical. China is rewriting history in real time with its media and internet censorship. Summary: I'll revise this title: History is Written by the Losers Unless the Winners Have Something to Hide
- lupire 7y ago
  The article is highlighting some exceptions to the usual rule.
huherto 7y ago
"History is written by the winners" I hate this quote because it is often used to argue a point without having to provide any other facts. Just saying that is sufficient to invalidate a whole narrative.
- cttet 7y ago
  It doesn't not to have fact to be supported. Is can be simply a redifinition of winners, as who get to rewrite and distribute history.
cttet 7y ago
Haven't read the article, but the title is quite an argument. So the Nazis will write the history, according to the title? Or the author redifined the meaning of losers?

61 points by admp 7y ago

dang 7y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011872

DFHippie 7y ago

I was surprised not to see a mention of the Lost Cause narrative of the American Civil War.

gwern 7y ago
Are there any great historians of the South who push the Lost Cause while being acknowledged as great, on the same level as Machiavelli, Thucydides, or Sima Qian? If there aren't, then it's not an example and so there is no point in mentioning it.
- DFHippie 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Archibald_Dunning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Archibald_Dunning
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- DFHippie 7y ago
  Machiavelli isn't mentioned in the article, so I assume you are including the comments, and this is what I was referring to as well. The thesis is "history is written by the losers". In the comments other examples are brought forward, including Machiavelli and Churchill. The Dunning School narrative is a prominent example of this, and is arguably more apt than these other examples because that is precisely its main thrust: to glorify the losers and denigrate the winners. Besides which, "whoever is mentioned needs to be as great as these three" is your own special rule for which only you are the judge, which is not a particularly convincing argument to anyone but yourself.
  - gwern 7y ago
    > Besides which, "whoever is mentioned needs to be as great as these three" is your own special rule for which only you are the judge, which is not a particularly convincing argument to anyone but yourself. If Tanner had meant 'any random historian', he would have said so and used them (and also disagreed with the example I provided of Machiavelli, who is a famous example of this trope). He used the most relevant examples, like Sima Qian and Thucydides, who he writes about extensively elsewhere, and note by the way the context here of the Thucydides Roundtable. It is a basic fact of linguistics that you choose examples to be as central and relevant as possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle). Nor am I sold on the Dunning example. It may be well known to you, but it's not that famous, and Dunning wasn't even from or educated in the South, much less was involved in the Civil War or Reconstruction in any way as a loser.

jhoechtl 7y ago

My mother tongue is not englisch. Does > We say that history is written by the winners. That is sometimes true. We have no Carthaginian accounts of their war with Rome; few historians today have much sympathy for Hitler. mean, that WWII history is written by the winners or loosers? Because as an Austria an least in can intensely confirm that the history I perceive is not written by the loosers.

dropit_sphere 7y ago
In that context, the author is giving examples of history being written by tue winners.

cryptica 7y ago

The other thing is that winners don't experience reality. Success doesn't teach you anything. It just makes your life easier and this ease can give people false confidence.

sysbin 7y ago
You're postulating that reality isn't multidimensional and or one reality is worth experiencing compared to another.
canjobear 7y ago
> Success doesn't teach you anything I can’t think of any sense in which this is true
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ksdale 7y ago
  I think an illustrative example would be certain young professional athletes who struggle when they reach the level where everyone is as good of an athlete as they are. Throughout their amateur careers, they excelled by being a far better natural athlete than everyone else, and may have not learned as much in the way of strategy and tactics because they could win regardless. I think another example could be very smart kids who breeze through school on raw intelligence and struggle when they reach something slightly beyond their natural abilities because they've never learned how to deal with difficult subjects. I don't think most success is this way, but I believe it can be.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
redtexture 7y ago
Success is a path littered with many many failures on the way to constructing and finding success. A naive conception of success as a lucky singular event allows your statement. Some organizations, and nations after their thousands of failures, leading to success, forget their origins, and are by their wealth shielded from understanding the sources of their success and wealth, via turnover in personnel and leadership, and forget what they learned. Xerox (Haloid Corporation), for example transformed itself from a vulnerable photographic chemicals company under the thumb of Kodak, and risked the company in order to create a successful xerographic business. Its subsequent leadership failed to do the same in developing and furthering a wide variety of computer technologies that we rely on today, the ethernet, graphic computer interfaces and more via the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vezycash 7y ago

How about when the winner creates an official version of history? My own country took easy way out by banning history from being taught in secondary schools in an attempt to cover one huge blotch. And replaced History classes with what's essentially patriotism with a fancy name. They made previously compulsory subjects: Biology and Economics optional but this basically pointless subject IS compulsory for entry into tertiary institutions. History classes have been reintroduced recently but the textbooks are comical. China is rewriting history in real time with its media and internet censorship. Summary: I'll revise this title: History is Written by the Losers Unless the Winners Have Something to Hide

lupire 7y ago
The article is highlighting some exceptions to the usual rule.

huherto 7y ago

"History is written by the winners" I hate this quote because it is often used to argue a point without having to provide any other facts. Just saying that is sufficient to invalidate a whole narrative.

cttet 7y ago
It doesn't not to have fact to be supported. Is can be simply a redifinition of winners, as who get to rewrite and distribute history.

cttet 7y ago

Haven't read the article, but the title is quite an argument. So the Nazis will write the history, according to the title? Or the author redifined the meaning of losers?