3 ms·

>History is full of specific lessons that aren’t relevant to most people, and not fully applicable to future events because things rarely repeat exactly as they

• jorangreef 6y ago
  > all history is revisionist history That would be the revisionist view. But history is also one of the sciences, and with a methodology that predates postmodernism.
  • watwut 6y ago
    The history as field starts with Roman historians who literally felt free to make things up or guess them where it suited them. If anything, history as field is getting more accurate and more complete. Especially with digitalization and when writing about eras that left tons of written material after them.
    • memling 6y ago
      where would you put Herodotus or Thucydides or xenophon? the first historians weren't Roman really. there are other works less self consciously historical that predate them too, right?
• roenxi 6y ago
  The problem with history is the lessons are long, complicated and easily tainted by the historian's bias. And, interestingly, in politics people tend to look into history for grievances rather than looking for what works. One of the interesting trends that characterises China's current successes is decades of asking "what are other people doing that is working?". That seems to make them a little unusual.
  • watwut 6y ago
    I dont think this is true. In politics, they often look for great grand past to return to or they look for myth to inspire people from. It can be social like "more natural living uncorrupted by artificial modernity" or "when the men were real men and women real women". Or it can be ambitious like past grand project or imperium of good to emulate with grand projects now. It can be any kind of claiming to go into own roots, who we really are. It is often mythologization and idealization of past and past figures in order to push for current goals. Majority of historical figures quotes are out of context, but still used for contemporary politics. Historical figures are painted as flawless greatest, so that we can take their words and use them for ourselves. All that is politics. Look at how often politicians quote King - as cynical and out of context as most of it is, it literally represents looking into past for what works.
• CaptArmchair 6y ago
  > Historians look at past people and situations through today's lenses and bringing up what resonates with todays problems and dilemas. Historian here. This is bias is among the first things you learn to discern as an undergraduate. Historical research never starts from a premise "We can observe X in current events, is it possible to find similar events and patterns in the past?" Why? Because the trap here is to apply modern concepts, schools of thoughts and ideas in a past context where they absolutely did not exist. > Also the human nature isn't changeable so political and social and personal dilemas of ancient Athens, Rome or China can resonate with us. The resonate with us because the past can inspire us and helps us reflect on human nature. But that's about all it does. Transposing societal structures, ideas, thinking and so on from Ancient Rome to the current day is a fallacy because it denies the 2.000 years of history and evolving societal, cultural, religious, economical, political thinking that happened in between. Another fallacy is in this way of thinking is that history is teleological and ends with today being the end of human evolution and history; that today is the only logical outcome of everything that led up to today. Determinism really doesn't work well when you want to narrate and explain history. It's also the reason why I'm skeptical of Yuval Harari's work. His re-telling of human history is thought provoking and prompts for reflection and debate. But in no way does it mean that his take on history is the definitive story.
• nathias 6y ago
  Bad historians, write works showing past events through the new lenses of current cultural/political affairs. Good historians reveal ancient perspectives, their differences to ours, so that the supposition of two different perspectives with their similarities and differences is what we can reflect and learn from.
  • watwut 6y ago
    There is no such thing is single ancient perspective. All past events had multiple players with multiple different perspectives on what is going on and what should happen. And there is no such thing as single modern perspective either. I think that the big mistake people do when representing past is that they take one representant of "what past people thought" and proceed to ignore opinions and perspectives of everyone else in that period.
    • nathias 6y ago
      yes, this was the reason for my use of plural when talking about perspective