10 ms·

“It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single war. What are the odds?” -Norm MacDonald

by sb057 3y ago

drekipus 3y ago
This is one of my favourite Norm MacDonald quotes
watwut 3y ago
History books do not actually say that. The article is about historical fiction.
- kikokikokiko 3y ago
  If you are alive in 2023 and you haven't yet noticed, ALL history is historical fiction. Imagine how easy it is to create a mainstream narrative that doesn't fit the facts today. Now go back in time to the forties, when you had 3 newspapers and two radio stations "of record". Now go back to 1800. To 300 A.D. History is the fairy tale story of the rulling classes. Always.
  - bazoom42 3y ago
    Real historians apply source criticism though. Historical fiction on the other hand often embrace the myths since since they tend to make for bettet stories.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    That is exactly what history isn't so. History, as written by historians, is applying source criticism to primary sources. that understanding changes over time. What you describe is meme-based pop history at best. WW2 history based on WW2 Generals' memoir's, as opposed to unit diaries, is a prime example of that trap.
    - jvanderbot 3y ago
      You're right. But what was described isn't pop history, that trivializes the magnitude of its impact. For most the world most of the time for all of history, that _was_ how the past was understood. And today, we still understand the present this way, and it takes time to gather critical sources and discover truth, and hopefully record it.
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      > History, as written by historians, is applying source criticism to primary sources. Unfortunately, most "source criticism" is absolutely atrocious and developed primarily as part of the publish-or-perish paradigm, of such low quality that "X was motivated to believe Y, therefore Y was probably not true" without additional evidence is a common theme. Perhaps worse, much of our modern "source criticism" simply consists of applying whatever moralizing ideological lens is currently in vogue. Even historiography is largely fad-driven. You can absolutely learn more about historical events by reading the primary sources yourself. Historians are not blessed with some rare critical talent that can only be developed via a history degree. It's obviously true that reading only WW2 general memoirs is going to get you a very specific and limited view, but they aren't the only people who were writing at the time, and either way, within the limited parameters of military history, it's better to read what someone actually thought rather than reading what someone else thought they thought. Of course you will sometimes be misled, but at least you'll be misled in similar ways to people of the time, rather than being misled by 21st-century ideas. That's not to say there are no good modern histories, but the best are ones that quote very, very liberally and give you lists of the best primary sources, which you should still read.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        You want to read what, to stick with the example, WW2 Generals thought? Read their diaries, unit diaries, orders and other war diaries. The memoirs were all written after WW2, and show exactly that: what those Generals wanted others to think of them. Aggravated by the perceptive of being Cold War propaganda, the former Wehrmacht generals portrayed themselves as anti-communist fighters (as opposed to Nazi-enablers, sympathizers or outright Nazis), the Western allied Generals wanted to outplay each other (especially the US and UK ones, as vividly shown between Patton and Montgomery) but they all agreed to down play the Soviets war effort (Cold War, communists and all that, hence WW2 was won on D-Day and, maybe, Stalingrad). And yes, historians aren't above criticism, but by virtue of education they are better qualified then the average layman and / or history buff. Education matters, something we tend to forget way to often in fields outside of our own expertise.
  - watwut 3y ago
    Yeah, it really sounds like you did not read history books. Also, the forties left huge amount of evidence behind them. History books are not based primary nor solely on "papers of record". These are just one of many used data points. Meanwhile, historical fiction is explicitly fiction. As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      > As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that. Good historical fiction goes deeper than good, sourced, "factual" history. Proper history depends on written records; but those records were made exclusively by people who are literate (obviously), which for most of history was a tiny minority. A lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff, based on a conventional version of history, telling tales we all (think we) know. The good stuff is made-up too, of course; but it's heavily researched, and informative. I'm thinking of stuff like Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        One falsehood is that people through out history were illiterate. The second is to see historical fiction as anything ddifferent from fantasy, science fiction or other forms of entertainment. History =|= historical story telling Ken Follet wrote a novel about building a cathedral, he didn'r write a book about medival cathedral building. Very important difference.
      - watwut 3y ago
        > lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff All of it is made up. That is why it is called fiction. Authors are pretty open about that fact. It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history - because it uses sourced history as its only source of information about past. Historical fiction writers read a lot of sourced history and then combine, modify, remove and add to make compeling story that would satisfy the audience.
        denton-scratch 3y ago
  - barrysteve 3y ago
    Your comment is made up. Made up doesn't have to mean false. The facts are fake-able too. Subtle mis-interpretations can be all that's needed to lead a perfectly true narrative, astray. The line between myth and fact, can be very finely sliced indeed. There is not a single academic field free from fictionalizing Key aspects of the narrative to put someone in a more favourable light. Unfortunately.
aredox 3y ago
That's just completely false: Spanish civil war Invasion of Poland Stalin's victory in WWII The Talibans Iran-Iraq war Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire The Crusades Etc, etc, etc...
- gumby 3y ago
  The meaning of MacDonald‘s quip whooshed over your head. Read it again.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    No it didn't, it's a cute quip trying to play on how history is written by the winners but his version isn't actually true. There are plenty of examples where it's generally agreed that the "bad guys" won. Even if you try to read it as good bad being subjective I don't think there's any fixed lens though which a history book would interpret the winners being the good guys in every conflict. The bad guys for sure won the Iraq war.
    - menzoic 3y ago
      You also missed it. There will be varying accounts, but history written by the “bad guys” will frame things differently to make them seem like the good guys.
      - thaumasiotes 3y ago
        > There will be varying accounts, but history written by the “bad guys” will frame things differently to make them seem like the good guys. That's true, but since they frequently lose, that produces a lot of history showing that the good guys lost.
      - LeafItAlone 3y ago
        What you seem to be interpreting the quote as (and likely what it truly is intended to mean) is: “We have been the good guys in every single war.” Rather than “ the good guys have won every single war”. At least in my history books in school growing, my country was framed as the good guys and listed wars we lost.
empath75 3y ago
This tends to be true on the scale of nations, but not necessarily at the scale of the individual. People who wrote histories (before the advent of history as we know it today) were frequently people who were forced out of power after some personal failure or through no fault of their own, and then wrote a history defending themselves. https://scholars-stage.org/history-is-written-by-the-losers/ https://scholars-stage.org/history-is-written-by-the-losers/

“It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single war. What are the odds?” -Norm MacDonald

by sb057 3y ago

“It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single war. What are the odds?” -Norm MacDonald

drekipus 3y ago

This is one of my favourite Norm MacDonald quotes

watwut 3y ago

History books do not actually say that. The article is about historical fiction.

kikokikokiko 3y ago
If you are alive in 2023 and you haven't yet noticed, ALL history is historical fiction. Imagine how easy it is to create a mainstream narrative that doesn't fit the facts today. Now go back in time to the forties, when you had 3 newspapers and two radio stations "of record". Now go back to 1800. To 300 A.D. History is the fairy tale story of the rulling classes. Always.
- bazoom42 3y ago
  Real historians apply source criticism though. Historical fiction on the other hand often embrace the myths since since they tend to make for bettet stories.
- hef19898 3y ago
  That is exactly what history isn't so. History, as written by historians, is applying source criticism to primary sources. that understanding changes over time. What you describe is meme-based pop history at best. WW2 history based on WW2 Generals' memoir's, as opposed to unit diaries, is a prime example of that trap.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    You're right. But what was described isn't pop history, that trivializes the magnitude of its impact. For most the world most of the time for all of history, that _was_ how the past was understood. And today, we still understand the present this way, and it takes time to gather critical sources and discover truth, and hopefully record it.
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    > History, as written by historians, is applying source criticism to primary sources. Unfortunately, most "source criticism" is absolutely atrocious and developed primarily as part of the publish-or-perish paradigm, of such low quality that "X was motivated to believe Y, therefore Y was probably not true" without additional evidence is a common theme. Perhaps worse, much of our modern "source criticism" simply consists of applying whatever moralizing ideological lens is currently in vogue. Even historiography is largely fad-driven. You can absolutely learn more about historical events by reading the primary sources yourself. Historians are not blessed with some rare critical talent that can only be developed via a history degree. It's obviously true that reading only WW2 general memoirs is going to get you a very specific and limited view, but they aren't the only people who were writing at the time, and either way, within the limited parameters of military history, it's better to read what someone actually thought rather than reading what someone else thought they thought. Of course you will sometimes be misled, but at least you'll be misled in similar ways to people of the time, rather than being misled by 21st-century ideas. That's not to say there are no good modern histories, but the best are ones that quote very, very liberally and give you lists of the best primary sources, which you should still read.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      You want to read what, to stick with the example, WW2 Generals thought? Read their diaries, unit diaries, orders and other war diaries. The memoirs were all written after WW2, and show exactly that: what those Generals wanted others to think of them. Aggravated by the perceptive of being Cold War propaganda, the former Wehrmacht generals portrayed themselves as anti-communist fighters (as opposed to Nazi-enablers, sympathizers or outright Nazis), the Western allied Generals wanted to outplay each other (especially the US and UK ones, as vividly shown between Patton and Montgomery) but they all agreed to down play the Soviets war effort (Cold War, communists and all that, hence WW2 was won on D-Day and, maybe, Stalingrad). And yes, historians aren't above criticism, but by virtue of education they are better qualified then the average layman and / or history buff. Education matters, something we tend to forget way to often in fields outside of our own expertise.
- watwut 3y ago
  Yeah, it really sounds like you did not read history books. Also, the forties left huge amount of evidence behind them. History books are not based primary nor solely on "papers of record". These are just one of many used data points. Meanwhile, historical fiction is explicitly fiction. As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that. Good historical fiction goes deeper than good, sourced, "factual" history. Proper history depends on written records; but those records were made exclusively by people who are literate (obviously), which for most of history was a tiny minority. A lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff, based on a conventional version of history, telling tales we all (think we) know. The good stuff is made-up too, of course; but it's heavily researched, and informative. I'm thinking of stuff like Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      One falsehood is that people through out history were illiterate. The second is to see historical fiction as anything ddifferent from fantasy, science fiction or other forms of entertainment. History =|= historical story telling Ken Follet wrote a novel about building a cathedral, he didn'r write a book about medival cathedral building. Very important difference.
    - watwut 3y ago
      > lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff All of it is made up. That is why it is called fiction. Authors are pretty open about that fact. It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history - because it uses sourced history as its only source of information about past. Historical fiction writers read a lot of sourced history and then combine, modify, remove and add to make compeling story that would satisfy the audience.
      - denton-scratch 3y ago
- barrysteve 3y ago
  Your comment is made up. Made up doesn't have to mean false. The facts are fake-able too. Subtle mis-interpretations can be all that's needed to lead a perfectly true narrative, astray. The line between myth and fact, can be very finely sliced indeed. There is not a single academic field free from fictionalizing Key aspects of the narrative to put someone in a more favourable light. Unfortunately.

aredox 3y ago

That's just completely false: Spanish civil war Invasion of Poland Stalin's victory in WWII The Talibans Iran-Iraq war Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire The Crusades Etc, etc, etc...

gumby 3y ago
The meaning of MacDonald‘s quip whooshed over your head. Read it again.
- Spivak 3y ago
  No it didn't, it's a cute quip trying to play on how history is written by the winners but his version isn't actually true. There are plenty of examples where it's generally agreed that the "bad guys" won. Even if you try to read it as good bad being subjective I don't think there's any fixed lens though which a history book would interpret the winners being the good guys in every conflict. The bad guys for sure won the Iraq war.
  - menzoic 3y ago
    You also missed it. There will be varying accounts, but history written by the “bad guys” will frame things differently to make them seem like the good guys.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      > There will be varying accounts, but history written by the “bad guys” will frame things differently to make them seem like the good guys. That's true, but since they frequently lose, that produces a lot of history showing that the good guys lost.
    - LeafItAlone 3y ago
      What you seem to be interpreting the quote as (and likely what it truly is intended to mean) is: “We have been the good guys in every single war.” Rather than “ the good guys have won every single war”. At least in my history books in school growing, my country was framed as the good guys and listed wars we lost.

empath75 3y ago

This tends to be true on the scale of nations, but not necessarily at the scale of the individual. People who wrote histories (before the advent of history as we know it today) were frequently people who were forced out of power after some personal failure or through no fault of their own, and then wrote a history defending themselves. https://scholars-stage.org/history-is-written-by-the-losers/ https://scholars-stage.org/history-is-written-by-the-losers/