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You seem very confident of this position and its coherence, but it seems to be a minority stance, with plenty of other coherent minority stances competing with

You seem very confident of this position and its coherence, but it seems to be a minority stance, with plenty of other coherent minority stances competing with it. What's the best way to tell your idea from other competing models -- not so much the neoliberal one, but other alternative claims of the nature of human history?

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
I wanna make sure I understand your question. Are you asking why I believe that narratives about history are more accurate than the most popular “Neo liberal history?” If so, then, that’s not really my claim. My claim is that history as it is taught to children in America in both public education, and in the majority of private education does not teach the philosophies of indigenous populations or frankly, any other population that were dominated or are otherwise different than the culture for which it is being taught. I think this is exceptionally common worldwide, so it’s not unique to America. British pupils are not taught about all of their atrocities that they committed worldwide had an equal measure, as they are taught about all of the benefits that the British brought to the world. So it’s less of a function of malice or anything like this, as it is that people really don’t want to own their own history and deal with the implications of taking full responsibility for it.
- aksss 3y ago
  Some of this is simply what’s considered germane to modern survival vs not. The information about imperial atrocities (whether English, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Powhatan, etc) is there for the interested, but in a child’s limited day of learning it’s probably not the most important thing to dwell on so much as the abstract lessons with a few concrete examples (in the US, the holocaust and slavery generally serve). This is a reflection of brevity for efficiency but bias has certainly played a part in it. I think that’s fading to the point of absurdity though. “Land acknowledgement” proclamations at US events being a case in point. Incorporating indigenous wisdom gets a lot of focus in my corner of the US relative to its practical value and traceable legitimacy. Critical views of history, from Zinn to The 1619 Project are by no means in short supply. This has so much influence and currency on historical interpretation today that the side effect of “history without presentism” seems exceptional these days. This consequence is deleterious rather than additive to the study of history, and far apart from the goal of emphasizing “untold histories”. I would propose that what most consider “untold history” (leaving revisionist histories and counterfactuals aside) is really just a rabbit hole of fascinating nerdom rather than a conspiracy. For example, I think more people should appreciate details of North American industrialization in the 19th century. I fully recognize that most people don’t know the interesting details not because the knowledge is controlled by gatekeepers but because most people are just aren’t as interested in it as me. Should they be? Of course! But if you’re into history you’ll always be stunned by the things people don’t know that you imagine to be common knowledge (or be incensed that it’s not). People have lives though, and for most people living in the present, the past is deprioritized. It’s probably helped us as a species.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    That still does not solve the problem of having a coherent and accurate narrative history. you’re simply acknowledging that it was cherry picked and managed, and making the point that it’s required as a practicality does not in anyway excuse or correct the bias. It is not by accident that these things are not taught, where I disagree is that it has not been intentionally biased. We know for a fact that it has been intentionally biased and the entire purpose of the daughters of the confederacy in their drive-through the south to rename schools and erect monuments, explicitly to maintain racist history is unambiguous. The fact that this remains, albeit it is now being undone slowly, is exemplary of my point. It is insufficient for these significant cultural points to be casually mentioned, as opposed to intentionally acknowledged such that we can make reparations. If your position is that these things do not have remaining cultural impacts well, I don’t know what else to tell you other than that’s incorrect and again is a function of the specificity for which this history is taught. Ruby Bridges is still alive today and there are women living today who couldn’t vote. This wasn’t that long ago.
    - ajb 3y ago
      Why should we be sure that a narrative of history exists, that is both coherent and accurate? I'm not convinced that human history is coherent. Maybe you are a theist, but for those of us that are not, there is no reason to believe that human history can fit neatly into any particular narrative. Any story we tell about it will necessarily be partial and biased.
- nradov 3y ago
  Every population was indigenous if you go back far enough. Why did some of those indigenous populations rise to global dominance while others were utterly crushed? Was this purely a matter of luck and geography or were there other societal factors?
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Again, it goes back to my original point: Some groups decided that they were going to adopt domination strategies and so they won because they were more unethical. This memetically reproduces over 12,000 years such that we’re stuck with predominantly unethical growth pattern. In fact, there are many other options, but because dominance has so dominated, its the only thing people can conceptualize as a way to deal with existential anxieties. This is all discussed in the chalice and the blade, and basically every other anthropological record. Egalitarian groups will eventually be overrun and dominated by property focused “growth“ and domination based cultures. This is why we have the “turnings “and the political cycle, etc. none of the historical writers writing about these types of things like Polibius looked prehistorically because they didn’t have the information to look prehistorically because Paleo biology and anthropology didn’t exist. It was only after Claude Levi Strauss that the real shape of human prehistory comes into view.
    - nradov 3y ago
      You haven't provided any evidence of groups specifically deciding to adopt domination strategies. I think you're just projecting your own narrative onto a period from which we have only tiny bits of archaeological evidence which can be interpreted in many different ways.
      - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        How many times have I recommended specific reading in this thread that answers that? At least twice. Go read the books

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

I wanna make sure I understand your question. Are you asking why I believe that narratives about history are more accurate than the most popular “Neo liberal history?” If so, then, that’s not really my claim. My claim is that history as it is taught to children in America in both public education, and in the majority of private education does not teach the philosophies of indigenous populations or frankly, any other population that were dominated or are otherwise different than the culture for which it is being taught. I think this is exceptionally common worldwide, so it’s not unique to America. British pupils are not taught about all of their atrocities that they committed worldwide had an equal measure, as they are taught about all of the benefits that the British brought to the world. So it’s less of a function of malice or anything like this, as it is that people really don’t want to own their own history and deal with the implications of taking full responsibility for it.

aksss 3y ago
Some of this is simply what’s considered germane to modern survival vs not. The information about imperial atrocities (whether English, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Powhatan, etc) is there for the interested, but in a child’s limited day of learning it’s probably not the most important thing to dwell on so much as the abstract lessons with a few concrete examples (in the US, the holocaust and slavery generally serve). This is a reflection of brevity for efficiency but bias has certainly played a part in it. I think that’s fading to the point of absurdity though. “Land acknowledgement” proclamations at US events being a case in point. Incorporating indigenous wisdom gets a lot of focus in my corner of the US relative to its practical value and traceable legitimacy. Critical views of history, from Zinn to The 1619 Project are by no means in short supply. This has so much influence and currency on historical interpretation today that the side effect of “history without presentism” seems exceptional these days. This consequence is deleterious rather than additive to the study of history, and far apart from the goal of emphasizing “untold histories”. I would propose that what most consider “untold history” (leaving revisionist histories and counterfactuals aside) is really just a rabbit hole of fascinating nerdom rather than a conspiracy. For example, I think more people should appreciate details of North American industrialization in the 19th century. I fully recognize that most people don’t know the interesting details not because the knowledge is controlled by gatekeepers but because most people are just aren’t as interested in it as me. Should they be? Of course! But if you’re into history you’ll always be stunned by the things people don’t know that you imagine to be common knowledge (or be incensed that it’s not). People have lives though, and for most people living in the present, the past is deprioritized. It’s probably helped us as a species.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  That still does not solve the problem of having a coherent and accurate narrative history. you’re simply acknowledging that it was cherry picked and managed, and making the point that it’s required as a practicality does not in anyway excuse or correct the bias. It is not by accident that these things are not taught, where I disagree is that it has not been intentionally biased. We know for a fact that it has been intentionally biased and the entire purpose of the daughters of the confederacy in their drive-through the south to rename schools and erect monuments, explicitly to maintain racist history is unambiguous. The fact that this remains, albeit it is now being undone slowly, is exemplary of my point. It is insufficient for these significant cultural points to be casually mentioned, as opposed to intentionally acknowledged such that we can make reparations. If your position is that these things do not have remaining cultural impacts well, I don’t know what else to tell you other than that’s incorrect and again is a function of the specificity for which this history is taught. Ruby Bridges is still alive today and there are women living today who couldn’t vote. This wasn’t that long ago.
  - ajb 3y ago
    Why should we be sure that a narrative of history exists, that is both coherent and accurate? I'm not convinced that human history is coherent. Maybe you are a theist, but for those of us that are not, there is no reason to believe that human history can fit neatly into any particular narrative. Any story we tell about it will necessarily be partial and biased.
nradov 3y ago
Every population was indigenous if you go back far enough. Why did some of those indigenous populations rise to global dominance while others were utterly crushed? Was this purely a matter of luck and geography or were there other societal factors?
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Again, it goes back to my original point: Some groups decided that they were going to adopt domination strategies and so they won because they were more unethical. This memetically reproduces over 12,000 years such that we’re stuck with predominantly unethical growth pattern. In fact, there are many other options, but because dominance has so dominated, its the only thing people can conceptualize as a way to deal with existential anxieties. This is all discussed in the chalice and the blade, and basically every other anthropological record. Egalitarian groups will eventually be overrun and dominated by property focused “growth“ and domination based cultures. This is why we have the “turnings “and the political cycle, etc. none of the historical writers writing about these types of things like Polibius looked prehistorically because they didn’t have the information to look prehistorically because Paleo biology and anthropology didn’t exist. It was only after Claude Levi Strauss that the real shape of human prehistory comes into view.
  - nradov 3y ago
    You haven't provided any evidence of groups specifically deciding to adopt domination strategies. I think you're just projecting your own narrative onto a period from which we have only tiny bits of archaeological evidence which can be interpreted in many different ways.
    - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
      How many times have I recommended specific reading in this thread that answers that? At least twice. Go read the books