Do the terrible events today make you question the narratives of terrible events in history?

BackLogJoe · Jul 7, 2018

Everyday the news is simply incredible. It seems that there is a struggle between right and wrong, left versus right, greed versus compassion. Things happen that are simply incredulous. Trump's rise to power. Republicans denial of evidence surrounding it. The rights vicious attacks on the left, no matter how untrue they are. Police departments knowingly hiring Nazis. Police forces covering up crimes that indicate an accepted state of intolerance towards minorities.

All of it is just simply fucking outrageous. It's almost unbelievable. And the right accuse the people who do see what's going of horrendous things.

None of this is new, though.

These same attacks and outrageous, cowardly acts have been happening seemingly since WW2.

I'm listening to a podcast about RFK and while I don't understand what happened, and it seems pretty obvious what did happen in the surface, why should I take the accepted narrative, especially when it was pieced together by the LAPD. Everyone knows now that the LAPD was corrupt as fuck.

We have lost great men, JFK, MLK, and RFK. People who infuriated the right. The same right that are cool with concentration camps today.

I don't subscribe to any conspiracy theories, but I do feel naieve to the true nature of the political right. I feel their reach is long and their hatred of compassion and doing what's right for everyone is so deep that it can influence horrid crimes. We act like what's going on today is unprecedented, but if you listen to speeches and opinions given from the right, in regards to the left, it's as venomous and hateful today as it has been for many decades.

JLP101 · Jul 7, 2018

Do the terrible events today make you question the narratives of terrible events in history?

The terrible events in history make me question the terrible events of today.

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Daschiel · Jul 7, 2018

Pakkidis said:
The terrible events in history make me question the terrible events of today.

Sadly nobody that cares enough to do something about it ever lives long enough. Seems they are always extinguished before they become to big.... That's my take from parts I have read about our last 200 years of history on this planet. (In general)

Beartruck · Jul 7, 2018

I already did that. "History is written by the winners" is a phrase you should always keep in your mind.

Red Liquorice · Jul 7, 2018

Pakkidis said:
The terrible events in history make me question the terrible events of today.

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Beartruck said:
I already did that. "History is written by the winners" is a phrase you should always keep in your mind.

I'll second those.

PhazonBlonde · Jul 7, 2018

Yes, which is why where possible it's necessary to read the experiences of oppressed classes through history, in their own words. It's true that the winners write the history books, but sometimes you can find accurate accounts that challenge the narrative.

tsampikos · Jul 7, 2018

History is written by the victors and they will never parade around some of the atrocities required to secure those wins so between that and propaganda yes, question everything.

Baked Pigeon · Jul 7, 2018

Seperation from God, and the fall of man ocurred back in the garden of eden. Division and evil are nothing new.

SigmasonicX · Jul 7, 2018

* Victors and the South

Germangerbil · Jul 7, 2018

Beartruck said:
I already did that. "History is written by the winners" is a phrase you should always keep in your mind.

It is considered a fallacy by historians though.

saenima · Jul 7, 2018

Everybody should listen to the Citations Needed podcast. It's mostly about Media Narratives, political PR and the way these things shape our views of the world. They do an excellent job of deconstructing inherent biases and most of the bullshit that informs news and the public's opinion on them.

DigitalOp · Jul 7, 2018

They never told you that the death of Crispus Attucks (A Black Man) was the one of the defining Sparks of the American Revolution.

They never told you alot of things.

Keep reading my friend.

Welcome to History

Shoeless · Jul 7, 2018

Anyone that comes from a country that has been "blessed" by the colonial influence of a European country already knows just how much narratives differ. Just look at the English version of,"Those stubborn Chinese just weren't open to reason about expanding their markets," versus "They brought drugs into our country and got our people addicted to drugs, TWICE, and that's why we call it them the opium wars." It's amazing how light-hearted and fun-loving British history is about the horrible acts they inflicted on other countries when they didn't get their way.

Deleted member 24118 · Jul 7, 2018

tsampikos said:
History is written by the victors and they will never parade around some of the atrocities required to secure those wins so between that and propaganda yes, question everything.

Beartruck said:
I already did that. "History is written by the winners" is a phrase you should always keep in your mind.

History is written by the victors is a deliberate misquotation of a famous quote by British prime minister Winston Churchill. The actual quote reads: "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.". This is not because he intended a state propaganda campaign aimed at painting him and the western Allies in a favourable light but rather because he was a historian and wrote actual history books in which he portrayed himself favourably. There are plenty of examples of the vanquished writing history which are propagated in popular culture. An example from WW2: much written about the eastern front was based on German accounts until the opening of the Soviet archives in the 1990's. The loser wrote history in this case.

Another example: Genghis Khan must surely go down as one of the great victors in all history, but he is generally viewed quite unfavorably in practically all sources, because his conquests tended to harm the literary classes. Or the senatorial elite can be argued to have "lost" the struggle at the end of the Republic that eventually produced Augustus, but the Roman literary classes were fairly ensconced within (or at least sympathetic towards) that order, and thus we often see the fall of the Republic presented negatively.

Basically "the victors write the history" is a meme that makes you look like a dolt when used.

Zastava · Jul 7, 2018

Beartruck said:
I already did that. "History is written by the winners" is a phrase you should always keep in your mind.

While generally true this is not a hard rule, otherwise the Confederates wouldn't be painted so often as noble defenders of a way of life in the War of Northern Aggression, instead of the garbage slavers they were.

Zeta Ori · Jul 7, 2018

Being black in the US is a good way to learn this lesson pretty early on in life.

The Tuskegee Experiments?
Firebombing of Black Wall Street?
Americas obsession with Eugenics (particularly with Native American woman)?
The history of Redlining, the effects of which are still felt among the communities of minorities around the country to this day?
The war on drugs and the true reasons for it's creation?

None of this is ever mentioned in school. Black History in the US education system is pretty much taught as "Hey, yall were slaves at some point and that was bad, but then there was the civil war and you were free. People were still kinda racist though, until MLK and Rosa Parks showed up and then civil rights happened and now things are all good, you even get your own month." and that's about it.

Mr Satan · Jul 7, 2018

England getting to the semis is unprecedented, sure, but I'm sure you're overreacting.

Deleted member 41271 · Jul 7, 2018

BackLogJoe said:
None of this is new, though.

See also Ronald Reagan and actively trying to get AIDS victims to die out of thinking that most were gay anyway.
Like, not just doing nothing, Reagan actively *prevented* help and *mocked* when one journalist asked questions about it.

Or colonial history. Or general history in the middle east. Narrative in media is always "those crazy towelheads hate us for some reason!", never "we fucked them over ever since WW1, and kept throwing gasoline onto the fire in the region in our quarrels with the soviet union and propped up all the dictators, perhaps we're kinda responsible too."

SeanBoocock · Jul 7, 2018

Zeta Ori said:
Being black in the US is a good way to learn this lesson pretty early on in life.

The Tuskegee Experiments?
Firebombing of Black Wall Street?
Americas obsession with Eugenics (particularly with Native American woman)?
The history of Redlining, the effects of which are still felt among the communities of minorities around the country to this day?
The war on drugs and the true reasons for it's creation?

None of this is ever mentioned in school. Black History in the US education system is pretty much taught as "Hey, yall were slaves at some point and that was bad, but then there was the civil war and you were free. People were still kinda racist though, until MLK and Rosa Parks showed up and then civil rights happened and now things are all good, you even get your own month." and that's about it.

That's likely true of the public US education system in many areas, but I was lucky enough to attend (Jesuit) Catholic schools that didn't shy away from the US's legacy of systemic racism and oppression of minorities. There are schools out there who are teaching people who are lucky enough not to have live that legacy every day, to recognize their privilege and work towards a more just society.

As outrageous as contemporary events have been in the United States, reading history has been a good way to maintain perspective when things seem hopeless. If you haven't had much exposure to other narratives of American history, I'd give "A People's History of the United States" a read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2767.A_People_s_History_of_the_United_States.

Zeta Ori · Jul 7, 2018

SeanBoocock said:
That's likely true of the public US education system in many areas, but I was lucky enough to attend (Jesuit) Catholic schools that didn't shy away from the US's legacy of systemic racism and oppression of minorities. There are schools out there who are teaching people who are lucky enough not to have live that legacy every day, to recognize their privilege and work towards a more just society.

As outrageous as contemporary events have been in the United States, reading history has been a good way to maintain perspective when things seem hopeless. If you haven't had much exposure to other narratives of American history, I'd give "A People's History of the United States" a read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2767.A_People_s_History_of_the_United_States.

I'm actually really glad to hear that there are schools that go more in-depth about these subjects, but what makes me angry at the same time is that the vast majority of the people who need to hear this; black youth that deserve to know their actual history rather than the white washed version, and white youth who need to hear the grisly details of what occurred so they get an actual look into how things ended up this way instead of being coddled and told the sanitized version so they grow up thinking racism and it's brutal history are things of the distant past, are both overwhelmingly in schools that fail to teach this.

And at some point, you realize that's on purpose.

Do the terrible events today make you question the narratives of terrible events in history?

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SeanBoocock

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