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18 Mar 2015, 1:44 am

I really dislike and for example:

Feminism is about equality*

*expect feminism was about getting the rich women to have the right to vote.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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18 Mar 2015, 9:37 am

luan78zao wrote:
Do you think the profession of historian is "despicable"? Revising history – reinterpreting the past in light of new evidence and new perspectives – is what historians do.

Historiography is not simply a sequence of events: on June 6th this happened, on the 7th that happened, and so on. Rather a historian has to present that which he believes to be important and significant. And that depends on his values, and changes over time.

Take a modern person of undoubted historical significance, such as Barack Obama. Eventually there will be a tremendous amount of information available concerning his presidency. He will write a book, members of his staff will write books, diaries will be published, official records will be declassified. Fifty years from now a historian will be able to write an excruciatingly detailed account of the Obama presidency – on the afternoon of September 18th he had tuna casserole for lunch, then met with a group of Girl Scouts, then spent an hour with the prime minister of Norway, discussing fishing treaties, and so on and on for the eight years.

And anybody who tried to read such a book would die of boredom. Actually, historians of the future will interpret and reinterpret the Obama presidency according to their values and their knowledge of what follows. Right now Obamacare seems like a big issue to us, but depending on what happens in the next few decades, future histories of the Obama presidency may skim over domestic matters in order to focus on American relations with China. Or with Iran. Or on something we're not even aware of as an issue nowadays.

When people deride a historical view as "revisionist," they merely mean that they disagree with the historian's interpretation and favor another. This is not to say that every interpretation is equally true. It's up to the reader to figure out through what sort of lens a writer is viewing historical events and decide if that lens is objectively valid.

For me it's just listing the facts and presenting pictures or videos and physical evidence whenever possible, like what we see in museums. The words should belong to the ones living the event at the time. What happened on that date, photos and statements, please. Present it all then let people do their own thinking. No revising. NONE. If you want to see it from a different perspective, then it is merely your own opinion and should be treated as such. What gives anyone the right to rewrite history?

Look at the Gospels, for instance. I have a suspicion they have been subjected to revising and what's left is a misrepresentation of what actually occurred. I don't really care about what someone thought 50, 100, 200 years later and this perspective they insist on inflicting upon us all so it's all we are left with, with the origin partially or completely obscured. I am all for historical accuracy, not some revisionist's dream. This kind of things fills me with a lot of angst because I am so intensely interested in who Jesus and his followers really were and I would like questions to be answered. Since so many people believed in revising back then and at a MUCH later date as well, we cannot tell what is real and what was simply revised because they felt what was real wasn't proper, or even lied to themselves declaring what was originally reported must have been a lie so it's okay to cover a lie with another lie. It just becomes a fairy tale at some point, doesn't it?

This is why I have developed a disgust at revisionists who feel they have some divine right to obscure things for everyone else, from their personal perspective instead of simply giving us all the privilege of thinking for ourselves about what is presented from the actual time the events occurred. I refuse to be coddled by the intentions of selfish, arrogant revisers.



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18 Mar 2015, 11:49 am

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
One thing that fascinates me to no end about the New Testament - according to the ones who later wrote The Gospels, they had a cult of some kind in Judea and some of the provinces, where they traveled and preached, sorta in the tradition of John the Baptist and yet no one bothered to write anything down. No scribes or anything. Leads me to wonder if everyone in the movement was pretty much illiterate and of the lowest castes. This could be one possible explanation, of course it is mere speculation performed by a confounded soul. There's no way of ever really knowing but it is a good question that lingers to this day.

None of the Gospels were actually written when Jesus was alive, according the King James Version and I find that a very curious fact. Even the ones claimed to have been written by the actual Apostles were written after he died.


Nothing was ever "written down" until 3000 BC because writing hadnt been invented yet.

And then from 3000 BC to AD 1700 only the happenings in the lives of kings, and aristocrates were ever recorded. And it wasn't until the mid 19th Century, when governments began to mandate grade school education did the majority of the population use writing.

Jesus was a commoner.

So the fact there is so little documentation about the life of a crazy carpenter-turned-itinerate-preacher whom no one but a few crazy cultists considered important until two centuries after his death is to be expected.

The lives of both Buddha, and of Mohammed, were also only spoken tradition for generations, before being written down. The time delay between the lifetimes of Mohammed, and of Buddha, and of the earliest writings about them are gaps at least as big as that with Jesus, if not greater.



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18 Mar 2015, 11:55 am

naturalplastic wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
One thing that fascinates me to no end about the New Testament - according to the ones who later wrote The Gospels, they had a cult of some kind in Judea and some of the provinces, where they traveled and preached, sorta in the tradition of John the Baptist and yet no one bothered to write anything down. No scribes or anything. Leads me to wonder if everyone in the movement was pretty much illiterate and of the lowest castes. This could be one possible explanation, of course it is mere speculation performed by a confounded soul. There's no way of ever really knowing but it is a good question that lingers to this day.

None of the Gospels were actually written when Jesus was alive, according the King James Version and I find that a very curious fact. Even the ones claimed to have been written by the actual Apostles were written after he died.


Nothing was ever "written down" until 3000 BC because writing hadnt been invented yet.

And then from 3000 BC to AD 1700 only the happenings in the lives of kings, and aristocrates were ever recorded. And it wasn't until the mid 19th Century, when governments began to mandate grade school education did the majority of the population use writing.

Jesus was a commoner.

So the fact there is so little documentation about the life of a crazy carpenter-turned-itinerate-preacher whom no one but a few crazy cultists considered important until two centuries after his death is to be expected.

The lives of both Buddha, and of Mohammed, were also only spoken tradition for generations, before being written down. The time delay between the lifetimes of Mohammed, and of Buddha, and of the earliest writings about them are gaps at least as big as that with Jesus, if not greater.

I meant the Gospels in particular and if Luke could have been around writing stuff, surely someone could have been there for Jesus writing stuff, too. How would we know what Jesus was really like if we do have a revisionist's fiction to go by? How do we know what's what? See why I disapprove so strongly of revising. But hey, if it wasn't for revising, so many wouldn't have employment, I guess. Must pay them to do something. 8O



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18 Mar 2015, 12:48 pm

The one thing that definitely annoyed me, both as an undergraduate music history major and a graduate student in library science is the constant revisionism of history that was taking place from a pseudo-psychological standpoint. Yes, it might work for anything written by Beethoven after the so-called Heiligestadt Testament after he was rejected by his "Immortal Beloved", as well as Tchaickovsky and his relationship with Najeda Von Meck. But why do the musicologists have to try to psychoanalyze the life of Johann Sebastan Bach, Heinrich Scuetz, or Dietrich Buxtehude?



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18 Mar 2015, 2:09 pm

You are all revisionists.

It has been said each generation changes history, just by viewing it from their time.

WWII is now about good overcoming evil, except when done by The Soviet Union, because they a different political system, which all the other players adopted every time they went to war.

One of the current views is War is how States gain more power over their own citizens. See Homeland Security.

Sanctions and funding groups in other countries, is not new. Nothing is new, and six members of the old Ukraine government die of suicide, the new government said so. Someone started shooting in Kiev, Syria, now near the Kremlin, playing lets you and him fight.

The same was happening in Germany leading up to the war.

Good and Evil are about trade, markets, and all wars are about economics. Sometimes it is about markets, some times about reviving a failed economy.

Iben Khaldun wrote all about it in 1300. States need enemies, so they can raise taxes, have a standing army, which Polices their citizens, debases the money, sends spies, assassins, to destroy their economic rivals, so they can take their markets. When other states respond in kind, taxes have to go up, governments have to have more domestic power.

In the end, productive citizens slip away in the night. "Money and talent will move toward freedom." I Khaldun

Khaldun shows how all governments before his time followed the same path, how all fell.

All governments since have followed the same path, most have fallen, only a few recent examples remain, they are on the path to destruction.

They all claim "This time is different." We are defending God, His People, but it always ends the same.

Government is the leading cause of poverty. When I was coming up a dollar was one ounce of Silver, that is now twenty dollars.

The end is near.



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18 Mar 2015, 2:19 pm

Inventor wrote:
...When I was coming up a dollar was one ounce of Silver, that is now twenty dollars.

The end is near.

Indeed. Not to quibble, but an ounce of silver is $15.94 today. But, even mainstream media-heads admit that the metals markets are rigged, faked, conned, made up by government agencies and financial institutions like JP Morgan Chase and HSBC ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ma ... eblower%29 ) to discourage a complete abandonment of stocks and bonds. I believe that the real price of silver is closer to $50-100 an ounce. So, buy it all up now! It's cheap. And, if the economy crashes, the real prices will return.


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18 Mar 2015, 4:56 pm

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
One thing that fascinates me to no end about the New Testament - according to the ones who later wrote The Gospels, they had a cult of some kind in Judea and some of the provinces, where they traveled and preached, sorta in the tradition of John the Baptist and yet no one bothered to write anything down. No scribes or anything. Leads me to wonder if everyone in the movement was pretty much illiterate and of the lowest castes. This could be one possible explanation, of course it is mere speculation performed by a confounded soul. There's no way of ever really knowing but it is a good question that lingers to this day.

None of the Gospels were actually written when Jesus was alive, according the King James Version and I find that a very curious fact. Even the ones claimed to have been written by the actual Apostles were written after he died.


Nothing was ever "written down" until 3000 BC because writing hadnt been invented yet.

And then from 3000 BC to AD 1700 only the happenings in the lives of kings, and aristocrates were ever recorded. And it wasn't until the mid 19th Century, when governments began to mandate grade school education did the majority of the population use writing.

Jesus was a commoner.

So the fact there is so little documentation about the life of a crazy carpenter-turned-itinerate-preacher whom no one but a few crazy cultists considered important until two centuries after his death is to be expected.

The lives of both Buddha, and of Mohammed, were also only spoken tradition for generations, before being written down. The time delay between the lifetimes of Mohammed, and of Buddha, and of the earliest writings about them are gaps at least as big as that with Jesus, if not greater.

I meant the Gospels in particular and if Luke could have been around writing stuff, surely someone could have been there for Jesus writing stuff, too. How would we know what Jesus was really like if we do have a revisionist's fiction to go by? How do we know what's what? See why I disapprove so strongly of revising. But hey, if it wasn't for revising, so many wouldn't have employment, I guess. Must pay them to do something. 8O


Huh?
Can someone translate this into human language?

Are you angry at the ancients for being "revisionists" because they didnt assign a stenographer to follow Jesus around?
And waited until decades later to write his gospels down- and do it from their biased viewpoint?

Or are you angry at modern secular historians for being "revisionists" by attempting detective work to get at the historic Jesus?

Or at both?

Anger at either group is pointless and ridiculous. If the ancient apostles had not gotten around to writing their"revisionist" accounts we wouldnt have ANY accounts of Jesus at all. And contrary to popular belief the facts never "speak for themselves". You have to have modern scholars interpret things.



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18 Mar 2015, 5:45 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
One thing that fascinates me to no end about the New Testament - according to the ones who later wrote The Gospels, they had a cult of some kind in Judea and some of the provinces, where they traveled and preached, sorta in the tradition of John the Baptist and yet no one bothered to write anything down. No scribes or anything. Leads me to wonder if everyone in the movement was pretty much illiterate and of the lowest castes. This could be one possible explanation, of course it is mere speculation performed by a confounded soul. There's no way of ever really knowing but it is a good question that lingers to this day.

None of the Gospels were actually written when Jesus was alive, according the King James Version and I find that a very curious fact. Even the ones claimed to have been written by the actual Apostles were written after he died.


Nothing was ever "written down" until 3000 BC because writing hadnt been invented yet.

And then from 3000 BC to AD 1700 only the happenings in the lives of kings, and aristocrates were ever recorded. And it wasn't until the mid 19th Century, when governments began to mandate grade school education did the majority of the population use writing.

Jesus was a commoner.

So the fact there is so little documentation about the life of a crazy carpenter-turned-itinerate-preacher whom no one but a few crazy cultists considered important until two centuries after his death is to be expected.

The lives of both Buddha, and of Mohammed, were also only spoken tradition for generations, before being written down. The time delay between the lifetimes of Mohammed, and of Buddha, and of the earliest writings about them are gaps at least as big as that with Jesus, if not greater.

I meant the Gospels in particular and if Luke could have been around writing stuff, surely someone could have been there for Jesus writing stuff, too. How would we know what Jesus was really like if we do have a revisionist's fiction to go by? How do we know what's what? See why I disapprove so strongly of revising. But hey, if it wasn't for revising, so many wouldn't have employment, I guess. Must pay them to do something. 8O


Huh?
Can someone translate this into human language?

Are you angry at the ancients for being "revisionists" because they didnt assign a stenographer to follow Jesus around?
And waited until decades later to write his gospels down- and do it from their biased viewpoint?

Or are you angry at modern secular historians for being "revisionists" by attempting detective work to get at the historic Jesus?

Or at both?

Anger at either group is pointless and ridiculous. If the ancient apostles had not gotten around to writing their"revisionist" accounts we wouldnt have ANY accounts of Jesus at all. And contrary to popular belief the facts never "speak for themselves". You have to have modern scholars interpret things.


In one simple sentence YES I AM ANGRY AT THEM. And I do not understand why you would defend such activities.



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18 Mar 2015, 5:49 pm

Revising history to suit the living seems like one of the most dishonest and selfish things someone can do. Think of all The Futures you deprive when you rewrite history to suit your needs.



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19 Mar 2015, 6:48 am

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
For me it's just listing the facts and presenting pictures or videos and physical evidence whenever possible, like what we see in museums. The words should belong to the ones living the event at the time. What happened on that date, photos and statements, please. Present it all then let people do their own thinking. No revising. NONE. If you want to see it from a different perspective, then it is merely your own opinion and should be treated as such. What gives anyone the right to rewrite history?


I dislike repeating myself. Yes, the accounts of Jesus' life and teachings were oral tradition for decades before they were written down, and then they were revised numerous times before arriving at the versions we are familiar with today. Yes, that makes them more in the realm of legend rather than history. Unless some new eyewitness source emerges, which is rather unlikely at this point, that's as good as it's going to get. People who take the Gospels to be truthful accounts do so on faith.

But with more modern subjects, one cannot "present it all." There's simply too much material. I notice that you have an opinion about Thomas Jefferson. Is that because you've read and studied everything he wrote? (He was an extremely prolific writer, churning out letters and journal entries and essays nearly every day of his adult life.) Oh, and in order to fully understand the context in which he wrote, you'd need to read everything he would have read, all the significant philosophical, legal, political and other works of the period. This is a lifetime's work for one person. Are you that person?

Or have you based your opinion on summaries and excerpts, written and chosen by others based on what they thought was important? Sounds "revisionist" to me.


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19 Mar 2015, 8:11 am

AspieUtah wrote:
Unfortunately, recorded history is written first by those who remember it. Even the first editions of recorded history usually included opinions to flatter the victors while denigrating the losers. So, revisionism influences all of recorded history not just the recently revised kind. I like researchers who can use tangible evidence and conflicting writings to arrive at more accurate accounts; that is a kind of revisionism which benefits everyone. For me, as a student of genealogy and history, I am suspicious of any historical writings (even first-person accounts) which allow for no alternative renditions. An absolutely certain researcher of history is probably the culprit of many mistakes, and, in history, mistakes have a tendency to propagate. The way to minimize these mistakes is to create an abundance of histories, with evidence and conflicting critiques, and let future readers decide for themselves.

But, don't take my word for it. 8)


Yes. I actually think at least some revisionism is inevitable. It isn't malice. It's just that people tend to see things from their own point of view even when trying as hard as they can to be objective.

The movie Rashomon still stands as one of the best movie illustrations of this. I saw it when I took a History of Cinema class in college and was blown away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon



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19 Mar 2015, 8:24 am

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
For me it's just listing the facts and presenting pictures or videos and physical evidence whenever possible, like what we see in museums. The words should belong to the ones living the event at the time. What happened on that date, photos and statements, please. Present it all then let people do their own thinking. No revising. NONE. If you want to see it from a different perspective, then it is merely your own opinion and should be treated as such. What gives anyone the right to rewrite history?


But which pictures,videos and physical evidence should be presented? Whose eyewitness words should be presented? This is where the bias starts, a criticism sometimes leveled at museums. It isn't possible to show everything so somebody has to edit what to show and what to leave out. Or what to showcase as the most important piece of preserved evidence and what to let stay in the background.

Absolute objectivity is not possible. It's not necessarily even desirable since data overwhelm is what would happen to somebody presented with literal unedited evidence. It would just be a mish-mash with no discernible story.

This is why I favor the multiple account approach (like the movie Rashomon). What is important to a broad group of people will come out in the overlaps.



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19 Mar 2015, 8:30 am

luan78zao wrote:

But with more modern subjects, one cannot "present it all." There's simply too much material.


Yeah. That.

Information presented without bias or interpretation is just a chaos of noise.

My preferred approach is multiple accounts. That way you can get a narrative of the event slowly without data overwhelm but also without being beholden to just one point of view.

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_214_28-great-movies-from-perspective-minor-characters/



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19 Mar 2015, 9:51 am

There is revisionism, and then there is revisionism.

Its a sliding scale.

It CAN BE truly despicable when some power-at-be tries to obliterate memory for propaganda reasons. An ancient emperor destroying all records because he wants all of history to start with him, or the Nazi's burning books, or the Taliban destroying statues of Buddha carved by their own infidel ancestors of centuries ago. BUT- if that sort of thing happens in one epoch then subsequent historians have to correct that revision by doing their own revising of history back again.

And you can't just "present historic facts". I could hand you the New York City phone book of 1930 with all of the names in it. And let you sift through all of the names. It would be unbiased, and unedited, and unadulterated in any way. So you would not be able to complain that I was "coloring" the facts. But what would forcing you to read the raw list of names in the phonebook accomplish toward teaching you about life in NYC in 1930? Someone has to be paid to use sources and to interpret raw data -and turn it into some kind of interpretation.



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20 Mar 2015, 11:07 am

People have been revising history as long as they have been writing it.

Anybody who has taken an advanced level history class where you evaluate primary sources can see this.

The story of Torquatus and the Gaul is a prime example. It's a really interesting story from the early Roman Republic. It's sort of a David and Goliath story.

In brief:
The Romans are fighting the Gauls for control of a bridge and they're at a stalemate. A huge Gaul comes out and issues a challenge--single combat for the bridge.

None of the Romans respond. So the giant Gaul begins to taunt the legion calling them cowards. Finally a young Roman, Titus Manlius accepts the challenge.

Manlius uses the Gaul's stature and high center of gravity against him. He knocks him off balance, scores a couple of good stabs in the chest and the groin of the Gaul. The Gaul bleeds out, and collapses. Manlius beheads the corpse and removes the Gaul's silver torque (basically a rigid necklace/collar). Then he dons the bloody torque and raises the severed head in triumph for all to see.

He is proclaimed a hero and given the agnomen Torquatus.

This is pretty much exactly what the annalist Quadrigarius wrote about the incident.

The more famous Historian, Livy used Quadrigarius as a source when he wrote his version of the story...

The basic facts of both accounts are the same. BUT, Livy's account is much more detailed and in his account Titius Manlius is described as the Ideal Roman Soldier.

Both accounts give you the same facts.

Livy's revision also gives the reader a lesson in what a Roman should be.

Here's the thing. In the intro to his history, Livy tells us:

Quote:
There is this exceptionally beneficial and fruitful advantage to be derived from the study of the past, that you see, set in the clear light of historical truth, examples of every possible type. From these you may select for yourself and your country what to imitate, and also what, as being mischievous in its inception and disastrous in its issues, you are to avoid.


He TELLS us that he's writing his history not for the sake of writing history, but to give us an education (via the examples he provides) in what's right and wrong.

Livy is honest about his agenda.

Is his revision despicable too?

I'm not sure.


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