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GoonSquad
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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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20 Mar 2015, 11:20 am

Meistersinger wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
I think it is but there's a contingency that says it's alright to rewrite history, sanitizing it, and it's usually image or profit motivated but it is clearly a misrepresentation. Why is it people have such inflated egos they find no problem in revising something that was so awful? Is this part of the phenomena known as cognitive disassociation or is there something more sinister going on?

A lot of times it seems like they do it just to have something new to present to others, as in, everyone knows the real history so if I repeat it ad nauseam, people will tune me out, but, if I come up with something new to tell them, they will find it interesting so I have to make up history and it's perfectly okay for me, living in the present to do that! Why would anyone have such a notion, that it would be okay for the present to make up the past when there is strong evidence for what happened in the past happening?


Benjamin Disraeli once said, "Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.. From what I learned as a music history major, there is no such thing as an unbiased view of history. Most history textbooks have bias written in their pages, mostly for political expediency. For example,why do publishers print a separate book for the State of Texas while printing something completely different for the rest of the country? It's all a matter of economics and political expediency.


I thought George Santayana said it.


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20 Mar 2015, 11:48 am

Tim_Tex wrote:
Meistersinger wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
I think it is but there's a contingency that says it's alright to rewrite history, sanitizing it, and it's usually image or profit motivated but it is clearly a misrepresentation. Why is it people have such inflated egos they find no problem in revising something that was so awful? Is this part of the phenomena known as cognitive disassociation or is there something more sinister going on?

A lot of times it seems like they do it just to have something new to present to others, as in, everyone knows the real history so if I repeat it ad nauseam, people will tune me out, but, if I come up with something new to tell them, they will find it interesting so I have to make up history and it's perfectly okay for me, living in the present to do that! Why would anyone have such a notion, that it would be okay for the present to make up the past when there is strong evidence for what happened in the past happening?


Benjamin Disraeli once said, "Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.. From what I learned as a music history major, there is no such thing as an unbiased view of history. Most history textbooks have bias written in their pages, mostly for political expediency. For example,why do publishers print a separate book for the State of Texas while printing something completely different for the rest of the country? It's all a matter of economics and political expediency.


I thought George Santayana said it.


Revisionism! Lol!

But seriously- I think that you're right!

It was Santayana who said "Those who don't know the past are condemned to repeat it".



slenkar
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20 Mar 2015, 11:55 am

Did anyone learn in high school that Europeans ended slavery in Africa?



eric76
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20 Mar 2015, 12:20 pm

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
However, the holocaust, which beyond a shadow of a doubt, was complete wretched evil and horror for all who endured it - and also it cannot be understated that war, in general is horror for all who endure it - but that doesn't subtract from the particular evil of the death camps. Revisionists will try to deduct from the force of evil for a variety of different reasons but evil is evil and it cannot be revised away by The Currents who simply wish it wasn't there, or are uncomfortable with awareness for some reason.


What I found bizarre was to be accused of revisionism when mentioning the concentration camps in Yugoslavia during World War II. It appears that to some people, "revisionism" includes pointing out that it was not only the Nazis who ran concentration camps. As I understand it, they seem to think that doing so is nothing more than an attempt to minimize the holocaust!



naturalplastic
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20 Mar 2015, 1:39 pm

Some kinds of revisionism are despicable.

Just saw a story on the news about what might be called the opposite of revisionism: the brave Syrian archeologists who try to protect ancient sites in Syria from: the random savagery of the civil war, from the greed of robbers, and from the creed of deliberate destruction of ancient artifacts by ISIS. The modern "monuments men". Praiseworthy heroes.



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20 Mar 2015, 2:40 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Some kinds of revisionism are despicable.

Just saw a story on the news about what might be called the opposite of revisionism: the brave Syrian archeologists who try to protect ancient sites in Syria from: the random savagery of the civil war, from the greed of robbers, and from the creed of deliberate destruction of ancient artifacts by ISIS. The modern "monuments men". Praiseworthy heroes.


I would have liked to have seen that. Do you remember what channel that is on?

My gut feeling is that trying to protect those ancient sites from war, robbers, and ISIS would be truly dangerous.



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20 Mar 2015, 3:39 pm

eric76 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Some kinds of revisionism are despicable.

Just saw a story on the news about what might be called the opposite of revisionism: the brave Syrian archeologists who try to protect ancient sites in Syria from: the random savagery of the civil war, from the greed of robbers, and from the creed of deliberate destruction of ancient artifacts by ISIS. The modern "monuments men". Praiseworthy heroes.


I would have liked to have seen that. Do you remember what channel that is on?

My gut feeling is that trying to protect those ancient sites from war, robbers, and ISIS would be truly dangerous.


It was on the CBS morning show with Charlie Rose.A Syrian archeologist guy was interviewed by the young lady correspondant (forget her name).

I dont know if they actually confront ISIS, but even before ISIS - antiquities were being destroyed by the other two factors. And confronting those with out ISIS is enough of a job. Couple of years ago I heard on the news that both the world's oldest church, and the world's oldest mosque, were both in Syria, and that both had been destroyed in the fighting.



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20 Mar 2015, 3:42 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
eric76 wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Some kinds of revisionism are despicable.

Just saw a story on the news about what might be called the opposite of revisionism: the brave Syrian archeologists who try to protect ancient sites in Syria from: the random savagery of the civil war, from the greed of robbers, and from the creed of deliberate destruction of ancient artifacts by ISIS. The modern "monuments men". Praiseworthy heroes.


I would have liked to have seen that. Do you remember what channel that is on?

My gut feeling is that trying to protect those ancient sites from war, robbers, and ISIS would be truly dangerous.


It was on the CBS morning show with Charlie Rose.A Syrian archeologist guy was interviewed by the young lady correspondant (forget her name).

I dont know if they actually confront ISIS, but even before ISIS - antiquities were being destroyed by the other two factors. And confronting those with out ISIS is enough of a job. Couple of years ago I heard on the news that both the world's oldest church, and the world's oldest mosque, were both in Syria, and that both had been destroyed in the fighting.


I don't guess reruns of that show would be very likely, then.



naturalplastic
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20 Mar 2015, 3:54 pm

Maybe on YouTube?

It was just a brief segment. But interesting.



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20 Mar 2015, 5:15 pm

If it comes from The Ministry of Truth then revisionism is fine, if it doesn't come from such official sources, then indeed it is despicable and thank goodness the likes of Ingsoc have enforced laws and socially engineered the masses to ensure we only except history from them, even when it changes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda
Like at the moment for instance, with all the incitement to racial hatred against Islam, it comes from the same trustworthy sources as the official facts about the Germans in the first world war cutting off babies hands which was definitely true until after the war finished when it then became true that the Germans didn't cut off babies hands, so no need to worry, the experts will be sure to let you know what you must believe. But if it doesn't come from them, its from evil people so don't even consider it.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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20 Mar 2015, 5:35 pm

It just makes me angry when people burn books written about an event because, to them, something's not right or it makes so and so look bad so we must strike it from the record. Many accounts have been lost because of that. I hate it when humans are so short sighted. I am able to reach my own conclusions, I do not need a supreme editor deciding what I do and do not need to see, read, or hear especially if he comes along fifty years or more later and suddenly decides he is the only one who could possibly know what went on even though he was nowhere near the event and might have been a tiny infant when it was occurring. That doesn't matter. He and he alone is the only one who could possibly be right. All others aren't so replace everything with his divine revelation. What pure and utter delusional hog wash. Pompous delusions of grandeur with The Futures paying the ultimate price of deprivation.



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21 Mar 2015, 11:02 am

Another thing to think about...At lot of history written today, especially American 'pop history' is written in Livy's style--romanticized--but the author's aren't up front about it...

Take, the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian in the 90s...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay# ... ontroversy

Quote:
Enola Gay became the center of a controversy at the Smithsonian Institution when the museum planned to put its fuselage on public display in 1995 as part of an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[35] The exhibit, The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War, was drafted by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum staff, and arranged around the restored Enola Gay.[36]

Critics of the planned exhibit, especially those of the American Legion and the Air Force Association, charged that the exhibit focused too much attention on the Japanese casualties inflicted by the nuclear bomb, rather than on the motivations for the bombing or the discussion of the bomb's role in ending the conflict with Japan.[37] The exhibit brought to national attention many long-standing academic and political issues related to retrospective views of the bombings. As a result, after various failed attempts to revise the exhibit in order to meet the satisfaction of competing interest groups, the exhibit was canceled on 30 January 1995. Martin O. Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, was compelled to resign over the controversy.[38][39]

The forward fuselage did go on display on 28 June 1995. On 2 July 1995, three people were arrested for throwing ash and human blood on the aircraft's fuselage, following an earlier incident in which a protester had thrown red paint over the gallery's carpeting.[40] The exhibition closed on 18 May 1998, and the fuselage was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.[41


I think many Americans were taught a very whitewashed, idealized--very Livy-esque--version of these events in school.

I was taught in high school that dropping the bomb saved American and Japanese lives, they forced us to do it, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

The truth, as usual, is a bit more complex. Revisionist historians like Gar Alperovitz emphasize the other reasons we dropped the bomb. Things like allied politics, etc. Dropping the bomb might have ended the war with Japan, but it also sent a message to the USSR and helped to start the cold war.

Revisionists are not always despicable... Sometimes they're just coming at the issue from a different perspective.

Kinda like Howard Zinn's A People's History of The United States... a lot of people denounce that work as revisionist, but it's really just history from another, less wealthy, less male, less white perspective.


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21 Mar 2015, 12:26 pm

GoonSquad wrote:
Another thing to think about...At lot of history written today, especially American 'pop history' is written in Livy's style--romanticized--but the author's aren't up front about it...

Take, the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian in the 90s...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay# ... ontroversy

Quote:
Enola Gay became the center of a controversy at the Smithsonian Institution when the museum planned to put its fuselage on public display in 1995 as part of an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[35] The exhibit, The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War, was drafted by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum staff, and arranged around the restored Enola Gay.[36]

Critics of the planned exhibit, especially those of the American Legion and the Air Force Association, charged that the exhibit focused too much attention on the Japanese casualties inflicted by the nuclear bomb, rather than on the motivations for the bombing or the discussion of the bomb's role in ending the conflict with Japan.[37] The exhibit brought to national attention many long-standing academic and political issues related to retrospective views of the bombings. As a result, after various failed attempts to revise the exhibit in order to meet the satisfaction of competing interest groups, the exhibit was canceled on 30 January 1995. Martin O. Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, was compelled to resign over the controversy.[38][39]

The forward fuselage did go on display on 28 June 1995. On 2 July 1995, three people were arrested for throwing ash and human blood on the aircraft's fuselage, following an earlier incident in which a protester had thrown red paint over the gallery's carpeting.[40] The exhibition closed on 18 May 1998, and the fuselage was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.[41


I think many Americans were taught a very whitewashed, idealized--very Livy-esque--version of these events in school.

I was taught in high school that dropping the bomb saved American and Japanese lives, they forced us to do it, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

The truth, as usual, is a bit more complex. Revisionist historians like Gar Alperovitz emphasize the other reasons we dropped the bomb. Things like allied politics, etc. Dropping the bomb might have ended the war with Japan, but it also sent a message to the USSR and helped to start the cold war.

Revisionists are not always despicable... Sometimes they're just coming at the issue from a different perspective.

Kinda like Howard Zinn's A People's History of The United States... a lot of people denounce that work as revisionist, but it's really just history from another, less wealthy, less male, less white perspective.


I don't care what you feel about it -- I think that the analysis that more people would have died if we had to take Japan by invasion.

In addition, if it comes to choosing between the lives of our troops or the lives of the enemy troops or civilians, I'll side with the lives of our troops every time.

As far as a cold war with the Soviet Union, the alternative was not no war, but a full war with massive casualties on both sides. Nuclear weapons, if anything, likely saved many lives by making entering into full scale war so unpalatable.

I think those who want to claim that we erred in not using the nuclear bombs are doing so out of their own political agenda rather than basing it on reality.



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21 Mar 2015, 1:14 pm

GoonSquad wrote:
Another thing to think about...At lot of history written today, especially American 'pop history' is written in Livy's style--romanticized--but the author's aren't up front about it...

Take, the controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian in the 90s...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay# ... ontroversy

Quote:
Enola Gay became the center of a controversy at the Smithsonian Institution when the museum planned to put its fuselage on public display in 1995 as part of an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[35] The exhibit, The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War, was drafted by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum staff, and arranged around the restored Enola Gay.[36]

Critics of the planned exhibit, especially those of the American Legion and the Air Force Association, charged that the exhibit focused too much attention on the Japanese casualties inflicted by the nuclear bomb, rather than on the motivations for the bombing or the discussion of the bomb's role in ending the conflict with Japan.[37] The exhibit brought to national attention many long-standing academic and political issues related to retrospective views of the bombings. As a result, after various failed attempts to revise the exhibit in order to meet the satisfaction of competing interest groups, the exhibit was canceled on 30 January 1995. Martin O. Harwit, Director of the National Air and Space Museum, was compelled to resign over the controversy.[38][39]

The forward fuselage did go on display on 28 June 1995. On 2 July 1995, three people were arrested for throwing ash and human blood on the aircraft's fuselage, following an earlier incident in which a protester had thrown red paint over the gallery's carpeting.[40] The exhibition closed on 18 May 1998, and the fuselage was returned to the Garber Facility for final restoration.[41


I think many Americans were taught a very whitewashed, idealized--very Livy-esque--version of these events in school.

I was taught in high school that dropping the bomb saved American and Japanese lives, they forced us to do it, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

The truth, as usual, is a bit more complex. Revisionist historians like Gar Alperovitz emphasize the other reasons we dropped the bomb. Things like allied politics, etc. Dropping the bomb might have ended the war with Japan, but it also sent a message to the USSR and helped to start the cold war.

Revisionists are not always despicable... Sometimes they're just coming at the issue from a different perspective.

Kinda like Howard Zinn's A People's History of The United States... a lot of people denounce that work as revisionist, but it's really just history from another, less wealthy, less male, less white perspective.


When they insist on replacing history they are despicable. I also dislike when they cushion the effects of war with justifications. War is always a terrible thing and should always be avoided whenever possible and humans should work to avoid it. Some revisionists say war is okay. Simply stating facts such as, Americans used nuclear weapons during world war two to end the war and spare American lives is not revisionism. It is another perspective about why it occurred but it doesn't deny the event was harsh for those who endured it nor does it say it didn't happen or was much smaller and insignificant than historians have led us to believe. The message of the revisionists is not about giving a different way of looking at it, more like reducing it or editing out the grotesqueness or profound suffering that will give weight to the horrendous nature of it. They do the same thing in court rooms when the judge orders they can't use specific language during the trial, like gang banger for instance, even though evidence exists the defendant was in a trial. The judge rules against using such language because of how it will influence the jury, not because of any facts. Revisionists have the same sort of ideas in mind when they rewrite history. They want to protect the living from the horrors of the past. Ironically, they could be setting up similar scenarios in the future by falsely believing lessening the severity of the lesson is actually protecting even though I am not convinced of the cliche expression those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Sometimes, people seem fated to fall into these cycles even though they are made well aware of what is going on. Their energy goes toward a repeat, not away from it.



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21 Mar 2015, 6:13 pm

eric76 wrote:

I don't care what you feel about it -- I think that the analysis that more people would have died if we had to take Japan by invasion.

In addition, if it comes to choosing between the lives of our troops or the lives of the enemy troops or civilians, I'll side with the lives of our troops every time.

As far as a cold war with the Soviet Union, the alternative was not no war, but a full war with massive casualties on both sides. Nuclear weapons, if anything, likely saved many lives by making entering into full scale war so unpalatable.

I think those who want to claim that we erred in not using the nuclear bombs are doing so out of their own political agenda rather than basing it on reality.


Dude, no one is saying we shouldn't have used the bomb (Well Alperovitz does, actually, but he's in the minority), but the truth is, we really didn't do it to avoid invasion. By August 1945 Japan was defeated. We could have encircled the home islands and just waited for Japan to die, except for one thing...

The USSR was gearing up to join the land war in Asia, and after seeing what Stalin did in Europe, Truman wanted to avoid that all all costs.

That meant he needed to end the war ASAP. And, that's why we used the bombs. To break Japan in a single blow and stop Stalin from gobbling up China the way he did eastern Europe.

Remember, China was an ally and pre-commie back then. Truman did the right thing, but they don't teach the real reasons in school. Because everything related to WWII is "Greatest Generation" revisionist horse-shit.

There's plenty of revisionism to go around.


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