[Ansteorra] Re: Historical Gerrymandering

[Marc Carlson]

>From: "KTMC- AM 14 & KTMC-FM ROCK 105.1" <ktmc at icok.net>
>Well, Historical revisionsism, or Omission!
>    Acknowledging the definition Diarmaid gave concerning historical
>revisionism, and  I agree with much of the point of (unaware of what
>proper higher title that should be used in the case of) Lady >Katren's, I
>would also offer the following;
>    I think the 'perception' of historical revisionism is one of
>deliberately falsifying or minimizing events that are Known to have
>occurred, for the furtherance of a political, social, or 'moral' agenda.

I agree that this is a common perception.  It was that perception that I was
railing against,

>    That, rather than an alternative view of how past events went >from
>another historical perspective, is an attempt at deliberate
>falsification and/or watering down of history.

Unfortunately, I also have to concede that there is a LOT of that 'watering
down' going on, particularly among people who (in theory) should know
better.  For example, there is a strong tendancy these days towards what is
referred to as 'edutainment' in museums - which ultimately results in a
Dineyfication of the past, based on the misperception that what really
happened is not interesting enough for people to learn.  That to bring in
the money from the tourists, they have to dumb things down, and make them
palatable.

>    On something else Diarmaid psoted concerning, the data from >different
>sources and flawed versions of events is indeed something to think about. I
>am one of those who believes in absolute truths, and that looking at
>historical data helps one benefits in determining the 'most likely' chain
>of events in an instance. OTOH, I think all writers of general history have
>a margin of favoritism/bias (hopefully minimal and one the writer attempts
>to guard against, and perhaos even an unconscious one) that can 'color'
>their perspective >of events. Thus, the multiple perspectives is beneficiaL

Personally, I also believe in an absolute truth, but that it's one that we,
as fallable humans, may probably never ever really know.  Thi doesn't mean
that we shouldn't at least TRY to get as close to it as possible -- and weed
out the misinformation and outdated factual errors.  Part of the difficulty
there it the reality that one of the hardest things for many scholars to say
is "we don't know".

In school, we are presented a history as an absolute.  On this date, such
and such happened for these reasons.  It becomes very difficult and
confusing to later hear that what we were taught isn't really all there is -
so we either resist that, or trash what we learned previously.  Both
approaches are flawed.

An example, BTW, of bias in history is how we were taught about the history
of the American Revolution.  When "The Patriot" came out I heard a lot of
confusion at the suggestion that so much of the war was fought in the South.
  Several people even told me that they were under the impression that the
Battle of Yorktown was fought in the North (Yorktown is in Virginia, only a
few miles from both Jamestown and Williamsburg).  This view that the
Revolution was fought entirely in New England began to be promulgated after
the Civil War, seemingly to diminish any influence the South might have had
-- along with the whole "the Pilgrims/the Plymouth Colony" were the first
real British colonists in the New World mythology.

>    Although OOP for our group, for World War II, I find it >intersting to
>look at American, English, and German authors' writings (and there should
>be other beneficial one in non-English translated works as well.)

You betcha.  Something that is frequently overlooked in the History of WWII
(Or the Great European War, part 2) is just how influental the fascist
perspective was in both Britain and the US before, and even during most of
the war.

Marc/Diarmaid

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx