History is a terrible judge.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Speaking of important people, I am reminded of an oft-repeated and wholly invalid principle that time gives us the perspective needed to judge things in a more complete fashion. How this foolishness ever gains credibility is beyond me. It seems to me that in the throes of contemporary events, we are keenly aware of the puppet-nature of mankind, how leaders are driven more than the drivers, and how a multitude of competing influences form and shape a history beyond any conscious or deliberate efforts of single individuals or groups thereof.

The truth is, however, that time is a terrible game of informational attrition. Each passing day sees the fading of countless reams of data and knowledge and memory. As time passes, we get dumber, and to think that historians can levy judgment in any accurate sense with naught but scraps of records and paper is silly. Why do we think this? Why do we even recognize in our own lives this truth, yet ascribe all wisdom to the horribly broken enterprise of history?

It is really rather a terribly circular way of looking at things: those things that don't disappear are the "most important", and the "most important" things are those that happen to survive. Otherwise, why would anyone keep them? We know the answer... our historical record is the product of happenstance. A series of accidents and near-misses. Most of it gets burned up in fires, or soaked by waters, or deteriorated by time and must and fungus. And so we dig and we find a piece of pottery and proclaim, "Here lies the answer!"

Silliness. History is a waste of time. More than that, history is a fiction.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There is unfortunately a great deal of truth in this. Much of what we call history is fairy tales for grown-ups. It refers to events done by human beings in the past, human beings different from us today only in having lived 25 years (the minimum cut-off for contemporary events becoming historical) from what is now considered "historical." This reality is too often missed and motivations are attributed to people in the past that are really more like those of bad novels than real, living people.

You're right also that history has a Catch-22 with what is considered "important."

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Its both really. We get released of the current biases in our viewpoint, and we have all the information that is going to come out (Look at the Iraq war now as opposed to when it was Invadin' time) but yes there is also a historical bias to deal with.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

they do say the british army is always fully prepared for the war before last lol.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Well, some main principles of historical research theory actually agrees with many of your statements here. One of the main things to remember is that there is no complete way to get an objective and whole truth, and what is left in archival material is not necessarily representative of what is "most important". You (in a general sense) have to look for the gaps and pauses in material and ask why they are there, as well as take into account flawed human oral documentation, speculative sources etc.
History is neither fiction nor truth, it is a speculative research project that will never be finished. But it's not silliness, it is actually just as important as social sciences and political analysis, in the same way as a senior citizen is important in regards to a college student.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

In the case of books, I think the devision between fiction and non-fiction is not truthiness versus non-truthiness... but rather a statement of author's intent.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I think in the human perception, maybe scientific research which is peer reviewed comes closest to what people would constitute as "reality" maybe? Or maybe rather it would be called "truth" by many, but we could allow "reality" to be a little biased, as long as people are aware of the bias...

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

There are worse territories to stumble through in the end of the day.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

History is a collection of stories told by the winners and/or those who survived the events, sifted through the prism of their own perceptions and biases, and affected by the situation at the time. Anything but the numbers of years in history should be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism. The first question we should ask when reading a piece of historic story is: what was the author hoping to achieve when they wrote that?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not *always* by the winners. The US Civil War and the Axis-Soviet War were told from the viewpoint of the losers. So was the history of the Roman Empire between Augustus and Constantine. Those are about the only three exceptions to the rule, however......

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In theory this would exist but in practice it never does. For one thing a lot of peoples whose histories are entirely in oral traditions have their histories written in the written languages of either overlords or trading partners. The problem is that cultures who depend on the spoken as opposed to the written word can be very, very different and a lot of those nuances do not translate over accurately.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It would portray honestly the views of both sides in specific events while doing its best to avert bias with regard to either. The problem is that most histories give lip service to this idea but clearly support one or the other side. The bigger problem with that is that there are very few, if any, cases where historical matters are clearly in favor of one or the other side.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether or not it's attaching value judgments or not. For instance the Korean War is a pretty unambiguous war in favor of South Korea even under Syngman Rhee, the Second Indochina War was not so clearcut at the time and even moreso with the historical viewpoint.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's the point. It doesn't always happen. I mean if you were to ask people who started the Cold War, you could start a flamewar over that and there's people still living who remember that (not many, to be sure, but some). Most people could give a pretty fair version of the Roman Empire or the Han Empire, but that's partly because time has passed to the point where unless you're a Turk, Russian, or *really* reactionary German nobody gives a shit who's the right successor to the mantle of Caesar Augustus.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Arthurian legend always struck me as coming from an interesting perspective... Since Arthur would have been opposing the invading Germanics, it seemed odd to me for Arthurian legend to be such a strong thread in England, which is essentially Anglo-Saxon... i.e. all those invading Germanics Arthur was opposing. It seemed to violate the "winners own history" idea, since Arthur was obviously lauded rather than reviled.

But then I found out that much of the Arthurian legend (at least those parts that weren't retold French stories) had been maintained by the decedents of Brythonic ex-patriots who had been living in Brittany since the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Many of these people were part of William the Conquerers invading Army, and telling stories about old Arthur fighting against the evil Anglo-Saxons was good propaganda.

So, sometimes winners tell history... and sometimes winners elevate the history of old loosers when it suits them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

With of course the tension that Arthur is more legendary than anything else. His forces would have been Romano-British and thus would have fought like the Roman Army of Constantine's time. Yet he's described using contemporary Medieval mores and customs which were only evolving at that point. There's also the key point that the Anglo-Saxons of that point were non-Christians and it's not like Scandinavian history lauds Ivar the Boneless.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Good luck with that!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A Viking warlord around the time of the Norman Conquest. With a name like that he deserves to be remembered if nothing else. The Vikings did badass names right. Nobody fears Ivan the Cute. *Everybody's* afraid of Thorfinn Bloodaxe.

An obscure historical reference is something like the Legal Code of Ur-Nammu or a reference to Numa Pomplius or summat like that.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

applause * so, IOW history is relative to the side of the fence on which a person is found (including that person's ancestors)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not always. To put it mildly.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

yeah while we definatly support the settled over the invader, there was some medievil english hate towards arthur , as he was seen as a welsh superhero

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that if Arthur really existed he would have been at best half-Briton and thoroughly Romanized, probably with experience from the Legions. He would have had nothing to do with contemporary Wales and certainly was not a feudal king, as feudalism was centuries on the future. And he 100% did not have a Medieval Justice League for his warriors with an anti-Antichrist wizard as his main adviser.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The BBC has a cool series on the monarchy, hosted by David Starkey-- and he spends quite a bit of time on the early period circa 400-800) and the Arthur legends too.

The devil was the first Whig

[kgbman.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that history is a waste of time. Anyone with a lick of sense will admit they don't know everything. Nobody learns anything without the help of those who are older and more experienced. History is learning from those of our elders who happen to be dead.

That's not to say we should take our elders advice at face value. Sometimes their failures and shortcomings can be just as instructive as their successes.

Re: The devil was the first Whig

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

That's not to say we should take our elders advice at face value. Sometimes their failures and shortcomings can be just as instructive as their successes.

this is the very principle i abide by! this is why it is not good to disrespect one's elders, for there is much to learn even in their shortcomings :D 10 points for you fjlskjdfkjl

Re: The devil was the first Whig

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A very small library was discovered (I *think*) in Pompeii or near there. So far everything that's been looked at, has turned out to be rather boring stuff or things that survived else where. No major new discoveries yet, but the archaeologists are hopeful as they continue to dig, something important or new will turn up.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I disagree ;) Too nihilist for me bud!

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Speaking of important people, I am reminded of an oft-repeated and wholly invalid principle that time gives us the perspective needed to judge things in a more complete fashion.

I think we tend to memorialize people after they die because they are no longer in a position to embarrass or injure us.

[lordtwinkie.livejournal.com]

"history is a waste of time"

yea good luck with living your life by that mantra.

History, real Historically researched history done by trained professionals is anything but fiction. I think you are failing to make a distinction between "history" espoused by talking heads and politicians, and history that thats been combed over and dug through and researched throughly, with points of view backed up by real evidence.

The problem with your belief that we are keenly aware of anything fails to recognize the reality that we don't know what the hell is going on until after the fact. thats why hindsight is 20/20 unless you happen to be omniscient, which i doubt you are, in which case you and i aren't even close to being aware of even knowing one half of 1% of the total knowledge and information of the moment.

do you think the world knew what the fuck was going on during the cuban missile crisis, that it situation was defused by a back room deal with the kremlin? fuck no, we didn't find that shit out till much later, thats god damn history at work. what about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams sending each other letters about the size of the American weasel's penis? people didn't know about that shit till later making it fucking history!

a properly trained historian when doing research and reading source documents takes into account who is writing the information, for what purpose, what time period, to what audience, etc. context is king.

honestly your entire argument is an argument for ignorance, you honestly believe that since the time of Herodotus that all of it is total bullshit?

there is really only one fucking word to describe this post


which means

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

Rubbish, good sir! History is no more a waste of time because we don't have a complete picture as astronomy is a waste of time because we don't understand dark matter.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

We don't understand it therefore it doesn't exist, period.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

I don't always understand my tax forms but they certainly still exist :(