history is propaganda from the winner.

Discussion in 'History' started by scifes, Sep 21, 2010.

  1. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    winning or losing is what colors the morals of actions of people.
    what you do is not good or bad to begin with, but rather if you win you're good, if you lose you're bad, because it wasn't you who lived to tell the tale, to write the history.

    examples,

    because hitler lost the world war, he was an evil dictator, down with him and dictatorship.
    because america changed the tide of events, it's the savior of europe [and the world] from a spreading evil, up with democracy.

    aslo,
    because the US won the war, dropping the atomic bombs was justified, and the US is in the clear morally.

    also, because the jews survived the holocaust and won themselves a country, they don't cease to remind the world with what happened to them.

    as opposed to;
    the red indians, or american natives, who didn't survive their genocide, didn't get themselves a country, and their oppressor is still alive and functioning.
    the world pretty much forgot their misfortune, and the only historical figures who survived their era is Pocahontas who married a white guy, and the other indian who used to lead the way for the spanish invaders.
    contrast the red indians to the jews, who got to have their zohan and inglorious bastards.


    imagine if hitler DID take over europe, what would we be taught of him? what point would the americans dropping the nuclear bomb be used to make? what would the leading political regime in the world be? what would be promoted, and what would be despised and fought, dictatorship and communism, or democracy?
    which would be good and which would be evil?

    present wars for democracy are approved by the people because of our history. not because they're good or beneficial or right. same goes to many set values in our lives, when you watch the news just try to think of how different would an event be reported if a historical event was to happen differently...
     
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  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    What bothers me is that if a country wants a dictator AND that country isn't invading any other country AND that country isn't harming its citizens then why does any other democratic country have the right to get involved with their politics?
     
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  5. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Who wants a dictator??
     
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  7. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    From the elections in Cuba it seems the Cubans do.
     
  8. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    As the 'ole saying goes: "He who wins the war gets to write the history textbook". At the same time, that doesn't automatically make the loser's propaganda any better. Indeed, in cases where the losing side was the one to initiate the war, one must question how much they lied to their own people, convincing them they were destined for victory.
     
  9. jmpet Valued Senior Member

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    I agree with you that the winner gets to write history. And that history is relative, dependant on the winner.

    We have been a nation for roughly 225 years and we have been at war 1/3 of that time. Amazing.

    So is the world a better place because the USA sprang into being? I say yes- the US defines "The East"... we are the international power to contend with... we are the result of the discovery of the New World.

    History has shown us that history is a travel across the world over time. History, over time, is a stream of events that occur sequentially over time, with a noble intent: the desire to impart idealistic values to the next generation.

    Hitler was evil, plain and simple. If we never got involved, he would end up controlling Europe and eventually declaring war on "the East". His desire was to control the world and that automatically makes you evil.

    Sure it would be a great grand world if Hitler won the world, but I believe no single power can effectively control the world- the Earth is too complicated.

    History, if nothing else, shows us how finite our time here is.
     
  10. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Professional historians realize that winners have a vested interest in trying to "touch up" history, and take that into account. That's why historians always look at primary sources from the winning side, the losing side, and even neutral sides. The only way winners can really "write history" is if they completely wipe out an opponent, destroy all their historical records, suppress any dissenting accounts of what happened from their their own side, and manage to do all this without any neutral third parties writing about it. Even thousands of years ago, that was pretty tough. And when someone does manage to do it, historians take everything that the victors write about it with a grain of salt, because they know it's not necessarily reliable. For example, there's plenty of wild stuff that the Romans wrote about various barbarians who they conquered that historians regard as likely bullshit, simply because the Romans were the only ones who wrote it, and they had a grudge.

    Dude, if you don't think that Hitler really was an evil dictator, you're either a nut or an idiot.
    See above.
    There are plenty of people who don't think that the atomic bombing on Japan was justified. It is very controversial. About 40% of Americans think that it was a bad thing to to.
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/17677/majority-supports-use-atomic-bomb-japan-wwii.aspx
    You have a pretty strange concept of "winners" if you think that Jews were winners in WWII.
    Dude, EVERYBODY is aware that the Native Americans were very badly mistreated, massacred, etc. at the hands of Westerners. It's in every highschool history book, countless Hollywood movies, and historical museums all over the USA. As for why Jews get more press time than the Indians, there's also the minor fact that the genocide against the Jews happened recently, and loads of people who were directly involved in it are still alive.
    Oh? Then why do most Americans think that invading Iraq was a bad idea? http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-12-warpoll_N.htm After all, we won, and it was a war for democracy. By your standards, most Americans should be happy with it.
     
  11. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I was going to post, but Nasor said it very well. The winners do get a strong voice in saying what the history was, but the relative strength of their account diminishes over time.

    Examples of the winners looking bad or the losers like righteous victims abound: American Indians, Japanese put into camps by Americans, the fate on the Confederacy, peoples subjected to European colonial rule, the heavy handedness of the victors in WWI, the Turks who committed the Armenian Genocide, everybody who Stalin crushed under his boot, you can even look at the many books written about the Peasants' Revolt, how the Normans oppressed the Saxons (a view that is so dogmatically repeated that in recent years, you've begun to see a counter movement to rehabilitate the Normans) or the Celts and how their culture was unfairly destroyed or eclipsed by the Romans. History is not winner take all.

    It is true, though, the some victors' interpretations stick, which would not have had they lost. The American Founding Fathers would never get the press they get today had they lost (though the American "Rebellion" itself would likely be seen as having some justification).
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2010
  12. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    But what about Julius Caesar? He killed and enslaved millions. He once wanted to make a point and so he had the hands chopped off 3000 men and then shipped them around the provinces he conquered as a reminder for threatening the Peace of Rome. The 400 year old Republic ended soon thereafter.

    Most people see Caesar in the positive light is my point I guess.
    Absolutely agree.

    Totally agree. I've never met an American who wouldn't agree.
     
  13. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    Caesar is rather a special case because Caesar's non-Roman enemies were illiterate. The Celts had no written language, so, for example, Caesar's accounts of the Gallic Wars is the only account we have. (There is good evidence, though, that the Celts liked to behead captured enemies, Roman, Celts and otherwise, so it was a different age on all sides.)

    Roman history is replete with that problem...was Caligula crazy? We know that his ENEMIES wrote that he was, but we have scant evidence for what his supporters thought...and frankly his enemies often make such outlandish claims of just how crazy he was that all historians of the period are taught to be very careful of accepting them at face value.

    In any situation where only a few sources survive, or only sources of one side survive, you will get a biased account. That would be true whether it was the winners of the losers whose accounts survive. Attilla the Hun does not get good press, and he was very successful--clearly one of the "winners". The Huns, however, were not big on writing down their side of the story.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2010
  14. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    And as I said earlier, I think most historians discount the wilder stuff that the Romans wrote about the Celts (like burning piles of babies, ritualized bestiality, other outlandish stuff that I can't recall offhand).

    As for Caesar, I would submit that the vast majority of people don't actually know anything about him other than having a vague idea that he was a powerful Roman emperor. Among people who do actually know about him, I don't think that he's viewed as a particularly moral person.
     
  15. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    History is always biased. But I like to listen to both sides of history, winner, loser, maybe even bystander if I can.
     
  16. dsdsds Valued Senior Member

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    So that means 60% of Americans, the majority, consider it morally justified -- proving scifes' point. I'm sure if Hitler had won the war, Germans today would have considered the Holocaust as "very controversial".
     
  17. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    No, it doesn't. One questionable example does not prove a point. And 40% vs. 60% isn't exactly overwhelming public support for the bombing.
    And your certainty is based on what, exactly? There are plenty of examples of winners feeling bad about it later. There's no controversy about whether or not the treatment of Native Americans was good or bad; everyone simply agrees that it's bad, even though everyone left was on the winning side. There's a good chance that most German people today would regret the holocaust even if Germany had won. Especially since most ordinary Germans weren't even aware that the holocaust was happening (not that they had much love for Jews).

    The whole "history is written by the winners" thing is just a truism that people who aren't actually very familiar with history and how historians work like to repeat to sound smart.
     
  18. dsdsds Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder if the Iroquois Society would have some input in today's American history books:

    http://www.dickshovel.com/lsa3.html
     
  19. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Where you're getting a little confused is in the separation of opinion and history. History is just that; a set of events along a timeline. Facts.

    This little synopsis of events you've posted above is history - if it's true. I added the last because frankly I wouldn't have a clue as to those particular details, American history is a little boring for me other than when it factors into some other.

    That your schools leave some history out is not an indictment on history itself, but rather those who report and teach it.

    History is not "propaganda from the winner". It is not anyone's curriculum. It is merely a set of facts and events from which anyone with a particular agenda can pick and choose as suits themselves.
    Which you've admirably demonstrated above. The Iroquois certainly could not be adjudged the winner of anything at all, and yet retain a history of their own. Thsi in itself refutes the OP.
     
  20. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Personally, I prefer reading accounts of Heliogabalus. Impossible to determine if the fellow was a lackwit or an existential genius.
     
  21. dsdsds Valued Senior Member

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    Yes history is absolute, objective & factual but the only thing that matters is the interpretation of it. It is also obvious that those with power have the most influence on educating the masses and selecting facts & events that would put forward their agenda. The powerful (usually the winners) play a significant part in setting the socially accepted views.
     
  22. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Look at all of the inventions that the Europeans said they invented throughout history but now we all have learned that China made may of those inventions and the Europeans lied about what they made and when they made them. History is full of holes, big ones.
     
  23. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

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    I agree Scifes is correct. I think had Hitler won most Germans would have been somewhat hostile to the Holocaust being discussed. Germans would have minimized the Holocaust and would have justified the Holocaust. I base my opinion on American attitudes towards what happened to the native Ameicans and Turkish attitudes towards what happened to the Armenians.

    Jews were not as threatening as the as the Armenians and native Americans were but none of these groups were particularly threatening. The Armenian threat was potentially a serious threat. The Armenian threat was that just prior to the Armenian genocide one after another ethnic groups had been continuously successfully revolting from Turkish rule often causing the Turkish minorities to feel the need to flee to Turkish majority areas

    The Native American threat was that the Native Americans continuously inflicted some casualties on the people taking their land.

    Germany was a relatively new nation created from other nations and had no history of a German identity. What Germans had in common was the German language. But there were German speaking minorities scattered throughout eastern Europe and Austria and parts of Hitler was an Austrian who is is youth was part of a movement to get Austrians to identify as German and reject the Austrian identity which was based on pan-ethnic loyalty to the Hapsburg royal family.

    At age 24 in 1913 Hitler moved from Austria to Munich in the New German which was then 42 years old.

    After defeat in WW1 Germany lost German majority areas to Poland, Czechoslovakia and France. Many Germans probably did not buy into German nationalism. Communism in 1933 was anti nationalistic. Many Germans supported the Communists. Hitler was probably correct in believing that Jews on average were going to oppose a nation being based on German ethnic nationalism.

    Who voted for Hitler in 1933.

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    Notice that the lands that would be given to Poland which were next too lands that had German majorities that had already been given to Poland were the core of Hitler's support.



    Germany 1871-1918 With pre 1871 Prussia in blue.

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    Ethnicities 1931

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    12 Million German speaking people would flee their homelands at the end of WW2 and move to Germany.

    Hitler by seeking to empower German people everywhere after their WW1 defeat further disempowered Germans and caused 12 million of them to feel the need to flee their homes.

    Were Jews a threat? They were not a threat to Germans but they were a threat to Hitler's dream of Germans loving and being obsessed with their Germanness like Hitler was. That still does not explain why Hitler had to kill the Jews instead of just deporting them.
     

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