Revising History.

Today I had a discussion about "Holocaust Deniers" and "revisionism" in general.
Two examples of revised history would be: The Holocaust Never Happened, and of course: The Moon Doesn't Exist, And We Never Actually Went There.

By these people's logic, they could say "Hitler invented ketchup packets" If you pointed out that Hitler had not invented the ketchup packet, they'd tell you something along the lines of "You're only saying this because you've been brainwashed by the Jew controlled media."

They can tell you that the moon doesn' exist, because you've never been there first hand, and if you point out that astronauts went there and brought back moon rocks, they'd tell you that they're not rocks from the moon, because the moon doesn't exist - so how could they get rocks from it?

Some people are so out of touch with reality, they'd believe and defend the above statements with made up history. It comes back to my idea about where all problems stem from: Stupid People.

These are the people that want everything bad, such as the Holocaust, taken out of text books. It's history and it happened. There's nothing you can do about it except learn from past mistakes. I'm with you man, these people have no sense of reality and need a reality check real fast.

It starts with stupid people. Then the stupid people gain power. With power they gain status. With status and power they gain money. They then have influence. And with all of these things they can easily influence the great unwashed masses' opinion.

Witness: Current US President.

2stroke: if you really wanna go nuts, check out the Flat Earth Society.

Yeah.


No joke.

I already have. but debating science, is very different than history. Sure the majority of their theories are total BS, but some - you never know. History however is not as debatable, it is actual events that have been recorded, not theories.

Where do you guys run into these people? You must live in some really strange places.

I love History but am appalled at how biased it is. Very few things you read are objective... my case in point is the "glorious" American Revolution, which was actually quite different from how it is taught. There was nothing glorious about it; it was a rebellion and had it not succeeded would have been a minor blip on the screen.

I love History but am appalled at how biased it is. Very few things you read are objective... my case in point is the "glorious" American Revolution, which was actually quite different from how it is taught. There was nothing glorious about it; it was a rebellion and had it not succeeded would have been a minor blip on the screen.
Who taught you? I never heard it was glorious.

Well, our Textbooks depict it as a good thing... Jefferson, Washington, are the American equivilant of mythical heros, today's Heracles or Jason or Achilles.
The books do not say it was an incideous rebellion by the malcontent ruling class of the colonies against their counterparts in the homeland. One thing they were mad about was that the British wouldn't let them expand into Indian lands, their allies in the previous war (French and Idian War). Greedy and Hungry, they rebelled.

By these people's logic, they could say "Hitler invented ketchup packets" If you pointed out that Hitler had not invented the ketchup packet, they'd tell you something along the lines of "You're only saying this because you've been brainwashed by the Jew controlled media."


People like this are the reason shrapnel grenades were invented.

i enjoy a good conspiracy theory but that's stupid

As stupid as it is. You have to admit it's very amusing to read about the "Great Jewish Conspiracy" and other such rot.

These are the people that want everything bad, such as the Holocaust, taken out of text books. It's history and it happened. There's nothing you can do about it except learn from past mistakes. I'm with you man, these people have no sense of reality and need a reality check real fast.

The called liberals. Vote Republican! :)

they're niether liberal, nor conservative - they're just plain nuts - they're members of the White People's Party, and other such idiotic organizations.

Is it bad that when I read the first post, I thought:

PETA, liberals, seattleites, etc..

?

Is it bad that when I read the first post, I thought:

PETA, liberals, seattleites, etc..

?

Many of those crossed by mind too

History is very biased - history is written by the winners.

History is very biased
There's a difference between biased reporting of history, and blatantly falsifying history to suit your own agenda.

Ok, so do we exist in a state that at this point in our evolution we cannot record anything w/o being biased, putting our spin on it. Almost every commentary, report, etc, is subjective not objective... it is a theory of mine that a "perfect" society would be one that has shed all it's subjective biases, but we are far far from this point.

Ok, so do we exist in a state that at this point in our evolution we cannot record anything w/o being biased, putting our spin on it. Almost every commentary, report, etc, is subjective not objective... it is a theory of mine that a "perfect" society would be one that has shed all it's subjective biases, but we are far far from this point.
I agree. The news media is far more interested in making the news intersting instead of true and unbiased. The journalism school at my university teaches its students to have a strong bias in their reporting to make it interesting. Well, this makes the news 'entertainment' not 'information'.

Very interesting and informative

Is it bad that when I read the first post, I thought:

PETA, liberals, seattleites, etc..

?

That's actually just as dumb as the false theories that this thread is based upon. Look, I;m not calling you stupid, but let's take me for an example. I'm almost as liberal as they get. If it were up to me, we would have much different social systmes than we have today. But that's not the point. The point is that I do not partake in revisionist history, in fact, I read as many different sources as I can when learning about a period so that I get a balanced opinion.

Basically, Liberals, conservatives, moderates, everyone twists history some to better suit their beliefs or theories. Let's not go stereotyping this trait to one group, especially when you are clearly wrong.

That's actually just as dumb as the false theories that this thread is based upon. Look, I;m not calling you stupid, but let's take me for an example. I'm almost as liberal as they get. If it were up to me, we would have much different social systmes than we have today. But that's not the point. The point is that I do not partake in revisionist history, in fact, I read as many different sources as I can when learning about a period so that I get a balanced opinion.

Basically, Liberals, conservatives, moderates, everyone twists history some to better suit their beliefs or theories. Let's not go stereotyping this trait to one group, especially when you are clearly wrong.

Look. It was a joke... well.. partly. I've come across many many crazy ass people that all have super-liberal ideas bordering on complete socialism. It scares me a little to think about if they ruled the world. They haven't done any real studying about what they spout about, they just follow the crazies before them. Then they wont listen to anybody else. Granted, there are conservatives like this as well, but I have met none like the above people. I know not all liberals are like this.. Personally, I am right in the middle of the spectrum. That's why it was partly a joke.

The called liberals. Vote Republican! :)
I hope the smiley means you are joking. The holocaust deniers are typically anti semites and politically far to the right. They are more likely to vote for Bush than Kerry, and Reagan was too liberal for them.
The motivation seems to be to try to make Naziism not look as bad as it really was.
The people who deny that we landed on the moon bit into a bit of communist propaganda from the cold war days. Russia used to tell the people that it was training, including school teachers, that the U.S. really didn't land on the moon, in an effort to lower the accomplishments of America in the eyes of the world.

Many of those crossed by mind too
You forgot librarians. :evillol:

Hassooo Prelewd. Yeah, I really overreacted there. Sorry for that. Just gets me worked up when i here cheap shots against liberals (and as weird as it sounds, I equally dislike cheap shots against true conservatives, I don't know, call it political empathy). Anyhew, I am a well versed socialist at least, read the C manifesto and other socialists novels (the best is the Jungle). I'll admit, a lot of it is crap. You can only create so much radical change before people no longer can accept it.

Also, don't worry, I have no aims on ruling the world. I figure that while i may prefer socialism, it is a futile effort to force it on others (see Soviet Union for why). Either the world will come to accept it or it will just remain another good idea (IMO).

Just glad you were joking to some degree. :smile:

Regardless of whether or not you agree with Howard Zinn's "liberal" ideas, I believe that a passage from his A People's History of the United States is quite relevant to this discussion:

"My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians...the historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual.

Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed in the way a mapmaker's technical interest is obvious...No, it is presented as if all readers of history had a common interest which historians serve to the best of their ability. This is not intentional deception...

To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves--unwittingly--to justify what was done.

...the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress...that is still with us. One reason why these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicans at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly."

Divisive political rhetoric between the "right" and the "left" aside, one must realize that this, to some extent, is what happens.

Yes, history is the "memory of states." Usually. History is also the memory of the unprivileged, oppressed, and disenfranchised, as in Zinn's book. History is also the memory of Germans unwilling to accept the reality of the Holocaust.

An objective history exists. But not on paper. True History is the amalgamation of the experience of every person alive during a period, a dynamic continuum.

I don't believe that it can be stated much better than that. Agree or not with his take on history, Zinn presents some very good ideas, that being one of them.