Historical revisionism

[Obake]

Probably the biggest wake up for me for historical revisionism was learning about nelson mandela in school then learning on my own he was on the cia's most wanted list for a period of time. He orchestrated a couple of mass bombings and I think the adoption of "necklacing" but I don't exactly remember. In recent times any questioning of historical revisionism can be attributed to "conspiracy theorists" and become invalidated to the masses.

The funniest form of historical revisionism comes from Tariq Nasheed and the Hidden Colors movies. A good watch if you enjoy the big headed scientist stuff.

Holy shit, really??? We were taught the same in school and I never really questioned it.

 

[Ross_Я]

so, what do you think, can i be right or wrong... you skipped me XD

Well, I pretty much said what I can say: I don't know. You can be right, of course - but then again, it doesn't sound like the end goal. Like, why exactly would fat cats want this grey questionable morality where nothing is "provable" and where everything can be "just option"? So it will be easier to rule? But would it be easier to rule this way? It sounds like kind of a spin-off on 1984 double-thinking, but it doesn't sound like it would actually make it anyhow easier to rule the masses, so I do not see the reason behind your reason.
Then again, I was never a leader and hell I know what it takes to lead people. All I can do is say "please" and beg - and I can tell you for sure that these methods are ineffective in convincing people to do what you want. And that pretty much sums up my first-hand knowledge about the topic.

 

[Obake]

Like, why exactly would fat cats want this grey questionable morality where nothing is "provable" and where everything can be "just option"? So it will be easier to rule? But would it be easier to rule this way? It sounds like kind of a spin-off on 1984 double-thinking, but it doesn't sound like it would actually make it anyhow easier to rule the masses, so I do not see the reason behind your reason.

The answer depends on your worldview.

 

[Some_porcupine]

necklacing" but I don't exactly remember. In recent times any questioning of historical revisionism can be attributed to "conspiracy theorists" and become invalidated to the masses.

iirc that was his woman thing

 

[microbyte]

History is written by the victors. Currently, the victors are people hellbent on destroying the west (most of the people who say this also think that America is the worst country to ever exist and love communism). They are the victors because the economic victors like them, monopolies like people caring about more material stuff, which monopolies do help sort of (they make it easier to cumsoom). And as a lot of these new "postmodern" philosophies are very selfish and about yourself above all, it's in their best interest to support themselves with history.
History is a roadmap for the future based on the recent past, and the powers that be.

 

[Amadis]

iirc that was his woman thing

quick google search says youre right, my bad

Holy shit, really??? We were taught the same in school and I never really questioned it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela his wikipedia page covers most of it and honestly finding out more would likely involve going on white nationalist websites and looking through their type of propoganda in order to sniff out some actual facts. Nobody else seems to mind and people will often justify this stuff through "but racism worse".

 

[Some_porcupine]

quick google search says youre right, my bad

np, i only learnt thru people being critical "why people supported him?", on political discord (me and web randos who outbranched from r/slovakia discord (other story))
i did, until i learned... well, as it shows, history often isnt just black-and-white, good and bad, and people do questionable things---

 

[Lamp Fool]

We can't avoid revising history because we have to make sense of the past. History is just making narratives about the past so we can say what happened and why it matters now. One day I hope to revise Nelson Mandela into a cartoon villain because I don't like him.

 

[Rams969]

All of you say is true, but apart from what you are saying wich is a very big threat, the biggest historical revisionism right now is the idea that the society and the world we have right now, I don't mean since the end of the Soviet Union or the last 24 years I mean right now, is the best thing ever that ever happened and everything before this very instant was the worst thing ever and basically a dystopia.
Is this idea that everything wich was done before was terrible, there is nothing to learn on the past because our society is already perfect, everyone was unhappy before, everyone. When this, they want people to believe that thing's can't be different, that we reached our civilizational peak and that's the end of history.
By showing you how everything was the worst thing ever in the past, how everyone was evil, how no one lived happy, how nothing of worth was made, they want you to throw away any kind of roots or sense of belonging. This is the best time in history of Mankind and the idea of changing and it's the Present is the only thing you can feel pride for, nothing else, everything before us was a nightmare and unless you want that nightmare to come back you have to support the Present in everything.

 

[microbyte]

Is this idea that everything wich was done before was terrible

I agree a lot with this — most people and history books and teachers and cetera act as if all prior history is inapplicable. Better technology, we know more, etc. But this is all just a bunch of cockiness with no basis in reality, but rather a basis in the decadence we find ourselves in right now.

 

[stonehead]

Isn't a retainer a servant for a damyo's lord? Of course it can be an ambiguous term, because anyone who served the said lord was a retainer, but was mostly used for the warriors of said clan, perhaps Yasuke wasn't a real deal samurai, but being a retainer was definetly something higher in the feudal hierarchy compared to the peasants or even an ashigaru and for a foreigner during the sengoku period that's no joke.

I don't trust much in the idea of trusting evidence 100% specially in history about stuff that happened over 200 years ago, not all events were documented, and the ones that were, have many pieces of historic context were lost throught time, i'm not justifying things that might be or are different on how are portrayed in medi.

but if we are being honest, there has been many stuff that we really don't know and if you want to make a movie, you have to add stuff so it can work out somehow.

And trust me, there has been worse cases than the story of yasuke.

To this day i have no idea what were they thinking when they decided to produce "Bolivar el Héroe"

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjqOpIiGO8

I wonder, is any of this just a boring semantic issue? Kind of like how David Attenborough and Nils Olav are technically both Knights, being formally knighted by a monarch, despite not at all matching the common conception of a knight (one being a broadcaster, and the other being a penguin).

"Servant of a Japanese feudal lord" and "Guy with armor and a katana" often overlap, and people use the word Samurai to refer to them both, but they aren't exactly the same.

 

[llillilll]

And as a lot of these new "postmodern" philosophies are very selfish and about yourself above all,

thats just the good ol' american individualism.

 

[manpaint]

All of you say is true, but apart from what you are saying wich is a very big threat, the biggest historical revisionism right now is the idea that the society and the world we have right now, I don't mean since the end of the Soviet Union or the last 24 years I mean right now, is the best thing ever that ever happened and everything before this very instant was the worst thing ever and basically a dystopia.
Is this idea that everything wich was done before was terrible, there is nothing to learn on the past because our society is already perfect, everyone was unhappy before, everyone. When this, they want people to believe that thing's can't be different, that we reached our civilizational peak and that's the end of history.
By showing you how everything was the worst thing ever in the past, how everyone was evil, how no one lived happy, how nothing of worth was made, they want you to throw away any kind of roots or sense of belonging. This is the best time in history of Mankind and the idea of changing and it's the Present is the only thing you can feel pride for, nothing else, everything before us was a nightmare and unless you want that nightmare to come back you have to support the Present in everything.

I'm sorry what? From my perspective the "current narrative" is that utopia was reached from 80s until the early 2000s and that 90% of things now are way worse. From what I have seen the "we are better now" thing seems to only applies to gender, mental health and race and not exactly in a "we must destroy the past" way.

Maybe its because I am canadian, but for me the framing was always "we almost reached utopia in the past", the present is a dystopia but we can reach utopia in the future is you do $current_thing.

As far as I am aware, I have only encountered 1 instance of "historical revisionism" in my life. I checked an old school history book that essentially said "lots of native amerindians converted to christianity" but the newer edition said "few native amerindians converted to christianity". I am hesitant to call this "historical revisionism" as it could be simple bias correction (which is my current belief atm, but I have not looked into it).

I do agree that media generally paints a very bad picture of anything that predate the end of WW2.

I note that this thread reminds of something I once saw on HackerNews. It was about an historian trying hard to find evidence of "aqueduc systems" in ancirnt China or something to try to prove that "decentralized governement" once existed or something.

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

I'm sorry what? From my perspective the "current narrative" is that utopia was reached from 80s until the early 2000s and that 90% of things now are way worse.

For the average person, yes. You could attribute this bias to the majority of online posters having their childhood in this era, whereas historians are supposed to focus on the bigger picture, separate of personal emotional connection.
It's tricky trying to work with and compare largely intangible metrics such as happiness, racism, mental health, etc. You can argue that there are some tangible metrics tied to it (suicide rates, protective laws) but because it's so dependent on statistics it can easily be spun into any sort of narrative one wants. That's part of the reason there's become such a focus on the topics you mentioned, Rams969's post also touches upon the result of this.

Frankly, I guess this is a question I can't really answer. /pol/ theories aside, like the replacement and extermination of the white race, I really have no idea what is the reasoning and current goal of politics and... culture-makers in general.

I think /pol/ has some legitimacy in its claims regarding this sort of thing, albeit they have their own....unique way...of conveying the message.
The ways in which popular history media currently goes out of it's way to raceswap casting choices (always white/asian to brown, never the other way around) can be interpreted as an attempt to disillusion traditionally homogenous societies by gaslighting them into believing that was never the case.

The increased emphasis on bringing certain historical fringe groups (ie the "third gender" mentioned earlier in this thread) to the center could be interpreted as an attempt to normalize what we are seeing today with the increasing self identification of LGBT identities. Some would also argue what's the point of history unless it is somehow relevant to the present?
Regardless of the validity and earnest attempt to understand these groups, it is quickly used in this attempt at gaslighting, where one can point to a historic example and say "It's always been this way! This isn't abnormal!" I find the existence of such groups in the past fascinating, they deserve to be covered and remembered, but you can't shake this feeling that they're being brought to the forefront only to fight a modern culture war.
Finding these sorts of forgotten groups and doing a whole thesis on them is the stuff modern academic careers are made of, and with those sort of groups you're more or less cornered into writing favorably of them or risk your credentials.

Spoiler: Personal experience with this dilemma

I was chosen to present at research conferences by playing this game. There was an instance where there were valid (albeit biased, exaggerated) primary source criticisms regarding the conduct of a marginalized group, but I knew that not merely disregarding it, but going out of my way in my writing to totally delegitimize it using differently biased primary sources from said marginalized group would go a long way in boosting my standing. I knew deep down there was a truth in the middle of all this bias, but if you try and take a nuanced/centered position on that you run the risk of getting a negative label attached to you and your work.

Well, aside from money, I guess. It might be the most boring and bland answer ever, but perhaps they are simply doing things that brings them money.

On paper this is the incredibly cynical answer, and that the consoomer class/ESG investors are the ones most likely to fund, buy, and champion this sort of pseudo-progressive narrative building.
Rather than take the time to flesh out a grounded tale about a real historically marginalized group or individual, it's this lazy route of taking someone else's story for themselves. In many ways it's more offensive than the appropriation itself, it projects this idea that these groups do not have a worthy story to adapt to the big screen, and shows just how lazy the writers are.

In the case of Yasuke, I genuinely have no clue but it seems like this particular case became popular online in the period following the George Floyd riots in America so I suspect it may be somehow related to that. I remember during that period I saw lots of similar posts.

That is a part of it. Following the riots, rather than any systematic or impactful policy changes we instead got half assed diversity quotas in film.

 

[Obake]

Is this idea that everything wich was done before was terrible

I don't get this either. 1980s Japan was the peak of humanity and we will never get that again.

My boss has a similar mentality. He thinks that anything that is old automatically sucks just because it's old. He thinks it's super weird that I like old music or games or movies, as if that stuff can't be enjoyed today. It really grinds my gears. The guy is a good boss though.

I wonder, is any of this just a boring semantic issue?

Absolutely not! To explain it with modern terms: Japan is a football team. Oda Nobunaga is the quarterback. Yasuke is the equipment manager. Revisionists want to paint Yasuke as if he were a member of the actual football team, when in reality he just carried and cleaned equipment for the quarterback.

the "current narrative" is that utopia was reached from 80s until the early 2000s and that 90% of things now are way worse.

That's what we think around here, but that's definitely not the mainstream narrative.

the "we are better now" thing seems to only applies to gender, mental health and race

That's all those people care about though. It's a shame too, because we were much better on all of those fronts in the 80s. Back in the 80s a lot of women could actually choose to either get a career, work part time, or be a housewife and it wasn't really a big deal which one you picked. There wasn't a mental health crisis like there is today, and America was a post-race society. That post-race mentality was only at it's beginning so of course you could still find some awful people, but things improved a lot in the following decade or two.

Now today they're losing on all fronts. Women only have one choice in almost all cases which is to be a wagie, there's an extreme crisis of mental health going on right now, and racial tensions are at the highest they have been in decades. We absolutely are not "better now".

 

[alCannium27]

Yeah, well, I am convinced of the undeniable and provable fact that history is just tool, like anything else.

Nobody sees all, nobody knows all. Written history often contridict one another between different authors because they probably heard different things, or just wanted to push difference things due to personal, eh, I hate to use the world due to how diluted it is now, but "bias".

Even history written using more "enlightened" methods such as archeology and such, is biased. This I have to agree with the modern academics -- in so far as no one person is trustworthy -- in fact, no persons can ever be. Every story is romanticized for their target audience.

What we are seeing now is the ivory tower academics managing to claim a monopoly on "truth™", and their history must therefore be written in their conceived worldview. They do not see it as malicious nor harmful -- how can their truth be bad, afterall? They will not stop, for doing so would be to undermine their own importance; they cannot comprimise, as doing so would lose them authority and the monopoly. So here we are, a death struggle for the academics to maintain trust from the common folk while they barely hide their seething disgust towards them. It's a self-enforced system, their incentives have been laid bare for all to see. Trust no the academic history, trust whatever books you own -- you might end up being wrong, but no worse than these revisionists have already gotten anyway.

Oh also these fuckwits have to write papers to get funding and notoriety, and you can't rewrite the same facts 1000 times that still get you that, so you find some obscure shit and blow it up with bullshit.

In conclusion, fuck modern academics.

 

[Screen.Thief]

In some way I feel it could be simply people being wrong about history, and genuinely being mistaken in their research to start with. But it's also highly likely that history is "changing" online and in actual textbooks to push a modern agenda. I remember vividly being in art class in 6th grade learning about Van Gogh and how he cut his ear off and sent it to a prostitute at a local brothel. I learned this truth over a decade later after I was first told it was his "girlfriend". Admittedly, some history may need to be slightly dumbed down to be understood by children. My art teacher definitely was not going to tell a bunch of 12 year olds what a prostitute was, nor do I blame her for not doing so.

You also experience different levels of depth on topics depending on your teacher/professor. I.E "The trail of tears was bad...Slavery was bad....The Holocaust was bad" Great! We all know that. Only a handful of teachers in my life would tell you the truth behind them or delve deeper into the reasoning. Your average person would probably tell you that the American Civil War was all about Slavery, but that's simply not true. Only one small part of southern states wanting to be able to have their own state rights. Not justifying enslaving another person, but you have to look at things from their point of view. To judge history by today's standards is simply impossible and foolish to even try. Like when BLM was huge in its first few years; they removed the confederate flag off of the South Carolina State house. They moved the flag to a much smaller pole on the property, and ironically it became far more visible to the public than being so high on the state house that you couldn't even see it. LOL

It's becoming more and more common to be "cancelled" nowadays because everyone's under a microscope, being observed and judged by often times a minority in the population. "John Lennon is being cancelled because he said the N word in 1976" like it matters, he's been dead since 1980. People just can't stand that the past used to be racist, unequal, etc. Even looking back 4 years ago to 2020, most of us would probably look back and say " Damn, we really did all that bullshit because the government told us we had to" hind sight is 20/20 my friends, you never know the right answer until it has long passed. You can't change history, but people CAN change what they want you to know.

 

[Obake]

history is "changing" online and in actual textbooks to push a modern agenda

Absolutely. I have no doubts that the people who claim Yasuke was a samurai truly believe that he was. The problem is that they're so far gone that they would deny any evidence put in front of them which contradicts their beliefs.

Only a handful of teachers in my life would tell you the truth behind them or delve deeper into the reasoning.

Likewise, I find that people are often able to repeat things they have heard like "X is bad" or "Y is my right!" but they are almost never able to elaborate on those concepts and explain why it is so. I'm speaking in general, not in regards to any specific topics.

Damn, we really did all that bullshit because the government told us we had to" hind sight is 20/20 my friends, you never know the right answer until it has long passed.

Ain't that the truth... In hindsight, I wish I didn't get the covid vaccine. I have a heart problem that I didn't have until I got the booster.

 

[Obake]

So this shit came up again. This week Ubisoft announced a new game in the Assassin's Creed series which takes place in feudal era Japan and OF COURSE they made the main character Yasuke so now the normies web is filled with NPC's claiming up and down that Yasuke was a samurai and that there's supposedly historical evidence and all that.

I made the mistake of replying to some of these people and asking if they could cite a single contemporary source that says Yasuke was a samurai. Holy fucking shit these people are retarded.

 

[Some_porcupine]

So this shit came up again. This week Ubisoft announced a new game in the Assassin's Creed series which takes place in feudal era Japan and OF COURSE they made the main character Yasuke so now the normies web is filled with NPC's claiming up and down that Yasuke was a samurai and that there's supposedly historical evidence and all that.

I made the mistake of replying to some of these people and asking if they could cite a single contemporary source that says Yasuke was a samurai. Holy fucking shit these people are retarded.

same think we get at the aesthetics wiki server (went there because i wanted to ask about buzzfeed-yupeetype millenial craze of type "millenials are ending (thing/company)", tho it was just emotional, and not visual thing - if you want to ask me, i said what i was "working on" in Young people giving up/Lost futures double-threads)