Ari Melber Is Great

[Leo Gura]

He always has level-headed takes:

 

[trenton]

I have a question.

I think of this as an ongoing culture war to write the history We want.  If MAGA had their way out history books would either never mention this day or it would say it was antifa.

How many of these culture wars do you think failed throughout human history?  This is white washing history in action when discussing the attack on the capital.

[Leo Gura]

19 minutes ago, trenton said:

How many of these culture wars do you think failed throughout human history?

History is written by the winners.

Of course Western history is absurdly biased and much of it is a fiction.

But also, in the very long-run truth tends to win out.

These days it's actually pretty hard to hide the truth for long. We got the receipts thanks to the internets.

[Preety_India]

A lot of GOP tend to sugarcoat truth with lies. They lied during elections.

But to me, a lying GOP guy doesn't look like the thing to fear anymore.

The bigger danger seems to be those Trump supporters who think Biden won falsely and they are not even lying, they actually believe it with a full heart and mind. 

Now that's really scary. 

 

[trenton]

@Leo Gura I'm curious as to what the most accurate telling of western history is.  Where do you think it is the most biased?

A few examples are...

The U.S. Was Intended to be an empire with security through expansion by committing genocides against natives.

 " the relationship between a slave and his master was like a father and son.". (From an actual history book.)

In order to maintain its status As a world power the U.S. Must exploit weaker nations for cheap labor.

An accurate history of all nations could have a dramatic impact on mankind if our worldviews adjusted for our brutal history.  Where should people learn history?

Maybe I should ask Europe, Asia, and Africa about the history of America.

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, trenton said:

@Leo Gura I'm curious as to what the most accurate telling of western history is.  Where do you think it is the most biased?

We don't really know that. Some of it may be impossible to know because the data was simply lost.

Obvious biases include the fact that much of Western history centers around Western cultures exclusively, and tends to ignore the contributions of minorities and women.

It also doesn't tell the side of the story from the losing civilizations' POV.

Imagine what history would be like if the Confederates won the Civil War, or Nazis won WWII.

[Preety_India]

Maybe you can talk to minorities about history to get facts however the human nature is such that it is always prone to propaganda and who's to say that minorities won't exaggerate or lie about history. 

Anyone can lie. 

Can minorities be trusted in this regard? 

 

[Vrubel]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

History is written by the winners.

Of course Western history is absurdly biased and much of it is a fiction.

But also, in the very long-run truth tends to win out.

These days it's actually pretty hard to hide the truth for long. We got the receipts thanks to the internets.

The "history is written by the winners" statement is way too oversimplified and misleading. History is written by whoever writes it, would be a more accurate statement. The thing about history is that it is the number one tool used to enforce a societal/national narrative. This narrative is not a simple story but rather a sacred almost mythological-connected-to-the-heavens foundation, ensuring unquestionable legitimacy to a certain civilization, people-group or state.    

For example, think about the American war of independence and its founding fathers. People and fighters in every American war since then would look back at that time period and use it to draw inspiration and motivation from. They will feel so deeply connected to the original idea and ideals of America that they will have no problem dying for it.

It's kinda funny that during the civil war both the North and South would look at the ideals of the war of independence as their legitimizing source. The North would emphasize the union and freedom part whilst the South would focus on the "independent spirit" and also the freedom part (but in a different way). Southerners actually sometimes referred to the civil war as "The second war of independence." 

But of course, the narrative of America goes deeper than the inception story. Ultimately it is deeply anchored in the idea of " western civilization" which points to ancient Greece and Rome as its more temporal legitimizing narrative, and to the story of the Israelites and Jesus Christ as their spiritual legitimizing narrative. 

Another great example of this phenomenon is the medieval Holy Roman Empire. The name alone is an overcompensation for their insecurity as a legitimate entity. They were basically a very multicultural but germanic dominated realm roughly encompassing modern-day Germany and the north of Italy. Well... How are you going to legitimize a land which is so random and diverse? The answer: you say it's holy because you got the pope living in the deep south, you say it is Roman because... why not? And you say it's an empire because that word sounds cool and powerful. Even though a Holy Roman emperor had nowhere near the power of an original Roman emperor. 

Also, notice how a Germanic-dominated realm would source its legitimacy from ancient Rome despite having fought them and in the end actually destroying Rome. Napoleon would also legitimize his emperor status by referring to ancient Rome despite French tribes having fought the Romans. Because history is not written by the winners but by those who have the most perceived glory and intellectual contributions. In some cases, history is written by the losers. How do you explain the Babylonians getting such bad press in the Bible despite conquering the Hebrews? What about the lost cause myth of the confederates, which was the leading historical narrative for southerners for way over a hundred years?

 

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Imagine what history would be like if the Confederates won the Civil War, or Nazis won WWII.

The south doesn't need to win to wite its history. Notice how Robert E Lee has an almost god-like status akin to Washington. 

In the case of Nazis, it is a little bit harder for me to imagine because at the end of the day nazism was way too aggressive and extreme of an ideology to be mainstream for a long period of time. Nazism eats its self and rather quickly: who has the common sense to take on the Soviet Union, Brittain and America at the same time, whilst prioritizing sending people to extermination camps over sending supplies to troops? Even if Germany would have won they would either have collapsed shortly after or would had to water down their ideology considerably to unrecognizable levels.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Vrubel

[Girzo]

3 hours ago, Vrubel said:

The "history is written by the winners" statement is way too oversimplified and misleading. History is written by whoever writes it, would be a more accurate statement.

Yes, and then erased by the winners or the catholic church, haha.

[Leo Gura]

The biggest losers you never even heard about.

[Heart of Space]

Oh my God, I stopped watching after a minute.  Whenever a political commentator makes a comparison to 1984 it's like 10,000 unkempt dirty fingernails screeching in unison on the  black board of my soul. 

[trenton]

@Leo Gura

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The biggest losers you never even heard about.

Very true.

A successful genocide is one that not only wipes out an entire ethnic group, but also destroys the art work and history of the group to erase them from history.  If there was a successful genocide, we would never learn about it because any evidence of this ethnic group ever existing would be destroyed.

Possible targets of successful genocides would be small pagan and native tribes which would be destroyed by imperialism and religious crusades.  Any statues would be considered blasphemy and thus be erased from history when they are destroyed.  Small, isolated native villages would be burned even if it is their only village.  Some of these survived and exist to this day whereas others may not be as lucky.

There are also an endless number of alternative histories which could be told if Nazis or southerners won.  The U.S.surrenders when Nazi Germany dropped the atomic bomb on the U.S. Capitol, killing the president and the rest of the U.S.leadership.  All children would be taught to equate Hitler to Jesus because he cleansed the world of the evil Jews.  The future religion would pray to Hitler statues (similar to Kim Jong Un) and Nazi symbols rather than Jesus Christ, creating an alternative to Christianity.  Deconstructing Nazism would become as difficult as a religious fundamentalist questioning the bible because they took pride in Christians killing evil Muslims and pagans as they went on conquests around the globe.  The Nazi conquest would be romanticized like religious crusades.

This is what relativism teaches us when we say Nazis are evil

If Abraham Lincoln lost the civil war, Robert E. Lee would be the equivalent of Lincoln in future schools.  If we think systemic racism is bad now, then it would be ten thousand times worse had the South won.  This was of independence would be fused with the narrative of the founding fathers to romanticize the struggle.  It would be socially acceptable to use the n word on place of black person because blacks would not be considered people.  When Martian Luther king Jr finally emerges he would fail if he tried peaceful protest.  King would have no choice but to start a slave rebellion, killing U.S. Leaders to set the slaves free.  If there were a successful slave rebellion, then this would mess up history profoundly if blacks sought revenge on the whites.  A slave rebellion would be terrifying for a white person in that situation.

This is what relativism teaches us when we  say slavery evil.

Edited June 9, 2021 by trenton
Small errors

[Vrubel]

5 hours ago, trenton said:

There are also an endless number of alternative histories which could be told if Nazis or southerners won.  The U.S.surrenders when Nazi Germany dropped the atomic bomb on the U.S. Capitol, killing the president and the rest of the U.S.leadership.  All children would be taught to equate Hitler to Jesus because he cleansed the world of the evil Jews.  The future religion would pray to Hitler statues (similar to Kim Jong Un) and Nazi symbols rather than Jesus Christ, creating an alternative to Christianity.  Deconstructing Nazism would become as difficult as a religious fundamentalist questioning the bible because they took pride in Christians killing evil Muslims and pagans as they went on conquests around the globe.  The Nazi conquest would be romanticized like religious crusades.

This is a nice dystopian picture. And I certainly agree that if the nazis won the war it would have been a lot darker. Certainly no democracy, freedoms and multiculturalism. Without a decisive German defeat that included the confrontation with the atrocities, all the ingredients would be there for another world war as a continuation (perhaps with nukes).

But then again you have to understand that the nazi phenomenon is so exceptionally over the top destructive, cruel and contra-Europen/German educated/civilized values that it also fizzles out pretty quickly, it is simply not sustainable as a system for anything let alone government.

The mass repressions in the Soviet Union ceased virtually overnight with Stalin's death. In large part, because the people (including the perpetrators) simply couldn't stomach them anymore. I think the same would happen if Hitler would have died naturally.

And even after Stalin's death, Communism lasted only 38 years in Russia. I would argue that a watered-down version of nazism would not even last half of that. 

I see 20th-century Fashism and Nazism as short bursts of extreme relapses, Ultimately European democratic values have prevailed because the build-up base for them was already strong before the relapses occurred. You cannot have a society that used to be educated, ordered and peaceful relapse for very long. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Vrubel

[DocWatts]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

There are also an endless number of alternative histories which could be told if Nazis or southerners won.  The U.S.surrenders when Nazi Germany dropped the atomic bomb on the U.S. Capitol, killing the president and the rest of the U.S.leadership.  All children would be taught to equate Hitler to Jesus because he cleansed the world of the evil Jews.  The future religion would pray to Hitler statues (similar to Kim Jong Un) and Nazi symbols rather than Jesus Christ, creating an alternative to Christianity.  Deconstructing Nazism would become as difficult as a religious fundamentalist questioning the bible because they took pride in Christians killing evil Muslims and pagans as they went on conquests around the globe.  The Nazi conquest would be romanticized like religious crusades.

I know this was written to demonstrate a point, but Nazi Germany's actual war aims were never 'taking over the world'. Thier actual aims were to become the dominant power in Europe, and then expand in to Western Russia in an ideologically motivated war of annihilation with the practical aim of seizing resources and living space. Had they been successful the death toll would have been orders magnitude worse than the Holocaust. But an actual German victory would probably look more like the Cold War (with Germany occupying the place of the USSR) rather than Man in the High Castle.

Nor they were never anywhere close to being able to develop a nuclear weapon (turns out that declaring the most brilliant scientists of the age enemies of the state has a way of arresting progress towards nuclear weapons). The only reason the United States was able to successfully develop Nuclear weapons during World War 2 is because they had the Industrial Capacity to turn the entire country in to a factory for developing fissile materials.

Edited June 9, 2021 by DocWatts