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History - How accurate?
Help me out here!
I'm just wondering what people think of their history. This survey is mainly for people in the U.S. but don't hesitate to throw in your opinion if you're from another country - I could really use your point of view! Do you think it's awesome and totally true or not so much? |
First off, I'm from Canada ^.^
Anyway on Topic... History is written by the victors. What the winners wanted the world to know. What we know of history is highly bias. If you think of any war, you will only hear what the winners thought, their plans. The loser's ideals come after wards, when there is nothing more that the victors can say, and even then the opposing force his highly censored. I love learning about history, I just stick with ancient history, it's a tad less bias. |
Wow. Thanks with the quick answer!:O
Yeah, I've actually heard that opinion quite a lot. Hence the survey-doom. I want to see just what everyone thinks of what they're taught. |
Well, as far as what historians believe, I think it has a fair bit of bias. As Syraanabelle said, history is written by the winners. Sometimes it's easy to sort through the bias and find what actually happened, other times it isn't. But, when you're talking about what we, as commonfolk, are taught about history, it's far worse. To see the biases in action, talk to your parents about what they learned in history class. Compare that to what you learned. Oftentimes, it's completely different.
It's interesting that you bring this up so soon after Columbus Day, though I don't know if you did so intentionally. My mother and her family were very proud of their Cherokee heritage, and I grew up learning both sides to every story involving indigenous peoples and whites. So, of course, I knew from an early age what Columbus did and did not do, and until recently, I just sort of assumed everyone knew, and students were being taught the truth. But this past Monday, I read countless news articles about schools sparking controversy by teaching kids that Columbus didn't discover the Earth was round, didn't discover America, and how he really treated the people he labeled 'Indians'. Parents were actually upset that their children were learning real history and not a myth that doesn't even make sense anyway. Maybe I'm just naive, but this truly shocked me. It seems that even now, history is treated as a feel-good story instead of a vital study of our past. |
A teacher I talked to told me about when she learned of the 'internment' camps the U.S. had during WW2. She teaches history and yet she didn't learn about it until college because when she was growing up they never talked about it.
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Yeah. I honestly never had a history class that mentioned it, although that might have been partly due to me taking more ancient, global history classes that US-based ones when I had the chance. I only learned about it when we read a book about it in a literature class.
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I am a Canadian student and I plan on becoming a history major when I head off to university in the following school year.
I feel that History and everything it encompasses is becoming more and more accurate as the years go by. People (ie. researchers, anthropologists, sociologists, historians in general) are always finding new evidence which causes a paradigm shift in the way we record events. Eventually, a master thesis which discusses a topic (ie. the aboriginal role in developing modern canada) will trickle down into the textbooks of high school students. ...So i hope this is making sense so far. What I want to say is I believe that history is becoming more and more less biased. In my Canadian History class we are looking at the imperative role of Native Canadians in the nation's development, something fifty years ago would have had a much different stance. We've also looked at many 'dark' periods in Canada's history, including Slavery in the Maritimes, the Internment of Japanese Canadians, The disregard of native cultures, and even native genocide. So, in short, I think that history is accurate enough, but its accuracy changes (for the better) once people start asking/answering questions and eliminating the possible present bias. |
Ohh, dear. Don't get me started on the history!! XD
Personally, I think that history is what sparks all the debates in the world on how behavior should be perceived, or how things you wear or do shoudl be percieved. Like say someone wanted to wear a German soldier uniform, but they left all the pins and such with swastikas off. They like the uniform, but people glare at them and think they're Hitler supporters. I might seem like I'm digressing a bit, but I think that's what History contributes to. When you're in a country, you only learn one half of the story. I'd cite Grave of the Fireflies for that too, but you have to have seen that movie. It's set at the point of view of a young Japanese boy who's lost his family and has to care for his young sister during the fire bombings of WWII. I didn't even KNOW there were fire bombings in Japan. =S History is always gonna be skewed, that's why I try to keep an open mind. :sweat: |
I am American.
History is definitely biased. It has the taint of propaganda left over from the time period. And even when it does include facts, it doesn't include all of the facts. Often times, US History makes it so that when we read about the wars were in, we were always the good guys. In Vietnam, we were "fighting for peace". In WWII, we were the valiant hero who saved the allies from sure destruction. In US History, we constantly dehumanize the other side so that we, the civilians, will continue to love our country and think so very highly of it. To illustrate my point about war: we never mention how many atrocities American soldiers commit. We barely ever hear about how many of our "enemies" are killed. We just mention that thousands and thousands of Americans are killed. We might hear about the deaths of innocent people, but not if the innocent people died at the hands of American soldiers. We also never hear the "enemy" being called "persons". They are always called "the enemy", "the Germans", "the Russians". When you are at war, the nationality of people your country is fighting against is a loaded word, so they simply call the people by their nationality, rather than "the German people". I think a lot of propaganda used by historians, especially when it comes to the military and to war, is used subconsciously. They don't always mean to dehumanize the people who were killed by Americans, they were indoctrinated just like all of us are. |
History is written by the winners of wars and survivors of great disasters.
So yes, it is a little biased. |
I just want to say that I don't care much for history. It's all in the past. It happened.
I learn it to go through school and that is it. It may be true, it may be falso, it may be biased. In the end, it is what it is. I guess the only history we can truly rely on is US History. |
Well, I'm a high school history teacher. :lol:
'History' itself, in the grand scheme of things, is incredibly accurate. We have more than enough primary records and documents to know and understand what happened. This is especially true in the US - We're just a baby compared to most other nations in the world. Just about everything that has happened here is well documented. However, the bias through which we teach history is undeniable. Emphasis is placed on the more "important" aspects of the world. No matter what we do or who we reference, a bias will always be present. It is impossible to avoid. Rest assured that, as a nation, the United States is getting much better at identifying and teaching alternative views of history. We're no long so reliant upon the white man's perspective. Sure, that's still the default, but we're light years away from the kind of subject that was taught only 20 years ago. Multicultural education is becoming mainstream. If you've ever read through the State Social Studies Teaching Objectives, everything you could possibly want and imagine is in there: Understanding of multiple belief systems, comprehension of societies around the world, functioning within a global market, etc. Take a look at a few from New York: Quote:
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Knerd, I think you really nailed a good point. Thank you for that.
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Why can we only rely on US history? Considering the US's history in international relations after WWI, and how incredibly biased the media was and is, it is important to understand the other side's point of view, as well. |
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I know you are right on the second part. Of course we are going to be biased saying the US is just and whatnot. I worded my post wrong. I meant U.S. History in our early years with acts that took placed in the U.S. only. When we finally became involved in international wars and whatnot - no doubt we are going to be biased when recording history. But we still have to learn it in school. If a person really wants to know both sides - they can go beyond the classroom and look it up. Many people do. Many people have this passion for history. I respect that passion, that search for a greater knowledge. I'm just not that kind of person. I rather learn math & physics. I like thinking that I know how everything works now because some physicists long ago decided that this formula explains this action. |
I think the history schools teaching us are just part of the story.
We live in a very postmodern world with alternate methods of teaching history. It's become quite a fad amongst indie researchers to be able to publish and make known to the world through whatever means that there are such instances in existence once upon a time. Some do it through entertainment means; some through scholarly means. Wait. Columbus didn't discover America. Amerigo Vespucci did. For the record, I'm not even American. I'm Filipino. But we've been called 'Little Brown Americans' once. >_> Both in a good and bad way. History for all it's worth still has it's place in the curriculum and lives in the everyday person's psyche. As Knerd said, it's a substantial part of what makes us 'us' with the whole country. However, in our country, history has done nothing but mostly bore and torture us. Both in school and outside. Outside, it's more terrible because as a whole, it makes you realize how 'weak' our culture is because we never had the time to truly develop it as most did because each time we tried, it got crushed and surpressed by the colonizers. And in the years that rolled by, we just seemed to develop a poor sense of history, delegating it only to school work and once in actual affairs, we just seem to forget about them. Why? Because we're poor. We don't have any right to be choosy and prideful to talk about morals and ethics of it. Sad but true. So when this Korean -who was a student of my professor- told us 'I don't understand why Filipinos are so friendly to everyone even to the Japanese who have hurt them so badly in the past. Don't you people realize what happened before and how it's affected you today? Is there no discretion?' ...Apparently back home there's still a wee bit of wary for this. But that aside, when I look back at history, I realize that we're just going through the same cycle of hurt and pain only with more at stake and more covert. The developing countries are just getting richer and richer. While the developing countries are still striving to even get rich. Aid is given but with strings attached. Kind of like how colonizers would come and impose their brand of life on us because it was far superior at the expense of our many freedoms and today, how some countries would dangle aid in our faces when we're in deep crap then say hey dude, there's something I like in return... How about opening your country up to free trade and making us pay little to no taxes in exchange? : / I'm rambling. |
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Nevertheless on topic I like to think of history as a void in time. Not as something that happened in the past. It is of course something that occurred, but again something that we can not ever attest to it's authenticity unless you were to believe your source was infallible and trustworthy. The most detailed information on history is of course witness reports and documentation, but this is merely anecdotal at best and too often subject to distortions of perception or memory and even lies or fabrication. Statistical evidences are of course more reliable, but they can only suggest details at best and often the victim of misinterpretation. Therefore, we could never truly know what has happened in history, yet we can be easily convinced by eloquent writers. I do not write this entirely with the predicate that mainstream history is to be revised, even if it should, but this is more an issue concerning my philosophies on time. |
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Because, as a citizen, you hold the power to vote, protest, support candidates, and serve on juries. You may even raise children. In order to make informed decisions, it is necessary for you to understand the consequences of your actions. Perhaps one single vote won't make much difference within a Presidential election (even considering how the 2000 Bush-Gore election showed us that a small amount of people can change an entire nation), but it can make a huge difference in local elections, budget votes, murder trials, environmental issues, corruption, and business tactics. If you don't know what worked or went wrong in the past, how can you predict how things will play out in the future? How will you know how to accomplish your goals? Don't think about it in terms of Napoleon - Think about Alice Paul, Katsi Cook, Anthony Mullen, Wes Jackson, or Alan Kay. |
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For example, voiting on communism [hypothetically]. It didn't seem to work in Russia or most of Europe. So by learning of its failures, I can now make an informed vote. Don't worry about the accuracy of this example, I was only proving your statement. Once again, thank you for explaining things like that. I know understand that cliche term. ^-^ |
Hooray! I'm glad I was able to help. :)
I tend to get a lot of students who fail a test or homework assignment and come whining to me: "Why do I need to know history? History is stupid! It's just a bunch of dead weirdos." So this is just one of those arguments that I've dealt with a lot. I also enjoy telling people about David Sedaris' defense of history: It'll help you solve a lot of crossword puzzles when you're old, lonely, and everyone hates you. :lol: |
What is most interesting is that the general people (not the leaders) tend to repeat all the mistakes of the past every decade or so. In just 10 years, everyone forgets the consequences or even just the sequences of actions which make up the bounds of time.
You don't need to go too far into history... study your parents and neighbourhood. That much is enough to discern folly... |
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Well, that is why he called them Indians. However, the Greeks knew the Earth was round. It had been common knowledge for quite some time when Columbus did his thing. Certainly, there were those who didn't believe it, but they were generally viewed as those who don't believe in gravity or evolution are today. But, because the idea of someone risking his life defying commonly-held beliefs about the world and discovering a wonderful new land thanks to his daring makes for a better story, that's what people are taught, and that's what they believe.
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I don't even know the real story. That's just the information that was fed to me and many others in my generation. But that particular story is not that important to me. What's more important to me is using history to learn from our mistakes. If the record of those mistakes is not accurate, how are we supposed to accurately define and learn from them?
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