The lie that is history

if you really look into history you will find that what your tought in gradeschool is really a boldfaced lie....

depending on what the powerful want

Well, I think that what's written in history is what those in power want people to remember. For example, in American history, everything that displays the intelligence, bravery and wisdom of Americans is given priority... If a war has taken place, the American are portrayed as the victims or the upholders of justice. I mean, I'm not against Americans in my statement. It happens in every culture... Those who win the wars, are the only one who remain to tell history. So, most probably, history is one-sided... it's kinda of a lie then...

It will depend largely on who has written that part of history.
33% Voted for by k3nny, splodgey.
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- Crazyhead
  August 9, 2007
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  EXACTLY
  as robert whul once said "history is BASED on a true story"...
- pwincessovfantasy
  August 25, 2007
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  But i'm pretty sure they've already come to the conclusion that Pluto is now officially not a planet...i swear i heard it...
- pwincessovfantasy
  August 25, 2007
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  But i'm pretty sure that they've already OFFICIALLY taken Pluto off the list of planets...i swear i heard it on the news...
- pwincessovfantasy
  August 25, 2007
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  But i'm pretty sure that they've already OFFICIALLY taken Pluto off the list of planets...i swear i heard it on the news...
- pwincessovfantasy
  August 25, 2007
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  but
  But i'm pretty sure that they've already OFFICIALLY taken Pluto off the list of planets...i swear i heard it on the news...
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Obi-wan Kenobi

many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.

33% Voted for by Kazrith, Energizer Bunny.

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Pluto

Does Pluto count? I mean if you think about the way to remember the planets in order its: My Very Earthly Mother Just Sat Up Near... with Pluto gone, our mother can't sit anywhere now...our whole life we've had Pluto with us,and now we're being told that Pluto is not big enough to be a planet...Geez...

Voted for by pwincessovfantasy.

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if the legend becomes fact.... print the legend....

we've all been taught about the "midnight ride of paul revere" but what did he acually do?
how many people could he have warned during his 19 mile trip? meanwhile isreal bistle, who left boston with the same mission as revere, made it around 320 miles...

yet we remember paul, because his name sounds more... american?

chris columbus, as we all should now did not in fact dicover america... but he is credited with proving the world is round... he went to the queen of spain in 1492 supposedly asking for ships to prove the world was round... yet 1492 just happens to be the year that the first terrestrial globe wasn in vented... in germany....

...

...

... print the legend...

Voted for by Crazyhead.

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TeChNoWC
July 14, 2007
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If you are able to recognize the lie from what you have been taught then what you have been taught is seemingly not a lie at all.

"chris columbus, as we all should now did not in fact dicover america..."

You consider this a known fact not because you were there and saw it but because this is what you have been taught.

What you are really concerned with is generated public belief due to misunderstanding, not a university teacher and famous historian instructing you the opposite to what "we all should know" and is obvious to those of an educated mind.

Your reasoning presents mental contradiction.

"we've all been taught about the "midnight ride of paul revere" but what did he acually do?
how many people could he have warned during his 19 mile trip? meanwhile isreal bistle, who left boston with the same mission as revere, made it around 320 miles..."

Historians can and do debate such issues as this. You as a student may get the opportunity, but ultimately it is up to you to learn and recite the general consensus of opinion that emanates from these 'tis obvious' debatees. Learn it first, before you debate it.

Remember that everything is opinion, even if you do believe that knowledge is attainable - to us, we still need it to consider it for it to be accessible in a mental sense.
- Crazyhead
  July 14, 2007
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  not the point...
  the individual circumstances were not the point...
  i was using examples that are proven to make a point...
  
  it's not about chris or paul, it's about how many other things could be, and probably are, lies that have been taght as fact...
  it's about how our great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids might be taught that paris hilton discovered the cure for aids...
  
  my point is that history, as we are traditionally taught, is more about political agenda's and popularity than it is recorded fact...
- - Weydon
    July 15, 2007
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    No, the historians have no agenda other than to discover accurate history. They openly admit to sources being little more than rumors or "interesting stories" or suggestions, but that "no one really knows". Today for something to become textbook history it has to go through a complicated arduous process--none of which involving politics at all, as the origin of Beowulf has no effect on today's politics. Just an understanding of the past.
  - - Makessenseright
      July 15, 2007
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      I have to disagree on this point. Of course politics and beliefs have a huge impact on what we read in history books. I'm not saying that there are outright lies, or that the historians and purposely slanting what happen to favor their opinion. But in any history book 95% of what the historian knows has to be left out, the bias comes in when the historian is deciding what to put in, and how much attention to give to each thing. A pacifist is more likely to add a paragraph on the horrors of the revolutionary war. An environmentalist is more likely to include something about the effect of the continental railroad on the buffalo population. Neither would be lying, but there is bias none the less.
    - - Weydon
        July 15, 2007
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        While History at large covers people of all "bias" (most minimal), and it balances out.
        
        ALL information is bias outside of basic math. The benefit of history not being in hand of one political party is that you will have endless amount of information, and when anything out of line comes up, other historians will be baffled and question your radical theories. What does a historian have to gain by an outright lie? The worst they can do is convey their personal philosophy very slightly--even accidentally. As will people on the other side of the fence. In the end all you get is facts or likelihoods. Not "DON'T TRUST HISTORY!".
      - Crazyhead
        July 18, 2007
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        it's not an outright lie...
        
        chis and paul are portrayed as hero's because there were fictional books published portraying them as such...
        
        i dont think the people writing the history books are liars, so much as lazy or simply stupid...
        
        anyone with a third-grade vocabulary, an internet connection, and a menial ability to distinguish fact from fiction (which is ALOT to ask for from todays public school-children) can prove their history books wrong, my question then is why not teach us the truth rather than a lie that sounds better...
        
        like are we ever taught what the first court-case was in america? HELL NO!
        
        it's embarassing as hell...
        
        a farmer brought in a farmhand that had molested numerous goats, sheep, and a few chickens...
        
        but we ARE taught how austrailia used to be a prison island...
        
        which leads me to wonder if austrailians are unaware of their own history but are taught about the farmer and farmhand...
        
        Weydon
        July 19, 2007
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        "chis and paul are portrayed as hero's because there were fictional books published portraying them as such...
        
        i dont think the people writing the history books are liars, so much as lazy or simply stupid..."
        
        Your first statement contradicts the second one.
        
        Historians really never thought this stuff about Columbus and Revere. Historians are not lazy or stupid. A historian would have heard Revere's midnight ride and thought it was interesting poem or a hokey folk hero. Columbus was more tricky because no one knew where the hell he was until even after he died. Self-inflated upbringings had people believing their way was the right way of life, therefore anyone who brought this way to the New World was a hero. It was misinformation from generations of minimal schooling, libraries, and no internet. The entire world has known the truth about Columbus for some time now.
        
        Early grade-school books and even cartoons present Columbus' discovery, Paul Revere's ride, and things like Thanksgiving as simple and fun because...it's for kids. They're not going to remember basic facts like who discovered what and when something happened if it's not simple and fun. Teaching 1st to 4th graders about Columbus' misunderstanding of the size of the Earth and how he brought in centuries of butchering indigenous people or Revere and others tactical advantage to warning about the high-taxing British arriving to quell the rebellion would not inspire young kids to find history enjoyable or memorable. Afterwards they go into detail.
        
        "like are we ever taught what the first court-case was in america? HELL NO!
        
        it's embarassing as hell...
        
        a farmer brought in a farmhand that had molested numerous goats, sheep, and a few chickens..."
        
        Source?
        
        "which leads me to wonder if austrailians are unaware of their own history but are taught about the farmer and farmhand..."
        
        Of course they are, just as we are taught that we started as unfruitful, starving, failed colonies and that Georgia was also territory used for convicts.
        
        Crazyhead
        August 2, 2007
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        1. how does the first contradict the other?
        
        historians printed the fictional exploits rather than actually finding the truth...
        
        2. my source is the history channel... they play some pretty weird stuff at 3 am...
        
        3. nice
Weydon
July 14, 2007
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I'm with Tech on this one.
Orange seedsandpeel
July 14, 2007
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i think this is more a debate on the health of the American public school system than the use of history. If you care that you are being taught wrong it is your responsibility to learn from an independent source. I wouldn't worry about mass opinion as it is nearly always wrong and has no influence except towards that of mass opinion.

lastly you have to ask yourself is it essential that we know whose name to tarnish and whose to grace

i do sympathize with someone who has to learn dumb things

lol i just had a socials teacher this last year that was dumb as a very large door nail. I basically just shut up sighed and read for a year. I am sure about half the class failed the final exam. It was a hard year lol.
- Crazyhead
  August 2, 2007
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  "I wouldn't worry about mass opinion as it is nearly always wrong and has no influence except towards that of mass opinion."
  
  true... but mass opinion is starting to interfere with my life... and therefore, must be changed
  
  "lastly you have to ask yourself is it essential that we know whose name to tarnish and whose to grace"
  
  pretend for a moment that you are plato... how pissed would you be if you found out that in 2000 years some asshole named chris gets credit for discovering that the world is round when you already proved it?
  
  "i just had a socials teacher this last year that was dumb as a very large door nail. I basically just shut up sighed and read for a year. I am sure about half the class failed the final exam. It was a hard year lol. "
  
  i'm fortunate in that MOST of my teachers DONT have their heads up their asses...
  
  that sucks pretty hardcore... if i was put in that situation i just would have corrected the crap out of him till he kicked me out of the class, avoiding his hot-air-spewage...