Topic: history : science or arts?
Mcobi927's photo
Sun 02/21/16 12:29 AM
History is both science and arts what do you think?

Beachfarmer's photo
Sun 02/21/16 12:36 AM
apparently Social Studies at the moment

Robxbox73's photo
Sun 02/21/16 12:49 AM
History is written by the victors.. that's why history is screwed up. Science is an educated guess.
Art is subjective and open to interpretation. At least that the silliness they do to you in schools. Study to empower yourself. Peace

IgorFrankensteen's photo
Mon 02/22/16 06:32 PM

History is written by the victors.. that's why history is screwed up. Science is an educated guess.
Art is subjective and open to interpretation. At least that the silliness they do to you in schools. Study to empower yourself. Peace


Resident Historian here. I HATE that oft repeated bit of snottiness.

I'm referring to the "History is written by the victors" thing.

It's dead false, by the way. Complete balderdash. Case in point: the reason why many people think that the "barbarians" of Europe WERE "barbarians," even though they kicked the Romans' ***** repeatedly, and eventually conquered them, is because the Roman LOSERS, were the ones who could PUBLISH.

It would be much more insightful to recognize that History is told to us by those with the ability to effectively "shout the loudest."

Robxbox73's photo
Mon 02/22/16 07:02 PM
Tell me , and please don't take offense. Why do historians omit slices of history? Because it doesn't fit. So you write the most logical explanation of the facts as you see them. That is why I consider historians as librarians. Your merely regurgitating what you've read.

Fact, my studious friend; history is written by the victors. Facts are omitted. Your version is all that is talked about. That is what it means.

The Nasca lines, the heads of Easter Island, the power source in the Bermuda Triangle? How about Pima Punku, a city built by? Moctezuma shared with the spaniards how the city was built by star people overnight. At an altitude were there would be no natural resources.

My friend you have already been trained to call these things anomalous. The picture is bigger than you know. We have 40k years of un accounted history.

I know as college educated bloke like your self will think nothing of what I say. That's ok. I challenge you to investigate these anomolies, like I did. I asure you, if you really research as a scientist, you will understand who are the victors and why people say history is written by the victors.

IgorFrankensteen's photo
Wed 02/24/16 02:20 PM

Tell me , and please don't take offense. Why do historians omit slices of history? Because it doesn't fit. So you write the most logical explanation of the facts as you see them. That is why I consider historians as librarians. Your merely regurgitating what you've read.

Fact, my studious friend; history is written by the victors. Facts are omitted. Your version is all that is talked about. That is what it means.

The Nasca lines, the heads of Easter Island, the power source in the Bermuda Triangle? How about Pima Punku, a city built by? Moctezuma shared with the spaniards how the city was built by star people overnight. At an altitude were there would be no natural resources.

My friend you have already been trained to call these things anomalous. The picture is bigger than you know. We have 40k years of un accounted history.

I know as college educated bloke like your self will think nothing of what I say. That's ok. I challenge you to investigate these anomolies, like I did. I asure you, if you really research as a scientist, you will understand who are the victors and why people say history is written by the victors.

IgorFrankensteen's photo
Wed 02/24/16 02:39 PM

Tell me , and please don't take offense. Why do historians omit slices of history? Because it doesn't fit. So you write the most logical explanation of the facts as you see them. That is why I consider historians as librarians. Your merely regurgitating what you've read.

Fact, my studious friend; history is written by the victors. Facts are omitted. Your version is all that is talked about. That is what it means.

The Nasca lines, the heads of Easter Island, the power source in the Bermuda Triangle? How about Pima Punku, a city built by? Moctezuma shared with the spaniards how the city was built by star people overnight. At an altitude were there would be no natural resources.

My friend you have already been trained to call these things anomalous. The picture is bigger than you know. We have 40k years of un accounted history.

I know as college educated bloke like your self will think nothing of what I say. That's ok. I challenge you to investigate these anomolies, like I did. I asure you, if you really research as a scientist, you will understand who are the victors and why people say history is written by the victors.


Oh, my. You clearly never learned anything at all about the ACTUAL discipline of History. All of your statements are the classic common prejudices that come from thinking that the way you were required to "do" history assignments for school, was to copy down stuff some other historian said, and regurgitate it in your own words.

1.
Why do historians omit slices of history?


First, you speak of "historians" as though we are a single minded unified group of coordinated conspirators. We are not. We are individual human beings, just as you (I presume) are. SOME historians work for politicians, for example. Those historians are likely to purposely bias what they say, in order to support their candidates.

But that's just those few political hack historians. You want to pretend that ALL historians are that kind? You have a LOT of reading and cross checking to do, and a LOT of proof to pile up before your claim will be anything but your own self-blinded prejudice.

In addition to that aspect of your first question, there is the fact that Histories CAN'T be all-inclusive, without becoming unusable, massive listings of EVERY SINGLE MOMENT and EVERY SINGLE ACTION. So instead, what historians do (when they do it right), is they select what they have deduced (correctly or not) is PERTINENT to the small segment of the past which they are trying to understand, and organize for your consumption. In other words, if I'm writing a history of, say, milk, then including a chapter on Quantum Physics, isn't likely to be applicable.

So if you want to pretend that HISTORIANS AS A GROUP are to blame for whatever versions of the past you have issues with, you need to learn what a real historian is first, then figure out which INDIVIDUAL historian you are upset with, and THEN you still need to find out if they really DID "leave things out," or if it's just that you don't have the same understanding of what is and isn't pertinent to the subject.

Finally, histories are all written at a specific time after the events. It's extremely rare for any historian, no matter how well connected to the people in power, to be able to get their hands and minds on ALL the pertinent information needed to really get the story right. The best that an honest, non-political flunky historian can ever do, is tell you what happened to the best of their knowledge at the time they are writing.

So if the person who made you prejudiced against historians was, say, writing about World War 2, and they did so in say, 1952, and you are reading their book in 2016 and finding missing sections and false statements...you're an ignorant complaining whiner, if you fail to recognize that in 1952, historians did not have the same access to facts about WW2 that we do now. At LEAST half of the needed information was classified top secret.


Robxbox73's photo
Wed 02/24/16 02:53 PM


Tell me , and please don't take offense. Why do historians omit slices of history? Because it doesn't fit. So you write the most logical explanation of the facts as you see them. That is why I consider historians as librarians. Your merely regurgitating what you've read.

Fact, my studious friend; history is written by the victors. Facts are omitted. Your version is all that is talked about. That is what it means.

The Nasca lines, the heads of Easter Island, the power source in the Bermuda Triangle? How about Pima Punku, a city built by? Moctezuma shared with the spaniards how the city was built by star people overnight. At an altitude were there would be no natural resources.

My friend you have already been trained to call these things anomalous. The picture is bigger than you know. We have 40k years of un accounted history.

I know as college educated bloke like your self will think nothing of what I say. That's ok. I challenge you to investigate these anomolies, like I did. I asure you, if you really research as a scientist, you will understand who are the victors and why people say history is written by the victors.


Oh, my. You clearly never learned anything at all about the ACTUAL discipline of History. All of your statements are the classic common prejudices that come from thinking that the way you were required to "do" history assignments for school, was to copy down stuff some other historian said, and regurgitate it in your own words.

1.
Why do historians omit slices of history?


First, you speak of "historians" as though we are a single minded unified group of coordinated conspirators. We are not. We are individual human beings, just as you (I presume) are. SOME historians work for politicians, for example. Those historians are likely to purposely bias what they say, in order to support their candidates.

But that's just those few political hack historians. You want to pretend that ALL historians are that kind? You have a LOT of reading and cross checking to do, and a LOT of proof to pile up before your claim will be anything but your own self-blinded prejudice.

In addition to that aspect of your first question, there is the fact that Histories CAN'T be all-inclusive, without becoming unusable, massive listings of EVERY SINGLE MOMENT and EVERY SINGLE ACTION. So instead, what historians do (when they do it right), is they select what they have deduced (correctly or not) is PERTINENT to the small segment of the past which they are trying to understand, and organize for your consumption. In other words, if I'm writing a history of, say, milk, then including a chapter on Quantum Physics, isn't likely to be applicable.

So if you want to pretend that HISTORIANS AS A GROUP are to blame for whatever versions of the past you have issues with, you need to learn what a real historian is first, then figure out which INDIVIDUAL historian you are upset with, and THEN you still need to find out if they really DID "leave things out," or if it's just that you don't have the same understanding of what is and isn't pertinent to the subject.

Finally, histories are all written at a specific time after the events. It's extremely rare for any historian, no matter how well connected to the people in power, to be able to get their hands and minds on ALL the pertinent information needed to really get the story right. The best that an honest, non-political flunky historian can ever do, is tell you what happened to the best of their knowledge at the time they are writing.

So if the person who made you prejudiced against historians was, say, writing about World War 2, and they did so in say, 1952, and you are reading their book in 2016 and finding missing sections and false statements...you're an ignorant complaining whiner, if you fail to recognize that in 1952, historians did not have the same access to facts about WW2 that we do now. At LEAST half of the needed information was classified top secret.




Well thanks for not getting offended, Dr. FRANKENSTEEN. Intresting, you never brought up any of the anomolies. Your arguments are completely typical. Sorry. Thought you would have something intresting to say. All you did was whine about how your feelings were hurt. Well let's just agree that we don't agree. Bye bye.

IgorFrankensteen's photo
Wed 02/24/16 02:56 PM

Fact, my studious friend; history is written by the victors.


If you are simply going to repeat things like this, there's no point to ANYONE telling you any factual information.

You are WRONG. As I explained WITH A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE AS PROOF.

40,000 years of unaccounted history? Hell, we have millions of years of it. More. But it isn't because us HISTORIANS are hiding anything from you. It's because the vast majority of the past occurred when there was no one writing anything down about it.

That's why we have lots of real records about rich people and about kings, but next to nothing about the lives of the billions of not-rich people, who did 99.99999% of everything that actually happened.

As for Nazca, and all that kind of stuff, I have actually studied it as best I can. Since I am one of the NON-politicized historians, and don't give a crap about who does or doesn't like what I figure out, AND I am honorable enough to tell you when I'm guessing and when I have actual facts, I can say for sure that it is NOT KNOWN who exactly put the lines there, nor is it known why. Not just because the Spaniards destroyed a lot of writings of the people of the ancient times, but also because a lot of those people never bothered to write everything down to begin with.

Did you know, that never once, did any Egyptian write out how to build a war chariot? At least not that we've ever found. But that's because what the Egyptians wrote ON, when they weren't chiseling things into stone, was stuff that rotted away into dust later.

You want to pretend space aliens made all the Egyptian chariots because we don't know? Go ahead, but don't blame HISTORIANS for that, blame FABLE AND FANCIFUL TALES writers. they aren't required to have any facts to support their writings. We are.