Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (42398)	6/28/1999 8:51:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I read the history books written close to the actual events in history and the biographies of men who lived through what today is "history". Not the revised and Orwellian "history" texts of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. The nature of the distortions may have changed, but the Orwellian nature of history books has not. I have seen history books from the '50's that recounted the Anglo-British campaigns of WWII in Europe in minute and loving detail, without a single mention of the fact that twice as many Nazis were fighting against the Russians. No reference to the eastern front, no mention that we and the Russians fought on the same side. Later they appeared in Eastern Europe, as if by black magic. World history was presented from a position so Eurocentric that students might reasonably have wondered if any civilization ever existed outside Europe and North America. Colonialism was offered as a heroic struggle on the part of good white people to bring enlightenment and Christianity to the heathen darkies. No wonder the generation raised on those books botched our relations with the developing world so badly. Those "America-is-perfect" history texts from the old days are every bit as distorted as the ones you deplore. Hardly a unique syndrome; I read an essay by Ryszard Kapuscinski in which he described history books written by Belgian colonists for use in the Congo. Reading them, he said, you would have thought that Belgium was the only country in the world. Is the idea of presenting views other than ours, or even acknowledging that they exist, really so subversive?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (42398)	6/28/1999 10:41:00 AM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<I read the history books written close to the actual events in history and the biographies of men who lived through what today is "history"> And did you happen to read any of the herstory books and the biographies of women who lived through what today is "herstory"? All "history/herstory" is subjective...;-}> Croc

To: Father Terrence who wrote (42398)	6/28/1999 11:26:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

I read the history books written close to the actual events in history and the biographies of men who lived through what today is "history". Speaking as someone who was trained as an historian (and specifically as an historian of ideas), let me say we will never know History as it really was; we will only know interpretations of it, some of which seem more adequate than others. People who have lived through the events they describe, as well as those later write biographies of those that have, are as biassed -- or as little biassed -- as anyone else. One of the things I love to do is to read old, old newspaper articles about events that transpired long ago...The writers don't know what came later, after all. They don't know what the consequences of the events they are describing will be. And their own presuppositions, idiosyncratic convictions, even prejudices are so obvious. Reading such articles always makes me feel nostalgic, and sad.... Ah, humanity!

To: Father Terrence who wrote (42398)	6/29/1999 12:45:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Are you seriously asserting that child labor did not exist in the United States on a huge scale? I don't know which Rand book is obscuring reality for you at the moment, but here are three primary source documents, with lots of photographs, detailing child labor in the United States: historyplace.com history.ohio-state.edu history.ohio-state.edu And now at this site is a detailed history, with statistics, of child labor in the United States. Did you know that it was widespread until 1938? You would be more fun to debate if you were a little more accurate in your statements. Vague comments to the effect that it was not so bad in the U.S. before the era of social benefits, and vague references to books you read that are better than the books other people read, don't cut it. Now if you could PROVE with primary source documents that your statements are true, that would be another story entirely. But you cannot. However, as an exercise you might try to show me with documentation that there was very little hunger in the United States in the years before Aid to Families With Dependent Children kicked in earlier in this century, which is one of the absurd things you assert, or at least I understand it that way. Please correct me if I've misunderstood your position. earlham.edu