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Norm's take on history
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this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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I know I'm taking a joke remark too seriously, but "History is written by the victors" is just plain wrong. More often than not it is, sure, but it's not exclusively, or even overwhelmingly.
History is written by those who write it. This can be the winners or the losers, and there are plenty of examples for both.
E: people crying about this even though it's blatantly true and I've provided plenty of examples in another comment.
Sorry, but people need to stop universally applying and blindly believing Churchill's history is written by the victors quote.
It was a half-cocked throwaway line by a politician, it's not a universal law.
History is written by the literate.
I can't remember the comedian who was like "This America guy was just a mapmaker and now he's famous."
History is written by historians
Historians are written by genetic material as well as experiences and reactions to both.
History is
Anne Frank wasn't a historian.
And historians work for the victors.
They also sometimes work for the losers such as the Confederacy
And for the losers.
"Just plain wrong"......."More often than not" yeah.....
Those comments aren't contradictory in the slightest.
Read the comment again and stop being deliberately obtuse.
If someone said "food is served hot" then yeah, they're right, most food is. But plenty of food isn't.
E: brand new account with -700 karma. Damn, baited by a blatant troll. Goodbye.
"Just plain wrong" is not a proper response to "food is served hot"
It is if people were to say "food is served hot" as a gospel rule and that no food is served not like that. Like they do with Churchill's "History is written by the victors" quote.
Come on, this isn't hard to follow. Read the comments properly.
You'll notice I never said victors never write history. I said they usually do. "just plain wrong" refers to people treating it as a gospel rule. Read.
E: brand new account with -700 karma. Damn, reeled in and baited by a blatant troll. Goodbye.
It's a very idealist Hume-inspired view of history that even makes this distinction. It's taking for granted that history is determined by conflicts between good and bad. This also takes form in phrases like "the right side of history."
or, "what no historical materialism does to a mfer."
The most published book in the world just so happens to be the religious narrative that justifies the most successful empire-building exercise in world history.
The second most published book in the world is a book of quotations by the founder of the modern incarnation of the most populace (and arguably the most economically successful) nation in world history.
The third most published book (series) in the world is a fantasy about wizards in high school written and distributed by the colonial power that originally mass marketed that first book so aggressively.
Perhaps "History is published and distributed by the victors" is a more accurate. But it is always worth analyzing the historical narrative you receive through the lens of the people producing and distributing the texts.
Yeah, sure, Howard Zinn and Hunter S. Thompson and Betty Friedan exist. But their works are unlikely to be the ones your Middle School World History teacher is distributing copies of. In fact, given the recent wave of book bans and library scourges happening across the United States, you're even less likely to find a copy of their works today than you would have five or ten years ago.
Those books aren't really history though. You could argue that there is some history in the Bible, but a lot of it is not history at all.
Also, the Old Testament was written by the Jews while they were part of the Persian Empire, so I'd say they were still the losers even though they were released from slavery and given land.
I mean, you can functionally argue this with any book. Certainly, there are a great many people who take Biblical events as historical facts. And that's precisely because of the success of centuries of militant evangelism. Which takes us back to the whole "history written by the victors" thing. If nothing else, the Council of Nicaea - hosted by Constantine the I - was an explicitly recognized congregation of "winners". And they were very literally codifying the historical narrative of what would become the largest religion on earth for at least the next millennium.
The Old Testament that we refer to in the modern Bible is but one version of the original manuscripts maintained by Jewish priests living in a minor kingdom at the far edge of the Persian Empire. It persisted in large part because Judaism gave way to Christianity, which became the state religion of the continent spanning Roman Empire. Had Constantine lost the civil war with Maxentus, there's no saying what the prevailing religion of the Mediterranean (and then the rest of the world) would have been. But I suspect we'd have seen at least a few notable variances to the modern incarnation of the faith.
I'm pretty sure I know what the first book is, and I'm pretty sure I've read the third book(s). What is the second?
Quotes from Chairman Mao
You're deliberately misinterpreting my statement as "history is never written by the victors", which isn't what I said. I have another comment with a number of examples that disprove the quote that everyone treats as gospel.
I don't know what your second example is referring to.
And Harry Potter being written by someone who happens to be from a former colonial power is the biggest reach I believe I've seen in my entire life. So good job with that.
Seriously, how is that an example of history being written by the victors? Childrens books are written by the victors, maybe. It's a book about magic school kids, not a writing of history. And it was published by a publishing company, not by the government of colonial-era Britain.
History is not written by the victors. It is written by those who are most able to write history. More often than not this is the victors, but it is far, far from the rule.
Quotes from Chairman Mao, the very apotheosis of a victor writing history.
HP is a fantastic glamorization of elementary students growing up during the domestic fascist turn in the wake of WW2. It isn't simply a story about wizard kids, but an allegory describing liberals coming of age during the 60s and 70s. The heroes and villains and side-characters are all fictional re-imaginings of period figures. Had the English come out on the wrong side of the World Wars, you'd likely be reading a similar set of books translated off the German, telling a similar coming-of-age story about growing up in post-war globally dominant Germany as a young wizard coming of age with evil (((monsters))) hiding in the school basement that only a clever and talented Draco Malfoy could grow up to defeat.
The folks most able to write history are the ones in the position to conduct research, formulate a narrative, and distribute it most aggressively. Those people are inevitably working on behalf of the most wealthy and influential business and political interests in the region. Aka "the victors".
Ok. I'll again refer you to where I literally never said victors never write history. Cool, Mao did. Where did I say otherwise? Point this out to me.
Harry Potter isn't an example of the victors writing history. I don't know what you're smoking to have a take like that. It's a kid's book about child wizards standing against dark wizards who want ethnic purity (i.e. a superior race of wizards untainted by non-magic blood).
It's not a historical record or analysis. It's a kid's book series.
What "victors" wrote it? Where's the writing of history? I see you've backed down from your "and it was published by the Colonial-era British government!" take, so at least we're making some progress.
Yes! Good boy! You're getting it!! Well done ❤️❤️❤️❤️!
It's just like I said all along - history is written by those most able to record it!
You got so close, only to throw out your previous sentences and go back to this baseless take that has loads of counter-examples, some of which I've already stated.
The victors are usually in a better position to write about events, but it's not a rule. Jesus, how is this hard to understand? The world isn't black and white where everything is absolute.
Most of the writings about Genghis Khan and other Mongolian emperors during their golden era comes from Chinese historians. Tell me, were China the victors in their encounters with the Mongols? Because by your logic, they must have been.
You don't have to die on this hill, dude.
Just pointing out that it's far from the universal law people are blue-in-the-face defending it to be.
I count two smurfs.
maybe instead of 'written' it should be 'taught' or 'indoctrinated'
That is... more correct.
But even then, it's not hard to find counterexamples. The fucktwits of the American South teaching that the Confederation was Good, Actually spring to mind. It wasn't, and they lost hard. Yet the victors (the literal US government) have not managed to retain control over that narrative.
Reality is that "victors" aren't always an overpowering hegemony, "losers" aren't always doomed to genocide, historians and teachers don't always have an incentive to lie about their own history, and how a culture tells its own history is a complicated and highly situational socio-political process.
We should be extremely wary of the many inherent biases/incentives in how we teach history, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss the discipline outright or that democracies aren't capable of self-reflection and of properly teaching past mistakes.
No saying is a universal law, that's not really the point of those phrases. "How history is taught is heavily influenced by those in power" is just not as catchy. I think you're taking it too literally.
I'm pointing this out to people and they're saying no it's 100% a universal law. I'm aware the quote likely wasn't originally meant that way.
Actual history is written by historians. Textbooks are written by the people who are currently winning. Popular understanding of history is written by anyone who has the money and the will.
.... I think you're mistaking this joke for an invitation to the validity of the historical remarks that were made in this.... meme
Yes, I listened a really long podcast about it and I know it made total sense and listed a lot of evidence, but as always, I can't recall anything but the point that truly the saying is wrong. Do you have an example?
There's plenty of examples, but possibly the most interesting one is China.
China, historically, fanatically wrote about their history, and unfortunately for them, particularly around the time prior to the Ming Dynasty, most of this was writing about them having their arses repeatedly handed to them by Mongol armies.
For the US, plenty of the history surrounding their civil war was, at least for a while, written by supporters of the Confederacy, which is why to this day there's still so many people pushing the "it was about states rights!" thing.
Sticking to the US, let's be real, despite many Americans claiming otherwise, the US lost their war with the British Empire and their allied natives in 1812, yet the US often refers to it as being a draw, or even (though more rarely) an American win.
England under Cromwell invading Ireland was written about heavily on both sides, and England isn't exactly presented as being the good side.
It's probably more accurate to say History is most consistently written by the most literate, but that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
History is written by people who write it down (and then get it successfully accepted/disseminated to a certain degree).
Yup. And while this is obviously easier to do when you're the winner, it's not a requirement.
Most of the records of the Mongols outclassing China over such a long period of time comes from Chinese writings, for example.
People love believing blanket, black and white statements. History is written by the victors, nobody else, I know this because it's a Churchill quote, it has to be true!
If history was written exclusively by the victors, the Khans would be considered one of the greatest empires of all time. However, the Mongolians didn't really have a pronounced aristocracy class that focused on arts/writing, and so most of our records regarding their conquests are written by Chinese and European scholars, a.k.a. the losers.
That's a huge one, thanks
But the Mongols willingly assimilated into Chinese culture for ease of administration, becoming the Yuan Dynasty. So a lot of the 'Chinese' sources were written by people of Mongol ancestry, or people who worked for them.
Not sure this is a great example for your point, given that in between then and now Europe conquered most of the world. I don't think it'd be hard to argue that in the long term they were the "victors" and as such their great opponents and fears became The Enemy in the history books.
This only really works as a counter-point if you interpret it overly literally as only referring to the winners of a particular conflict, whereas in my experience at least, this isn't what most people repeating the sentiment actually mean. Usually it's something more akin to "history is often written and taught in a way that furthers the goals of the current hegemon," that's just not quite as snappy.
I'm guessing the issue that makes people talk past each other when talking about this idea is that it's most famously used in reference to World War II where "winner of the conflict" and "leader of the global order" were about as close to the same thing as they have ever been.
Can you reword that?
The Native Americans are generally considered "the good guys" and clearly lost.
Modern sensibilities see them as the good guys, but for most of colonial history they were painted as the bad guys. Kids played cowboys and Indians the same way they played cops and robbers.
And of course we now know that cops are worse than robbers and so the wheel of progress keeps turning!
Strangely you have misunderstood my comment. It was clearly meant about the saying that history is written by the winners. There is no saying that winners are the good guys.
Even more strangely you are not the only one. I can only surmise that people are really itching to get offended by something. Or do you think it's something else?
I find your comment offensive to people who are easily offended. Also, I think you're sheeple. Do your own research. The media is lying to you.
Native American oral history portrays some initial contact and treaties as mutually amicable, the Treaty of Niagara for example, and there's a common sentiment that returning to original treaties could be a good thing. Also common knowledge now but they weren't just a group of people but many nations. The "wise native" trope and the notion they were like peaceful hippies who lived easy lives with nature are arguably positive racist stereotypes.
The westward expansion and "free real estate" project of settlement is where things turned, and the new capitalist economic order taking hold. It wasn't all a violent takeover either, there were very mundane layers of land leasing and real estate issues happening as well.
Strangely you have misunderstood my comment. It was clearly meant about the saying that history is written by the winners. There is no saying that winners are the good guys.
Even more strangely you are not the only one. I can only surmise that people are really itching to get offended by something. Or do you think it's something else?
The many many cultures who were just living life, only to be wiped out by colonists. Are they the good guys?