The 1619 Project or the prior history is not the whole truth, but a narrow view from what I gathered from looking it up quickly. Slavery has been around for millenia in probably all countries. Many races were enslaved and that has to be acknowledged. What about the slavery going on right now?
History really isn't just learning facts as I naively thought, but getting true and 1st hand account facts from different perspectives.
The 1619 account is just such an awful perspective on our past and it's biggest flaw is the "sin of presentism" because she imposed modern Critical Race Theory on the past. You just can't do that. It's a way of stealing the past from the people who actually lived it.
"stealing the past from the people who actually lived it"
What will history say about the covid pandemic? It certainly won't be what we endured or what we thought of it. However, we have better documentation methods now, but even most of those could be destroyed by a computer virus or something.
I believe they have been doing this to our history for a long time, maybe centuries, and suspect they know more about the ancient pyramids, hidden findings, cultures, and other topographical terrains than they tell us.
I wonder about things like the Milan Cathedral. It is 354.33 ft high and it was built with hand tools and scaffolds. This church is so magnificent and ornate I just can't believe it. It is fascinating and creepy. Have we regressed and lost technology from the past? Why were so many ornate historic buildings purposely destroyed and many by curious fires?
Do you question these things? I'd value your opinion since you specialize in history.
Sorry I didn't get to replying to you sooner, but the email notifying me of your comment got buried under an avalanche of new emails. Your question is profound and actually there is so little that we can actually know about the past and there are many things to consider when thinking about that. First, if an event wasn't written down, we can never know about it. If documents were destroyed somehow we can't know what they contained. In addition, there are many people in the past who would have been unable to write, so their history is unknown. All historians have is the written record which can exist in many forms: letters, diaries, newspapers, official papers, etc. But even those are prone to bias. But I don't think bias is a bad thing; I WANT to know the bias of a person who wrote something. In the end, the job of the historian is to use primary sources to craft a version of the past, which is called an account. Historians don't reproduce the past; all they can do is write an approximation of the past based on the sources they used. And even the historian's account contains bias. I don't know if this response has been of any help, but it's why I think the field of history should be part of the area of study we call the humanities and should never be considered a social science. There is nothing scientific about history. One last comment: some of the best history is contained in the literary genre of historical fiction. Many historians hate historical fiction; I feel differently about it. Of course, in order to produce a really good novel about a time in the past, the writer has to do his/her homework and to be especially careful of committing presentism or anything that could be called ahistorical.
Thank you for the thoughts! That helped clarify things for me so I can comprehend things and make inferences about history.
I love reading historical fiction and when I read, I often check to see what history says about events. HF helps give you a sense of how the characters/people felt at the time and it is entertaining as well.
Do you think we may have we regressed and lost technology from the past or have been reset like a new clean slate by removing history at some point? 17-1800s?
OMG...I watch or read anything these days and question it. After all, history is written by the victors. I think about how blessed we are in this nation compared to others...I think and question every little thing. There is only so much I can ingest these days. Ignorance sure was bliss.
Thanks for that, Lori. I still haven’t fully recovered from the damage done to Americans’ understanding of our history by “The 1619 Project.” 😬
The 1619 Project or the prior history is not the whole truth, but a narrow view from what I gathered from looking it up quickly. Slavery has been around for millenia in probably all countries. Many races were enslaved and that has to be acknowledged. What about the slavery going on right now?
History really isn't just learning facts as I naively thought, but getting true and 1st hand account facts from different perspectives.
The 1619 account is just such an awful perspective on our past and it's biggest flaw is the "sin of presentism" because she imposed modern Critical Race Theory on the past. You just can't do that. It's a way of stealing the past from the people who actually lived it.
"stealing the past from the people who actually lived it"
What will history say about the covid pandemic? It certainly won't be what we endured or what we thought of it. However, we have better documentation methods now, but even most of those could be destroyed by a computer virus or something.
I believe they have been doing this to our history for a long time, maybe centuries, and suspect they know more about the ancient pyramids, hidden findings, cultures, and other topographical terrains than they tell us.
I wonder about things like the Milan Cathedral. It is 354.33 ft high and it was built with hand tools and scaffolds. This church is so magnificent and ornate I just can't believe it. It is fascinating and creepy. Have we regressed and lost technology from the past? Why were so many ornate historic buildings purposely destroyed and many by curious fires?
Do you question these things? I'd value your opinion since you specialize in history.
Sorry I didn't get to replying to you sooner, but the email notifying me of your comment got buried under an avalanche of new emails. Your question is profound and actually there is so little that we can actually know about the past and there are many things to consider when thinking about that. First, if an event wasn't written down, we can never know about it. If documents were destroyed somehow we can't know what they contained. In addition, there are many people in the past who would have been unable to write, so their history is unknown. All historians have is the written record which can exist in many forms: letters, diaries, newspapers, official papers, etc. But even those are prone to bias. But I don't think bias is a bad thing; I WANT to know the bias of a person who wrote something. In the end, the job of the historian is to use primary sources to craft a version of the past, which is called an account. Historians don't reproduce the past; all they can do is write an approximation of the past based on the sources they used. And even the historian's account contains bias. I don't know if this response has been of any help, but it's why I think the field of history should be part of the area of study we call the humanities and should never be considered a social science. There is nothing scientific about history. One last comment: some of the best history is contained in the literary genre of historical fiction. Many historians hate historical fiction; I feel differently about it. Of course, in order to produce a really good novel about a time in the past, the writer has to do his/her homework and to be especially careful of committing presentism or anything that could be called ahistorical.
Thank you for the thoughts! That helped clarify things for me so I can comprehend things and make inferences about history.
I love reading historical fiction and when I read, I often check to see what history says about events. HF helps give you a sense of how the characters/people felt at the time and it is entertaining as well.
Do you think we may have we regressed and lost technology from the past or have been reset like a new clean slate by removing history at some point? 17-1800s?
OMG...I watch or read anything these days and question it. After all, history is written by the victors. I think about how blessed we are in this nation compared to others...I think and question every little thing. There is only so much I can ingest these days. Ignorance sure was bliss.
I can't watch the history channel anymore.
It's junk, like the Learning Channel.
if those kids could read, they'd be mighty brainwashed