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Why do we glorify horrible people from the distant past? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

122 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many more...

These people had beliefs and worldviews that were so horribly, by today's standards, that calling them fascist would be huge understatement. And they followed through by committing a lot of evil.

Aren't we basically glorifying the Hitlers of centuries past?

I know, historians always say that one should not judge historical figures by contemporary moral standards. But there's a difference between objectively studying history and actually glorifying these figures.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I strongly oppose the postmodern attitude that everything is subjective. It’s good to remember the limits of our knowledge, but to completely discard an academic field such as history as entirely subjective is quite absurd.

Its not really, history doesnt have a central paradigm of provable statements, it cannot be objective. Yes, they may have had armies, someone may have also went back and fucked with all the records of the armies numbers, compisitions etc after the fact.

Writing and mental production have been controlled till very recently by the upper classes, the written record was usually the thoughts of the upper class, or those they allowed to write.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

You know the study of history isnt just taking one account and believing it, right?

You build as much evidence as you can from multiple sources so you can account for and remove those biases. Obviously, the further back you go, the harder it is to find evidence but that doesn't mean you work from one source.