Early US history...Columbus is a liar?

[Surazal Dloc]

I'm not very knowledgable in North American history but I think its like most countires that were discovered. It's not so much who discovers it first, but who sort of colonises and actually takes possession of the land that get more of the credit recognition. The same thing happened in Australia. A lot of people stil think Capt. Cook discovered Australia, but there were a few people before him, like the Dutch, only they land on the western sid of our country which is mostly desert so they were like "this place sucks" and left not realising the other side of the country and fertile lands and such, and there were a couple of other visiters before Cook as well.  

[Milk and Holy Water]

Honestly, it's not prudent to believe entirely anything anyone tells you happened before you were conscious.

The only information you can trust is your own experience.

That being said, folk histories are always more accurate. Never trust the "official" version of the story, because people with Office have every reason to lie about the actual course of events. Works like Howard Zinn's People's History Of the United States paint a very different picture of american history than is normally taught, and it's very well sourced at least, meaning that according to the academic consensus is correct, if often misconstrued by the Hegemony.  

[Hannah Starz]

Yeah, I agree, we are studying colonial America right now, and pretty much everyone was there before Columbus.
He got there in 1492, ancient Egypt, Phoenicia and medieval Europe, were said to have been there before?
So Why are we giving Columbus all the credit?  

[Milk and Holy Water]

Dannica_over_under

Yeah, I agree, we are studying colonial America right now, and pretty much everyone was there before Columbus.
He got there in 1492, ancient Egypt, Phoenicia and medieval Europe, were said to have been there before?
So Why are we giving Columbus all the credit?

It's all about mythology. Columbus is less important as a person than as a symbol.  

[Dan D Lie N]

LOL oh the joys of college they pretty much take the history you know and smash it into little bits, set it on fire and send the ashes off into the ocean in a cement box.

FYI most of history is a lie.

kinda like our independence from england. history (and the american people at the time) say that mean the mean old king of england is opressing us. no taxation without representation (in which infact they did give representation and we ignored it.) ANYWAY the mean old king had nothing to do with the taxes and was infact, insane. he lived his whole life thinking he was a farmer. parliament is a b***h tho.

sorry for the rant i found it interesting. and anyone want to know why the pilgrims actually left england? lets just say it has to do with the kings gay lover a married woman a pimp and poisoned muffins.  

[Omnileech]

Quote:

The only information you can trust is your own experience.

Not even that as human perception is flawed. There have been numerous cases of people being witnesses to a crime not being able to remember accurately what they have seen and there have been people who claim to have remembered something that never happened. The personal experience is pretty limited, and it won't do a thing to help learn about people and events long before you were born.

Quote:

That being said, folk histories are always more accurate. Never trust the "official" version of the story, because people with Office have every reason to lie about the actual course of events. Works like Howard Zinn's People's History Of the United States paint a very different picture of american history than is normally taught, and it's very well sourced at least, meaning that according to the academic consensus is correct, if often misconstrued by the Hegemony.

You're speaking in favor of Folk history and then recommend a book fixated on class conflict and anti-elitism? If you want to know what history was like for the average person then you study social history with a mindful eye that many of the oral histories aren't to be taken on their word alone. Folk history in itself tends not to be very well-sourced nor is it easily verifiable.

Just because a picture painted is different from the traditional or mainstream doesn't make it better and it doesn't mean that there's some giant conspiracy out there to misrepresent the editorializing by the yellow journalists both for and against the Mexican-American war  

[Milk and Holy Water]

Omnileech

Quote:

The only information you can trust is your own experience.

Not even that as human perception is flawed. There have been numerous cases of people being witnesses to a crime not being able to remember accurately what they have seen and there have been people who claim to have remembered something that never happened. The personal experience is pretty limited, and it won't do a thing to help learn about people and events long before you were born.

Quote:

That being said, folk histories are always more accurate. Never trust the "official" version of the story, because people with Office have every reason to lie about the actual course of events. Works like Howard Zinn's People's History Of the United States paint a very different picture of american history than is normally taught, and it's very well sourced at least, meaning that according to the academic consensus is correct, if often misconstrued by the Hegemony.

You're speaking in favor of Folk history and then recommend a book fixated on class conflict and anti-elitism? If you want to know what history was like for the average person then you study social history with a mindful eye that many of the oral histories aren't to be taken on their word alone. Folk history in itself tends not to be very well-sourced nor is it easily verifiable.

Just because a picture painted is different from the traditional or mainstream doesn't make it better and it doesn't mean that there's some giant conspiracy out there to misrepresent the editorializing by the yellow journalists both for and against the Mexican-American war

Easily verifiable?

How are other sources for information on history more easily verifiable?  

[Omnileech]

Milk and Holy Water

Omnileech

Quote:

The only information you can trust is your own experience.

Not even that as human perception is flawed. There have been numerous cases of people being witnesses to a crime not being able to remember accurately what they have seen and there have been people who claim to have remembered something that never happened. The personal experience is pretty limited, and it won't do a thing to help learn about people and events long before you were born.

Quote:

That being said, folk histories are always more accurate. Never trust the "official" version of the story, because people with Office have every reason to lie about the actual course of events. Works like Howard Zinn's People's History Of the United States paint a very different picture of american history than is normally taught, and it's very well sourced at least, meaning that according to the academic consensus is correct, if often misconstrued by the Hegemony.

You're speaking in favor of Folk history and then recommend a book fixated on class conflict and anti-elitism? If you want to know what history was like for the average person then you study social history with a mindful eye that many of the oral histories aren't to be taken on their word alone. Folk history in itself tends not to be very well-sourced nor is it easily verifiable.

Just because a picture painted is different from the traditional or mainstream doesn't make it better and it doesn't mean that there's some giant conspiracy out there to misrepresent the editorializing by the yellow journalists both for and against the Mexican-American war

Easily verifiable?

How are other sources for information on history more easily verifiable?

Higher quality documentation. How do we know when the Gettysburg address was given and what was in it? Because we have supporting sources verified to be accurate.

How do we know that the holocaust happened? We have orders for death camps, dead bodies, statements from the guards, people surrounding the death camps, survivors, the facilities themselves, etc

How can someone who claims that they saw an alien starship be trusted? Because they claim the hegemony is keeping the evidence from the people? Because they claim that they WERE there, and saw what they saw, despite not having any photographic or physical evidence?

An interesting example of why some sources are worse than others was on antique roadshow a while back. Someone brought a gun their father claimed was stolen from an German base in WW2. Their father was in the military, was in Germany, but records from others at the scene as well as where the father was assigned showed that the dad was a liar, and probably got the gun from someone who actually was there and looting.

Just going off of what someone says isn't good enough unless you have other means of telling how much truth is behind what they say.  

[Omnileech]

6ix Savage

LOL oh the joys of college they pretty much take the history you know and smash it into little bits, set it on fire and send the ashes off into the ocean in a cement box.

FYI most of history is a lie.

kinda like our independence from england. history (and the american people at the time) say that mean the mean old king of england is opressing us. no taxation without representation (in which infact they did give representation and we ignored it.) ANYWAY the mean old king had nothing to do with the taxes and was infact, insane. he lived his whole life thinking he was a farmer. parliament is a b***h tho.

sorry for the rant i found it interesting. and anyone want to know why the pilgrims actually left england? lets just say it has to do with the kings gay lover a married woman a pimp and poisoned muffins.

There's levels of truth in history and what is taught.
High School history is bad not because the teachers are morons, but because you're literally covering 200+ years of information in the time a college course would cover less than half of that. When you have a general history course like that you're going to get a very shallow look at history.
The taxation without representation thing was just a slogan, and in depth analysis reveals that. When you spend less than a week covering resentment leading to revolution? It's easy to forget or skip over that nuance.  

[Milk and Holy Water]

Omnileech

Milk and Holy Water

Omnileech

Quote:

The only information you can trust is your own experience.

Not even that as human perception is flawed. There have been numerous cases of people being witnesses to a crime not being able to remember accurately what they have seen and there have been people who claim to have remembered something that never happened. The personal experience is pretty limited, and it won't do a thing to help learn about people and events long before you were born.

Quote:

That being said, folk histories are always more accurate. Never trust the "official" version of the story, because people with Office have every reason to lie about the actual course of events. Works like Howard Zinn's People's History Of the United States paint a very different picture of american history than is normally taught, and it's very well sourced at least, meaning that according to the academic consensus is correct, if often misconstrued by the Hegemony.

You're speaking in favor of Folk history and then recommend a book fixated on class conflict and anti-elitism? If you want to know what history was like for the average person then you study social history with a mindful eye that many of the oral histories aren't to be taken on their word alone. Folk history in itself tends not to be very well-sourced nor is it easily verifiable.

Just because a picture painted is different from the traditional or mainstream doesn't make it better and it doesn't mean that there's some giant conspiracy out there to misrepresent the editorializing by the yellow journalists both for and against the Mexican-American war

Easily verifiable?

How are other sources for information on history more easily verifiable?

Higher quality documentation. How do we know when the Gettysburg address was given and what was in it? Because we have supporting sources verified to be accurate.

How do we know that the holocaust happened? We have orders for death camps, dead bodies, statements from the guards, people surrounding the death camps, survivors, the facilities themselves, etc

How can someone who claims that they saw an alien starship be trusted? Because they claim the hegemony is keeping the evidence from the people? Because they claim that they WERE there, and saw what they saw, despite not having any photographic or physical evidence?

An interesting example of why some sources are worse than others was on antique roadshow a while back. Someone brought a gun their father claimed was stolen from an German base in WW2. Their father was in the military, was in Germany, but records from others at the scene as well as where the father was assigned showed that the dad was a liar, and probably got the gun from someone who actually was there and looting.

Just going off of what someone says isn't good enough unless you have other means of telling how much truth is behind what they say.

It's interesting how quickly you jump at the straw man arguments. No one mentioned spaceships. You're painting me, and anyone who questions the popular version of history as complete crackpots. That's a pretty terrible diversionary tactic. You tiptoe around the fact that documents can be forged, and information skewed. You yourself mention that human perception is flawed, and in the wake of a confusing event manipulation can be manipulated by those in power (more specifically, the owning class of any century) until the Official version is accepted as truth, even if it's not true at all.

Trusting the writing of any other human being (you know, humans with flawed perception) is imprudent. The only way to verify any event, really is with personal experience. Barring that, the word of someone you actually, truly trust is the next best thing. Not that it will always be right, but I would wager it would be closer to reality than the version told by the owning class.  

[Omnileech]

Quote:

It's interesting how quickly you jump at the straw man arguments. No one mentioned spaceships. You're painting me, and anyone who questions the popular version of history as complete crackpots. That's a pretty terrible diversionary tactic. You tiptoe around the fact that documents can be forged, and information skewed. You yourself mention that human perception is flawed, and in the wake of a confusing event manipulation can be manipulated by those in power (more specifically, the owning class of any century) until the Official version is accepted as truth, even if it's not true at all.

It's pretty hard to take you seriously when you state that nothing is to be believed unless you or someone you trust are there to see it, as if you or anyone else is immune to being wrong about what you see, and anecdotal evidence is at best unreliable. I used the spaceship example because it was a clearcut case of people believing something to be true when it more than likely is not.

Don't like it? Here's another. Who fired the shot heard round the world in the American Revolution? You have conflicting accounts of who fired first when both likely can't be true. Because in any situation you will have people using their preconceptions, biases, ignorance, what have you to color their perception of reality. Some joe thinks he saw something that others deny. I even gave a clear example of that with my antique roadshow bit.

But if you're honestly going to say that nothing you don't see can ever be trusted then why bother studying history, reading or watching the news, or for that matter do anything? Sure the Declaration of Independence we have might be forgery, and the 200+ year old original in the national archives could be an elaborate and nonsensical conspiracy with no benefit to anything or anyone just because you weren't there to see it be written and signed.

And when the news says that Obama won the presidency do you know for sure? There are millions of votes on paper indicating that he won but that could have all been forged. For that matter Obama could have just been an actor selected by the elite what have you. It's not like you're there to see him do presidential work or make the big decisions.

And forget about every single book you've ever read. Is that the original work? Were the credited people the ones who wrote the books? You don't have original copies handed to you by the authors themselves so how can you know? You don't, but rational people have a certain expectation that not every document is forged, and that primary source documents are valid. But if you don't believe that, that's fine, just don't read history because you won't learn much just going by what you see around you in your corner of the world.  

[Milk and Holy Water]

I don't really care to explain myself. There's nothing I can say to get you to stop freaking out. What I mean to say, is that the evidence of your senses is more reliable than hearsay, and that history being written by the victors, is very incomplete history. I also meant to imply that I do believe that all of history has been class war, this being why I like Howard Zinn's work, and the fact that he brings light this, and does so with very good citation.

I also don't expect anyone to apply any silly rule as the one I stated before with 100% vigilance.

"NOT THAT IT WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT," Etc.

To touch on the topic of misinforming the public of the cause and justification for the mexican-american war, I'd really like to clarify that an idiot can see that there is not implication of such a conspiracy. History isn't absorbed into the collective mind like that. Rather the wealthy owning classes, throughout all of history (though less as we reach that good old information singularity), have been the ones to record the official version, and so it is all from their point of view, not objective reality.

Now, this is of course assuming that such a thing as objective reality exists, which is a very convenient assumption when making decisions.

While there would probably not exist a specific conspiracy, there have been many occasions in the past where a nation has had the interpretation of their history manipulated for the sake of furthering an agenda without the public at large being aware of the manipulation.

We should not think that we're outside of history. It can happen here. We are not very different now than we were three hundred years ago.

Maybe I make too many assumptions about the way my words will be understood.

"Trusting the writing of any other human being (you know, humans with flawed perception) is imprudent"

How many decisions would you make based on hearsay in your life?  

[Omnileech]

Quote:

There's nothing I can say to get you to stop freaking out.

Or being highly critical of an irrational philosophy...

Quote:

What I mean to say, is that the evidence of your senses is more reliable than hearsay, and that history being written by the victors, is very incomplete history

History isn't written by the victors, the most popular interpretation of history generally is favored by the victors while the information supporting the loser's interpretation remains.

How the heck can you say history is written by the victors when after 200+ years of celebrating Columbus day the popular opinion has shifted from him being a great explorer to that of a cruel, misguided monster? It wasn't from the people of the Caribbean suddenly becoming rich and powerful.

Quote:

I also meant to imply that I do believe that all of history has been class war, this being why I like Howard Zinn's work, and the fact that he brings light this, and does so with very good citation.

But if all history is hearsay commanded to us on high by the monolithic history body of what have you then clearly Zinn's work is full of lies. That IS your logic speaking out against you if you dismiss sources based on the fact that you haven't experienced them first hand. Zinn's interpretation of history is no different than the mainstream in terms of documentation. A socialistic view of history may be to your liking but that doesn't make everything else false or unreliable just because a race or any other based view of history contradicts yours.

Quote:

Rather the wealthy owning classes, throughout all of history (though less as we reach that good old information singularity), have been the ones to record the official version, and so it is all from their point of view, not objective reality.

Newspapers, letters, government documents, architecture, buildings, court transcripts, books, oral histories, contracts, music, all of them aren't reliant on the rich or the wealthy to be recorded. The rich aren't in charge of recording history because of history comes from all sources. There is literally no way the rich could control everything used to come to our conclusions so no, there is no conspiracy. Despite how you think that the rich control the country they aren't capable of silencing opposing views not now and not in the past. There's a certain irony in pointing to the jingoist point of view of yellow journalism and then turning around to tell us that the rich control history when the same journalists who pushed for war with Mexico and Spain also rallied against corporate interests in Washington.


Such primary source documents are abundant.

Quote:

While there would probably not exist a specific conspiracy, there have been many occasions in the past where a nation has had the interpretation of their history manipulated for the sake of furthering an agenda without the public at large being aware of the manipulation.

We should not think that we're outside of history. It can happen here. We are not very different now than we were three hundred years ago.

of course we're not. Ask yourself these questions.

Who is controlling history? Be specific
Why? To what end?
How are they directly accomplishing it? Not counting for outside influences of course.

Pick any event you think is somehow being manipulated by a shadow group of elitists and show how they did it and how their contribution was the deciding factor.

Stuff like the Mexican-American war being Polk's war and his war alone sounds all well and good if you decide to exclude that most Americans at the time were deeply racist against non-whites and xenophobic to boot. They considered Mexicans genetically inferior. It's no surprise that so many people were in favor of seizing land for white farmers to move into.

Quote:

Maybe I make too many assumptions about the way my words will be understood.

"Trusting the writing of any other human being (you know, humans with flawed perception) is imprudent"

How many decisions would you make based on hearsay in your life?

Let's see...

The news, what my doctor tells me I should do, what my dentist tells me, what my friends and family tell me, what the jobs advertisements state, primary and secondary sources in reading documents including history? Yes, most of my decisions are influenced on hearsay because if I see a flier for an event that looks interesting to me, my belief in logic dictates that such a flier placed in numerous locations around town is what it says it is and if I want to go to event, like a comic con, then it will take place on the date and time the flier says it will.

I don't need to see the flier being printed to know this or decide to that I won't go to an event unless I walk by it.

How can one function in the world if they believe that everyone can never be trusted, and that the only thing one can ever know is what they see? It must be rather lonely refusing to watch the news at night because you don't believe that anything said or seen is true because you're not there.  

[Chexley]

I'll paint you mornings of gold,
I'll spin you Valentine evenings...

This was totally on the front page of MSN.com

On my calendar, it says that the holiday is observed. I don't remember if I've ever gotten that day off or not.

Though we're strangers till now,
We're choosing a path between the stars.

 

[Saverio C.]

I feel like a borken man. I agree with Omni!