History is what people want history to be, E.g. the Native American Genocide.Always was, always will be.History is always the tool to justify the status quo.
Strong disagree on this one, especially on the _always_ part. Many times it is, in state propaganda especially. But history is the study of things that have happened and there are many facets and things in the past worth knowing and thinking about. It need not be the only about the things thaught in schools. It is much more, much richer than that.
Sure, but the point being made is that often you don’t have documentation of reality and so, that history is completely erased.
“History is written by the victors”
Imagine if there is a war between the US and Mexico and we lose and mexico takes over. The history of the alamo, mexican-american war, annexation of texas, etc will be quite different even though we beat mexico in the 1800s. Imagine if the south does rise again and the south takes over. The history of the civil war will be remarkably different even those the north won the civil war.
Doesn't really matter who the victors were back then. What's important is who the victors are today.
Even if you can remove bias/agenda from man, the fact of the matter is only a tiny fraction of "histories" are recorded and of those only a tiny fraction of it survives.
I like history and think we need it to form societies, nations, institutions, etc, but it most definitely isn't truth in any real sense of the word.
Yes
> .Always was, always will be.History is always the tool to justify the status quo.
No and yes. We have various sources to determine what happened. To create a specific kind of narrative using that data is a choice that many can make. But historical data is still there, and different narratives might still arise.
Liberal democracies and the freedom of speech create the fertile ground required for historians to look at past records and explain what happened.
How else do you portray an intentional and centuries long systematic genocide of an entire continent of nations? How do you portray the greatest genocide in human history?
> But definitely it was mentioned that 90% of Indians were killed by European diseases, sometimes intentionally delivered like the trail of tears, and additionally whenever gold was rumored to be on a site the indians would be pushed out.
Nothing you listed indicate an actual genocide. You didn't read about actual hunting and raping and exterminating of natives that happened all across the country? You didn't read about actual statehood laws ( majority white ) which encouraged settlers to kill off the natives. You didn't read about the US government working with railroad tycoons to kill off the natives to build railroads?
As I said, if the natives were in charge, how do you think the history will be written? We'd be portrayed as monsters far worse than nazis. That was my point. History is written by the victors. Which you proved with your comment but yet deny.
History is not what is teached in school but how a society sees itself.
German society at large has accepted the Holocaust, because it was useful, but hasn't accepted the history E.g. of the Deutschritterorden or the genocide of the Herero and Nama - it hasn't been useful to do so. There is no monument to the genocide of the Herero in Germany. History is a tool how society sees itself.
Sounds closer to a definition of culture. And culture is never monolithic. Plenty of people are horrified by past atrocities committed on their behalf. And plenty of people don’t care.
But you don’t measure a society’s collective perspective by counting monuments. Monuments signify what was important to the people who made them. Not the people who see them.
For my money you’d do better to look at modern media of all kinds. What are the stories being told today, in news, in movies, in textbooks and in social media? They aren’t the same stories our forebears were telling.
Hell, Chicago hockey is still the Blackhawks, but since it’s “tasteful” people aren’t complaining loudly enough to get it to change.