Archie wrote:fireofice wrote:Rockartisten wrote:So we have two openings, but the debate hasn't really started yet. But I have to say... The arguments in the comments section on HistorySpeaks really annoy me.
...o real harm.
Even in the hard sciences there are many examples of "consensus" positions being incorrect. Political and historical questions are a million times more susceptible to reaching and defending motivated conclusions. The most fundamental idea of the revisionist school was the obvious observation that nations have a major incentive to produce one-sided and self-serving historical narratives, especially regarding war and its causes. "Truth is the first casualty of war." Arguably, it is reckless and irresponsible for a country to be overly honest about war, especially while it is going on. For instance, if you are losing, it is foolish to admit this as it tends to collapse the will to fight. You LIE and say you are doing great as this is your best chance to rally. Now, you could argue that while there is lots of lying during the war, afterwards, when passions calm, historians can look at things more dispassionately and write up more objective histories and correct the record. But this does not necessarily happen, particularly not if a lot of propaganda becomes established as "fact" in war crimes trials.
Indeed, but I should add that, when they invoke consensus, you never deal with science proper. Because science proper would be able to do experiments that can be observed and replicated. And actually be able to demonstrate *scientifically* via induction that something is indeed the case. Consensus is invoked, when they can't do that or when it isn't yielding the results they would like people to believe.
Science proper is the application of observation and logic to nature. You set up an experiment to demonstrate that X causes the effect Y. You have to set up the experiment in a way that excludes alternative explanation or causes for the phenomenon you are observing.
Appealing to consensus or authority to establish a scientific truth is always a logical fallacy hence has to be dismissed whenever it claims to be 'scientific'. That does not mean that a consensus statement or the statement of an 'authority' is necessarily untrue. It can be true, but merely because it is a good guess or coincidence. Consensus and authority can still play an important role, but it has to be applied correctly. You for example need to have consensus about the meaning of words, phrases, definitions etc. to avoid misunderstanding and confusion. And authority is necessary to organize institutions, organizations and processes. So it's an issue of deciding and organizing. Discovery is a different ball game. There you have to apply the scientific method. You observe, you may manipulate, observe the phenomenon or effect, measure and observe and then process the results logically.
Academia is however full of people that try to assert their own authority. It's in a sense like a priesthood. They wish to be respected, admired and believed by their audience (parish). They wish to earn a good reputation and become famous at least within the feast. That's why you get for example credentialism. Meaning you have proof of being accepted and approve by your colleagues especially by more senior colleagues. The asking for credentials as proof that a statement needs to believed and disbelieved, if the person doesn't have credential is however a ridiculous misunderstand of what science actually is. The term "science' does have a 'good reputation' for most. It's because a lot of the technology that has been produced and makes live easier or even possible where it wasn't possible before, has been invented, designed and improved using results from science and has people with something like a science education working on them. But it also leads to overestimating ones own ability, 'because one got an education'. I had to find out that many people with science degrees don't really have a clue about the scientific method, what it is, how it was developed or why it works. They simply copy the methods of other people and think that this is how methodology works.
But they will always insist to be respected and that their opinion is believed, 'because they are scientist'. They don't like to be placed under scrutiny even when it is only their statements that are scrutinized. If was in a 'scientific journal' it must be true. Eh no, the journal published it as a proposal that was formulated in a correct or acceptable way. Just believing something because a 'scientist' said something and because there is 'consensus among scientists' is scientism. It's a mockery of what science actually is.
Science deals with issues in the present. It can not deal with issues in the past. It can however be used to investigate items from the past and then make statements what 'likely' happened in the past. This got its limitation, though. Because one also make assumptions about the past. And there is always the possibility for alternative explanations as well.
Lots of 'historical information' relates to 'loaded subjects'. There may be reasons why documents say something other then them being true. And with historiographers their own biases will skew the work they are doing. At least they easily can. The field got its own paradigms they are following. And rather not 'offend' the paradigm, if you still want to be welcomed and appreciated in the field.
Archie wrote:It is such a simple concept: "The victors write history." The Axis powers were destroyed by the end of the war and hence their perspective is generally not represented anywhere (essentially only in underground writings or in bits and pieces of objectivity in establishment writings). Germany was aggressively "denazified" and remains under the American thumb to this day. Similar thing with Japan and Italy. All of the major world powers of today were on the winning side of WWII and moreover they all continue to derive legitimacy from having defeated the evil Axis powers (especially Hitler and Germany). The US/Britain/Western Europe are all aligned militarily and economically and all are bought in on post-war liberal democracy. Russia is now not on the outs with the American sphere of influence yet they similarly cling to their victory over the Nazis and their Great Patriotic War narrative. China, the other major power, was Japan's rival in Asia. Israel is aligned with the US and they of course derive virtually all of their entire legitimacy from WWII and "the Holocaust." NONE of the major powers have any interest in overturning the Holocaust and associated legends and "international Jewry" views maintaining the legend as an existential matter. These are PRECISELY the circumstances under which we should look at the history skeptically.
That's an oversimplification. The victors don't write history. They provide materials to historiographers in the form of documents and narratives. Their narratives are more believable to many, because they 'were the winners'. Once their narrative is considered as established, historiographers start believing them as well and will write accordingly. When something become a foundational myth, expect historiographers to write accordingly about it. Those challenging the narrative will be dealt with like heretics and ostracized. They will struggle to find publishers and distribution, so most won't even try to do that, even if they'd consider it.
And yes, foundational myths serve as devices to gain legitimacy. That's why those believing in them don't like to be challenged on it and usually only accept affirming information. Once elements hostile to a nation get hold of their historiography things start getting dangerous for that nation. Exactly what happened with the Germans. The majority of historians there subscribes to the sykewar narrative of ww2, hence writes history accordingly. And they have an obsession with finding 'bad stuff' Germans supposedly did do in the past. Easy when there were conflicts. And it's also easy telling the story in a way that will make look the characters bad, if you want to. Especially, when you simply can leave out evidences that don't affirm your narrative. After the immortal Hitler was propped up as Hilter 2.0. they also started to go for the Kaiser and other figures. The example of the alleged "Herero-Genocide" is such an example. The basis for the narrative is by the way Anti-German WW1 propaganda again. The British/Jingo South Africans established a blue-book them, which is a collection of horror-stories. And the revenge e.g. the Damara took on the Herreros (who enslaved them in the past) is also booked on the German account. That Germans had no interest in shrinking a tiny population in their Protectorate even further is however ignored. Cherrypicking and selective oral history was the way to establish a narrative there. Exactly what was done for the Holocaust. And well, it goes back to a Communist Historiographer as well.
