how historically accurate are writings and books on history?
i got this from a audio clip featuring dan brown..author of 'The DaVinci Code'
How do historians balance contrary accounts of the same event??
here is what someone said:
When we read and interpret, we are not interpreting the histortical events themselves, we are interpreting written accounts of those events. in essence we are interpreting peoples interpretations
Since the beginning of recorded time, history has always been written by the winners, by those societys and belief systems that have conquered and survived.
Despite the obvious bias in this accounting method, we still measure the historical accuracy of a given concept by examing how well it concurs with our existing historical record. i shud add that many historians now belive that engaging the historical accuracy of concepts. we shud ask ourself a far more deeper question..how historically accurate is history itself?
In most cases we may never know the answers, but that should not stop us asking the questions.
also: We can no longer afford to measure "truth" by the popular opinion of the media who have been hoodwinking the public throughout this 20th Century. The majority of people have only been exposed to the "censored" but "authorized" textbooks which simply print "the blanket of the truth" to maintain and manage the social, economic and political nature of the established order. We are now awakening to the awareness that history has been carefully "managed" with a concerted effort to discredit, reject adn eradicate any person who advocates any unpopular, "alternative" versions of history - whether it be regarding politcis, economics, religion, medicine, energy or any other topic.
how much false history is there? how much manipulated history?
The world is a big place and now more and ever there is enormous danger in believing we are infalluable,that our version of the truth is absolute and that everyone who does not think like we do is wrong and is a enemy.
This is humanitys trouble.
this is why when you see a conspiracy theory posted by me or that you have seen elsewhere..you dismiss it so so so easily beacuse you THINK its bullshit, whos told you that? you or someone else?
It’s fascinating to observe, as your mind expands and the cell door creaks open, how the issues and concerns that occupy our minds, screw us up, and give us a bad sense of self, simply don’t matter. We are just conditioned to think they matter and so we expend our energies and wind up our emotions worrying about things that others programme us to believe are important. Are we too fat? Are we too thin? Are we too tall? Are we too small? Are our breasts big enough? Are our willies big enough?
Are we losing the hair on our heads? Do we have too much hair on our
bodies? Are we wearing the latest uniform (sorry fashion) that someone
we have never met has decided is “in”? We are deluged by advertisers
and the television “programmes” funded by advertisers which tell us
how we should be, look, and feel. You’ve got a wrinkle on your face?
Oh, my dear, your life is over. It’s the end of the road. Unless, that is,
you buy this super-duper face oil named after somewhere that sounds
exotic. It will save your life. Hey, look at this curvy, sun-tanned, blonde
we paid vast sums to show her bum on a beach. Buy our oil and that
could be you.
Man... this shows such an appalling ignorance of how historians work that I wonder for your sanity...
You are about 100 years too late in imagining the way that history is viewed is the way you suggest.
"how historically accurate is history itself?
In most cases we may never know the answers, but that should not stop us asking the questions."
Which are questions we have been asking for so long we are amazingly bored with them. Historical research has actually moved PAST this very basic question which kids learn about in Secondary school as a part of the very basics of the study of history- attacking the source and working out how well its provenance can be viewed.
All this is just to back up some more half-thought and and totally outlandish conspiracy theory of yours. As ever, not one iota of intelligence or sense behind it.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Gender: Male Location: Aberdeen, Scotland, NOT Britain
depends on the source.
Is it contemporary or written years, decades, centuries later?
Is the author reliable, qualified, biased?
Of course it's about interpretation. You need to have a scooby or you could end up believing that WTC were flattened by something other than a couple of massive aeroplanes and some big fires.
Also, it's handy for Dan Brown to muddy historical waters because he makes a good living writing books about dodgy/unlikely/improbable historically related stuff.
__________________ In football, you use your foot to kick the ball, hence the name.
Americans add throwing, pads, alter the length of the game etc, i.e. change it completely yet still call it football.
Then they call the original soccer, and expect the rest of the world to adopt this bastard name. Pish.
From hence forth American football shall be known as "soccer." by me.
Absolutely. History is all about interpretation. Lackiong a time machine, it is an attempt to make a best guess about what the past is like making use of evidence which is, inevitably, always flawed and/or biased. No-one ever said it was easy.
And hence history is being re-interpreted all the damn time. To try and make out that there has been one version of history simply forced upon us is ludicrous. Like any academic area, trying to define history is a warground between various views and different ideas, continually changing.
So hence again, the basic premise of this thread is nonsense. And the answer to the question of the thread is- "Not very, that's why history is a skilled subject."
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Gender: Male Location: The Fortress, North Pole with Santa
Account Restricted
Lets give Deano what he wants a conspiracy bases around the "Davinci Code". I love it when a plan comes together. "Holy blood and Holy grail" is the book Dan Brown rips off it in turn is based on a con.
Like you can't just forgive your enemies for nothing.....forgive them either if you beat them fair and squarte that they even started fighting you...or forgiving for cruel acts they did....
Gender: Male Location: The Fortress, North Pole with Santa
Account Restricted
Deano this conspiracy is real just not the one you wanted
As his vehicle to power, Plantard casts his eyes upon a nearby mountain called "Sion" and decides to call his tiny group of followers the "Priory of Sion" [Cracking DaVinci's Code by James L. Garlow and Peter Jones (Victor, Colorado Springs, 2004), here cited as: "CDC", p.112]. A year later, unsucessful, Plantard revises his plan [SDVC p.79], much as Hitler had done after his early setbacks. Casting his gaze beyond the local Sion, Plantard next devises a grand scheme of unprecedented chutzpuh:
Pierre Plantard begins to stake a claim that he is a biological heir of the Messianic throne of Jesus [SDVC pp.77,80]. He changes his name to Pierre Plantard St. Claire [CDC p.113] and produces an impressive series of forged genealogies to link himself to Jesus and Mary Magdalen [SDVC pp.77,80].
None of it is true, of course. Plantard forges the documents and fabricates the history [SDVC pp.77-80; CDC p.113]. He has recruited a couple of people to help him, but the entire thing (except for two 19th-century texts [SDVC p.80]) is a hoax, as he will eventually admit under oath in a French court in 1993 [CDC p.113].
__________________
herd behavior is a comical thing - Thanks Silver Spider
KMC Community Forums
Jun 18th, 2005 06:31 PM
.....you see now you got it
