Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

LordofHats wrote:[
You're calling Geoffry Elton midrange? I mean, he's a little dated now being almost as traditional as traditional can get, but damn.

I always found Elton a little sloppy for an academic of his supposed quality. He always adhered a little too firmly to Von Ranke.

Jenkins I could get behind. He made some jumps in reasoning, but the basic premise of most of his work was sound.

Any discussion involving the question "What is History" is in itself a really complicated discussion (assuming all parties involve actually want to answer the question). But yeah. Elton is totally old school with the Political history and an absolute rejection of mix-disciplinary approaches. Talk about narrow viewpoints

I'm not familiar with Jenkins. Historiography generally isn't my thing beyond a basic understanding of the New Social History (EDIT: Or a general understanding of changes in certain narratives that interest me, pretty much just the Dark Ages and WWII XD).

Keith Jenkins has a good solid logical way of looking at the nature of historiography. He makes it concise and elegant, without all that irrelevant waffling you tend to get with Hayden White or his ilk. He's a solid postmodernist, which I don't agree with, but his reasoning is sound enough you more or less have to follow the majority of it (or put your fingers in your ears and go 'Lalalalala!')

I'm a more of a WW1 era bod myself in specialisation. Just putting the finishing touches on a piece on private industry and submarine construction whilst I've been arguing this. The nature of history is something any competent historian should have under their belt though. We might not like it, but it improves the craft, and knowledge is always better than ignorance.

Fix'd?

I didn't say he was wrong, I said the argument was stupid. Semantical arguments that assert definitions contrary to common dictionary ones to reinforce points that were abandoned pages ago are bad arguments.

You're calling Geoffry Elton midrange? I mean, he's a little dated now being almost as traditional as traditional can get, but damn.

The dude spent his career opining modern historians focus on sociological and economic influences on history and his books read like 80s battletech sourcebooks. I suppose midrange isn't really a good descriptor since these days it's probably voluntary reading, but I'm not hugely impressed by that particular reference. Either way, my point was more in reference to the fact that he's claiming authority in a debate in a logically dishonest manner.

The irony is that if you listed no sources you'd be accused of making it up. List the sources, and you're just 'appealing to authority.'

It's an appeal to authority either way. He's using names to try to "settle" an argument that he is otherwise laying out very poorly. The debate itself is fairly ambiguous at this point as history is an ambiguous term and historians don't assign it's meaning, the public does. He is claiming to be a definitive source and is presenting others arguments for the truth of his claims, but socialogical arguments aren't quantifiable as fact or truth.

The whole things silly.

The debate itself is fairly ambiguous at this point as history is an ambiguous term and historians don't assign it's meaning, the public does.

We've been down that road before Shuma. Might as well just remember what was said last time and leave it be lol

ShumaGorath wrote:
The whole things silly.

Indeed. Welcome to the internet.

Thing is, I'll happily admit to having been sloppy with my structure, but then again, the opposing argument was ridiculous enough I consider pointing people in the right direction book wise good enough.

If you believe showing people where to begin educating themselves on a subject is appealing to authority, sue me. I don't believe I misrepresented Carr there in the slightest (and let's face it, he was about the only one I bothered taking anything from).

LordofHats wrote:

The debate itself is fairly ambiguous at this point as history is an ambiguous term and historians don't assign it's meaning, the public does.

We've been down that road before Shuma. Might as well just remember what was said last time and leave it be lol

Oh lawd you're right. Maybe this is gonna become a thing.

Lets do it again next week

Hey, count me out of this as well. I already spoke my piece, and I rather clearly stated that you guys aren't likely to change my mind on the subject (I find Ketara's distinction to be pointless to the point of irrelevance, and that's the entire basis of Ketara's argument, so...). So agree to disagree and all that wonderful jazz.

Aw come on. We can make it a party. I'll totally bring potato salad.

Works for me. I've had my fill of internet arguing for a good month or so.

Will there be nachos?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's not a party without nachos.

Eh. Why not?

We should totally bring some kind of history beverage too. Mead? Maybe beer made from barley?

EDIT: Oooo. Captain Morgan? That ones got some history

ShumaGorath wrote:
I didn't say he was wrong, I said the argument was stupid. Semantical arguments that assert definitions contrary to common dictionary ones to reinforce points that were abandoned pages ago are bad arguments.

No, because

It's an appeal to authority either way.

Yours is no less than his. As you demonstrated, authorities can be challenged. They can be wrong. The advantage to making an appeal to academic authority is that it usually means one has developped arguments to back said appeal, or has taken those of someone else. Refering to the dictionnary has, in itself, no other authority then the fact that it's written down, because the dictionnary doesn't provide the etymological deconstruction of the term used.

As much as it pains me to admit, the contribution of postmodernism to the study of history cannot be diminished. History is a narrative.

The debate itself is fairly ambiguous at this point as history is an ambiguous term and historians don't assign it's meaning, the public does.

This depends entirely on the sociological context. In the case of French, and postmodernism is so very French (okay the germans beat us to it), it's the Académie française, a body of scholars (named hilariously the Immortals) that decided on both grammatical and semantical questions.

It's likle saying "I'm a scientist" to which the proper response is something like "okay, but what discipline?"

No, ''I'm a scientist'' means that you use the scientific method to produce scientific facts. Alternatively, a larger extension would signify that you aim at knowledge. An historian produces a narrative. If he concentrate his studies on 'natural history', then he produces a narrative of nature. Because they are two different domains, natural history will rely a lot more on scientific facts, while human history will be able to study both the narratives produced by the people, institutions or societies studied, and the more factual data gleaned by statistical studies.

walker90234 wrote:Right, so when observing all Tadashi's precious statements and comparing him to O'brein, I was just making a joke...

But then he goes on about how history should be forgotten unless it is directly useful...

This is getting creepy.

I guess he's never heard of Pol Pot.

Or, he's definitely heard of Pol Pot, and this is getting creepy.

Some things are meant to be forgotten...especially ideas and beliefs that will just hold us back.

In all honesty, it started being creepy 3 weeks ago when he claimed that asians were to westerners what eldars are to humans.

Technically none of the four oldest civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China) are western...Greece and Rome (the basis of your civilization) borrowed a lot from the East, so its kinda true. And when the East grew weak, the West rose and imposed its culture on an older culture.

My case.

I rest it.

Tadashi wrote:Technically none of the four oldest civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China) are western...Greece and Rome (the basis of your civilization) borrowed a lot from the East, so its kinda true. And when the East grew weak, the West rose and imposed its culture on an older culture.

Actually ancient Egyptian was a Mediterranean culture, not an eastern one, and Mesopotamia was not exactly "Eastern". The near east had strong influence on, and was strongly influenced by, both the far east and India and the Mediterranean cultures And if your going to split the world in that way you might want to take in to account that Mesopotamia is generally regarded as the cradle of civilization, with the influence and power of other places growing around it, including early Mediterranean cultures and towards the far east.

I find it very odd that people split the world in the way that they do, based on modern Islamic influence in the past 500 years and the posision of the Ural mountains. To think along the lines of "this is east, this is west" is to completely misunderstand the power structure of the ancient world. It also fails to take in to account recent discovery on the influence and power of the neolithic Beaker culture of northern Europe, who previously have been ignored due to lack of evidence.

In summery, to say "our culture was first" or "this is eastern, this is western" is to misunderstand the ancient world.

Steve steveson wrote:

In summery, to say "our culture was first" or "this is eastern, this is western" is to misunderstand the ancient world.

Well, for me it was just a reaction to what I was taught in elementary and high school - western civilization is supposed to be the greatest thing in Human history. And then comes college history, and the college professor laughs and says "Western civilization? My dear students...western civilization would not have existed without Asia."

I will however, concede that Ancient Egypt was not Asian - but it and Mesopotamia were certainly much of the source for the foundation of Greco-Roman civilization. Here in East Asia, China and India were the pioneers of civilization.

Tadashi wrote:Some things are meant to be forgotten...especially ideas and beliefs that will just hold us back.

Yeah! We should totally get rid of all the historians and teachers and just start from year zero, right?

azazel the cat wrote:

Tadashi wrote:Some things are meant to be forgotten...especially ideas and beliefs that will just hold us back.

Yeah! We should totally get rid of all the historians and teachers and just start from year zero, right?

Very funny...only knowledge which will just cause trouble should be buried away, where only those who need to know can find them. The faceless masses do not need to know what they do not need to know.

azazel the cat wrote:

Tadashi wrote:Some things are meant to be forgotten...especially ideas and beliefs that will just hold us back.

Yeah! We should totally get rid of all the historians and teachers and just start from year zero, right?

We'll build some camps people can go to to start re-learning, or unlearning, for their own good. The masses will thank us and our glorious wisdom in helping to choose for them what it is they should know to be happy and productive.

You shouldn't discriminate against those who don't have faces man, it's not cool. Not having a face is punishment enough.

Ahtman wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:

Tadashi wrote:Some things are meant to be forgotten...especially ideas and beliefs that will just hold us back.

Yeah! We should totally get rid of all the historians and teachers and just start from year zero, right?

We'll build some camps people can go to to start re-learning, or unlearning, for their own good. The masses will thank us and our glorious wisdom in helping to choose for them what it is they should know to be happy and productive.

No need...just place some undercover 'Security Bureau' agents in news companies, use supercomputers to filter the networks, and keep the masses happy, and we'll have them as docile as we need to.

Tadashi wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

In summery, to say "our culture was first" or "this is eastern, this is western" is to misunderstand the ancient world.

Well, for me it was just a reaction to what I was taught in elementary and high school - western civilization is supposed to be the greatest thing in Human history. And then comes college history, and the college professor laughs and says "Western civilization? My dear students...western civilization would not have existed without Asia."

I will however, concede that Ancient Egypt was not Asian - but it and Mesopotamia were certainly much of the source for the foundation of Greco-Roman civilization. Here in East Asia, China and India were the pioneers of civilization.

I won't argue with that. Early education teaches what can be understood by the age group "Lies for children". Far neolithic and bronze age Asian and far easter civilization is something is not really my area, but China and India are most certainly major influences in the far east, probably the "equivalent", for want of a better way of putting it, to the Greek and Roman cultures in Europe, in terms of there influence. Equally there was a trade back and forth for about 4000 years with oil and wine from the Minoan empire and further in the west, flint and bronze from the UK in the north through the middle east to the far east trading herbs and spices, and gold flowing in from Africa. With money comes ideas and culture in both directions.

Trade forges civilization, war only destroys it.

Steve steveson wrote:

Trade forges civilization, war only destroys it.

A debatable point - the stance I follow (also instilled by my college professor) is that war is a crucible. The victor emerges all the stronger, lamentable the loss of life may be. It is also a fact that war drove much development and improvement in terms of technology - for instance, while basic metal smelting and forging may have been developed initially for the construction of better tools, it was only under the impetus of war that these basic forging techniques were improved upon for the development of better weapons. The Chinese for instance, were already using chromium-alloyed steel blades as far back as the Qin Dynasty, and were unrivalled (except by Japanese and Spanish swordsmiths) in metal-crafting until the Industrial Revolution. A modern example is the Haber Process for extracting nitrogen, which was developed during the First World War as an attempt to circumvent the British blockade of German ports.

Technically none of the four oldest civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China) are western...Greece and Rome (the basis of your civilization) borrowed a lot from the East, so its kinda true. And when the East grew weak, the West rose and imposed its culture on an older culture.

Because of the importance of the Mediterranean sea to the history of Europe in general, the Middle East often gets lumped in with 'Western Civilization' as a matter of course (EDIT EDIT: Especially with the importance of the Semetic and Persian cultures on Greece and later events). Key Greek and Roman cultural traditions were translated by several migrant Middle Eastern groups. Their traditions are those of the West as well so to discuss Western Civilization it is very convenient to simply include them. EDIT: Especially since historically, there was a much more direct effect of the ME on the West than the ME on the East in the ancient world. The Central Asian mountain ranges cut back on a lot of eastward cultural transmission.

That said, the Aryans are probably one of the single most transitive ancient ethnic groups, and they do come from Central Asia... So in short its very complicated