Wednesday 28 April 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
Friday 9 April 2010
Tuesday 6 April 2010
When revisionist history goes too far
There are few things that irritate me more than revisionist history. From the ridiculous claims of alien DNA interventions and Atlantian descent, to the evils of holocaust denials, the revisionist stance so often takes the same approach as conspiracy theory and creationism: we have decided what the truth is, so now we will manipulate, distort and even lie about the facts in order to make them fit our truth. One of the most disgusting of these is the highly anti-Semitic revisionisthistory.org.
At Michael J Hoffman’s revionisthistory.org, blatant racism is badly hid behind a shroud of “historical endeavour”. From desperately a-historical accounts of Jesus and the Jews to out and out holocaust denial, this putrid little piece of badly researched and un-sourced rubbish exemplifies all that is wrong with the revisionist movement; subjectivity in the field of history is not the same as deciding what happened and making the observations fit your hypothesis. His obsession with crytocracy, the new world order and secret societies are shared with a number of conspiracy theorist of similarly dubious logic and while his views on slavery, that white slavery and the white poor in America are overlooked and may have some merit, his attempts to make the suffering of black slaves ‘not so bad’ does not. While not a white supremacist himself, it is clear that Hoffmann holds no love for Jews. Michael A Hofmann II, the anti-Semitic rat journalist behind these historical assumptions of the worst kind, is a beacon against the terrors that postmodernism could allow in. ‘historians’, and I use the phrase very loosely, such as Hoffmann would, should postmodern hacks be allowed sway, be embraced by the historical community as a whole rather than rejected wholesale, as is now the case.
Other revisionists may be crazy (David Icke) and often, apart from attracting a large group of lunatics, deluded (see the whole creationist movement who deny civilisation before 3,700 BCE) but this site is potentially dangerous, supposed scholarly meat to the rancid feast of extremists everywhere. Hoffmann, at the site, even admits that he is “cognizant of the original sin of his own subjectivity” and claims a special ability to detect historical fraud. I can only assume he has few mirrors.
At Michael J Hoffman’s revionisthistory.org, blatant racism is badly hid behind a shroud of “historical endeavour”. From desperately a-historical accounts of Jesus and the Jews to out and out holocaust denial, this putrid little piece of badly researched and un-sourced rubbish exemplifies all that is wrong with the revisionist movement; subjectivity in the field of history is not the same as deciding what happened and making the observations fit your hypothesis. His obsession with crytocracy, the new world order and secret societies are shared with a number of conspiracy theorist of similarly dubious logic and while his views on slavery, that white slavery and the white poor in America are overlooked and may have some merit, his attempts to make the suffering of black slaves ‘not so bad’ does not. While not a white supremacist himself, it is clear that Hoffmann holds no love for Jews. Michael A Hofmann II, the anti-Semitic rat journalist behind these historical assumptions of the worst kind, is a beacon against the terrors that postmodernism could allow in. ‘historians’, and I use the phrase very loosely, such as Hoffmann would, should postmodern hacks be allowed sway, be embraced by the historical community as a whole rather than rejected wholesale, as is now the case.
Other revisionists may be crazy (David Icke) and often, apart from attracting a large group of lunatics, deluded (see the whole creationist movement who deny civilisation before 3,700 BCE) but this site is potentially dangerous, supposed scholarly meat to the rancid feast of extremists everywhere. Hoffmann, at the site, even admits that he is “cognizant of the original sin of his own subjectivity” and claims a special ability to detect historical fraud. I can only assume he has few mirrors.
Thursday 1 April 2010
Why write history?
Why write history? This question has plagued the discipline since it kicked off in earnest some two centuries or so ago. Dispensing with relativism, objectivism, subjectivism, postmodernism, Marxism and all the other isms that get thrown into the debate, I would like to strip it back to its roots and wonder why, no matter what school we buy into, we care at all? For me, I believe it to be the search for an answer to one the big questions of life the universe and everything: Where did we come from?
History connects us all, much more recently than you might think. The mathematics testifies to this and I apologise for getting technical but here goes. We all had 2 parents, who each had 2 parents (4), who each had 2 parents (8), who each had two parents (16) and so on. After going back 37 generations, at an average of 25 years between the birth of each generation, we would have had 137,438,953.472 ancestors only 925 years ago. That’s 30 billion more people than have been estimated to have lived as Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the whole of history. This is of course impossible. The explanation is a great deal of overlap, that we all share common ancestors, not in the primordial past or the Mesolithic distance, but in the last millennium. It means that every single one of us is, statistically at least, related to Richard the Lion Heart, to Guibert de Nogent, to William the Conqueror, to Ben Charlemagne, to Mohammed, to Zoroaster, Socrates, even Christ himself if he was a historical character. Our histories are interconnected more than most people know and our shared dreams, fears, passions and worries are shared for good reason.
Where did we come from? Cosmologically, we came from the big bang, and this excites the physicist. Biologically, we evolved as a result of abiogensis, and this excites the Biologist. Culturally, politically, individually and sociologically we all came from each other’s ancestors. We are all connected by a shared past and shared lineage that has wrapped itself around the tiny blue globe we inhabit, and the understanding of that shared past is what excites the historian. The historian, in essence, asks ‘where did WE come from’. Not where life come from, not where the universe came from, just US. History is a selfish discipline when cast against the vastness of space, but one that, if removed from society tomorrow and replaced with absolute subjectivity or ignorance, would sully our understanding of each other.
Why write history? Because we must!
History connects us all, much more recently than you might think. The mathematics testifies to this and I apologise for getting technical but here goes. We all had 2 parents, who each had 2 parents (4), who each had 2 parents (8), who each had two parents (16) and so on. After going back 37 generations, at an average of 25 years between the birth of each generation, we would have had 137,438,953.472 ancestors only 925 years ago. That’s 30 billion more people than have been estimated to have lived as Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the whole of history. This is of course impossible. The explanation is a great deal of overlap, that we all share common ancestors, not in the primordial past or the Mesolithic distance, but in the last millennium. It means that every single one of us is, statistically at least, related to Richard the Lion Heart, to Guibert de Nogent, to William the Conqueror, to Ben Charlemagne, to Mohammed, to Zoroaster, Socrates, even Christ himself if he was a historical character. Our histories are interconnected more than most people know and our shared dreams, fears, passions and worries are shared for good reason.
Where did we come from? Cosmologically, we came from the big bang, and this excites the physicist. Biologically, we evolved as a result of abiogensis, and this excites the Biologist. Culturally, politically, individually and sociologically we all came from each other’s ancestors. We are all connected by a shared past and shared lineage that has wrapped itself around the tiny blue globe we inhabit, and the understanding of that shared past is what excites the historian. The historian, in essence, asks ‘where did WE come from’. Not where life come from, not where the universe came from, just US. History is a selfish discipline when cast against the vastness of space, but one that, if removed from society tomorrow and replaced with absolute subjectivity or ignorance, would sully our understanding of each other.
Why write history? Because we must!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)