Past Denialism - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. Note: nostalgia *is* allowed.
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By Dave
#14689391
Some people like to deny that the Holocaust occurred or that the Armenian Genocide took place. Feelings on this are so strong that denying this events is a criminal act in some country. There are also those who contend what America never landed a man on the moon.

This denial of well known specific historical events got me thinking.

What if they're right, but more generally?

It's not that those events didn't happen--what if nothing ever happened?

What if the past isn't past--because there is no past?

Is all of history simply a made up lie?

I'd like to see our resident "historians" (a lie concocted by the historohoaxists) try to prove anything ever happened. :roll:

I'm waiting.
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By Potemkin
#14689397
"History is merely a pack of lies on which everyone agrees." - Napoleon Bonaparte.
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By Dave
#14689404
Nice try Pot.

As if "Napoleon" (such a ridiculous name it has to be made up) ever existed at all. :roll:
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By Saeko
#14689474
It's funny. People will vehemently affirm that historical events such as the holocaust actually happened, but many of those same people will also affirm that nothing can really be known or proven.
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By ThirdTerm
#14691634
Image
Lita and her sister Mileng live in the nearby village of Mapanique, about 50 miles north of the capital Manila. Now in their mid-80s, they recall a simple but happy childhood.
"We used to play hopscotch and tag. We'd climb trees and pick fruit," says Lita.
They were 13 and 15 years old when Japanese soldiers attacked their village in 1944.
Everyone was forced to watch as the men were executed, suspected of being resistance fighters, the sisters recall. One old man was castrated and forced to eat his own penis.
Mapanique was looted and razed. Then the girls and women, more than 100 in all, were forced to carry the looted goods to the Red House, which Japanese troops were using as a garrison.
"We thought it was the end of our world," says Mileng. "We thought they were going to kill us," adds Lita.
But the soldiers were in high spirits. They took off their uniforms, ate and had a smoke.
Then, as the light faded, they began to rape the women and girls.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36537605


This new BBC article goes on to explain that the two Filipino women interviewed had become part of one of the largest operations of sexual violence in modern history that was called comfort system, by which about 200,000 women were held in captivity as comfort girls, until they paid off their debts to their masters who owned comfort stations. Comfort women were usually paid the monthly salary in advance, which totalled around $150 that equals $2,534.20 in 2016. There may have been some comfort stations in the Philippines but it's unclear if this particular garrison was one of them. While some young girls could have been brutally raped by Japanese soldiers who occupied the country, there is no evidence that the two Filipino women were conscripted as comfort women as the article claims.
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By Hong Wu
#14691636
I was thinking earlier that western history is probably going to disappear. College students are already taught highly revisionist versions of history in which the white guy is always bad, there's protests against the English literature major containing too many white dudes (hate to break this to you, but there weren't a lot of non-white dudes in Britain in previous eras) and other peoples are not very interested in cataloging or studying western history. So along with most of the genetic structure, the history and culture is probably going to disappear as well.
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By Potemkin
#14691675
I was thinking earlier that western history is probably going to disappear. College students are already taught highly revisionist versions of history in which the white guy is always bad, there's protests against the English literature major containing too many white dudes (hate to break this to you, but there weren't a lot of non-white dudes in Britain in previous eras) and other peoples are not very interested in cataloging or studying western history. So along with most of the genetic structure, the history and culture is probably going to disappear as well.

RA took the words right outta my mouth. The 'history' of, say, the English Civil War which was taught in, say, 1916 would have been unrecognisable to the people who actually fought in it back in the 17th century. And that same 'history' being taught in 2016 would have been unrecognisable to both the people who fought in the English Civil War and the people of 1916. When Henry Ford said that "History is bunk," he was both completely wrong and completely right at the same time.
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By Fasces
#14691677
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism

The original post as presented is itself unfalsifiable, but hasn't been justified. It should justify itself before it can have any meaningful application outside of a narrow thought experiment, though.

For now, Occam's razor - I assume time exists, that relics of time exist, that reasonable conclusions can be drawn from those relics as to events that occurred in the past, and that some conclusions are better than others.

From a simple pragmatist viewpoint - the belief that history is real has affect on my daily life and on political life, and thus it is practical for me to assume that belief even if history is, in truth, completely false. Given that it is easy to believe in the Holocaust, and there is a high social and political cost to me as an individual to disavow that belief, why bother, as a rational person, in denying the Holocaust?
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By Hong Wu
#14691797
Potemkin wrote:RA took the words right outta my mouth. The 'history' of, say, the English Civil War which was taught in, say, 1916 would have been unrecognisable to the people who actually fought in it back in the 17th century. And that same 'history' being taught in 2016 would have been unrecognisable to both the people who fought in the English Civil War and the people of 1916. When Henry Ford said that "History is bunk," he was both completely wrong and completely right at the same time.

I think what's happening today is different. The people replacing western white people have no interest in maintaining historical records of the precursor civilizations at all. They generally seem to be openly antagonistic towards the idea.
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By Potemkin
#14691806
I think what's happening today is different. The people replacing western white people have no interest in maintaining historical records of the precursor civilizations at all. They generally seem to be openly antagonistic towards the idea.
Only the Daesh, the Taliban and the Saudi Wahabis seem to have that tendency (indeed, the Saudis go farther and erase even their own history). The chances of any of those groups gaining power or cultural hegemony in the West are extremely low to non-existent. And the lunacy of the liberals (whether left-liberals or right-liberals) is only sustainable so long as said liberals feel safe - moral and physical cowardice seems to be their defining characteristic. This is therefore a problem which is self-correcting.
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By Hong Wu
#14691807
Potemkin wrote:Only the Daesh, the Taliban and the Saudi Wahabis seem to have that tendency. The chances of any of those groups gaining power or cultural hegemony in the West are extremely low to non-existent. And the lunacy of the liberals (whether left-liberals or right-liberals) is only sustainable so long as said liberals feel safe - moral and physical cowardice seems to be their defining characteristic. This is therefore a problem which is self-correcting.

Yeah, maybe, but when will standing up for something like English literature or a non-self depreciating history be safer than folding? I can't conceive of a way that happens.
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By Potemkin
#14691814
Yeah, maybe, but when will standing up for something like English literature or a non-self depreciating history be safer than folding? I can't conceive of a way that happens.

Don't worry, Hong Wu. Guys like me, Dave or Rei Murasame will always be around to protect you. :)
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By Red_Army
#14691891
What threats to English literature are you worried about? Trigger warnings and shit? Do you go to a university? No? Then you have nothing to worry about. Read in peace and quit bitching.

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