ddickinson: Sadly many places don't have a good grasp of history, with many telling blatant lies or one sided opinions. Part of the reason could be an attempt to put it all behind us and move on, to try to forget the bad parts of our histories and move on to the better. Which is an okay idea, but they should at least cover some of the history, the good and the bad, but maybe at least try to highlight the similarities between us more. I guess some of it could also be due to the amount of history to be taught, you can only fit so much into a curriculum.
Most of what I know about Irish history was not taught at school, but taught during my college and university days, and also reading in my own time. I had a friend who was from Northern Ireland, and she had some very interesting stories to tell, sadly not all of them were pleasant. The problem with a lot of history taught today, is that they rely less now on facts, and more on new theories and opinions. Stuff that can't be proven, but which they argue can't be disproven. They use any new angle they can to try to sell a book. Which is why so many books and movies are just one sided and inaccurate, but because people seem to be more susceptible (or just stupid) these days, they take that stuff as 100% fact.
adaliabooks: Yeah. I suppose it's a problem with history in general that because it's so hard to prove things one way or another it's easy to twist it one way or another to fit your agenda whether that's glorifying or vilifying a country or a person.
I think history should cover everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. Patriotism is all well and good but I think people should know the bad things their country has been responsible for as well as the good.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." if you don't know what went wrong in the past how can you be sure not to do it again in the future.
But I doubt any government will ever change the curriculum in such a way that it portrays the actions of their own company badly.
In Germany it's the other way around. German history? Nazis! Holocaust! Those are by far the things that are most present. Germany has no heroes like Arthur or James Cook or Francis Drake or Horatio Nelson. We only have Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels...
Now I'm not much of a person that sees much sense in patriotism. For me it's quite silly to be proud of things (or ashamed of, for that matter) that I had no part in.
When it comes to history (I studied it for some years at an university, and then for many more years by myself) the bleak truth is that it's by no means an exact science. Like journalism it's polluted by opinion and hearsay. Archeological artifacts are interpreted by people who of course are influenced by doctrine or personal theories. Contemporary writings are of course expression of the respective author's point of view - and the winners write history on their terms anyway.
Still I think that history is one of the most important disciplines - if you keep open-minded and wary of the pitfalls of bias of your sources. There is so much to learn about what makes people tick - and to close the circle and return to Godwin's law - the Third Reich is a prime example of what people are capable of if indoctrinated and dulled and - yes, in a way "hopeful" enough - because this is what Hitler IMO did - he gave people in a broke, depressive country hope - hope to have a job, hope to "be somebody" again (see: patriotism above), hope for "vengeance" for the shame of WW1 and Versailles and against the "rich, greedy Jews" while everybody else was poor.
l0rdtr3k: Someone's been derepping me every night.
Wonder who is.
AFAIK if you have a post that was heavily downrepped the effects only accumulate over the next few days. Now I don't know what your could have posted to earn that much wrath.
Hmm. Now that I see it, I think I also has 348 only an hour ago, right now it's 346. But then I posted in the Muhammad sex game thread - maybe somebody didn't like that.