Ten days that SHOULD have changed America

[Weird Harold]

That's what the History Channel's new series should have been named.

I haven't watched every episode closely, but Except for the "Summer of Freedom" episode I keep seeing the same kinds of things on the News as these supposedly important dates were supposed to have changed.

Tonight's episode on the Scopes Trial could have changed just the costumes and been a current events documentary about the Kansas School board. The dialogue and commentary haven't changed in eighty-six years.

Sadly, it is NOT just these events that supposedly "changed America" but most of the history channel's factual offerings -- as opposed to the UFO Stories and "Bible as History" speculative offerings.

The History Channel Classroom presentation of FDR: A President Revealed left me with the same sort of feeling that we haven't learned anything from even relatively recent history -- history some of us or our parents lived through!

This is mostly just a rant but comments are welcome.

What history lessons do you think we have forgotten, learned from, or overcompensated for?

 

[neonlyte]

History is a synopsis of events, usually portrayed by the side who triumphed, the 'losers' have an entirely different version of the same events; I don't put too much store by history, other than my personal history, and in that I try to learn from decisions taken, mistakes made and battles won.

Television histories are entertainment, take from them what you will, remembering they are but one version of 'the truth'.

 

[Weird Harold]

History is a synopsis of events, usually portrayed by the side who triumphed, the 'losers' have an entirely different version of the same events; I don't put too much store by history, other than my personal history, and in that I try to learn from decisions taken, mistakes made and battles won.

I think that's a very superficial view of "History." Especially of the kind of "History" that looks at both sides of an issue and tries to understand what happened and why.

The History Channel I think does very good job of presenting more than a bare sequence of events, such as you get in a typical public school history class.

Perhaps your view of history answers my question about why we're still arguing about teaching evolution in schools eighty-six years after it was supposedly resolved by the Scopes Trial?

 

[neonlyte]

Perhaps your view of history answers my question about why we're still arguing about teaching evolution in schools eighty-six years after it was supposedly resolved by the Scopes Trial?

WH - Don't think that's a question about history, it is a question about ignorance - no slight intended to either of us.

I do know if I read an English history book and a French history book about the same events, I will receive vastly different interpretations of cause and effect. History is always seen from a distance, the perspective shifts with time and interpretation. If the History Channel is presenting balanced reporting, that's for the good, but how does one know it's balanced, we only see it from our cultural perspective.

 

[impressive]

I don't put too much store by history, other than my personal history, and in that I try to learn from decisions taken, mistakes made and battles won.

And yet, even there, we repeat our mistakes. We allow the mundane and the here-and-now and the almost-good-enough to overwhelm our dreams and desires -- and opportunities pass us by or fizzle through inertia. It's a slow painful, death. You think we'd learn.

So, it's no surprise to me that we don't learn the larger lessons presented by history.

 

[neonlyte]

And yet, even there, we repeat our mistakes. We allow the mundane and the here-and-now and the almost-good-enough to overwhelm our dreams and desires -- and opportunities pass us by or fizzle through inertia. It's a slow painful, death. You think we'd learn.

So, it's no surprise to me that we don't learn the larger lessons presented by history.

Amen to that. I suspect we're all guilty. It is important to remember that we, as individuals, rarely act alone, even in our mistakes. What seemed the right path at the time, is all too often influenced by circumstances we can't control, the true mistake is in not recognising the point of departure, we instictively hold onto that past hoping it will make a brighter tomorrow - it is the exception once the paths have begun to diverge.

 

[impressive]

... the true mistake is in not recognising the point of departure...

Bingo.


I sure as hell hope my eyes are open to that, now.

 

[rgraham666]

People and cultures are resistant to change for two reasons, in my opinion.

The first is identity, the type of people and culture they are. Change means they'll become different people and cultures. Which they don't generally believe is a good idea.

The second is power. People and cultures fear that change will lessen their power and status. Something most will fight viciously.

Is it a mistake? In my mind, yes. As John Wyndham pointed out, there's only one place where no change occurs. Among the fossils.

 

[Weird Harold]

I do know if I read an English history book and a French history book about the same events, I will receive vastly different interpretations of cause and effect. History is always seen from a distance, the perspective shifts with time and interpretation. If the History Channel is presenting balanced reporting, that's for the good, but how does one know it's balanced, we only see it from our cultural perspective.

It's fairly easy to tell it's "balanced," when it is balanced, when they present the viewpoint of two or more different sides so the viewer can compare the differing viewpoints.

To use your example, many of the documentaries present the English History book's version side by side with the French History book's version and the American, Russian, and German History book's versions where applicable. Often with Eye-witnesses from every side presented when possible.

It's also fairly easy to spot most of the documentaries with an agenda and those which are "sponsored" by the subject of the documentary -- mostly the histories of specific aircraft or specific types of tools. The "History of Hand Tools" (according to Stanley Tools Inc) is just a bit skewed in favor of the tools Stanley Tools makes. It also differs from the History of Power Tools (according to Porter-Cable Tools Inc,) which overlaps some of the same information.

I don't think it takes very much to pick the nuggets of truth from the muck of historical bias -- especially if you refuse to accept a single source for information.

There are some bits of History that I think are being forgotten, ignored, or misapplied that there is little doubt about.

For example, the lessons that should have been learned from Prohibition; every side of the issue agrees that Prohibition was a failure and most agree on how and why it failed -- even "foreign" historians like the English and Canadians. I've even seen a bit of Russian commentary that agrees with the general consensus if you can dig through the communist propagandizing.

Since we know what prohibiting alcohol caused, why can't we apply that lesson to other substances? Do we really have to learn why prohibition of something the average person wants badly enough to break the law doesn't work substance by substance and activity by activity?

Do we really need to re-learn that letting religious beliefs restrict how science is taught restricts our ability to advance science and technology? I thought we should have learned that from Galileo and from the effects of the Scopes Trial.

Do we Americans need to re-learn that isolationism doesn't work? We've tried isolationism at least three different times since 1776 and wound up regretting it each time.

I know that the answer is, Yes, we do have to re-learn all of those lessons repeatedly -- along with hundreds of other lessons that History can teach us. Primarily because to many people don't like History and don't think it really has anything to teach us that is relevant to the way things work today.

But when I watch something with actors reading from trial transcripts one minute and then read or watch the news to find almost verbatim arguements eighty-six years later, I really wish people paid more attention to history.

 

[rgraham666]

On thinking about it, what is often passed off as history is really mythology.

What people know about is not the steady stream of the past which lead to today. It's a number of 'Great Events' that made our greatness, or our suffering, pretty much inevitable. This mythology is tailored to support our sense of ourselves as justly raised above the others, or unjustly persecuted for our differences.

You need only read our 'friend's' post to see a classic example of that.

 

[Weird Harold]

Is it a mistake? In my mind, yes. As John Wyndham pointed out, there's only one place where no change occurs. Among the fossils.

Even there, among the Fossils, change happens -- at least in the interpretations we derive from them.

I'm not terribly fond of "revisionist history" although I don't have a problem revising history as new information comes to light. There IS a difference between "revised history" and "revisionist history" although it can be hard to define at times.

Revising the image of Custer from a Hero to an over-confident incompetent who was outgunned by the indians is justified, the "revisionist" view of Custer as a "Villian who got what he deserved because he was a racist" isn't.

A lot of what I see where history is being ignored isn't a defense against change IMO, but attempts to return to a "golden age" that never was. In some ways there are movements to reverse history/change that are based in a (sometimes deliberate) misunderstanding of History.

Those movements are a reaction to "change," but it's a reaction to change(s) that the people fighting against it never experienced.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

That's what the History Channel's new series should have been named.

I haven't watched every episode closely, but Except for the "Summer of Freedom" episode I keep seeing the same kinds of things on the News as these supposedly important dates were supposed to have changed.

Tonight's episode on the Scopes Trial could have changed just the costumes and been a current events documentary about the Kansas School board. The dialogue and commentary haven't changed in eighty-six years.

Sadly, it is NOT just these events that supposedly "changed America" but most of the history channel's factual offerings -- as opposed to the UFO Stories and "Bible as History" speculative offerings.

The History Channel Classroom presentation of FDR: A President Revealed left me with the same sort of feeling that we haven't learned anything from even relatively recent history -- history some of us or our parents lived through!

This is mostly just a rant but comments are welcome.

What history lessons do you think we have forgotten, learned from, or overcompensated for?

I used to be a big history channel fan, but lately, I've ceased watching unless there is something on I know is good. Deep Sea Detectives for example, or the biography of Napoleon.

I had commented earlier on the proliferation of what if natural disaster scenarios that seem to have become the soup de jour. The ufo stuff annoys me to no end, as do the conspiracy theories. Some of the bible as history stuff is quite good, when they stick to the historical when they start speculating on the veracity of the thology, eh.

I saw the scopes trial thingy, and it wasn't too terrible. I thought the observation that the country still stood for religious answers until sputnick hit the skies and the abrupt turn around in our attitude towards science was sot on, but that really begs the question of whethere the day of the moneky trial or the day the Russinas beat us to spce had more impact dosen't it?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The one mistake the USA keeps on making that drives me absolutely insane is our failure to understand the history and culture of the other countries we go in and fuck around with.

We certainly should have learned that in Viet Nam, where our elected leaders were simply asscrack-dumb about the history of that conflict when they got us involved in it and refused to ever admit they were wrong about the very nature of the war. Our willful ignorance, arrogance, and short-sightedness cost the lives of 40,000 Americans, but made me think that at least we'd learned a lesson and that it wouldn't happen again.

Need I say more? Here we are again, having stuck out foot into a big pile of shit without any idea of what we were getting into, for reasons that were dubious at best and downright criminal at worst and just plain ignorant and arrogant in any case.

I'm not saying that Iraq is Viet Nam, but with all the trillions we spend on our armed forces, can't we afford some goddamned historians or regional experts who can explain to our leaders just what it is we're getting into when we go in and invade a country and try to Americanize it? Or is the thrill of using that big army just too great to resist?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

The one mistake the USA keeps on making that drives me absolutely insane is our failure to understand the history and culture of the other countries we go in and fuck around with.

We certainly should have learned that in Viet Nam, where our elected leaders were simply asscrack-dumb about the history of that conflict when they got us involved in it and refused to ever admit they were wrong about the very nature of the war. Our willful ignorance, arrogance, and short-sightedness cost the lives of 40,000 Americans, but made me think that at least we'd learned a lesson and that it wouldn't happen again.

Need I say more? Here we are again, having stuck out foot into a big pile of shit without any idea of what we were getting into, for reasons that were dubious at best and downright criminal at worst and just plain ignorant and arrogant in any case.

I'm not saying that Iraq is Viet Nam, but with all the trillions we spend on our armed forces, can't we afford some goddamned historians or regional experts who can explain to our leaders just what it is we're getting into when we go in and invade a country and try to Americanize it? Or is the thrill of using that big army just too great to resist?

You nailed that one perfectly. We are ignorant at times.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The one mistake the USA keeps on making that drives me absolutely insane is our failure to understand the history and culture of the other countries we go in and fuck around with.

We certainly should have learned that in Viet Nam, where our elected leaders were simply asscrack-dumb about the history of that conflict when they got us involved in it and refused to ever admit they were wrong about the very nature of the war. Our willful ignorance, arrogance, and short-sightedness cost the lives of 40,000 Americans, but made me think that at least we'd learned a lesson and that it wouldn't happen again.

Need I say more? Here we are again, having stuck out foot into a big pile of shit without any idea of what we were getting into, for reasons that were dubious at best and downright criminal at worst and just plain ignorant and arrogant in any case.

I'm not saying that Iraq is Viet Nam, but with all the trillions we spend on our armed forces, can't we afford some goddamned historians or regional experts who can explain to our leaders just what it is we're getting into when we go in and invade a country and try to Americanize it? Or is the thrill of using that big army just too great to resist?

The military, ends to have a better grasp of regional and local histroy than you would think. It isn't that our politican's weren't told, it's that they don't listen.

I have a book, called great military disasters. It's subdivided into prime causes, Unfit to command details poor leadership, failure to perfomr, details poor troop perfomrance, Planning to fail details those wehre the plan was fatally flawed, but the biggest and most distressing chapter is called meddeling ministers. It deals with those debacles that occured because politicans were playing solider, usually with total disreguard for the advice of profesionals. So you get, sudan, Galipoli, the loss of the 51st highlanders, etc.

Churchill was bad about it, but at least, he had some military background having been first lord of the admiralty. FDR, in contrast, tended to let his military leaders do their thing. When he did take a hand, it was, in broad political/strategic terms.

Since Kennedy, there has been a disturbing trend among Sec. of Def/Commander in chiefs. They have started to pretend they know better than the professionals. that's fine when you're talking contracts and allocation of funds. Not so good when you're talking inventory and force ratio, downright dangerous when the meddle in tactical decisions.

Any green First Lt. out of west point can tell you what a snafu waiting to happen military action in the mid east are. I know this to be true, because I have discussed some of it with instructors over a beer at Bennyhavens on ocasion.


The nation as a whole may be ignornat or anything about the theatre of operations. The military isprobably fairly ignorant of the culture, but they are not ignorant of the military history of the area nor are they ignorant of the lessons that history has taught. The administration, appears to be just plain ignorant or of living in a fantasy land.

 

[Weird Harold]

I saw the scopes trial thingy, and it wasn't too terrible. I thought the observation that the country still stood for religious answers until sputnick hit the skies and the abrupt turn around in our attitude towards science was sot on, but that really begs the question of whethere the day of the moneky trial or the day the Russinas beat us to spce had more impact dosen't it?

Actually, I didn't have any problem with the show itself, it was the lack of progress in even the rhetoric of the arguments over 86 years. It makes it difficult to see how America has changed because of the Scopes Trial.

I think it is easier to see the lasting changes Sputnik caused than it is to see any changes the Scopes Trial caused.

In that context, I guess my objection is that the series is misnamed because I can't see where most of the events chosen permanently changed America much at all -- or even made a protracted change.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Actually, I didn't have any problem with the show itself, it was the lack of progress in even the rhetoric of the arguments over 86 years. It makes it difficult to see how America has changed because of the Scopes Trial.

I think it is easier to see the lasting changes Sputnik caused than it is to see any changes the Scopes Trial caused.

In that context, I guess my objection is that the series is misnamed because I can't see where most of the events chosen permanently changed America much at all -- or even made a protracted change.

Some of it I think is a matter of perspective. For liberals, the scopes trial is really the first action whre someone challenged the religiously minded order of things in the US. I think you could legitimately argue that scopes paved the wy for the eventual removal of prayer in schools.

I agree with you in the main though. I could pick any of a thousand discreet events and extrapolate how they changed the world or the country. And that extrapolation would be so subjective as to be less history than speculation for the most part.

 

[3113]

I guess my objection is that the series is misnamed because I can't see where most of the events chosen permanently changed America much at all -- or even made a protracted change.

Some are more apt than others. I think the split here is between those that really DID change America vs. those that can lure in viewers.

SO, you have Pres. McKinley's assassination, which most folk don't remember or care about...but which DID radically change America by putting Teddy Roosevelt in as commander-in-chief.

On the other hand, you have Elvis' appearence on the Ed Sullivan Show; which certainly had an impact of some sort being that it was watched by millions of people...but I don't know that we can argue that it magically changed America like McKinley's death did.

But you want Elvis in there to lure viewers who will then watch McKinley. You want to put the Scopes trial in there to lure viewers (it's still controversial and timely, yes?) so that they'll then watch Antietam and the Gold Rush.

Frankly, I'm in agreement with many of their choices. Einstein's letter(s) leading to FDR gathering up scientists to create an atomic bomb certainly changed America. Not just by way of the bomb itself, but the fact that physicists now work for the government creating such things.

So, I'd say that in some cases, if not all, their claim is not so outrageous.

 

[amicus]

I have watched each of the series, some more than once as they are repeated and I caution a grain of salt with each episode.

The Scopes one, in opposition to the conclusion of the film, 'Inherit the Wind' concluded that the result of the trial was not the inclusion of evolution theory in textbooks, rather the exclusion of it for another 40 years.

The McKinley assassination mentioned, but did not pursue the change in American life brought about by Teddy Roosevelt, which was terrific and devastating to industry.

The same with the Homestead Mine episode, it turn out to be an apology for Union labor and a dissing of Andrew Carnegie, which has prompted me to do some research for a yet to be post on Mr. Carnegie.

The entire series is slanted, sometimes slightly, sometimes not, towards a particular political agenda, and that, as with most presentations on television, irritates the hell out of me.

No, I am not seeking a 'balance' between left and right, one would hope for, somewhere, somehow, an 'objective' presentation of history or science or any one of the sciences. NASA channel is another example, plus it is hugely boring most of the time.


amicus...