History is the oppression of the weak by the strong.
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Nah, history is the class between physics and economics, at least on monday.
Not entirely true. Often, strong individuals try to impose their rule over others, but weak countries can form alliances, and thus become stronger. The strongest country on Earth, in military terms, would have been Germany, but the coalition of countries against it made defeat for Germany inevitable, which is why the world is not made up of thousands of thiefdoms today- the principle of solidarity overcomes the strength of brute force, over time.
Are we talking “history is what has happened” or “history is what’s in the books”? Hell, I’ve argued with a doctrinaire deconstructionist feminist who said that the law of gravity was oppressive male science. The history books are a lot more subjective than the law of gravity.
In the end, it reduces to grievance blocs complaining everybody is picking on them.
I’d say that this statement isn’t worded in the best possible way. 🙂 Whether it’s true, depends of course on what definition of “oppression” we use. If we define it in a narrow way so as to include only capricious and unjust killing, torturing, raping, plundering (excluding predictable and not too destructive taxation), enslavement, etc., then I’d say that people tend to overestimate the extent to which these things were happening prior to the modern era, and underestimate their extent in modern times. Certainly, all history has not consisted of just such events, although a large part of if certainly has.
If we take a less restrictive definition of oppression, then of course, it’s hard to find any social arrangement or human act whatsoever that doesn’t count as “oppression” according to someone’s favored definition. These arbitrary definitions are very useful for propaganda purposes, but for any sort of serious and objective discussion, they are useless at best, and outright destructive at worst.
Riiiight. And what exactly was she offering in its place? A theory in which men fell as 10m/s2 and women fell at 8m/s2? This sounds surreal enough that you simply must share!
Surreal? You might be interested in checking out this book (Link) for dozens of similar examples. 🙂
History is the record of what went before.
A study of that record informs us that those who were oppressed were, generally, the weak, and the conclusion drawn is that those who did the oppressing were, in relative terms, the strong. Any other conclusions require a case by case study.
For instance –
In modern days, in Malaysia we see the majority muslim population subject to shariah, while the minority populations are subject to the somewhat more relaxed British derived common and civil laws. Here we have the oppression of the strong, muslim Malays, by the strong, muslim Malays.
In Europe we are now starting to see the (unprecedented?) phenomenon of the oppression of the strong, that is native European cultures, by the weak, with the regular obsequious capitulation to whatever is the latest cause du jour of the more excitable members of the Islamic citizenry.
And what exactly was she offering in its place? A theory in which men fell as 10m/s2 and women fell at 8m/s2?
No, I would guess that, given the New Age drivel that so many of these people affect to believe in, she probably adhered to the prenewtonian hypothesis that the planets were pushed by angels; mathematics, of course, being naught but a DWEM construct. Though how it could be that while at the same time we have mathematics only because we stole it from the Gaia embracing, jet fighter flying, black African civilisations of 10,000 years ago.
Of which there is so much evidence in both the historical and prehistorical record.
Short answer: yes. Those who have power will always exercise it. Although exercise of power in itself does not necessarily amount to oppression objectively, the week party will usually end up perceiving itself as oppressed.
CC:
No, what you have here are two groups within the Muslim community, one weak, and one strong.
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, depending on the context. In the context of the relationship between cultures, Europeans as a group are weak, compared to Asians in general, and Muslims in particular.
Europeans as a group are weak, compared to Asians in general, and Muslims in particular.
Alisa,
I think it is possible to argue that those who are succumbing to pressure are, by definition, weak, and those exerting the pressure are strong, and I think that is the position you are taking here. Although please correct me if I am wrong.
However, my position is that what we are seeing in Europe is a lack of confidence, rather than any actual weakness in either argument or capability. Imagine Superman, with his super intelligence and super strength, raised by parents who kept telling him he was worthless and incapable. When confronted with a schoolyard bully he would not have been able to cope, whatever his capabilities.
Against Europe, Islam isn’t strong, it is just bullying people lacking the confidence to react.
Good god, don’t you understand the awesome military power of the Global Caliphate of the IslamoMuslims? Good god, it took us several weeks to crush Iraq when they were fighting on their own soil with nowhere to run!
Imagine the damage they could have done to the West if they had invaded us!
They are a threat unparalleled in the history of humanity, an endless font of power, a greater threat than the Nazis or the USSR ever was! They are the greatest threat to western civilization in history!
It was at a science-fiction convention. There were two of us who were supposed to discuss the difference between science and engineering. The feminist had not shown on schedule, so I started without her and things were going reasonably well. Then she arrived, with a hearty MALE science! and things went downhill.
Despite she didn’t approve of the law of gravity, I was unable to talk her out the (fourteenth-floor) window for a quick refutation thereof.
There were several other feminists in the room. Ten years and more later, they still shake their heads over the discussion. And whenever I go to a science-fiction convention, I note on my panelist sheet that I will not do a panel with her on it.
Dr Ellen,
I count four parrots.
Is that correct?
She may be an idiot, but she is not stupid:-)
CC, the lack of confidence is an actual weakness. That’s what I meant by saying that we all have our strengths and weaknesses. A rock can crash an egg, but it cannot destroy a cotton ball.
As to Superman: a person who does not exercise their powers (intelligence, muscles, shooting skills, military capabilities), eventually will find these powers deteriorate and degenerate. That’s what I meant by saying that those who have power will always exercise it. In other words, power not exercised is by definition not a power. It is at best a potential that dissipates over time. I am an Israeli, so I should know:-)
Of course, none of the above means that power equals oppression, but like I said before, it can, and usually will be perceived as such by the weak. The US has been projecting its cultural strength (forget the military one for a second) for a very long time. It has been anything but oppressive in doing so. No one has ever been forcing McDonald’s on the French, or Terminator movies on the Arabs. Still, they are resentful (not to mention envious), and feel that they are being oppressed by the American culture.
History is the Strong telling everyone else that the Weak was a dangerous jerk who frankly had it coming. Furthermore the world is lucky that the Strong was here to straighten Weak out.
History is the Strong telling everyone else that the Weak was a dangerous jerk who frankly had it coming.
History is the oppression of the weak by the strong.
History is the story of compassion and concern.
History is the story of wealth and growth.
History is the story of complacency and collapse.
History can contain anything you care to look for. History is a record, nothing more.
Of course. However, all of these aspects of human existence can be viewed in terms of power and weakness. It’s basic physics, really. You could say it’s about energy.
History is one fucking thing after another
Dace actually nailed it in the first comment.
History is just what historians do or teach.
The idea that it has anything to do with what actually happened is blasphemy.
Of course what actually happened does matter as Dr Ellen’s raving mad interlocutor must appreciate from falling over a few times.
In general I think the easiest way to make a complete tit of yourself is to stray into areas of knowledge you don’t know about. Feminists have a history of this. You know the sort of “anything longer than it’s wide is phallic”. They had a field day with that over missiles during the Cold War. Of course they’d never studied ballistics or aerodynamics or little other than their own navel. But it’s not just them…
I heard something very interesting on the news this morning. A number of scientists are questioning “shaken baby syndrome” and these aren’t fringe loonies. One is a state medical examiner and the others are crash test folks. Anyway, they reckon you basically can’t shake a kid to death. Now the real interesting was what the reporter, John Sweeney*, said next…
He said they were a minority but this was still worth investigating despite the broad consensus opinion. I nearly fell out of the chair. A BBC man had dared suggest a “broad consensus” might just be wrong. He might even have gone further and suggested the “debate wasn’t over”.
*You may remember Mr Sweeney as the chap who totally lost his rag on the BBC with the scientologists.
You may remember Mr Sweeney as the chap who totally lost his rag on the BBC with the scientologists.
He retains some measure of sanity then?
Let us all remember in dealing with such statements the wisdom expressed by the sage William Jefferson Clinton, who questioned the meaning of “IS” in particular context.
History is the story of a predatory species who happened to be able to write things down. Whether history is to be believed in its entirety or taken with a pinch of salt is a matter for debate.
For more about humanity as predator see Simon of Space(Link) and other writings by Cheeseburger Brown(Link).
That is the official Marxist dogma. As usual, bs.
History is a lot of things. I’m reading now about the history of art. What has it got to do with oppression an weak vs. strong ?
Or take as an example the history of WW2 – the concept of “weak oppressed by strong” has nothing to do with it.
The phemomenon of the strong oppressing the weak is not unheard of, but to reduce all history to just this mantra is utterly ridiculous, as marxist ideas ussually are.
This is a meaningless question. Too many implied assupmtions. Alisa has it right; history is physics anthropomorphised.
Laird: I disagree:-)
Czech proverb
“The US” does not build restaurants, nor stores, nor film movies. Americans may do so, but “the US” does not do so, anymore than “the US” buys oil.
I fail to see how trade can be “projecting power”. By definition, trade is voluntary. If you build it, and they don’t come, it goes bankrupt, and then it’s gone (unless it establishes a “failure monopoly”, where it is auctioned and the buyer finds that relieved of the long-term costs, the business can be profitable).
I think that this statement is accepting the paradigm of the Marxists, who feel that any transaction not carried out at gunpoint is “projecting power” —
Of course, some of the resentments against us in the rest of the world could be due to a history of indiscriminate bombing, combined with the difficulty of people far away to distinguish nations:
If invading Iraq to respond to an attack by Saudis coordinated from Afghanistan is “close enough for government work”, it could be that some attacks on America are in response to, for example, the English refusing to allow the Palestinians to enforce their immigration laws until the entire nation was overrun by illegal aliens who, as soon as they had the power, actually evicted the natives from their own country. And we think we have an illegal alien problem … theirs takes the cake!
The big thieves hang the little ones.
Try this –
http://www.piratesandemperors.com/(Link)
Rich: I was going to point out that I never said that the US built restaurants, filmed movies or projected power. But then I noticed that the writer chose to ignore my invitation to forget military power for a second, and then I noticed that the writer is you…:-)
Old Americanism : “It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight that matters. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
CountingCats:
Four. But what are you doing CountingParrots? It’s not in your job description.
Fuck you scumbag, on the day Germany invaded Poland a boat full of these illegal immigrants was shot down just a few miles from Tel Aviv by Brits who certainly had a clear sense of their priorities. And what Palestinian ‘immigration laws’? Wouldn’t that require there to have been a Palestinian country, like, y’know, ever?
If Libertarians have anything in common with classical liberals it is a complete inabilty to understand what makes people actually tick. In the case of the arabs I would suggest a cocktail of a overwhelming belief in the superiority of their civilization, combined with the unavoidable reality of its defectiveness with a great deal of racism mixed in more or less explains most things. What pisses them off is is not the imperialism of others, but their own imabilty to be successfully imperalist despite their repeated and continued attempts to do so and the success of inferior races in doing so, even if “success” counts as building a solitary non basket-case state the size of Wales.
What is happening now in Darfur is what they’d do everywhere to assuage their feelings of inadequacy if they had half the chance. Unfortunately, they won’t get over this for at least a hundred years outside of some kind o fmassively overwhelming military defeat (which would require them to unify far more than they are now anyway … perhaps if Nasser had succeeded the wolrd would be better now, though it would have been a very, very bloody 1960s). It is imperative that in the meantime we make sure they can’t hurt us.
To return to the post. Yes, obviously. Though the oppressed aren’t always the people we think of when the word is used. For example, Arab Muslims are repsonsible for more and worse oppression this at the current time than any other group, but spend more time bitching about oppression than all the others put together.
(Of course, someone will call me a racist, but ‘arab’ isn”t a race, but a nation and like all nations is an artificial construct, which require idelogical adherence on the part of its members. Some of these artificial construct are good, some middling and some basically suck i.e. Germany up to 1950. Someone will call me a collectivist’ but what I’ve said requires no metaphysical claims about the real nature of groups, but simply an awareness that men do not go through the lifelong process of education which creates their individual indenty in a vacumn.)
Rich Paul,
You’re banging that drum again… No, the US doesn’t built restaurants but… That doesn’t matter. The simple fact is that is how it seen by many people in many countries. Similarly Blockbuster didn’t force anyone to quit using their local video store but that is not how it is perceived by a great many folk who furthermore see Blockbuster as a division of BushMacHaliburton’s Cultural Genocide Inc.
I take, and have done, all your points in principle on this score but you are failing to address the importance of how the other side sees it. Now the US doesn’t buy oil. Exxon et al do (a division of BushMacHalliburton’s Ecological Genocide Inc, of course). But not only are the oil giants seen as the tools of Chimpy MacDubya’s quest for global domination (by 2009, get a move on lads!) but the point is not me, the point is them.
It’s a meta context thing. There is also a practical economic point here wrt to free trade. The US might not buy oil but a very large number of the producers of the stuff round the world are state-owned and those states use their oil sales to further state interests.
A certain Venezualan chap is a prime example. He was trying to supply cheap heating to the poor of London a while back. Free trade has to be free on both sides or it just ain’t. And he’s been helping out his mate Fidel with sub-rate oil supplies. I assume he’s just doing it to piss off the State department but it is not a business transaction in the sense that me and you would shake on a deal. Then there’s Zimbabwe. Potless and one of the reasons for evicting the white farmers is guess who’s a big land-owner there? One Muammar Ghadaffi who’s been keeping Comrade Bob in enough oil to fuel the private jet and whatnot oil in exchange for land. Land which was not Comrade Bob’s to give. Now that’s hardly international trade as a free and fair exchange of goods and services. It’s a conspiracy between Bob and Muammar to rob people.
PS Parrots? huh?
It’s a discussion point!
Alisa made the point:
“…all of these aspects of human existence can be viewed in terms of power and weakness. It’s basic physics, really. You could say it’s about energy.”
Check out “Nature: An Economic History” by Geerat Vermeij. He generalizes the concept of economics, not so much as to extend human economics to the natural world, but to treat human economics as a special case of the more general problem of scarcity.
His discussions of power and advantage, of natural adversaries and local scarcity, bring to life some of the most hard-core scholarship I’ve yet seen lurking in a chain bookstore. The bibliography by itself could choke a moose.
He does comment indirectly on this thread topic – that the history of the ecology of Earth is littered, past and present, with powerful species that dominated their local ecologies, and even shaped those ecologies to their own advantage.
Vermeij concludes that while it is true that a powerful species exercises inordinate influence over its surroundings, they also become disproportionately vulnerable to “bottom-up” changes in the ecosystem. The longer-lived species tend to be marginal ones.
Thought-provoking, interesting stuff!
WM:
I was going to add that obviously, the powerful never stay powerful forever (but did not want to beat the subject to death:-)). We are part of the physical world, and that world is a dynamic one.
I’m sorry, all you earnestly debating savants, but Halfweeg won the thread with one sentence quite a ways up the thread. Pity the rest of you wasted so much time and effort…
Back in the 1970’s, just as the academic rot was setting in, young historians were saying that history didn’t matter.
They claimed most of the historical record was just an account of peasants ruled by brigands.
Actually, I don’t know who said it, but, even as a history buff, I ascribe to this statement:
History is an account of what didn’t happen by a man who wasn’t there.
I find the best history to be contemporary accounts. Books written by participants are great. Contemporary newspapers are fantastic.
Just read some old medical journals, circa 1810, to get some flavor of medical history. You’ll never be the same after reading about radical mandibulectomies without anesthesia or antisepsis. Helps to give you perspective.
Oh, just to ad one more perspective on history, relating to big thieves hanging the little ones:
Steal a loaf of bread, and they’ll call you thief. Steal a crown, and they’ll call you king!
Jacob, re Art History.
Isn’t it true that strong colours will dominate weak colours, using them only as contrast? And aren’t there more statues of strong subjects (bulls, lions, elephants, warriors, etc.) than weak subjects? I would say that Art confirms the theory!
Oh, but the statues of strong subjects don’t oppress anyone !
Of course, we love more strong and beautiful things, and prefer them over weak and ugly ones. It would be perverse if it were otherwise.
History is what is written down by the winners.
Except, obviously, for the plot of Blackadder I, which somehow still managed to come down to us, despite Henry VIIth’s best efforts to hide it.
I dunno Jacob,
All those statues of Lenin hailing a cab sure looked oppressive. And the relentless neo-classicism of a city like DC is oppressive. It being all about power… I guess these things alter people’s moods. The built environment and public art are important.
nick g,
I commend you to google “Dismal Lamb” by the little known C16th Florentine sculptor Fabricio Disingenarius.
History isn’t oppression in and of itself, initially it is simply the chronicalling by the strong as to why the weak were wrong. Then, as a few decades pass, revisionists justify grant monies (i.e. new and vital research) by asserting that the weak were right after all.
ALISA!
Sorry, Alisa, you are wrong, Laird is right:>
Gabriel, I cannot believe I missed the part about the illegal aliens. That was, well, rich.
The problem with reading old newspapers or books, diaries, etc. – which are fascinating – is the realization that the people writing them may have had just as much motivation to lie as authors of the modern era.
So the past, in my opinion, is as unknowable as the present. History can be approached but never grasped, in a zen metaphor kind of way.
Nick M
It might be depressing, but it’s not oppressive.