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MM, as soon as you make a normative judgment about someone’s behavior, you open yourself up to a discussion about what the alternatives were. I don’t think you can judge colonizers in an intellectually honest way without examining whether colonization is inevitable. You can call alternative paths fiction if you wish, but as soon as you pass judgment it is appropriate to consider them.
I agree with MM that teaching a different point of view is intellectually valid.
But it is only valid as long as the point of view is that of the contemporaries based on original sources, and not something imposed by society’s current assumptions.
I agree with that as well.
You need oven-proof dishes, ET. You might get away with putting non-oven proof dishes in a bain marie/water bath, but I’ve never tried it—too risky.
I have my own office with door and window- no cubicle. Union rules. Unions rule!
“By ishtar on October 19, 2010 12:18 PM
It’s fair to claim that, but it doesn’t change what actually happened. One side has historical “fact”, while the other side as pure specualtion.”
Yes, I already said that. And that’s the problem. People feel entitled to pass judgment and blame based on what actually happened without recognizing that history would have taken some other course if not that one, and without really questioning what that course might have been. Judgment against an invented norm is how the law works. Judgment against alternatives is a more appropriate way to examine history.
If you are walking down the street intent on murdering me in cold blood, and I murder you first, is it appropriate for people to be taught only that I was the bad one? Do we really learn anything if history is taught that way?
Lechecal, let’s not make more out of this than there is, for crying out loud. Fact: X,Y, Z happened in world/national/local history. Ok fine. For all to long, the telling of that history has, in the words of someone wise, always gone to the victors. So called “revisionist” history (I don’t think that word is accurate or correct, btw) seeks to provide the other side of the coin, get the story behind the story that we know. I see nothing wrong with that. If it turns out that the victor’s version is correct, cool. If it turns out that there is much more to it than what we see on the surface, then we can learn about so much more. I don’t see anything “intellectually dishonest” about that.
Speculative fictional history, like “what would the US be like if Hitler had won World War II”, or what it would have been like in Europe if Africa had colonized Europe is just that, fiction, because it didn’t happen that way. I think those stories make great novels, I’ve read some of them, and they can be very interesting. But they are fiction. That is not the same as learning about, for example, the European slave trade, and learning about it from the slave perspective, as well as the slave trader’s perspective.
“I wish I was a cubicle slave :(”
As sad as it is to say…you will be again, dear. : )
so did china raise benchmark rate just to cool off economy/speculation/inflation?
and who are winners and losers economy-wise because of it.
And your prediction for US$ — is it for stronger or weaker?
Does anyone above realize how much more advanced the US is in terms of race relations and the equitable treatment of all its citizens?
I wonder what would happen if benson were to live in say, Oklahoma or Tennessee for awhile.
I have a great flourless choc. cake recipe. Expert, even you could make it, it’s practically fool-proof! ; )