Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many more…
These people had beliefs and worldviews that were so horribly, by today’s standards, that calling them fascist would be huge understatement. And they followed through by committing a lot of evil.
Aren’t we basically glorifying the Hitlers of centuries past?
I know, historians always say that one should not judge historical figures by contemporary moral standards. But there’s a difference between objectively studying history and actually glorifying these figures.
I think it’s a publication bias thing. Because so much was written about these people in their day, they become mascots for the time period. And what they did, while objectionable, is impressive. They had a massive influence on recorded history.
My own theory is that there is so much written in these times because of the massive inequality then. Books, statues, etc are expensive. In times of ecomonic equality, especially before the press, people would be less likely to waste time and resources on such things. Thats money better spent on improving their and their communities lives. But when you have massive inequality and a narcisist in charge, you get books, statues, and massive projects dedicated to the men who can afford them.
I think you are right. But I don’t think that’s the whole story.
I think it is also just the fact that they were the winners of history. And we like winning more than we like being moral.
And we like winning more than we like being moral.
I wonder why when it comes to “humanity is awesome” variations of sci-fi, we always have to lean so hard on creating a fictional alien race that is somehow worse than humans to prove how “awesome” we are.
Maybe, just maybe, we’re kind of fucking assholes.
Those aliens also display a core experience that we have anxiety about: being colonized. Interestingly, Stargate, a franchise partially created by the US Air Force very accidentally portrays what interacting with alien species who didn’t establish a system of colonization might look like. There are multiple cultures humanity encounters in that franchise who don’t have weapons but have farming implements we can’t even imagine. That franchise shows a universe where Humanity leaves earth and discovers we’re a bunch of violent weirdos who don’t fit in with the rest of the universe. There’s some other colonial powers we encounter, of course, when Earth needs to be the good guys. But like… Think about that. We might be so steeped in a system that’s been inflicted on us that our first contact with a non-earthbound culture might see that culture being like “so the workers produce all the value, and you beat them up? Why? This doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t they be rewarded for the value they provide?”
I think part of it also stems from our “colonization” of other species on Earth.
We exploit the living shit out of every other living thing while telling ourselves those living things are somehow different from us, don’t experience the same fears, the same pains, and so on. Those of us with an inkling of self-reflection can see how they are like us just by looking at how they react to similar stimulus. We aren’t different but we’ve spent a millennia telling ourselves that we are simply because we have language and can create tools. Both things other animals clearly have and do, but since we don’t understand those animals, instead we treat them as inferior.
I think part of the panic of colonization of other species comes from the deeply rooted realization that we have been brutal, violent executioners of millions of species who may have had similar reasoning capabilities as we do but simply don’t have thumbs so they can do things like write down their language or codify it in any way. Like how humans lived for millions of years without written language…
Anyway, yeah, visceral guilt for being real fucking bastards and killing off so many species that we literally kicked off a mass fucking extinction.
I feel like the show does a good example of being entertaining while also showing those stark contrasts between the civilizations like you’ve commented. Even more so in the later part of “Stargate Atlantis” where it’s more “cowboys and indians” style. They’re trying to “save” all the planets in the Pegasus galaxy but tend to shoot anything they don’t understand and constantly undermine themselves by making poor decisions when it comes to relations and dealing with people. The inhabitants of the galaxy have continued being successful at trade and socializing (except for a few outliers who can still be known to show honor) even while being under constant threat for their entire recorded history.
please don’t use “we” as if it includes me.
Again, who is “we”? Maybe you need some other acquaintances.
What do you mean “objectively studying history”, what is objective about History? What you’re studying is a narrative, that has been put together by experts, based of what remains from that past. There is nothing “objective” about History, it is an educated guess. Even written records are narratives told from the perspective and culture of the ancient writer.
This is to say that, the reason we don’t judge historical figures through a modern lens is that to do so is to ignore history. It doesn’t matter what your think about Alexander the Great, it matters what his contemporaries (both friends and enemies) had to say about him (objectively biased narratices). For another example think about what the Greeks wrote about the Persians during their many wars, and vice versa. They are conflicrive accounts. Both biased and political. So again, what history is correct, objective?
There is nothing “objective” about History, it is an educated guess.
A lack of absolute certainty does not equate to a lack of objectivity. You’re right that history is necessarily written by individuals who have biases. But it is also written by many individuals from different perspectives and correlated with a variety of other sources of knowledge, such as archeology, geology, etc.
For another example think about what the Greeks wrote about the Persians during their many wars, and vice versa. They are conflicrive accounts. Both biased and political. So again, what history is correct, objective?
They are conflicting on some things, but they also agree on many things. For instance, I’m sure we can agree that the Greeks and Persians existed, controlled large empires, fought wars against each other, etc. Historians are trained to analyze all of the documents available from all perspectives and arrive at the most objective conclusion that they can muster.
I strongly oppose the postmodern attitude that everything is subjective. It’s good to remember the limits of our knowledge, but to completely discard an academic field such as history as entirely subjective is quite absurd.
I strongly oppose the postmodern attitude that everything is subjective. It’s good to remember the limits of our knowledge, but to completely discard an academic field such as history as entirely subjective is quite absurd.
Its not really, history doesnt have a central paradigm of provable statements, it cannot be objective. Yes, they may have had armies, someone may have also went back and fucked with all the records of the armies numbers, compisitions etc after the fact.
Writing and mental production have been controlled till very recently by the upper classes, the written record was usually the thoughts of the upper class, or those they allowed to write.
You know the study of history isnt just taking one account and believing it, right?
You build as much evidence as you can from multiple sources so you can account for and remove those biases. Obviously, the further back you go, the harder it is to find evidence but that doesn’t mean you work from one source.
They are conflicting in some things but agree on many things…
If this is your definition of “objective”, something you can say about the books in the Bible, sure bro I guess. To me objective means it can be empirically proven: 2+2=4. Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Water at sea level boils at 100c. Etc.
If you think the one of many competing, historical narratives that you or your culture chose are “objective truth”, sure bro, that’s how politics works.
If this is your definition of “objective”, something you can say about the books in the Bible, sure bro I guess.
Seriously? What a ridiculous, intellectually dishonest false equivalency. Why not respond to the remainder of my argument? Do you actually doubt whether the Ancient Greeks existed?
To me objective means it can be empirically proven: 2+2=4. Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Water at sea level boils at 100c. Etc.
Pure empiricism is pure nonsense. Objective truths exist independently of individual minds, while subjective truths exist within minds.
History is composed of a series of events that physically occurred on Planet Earth within the past ~5k years, and were recorded in written form by human beings. Human beings were born, did certain things, wrote them down, and died. We can dig up their remains and verify many of the things they wrote via empirical, scientific methodologies. You can choose to doubt various interpretations of the facts, but your delusions cannot change the inherent reality that lies within.
Your choice to contest the validity of history is demonstrative of a profoundly irrational mindset, because you are rejecting verifiable information in favor of your own subjective assumptions. You would prefer that history not be objective, because you wish to believe your own subjective version of history as an emotional coping mechanism.
Lol. Cope.
Ok I didn’t realize you were just a troll. Good luck with that.
Not OP, but this sounds exactly like what I’d call objective history. Non-objective history is when people simp, say, Alexander the Great as some sort of political-national hero and say we ought to be more like him, he was a genius, he brought glorious Western civilisation and so on. That typically comes with minimising the whole slave empire thing, aristocrat nepobaby thing, and any other unsavoury details there might be about him by modern standards.
Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense, it’s just someone important seeming who can’t object to being misused. Conservative MLK is a a particularly irksome one I see a lot, given that his body is barely cold in historical terms, and there’s a very direct line between modern conservatives and the guys that put up sprinklers on their lawn next to the March’s route.
Do we glorify them, or do we just learn about them because they had a huge impact on the world?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone holding Genghis Khan up as a role model.
People with a breeding kink and weird desire to populate the world with their shitty sperm abso-fucking-lutely look up to Genghis Khan and the whole “so many people are related to Genghis Khan because he fathered so many children with so many women” thing.
See: Elon Musk. Or even better, don’t see him.
Genghis Khan isn’t as glorified as the rest, because, …, he’s not white/European. He’s glorified in Mongolia and some other Asian countries, but not in the western world.
But the rest of them? Yes, we do. Maybe not always so overtly, but the implied greatness of most of these figures is tied to how much wars they waged and how many peoples they subjugated. And if you simply go to any primary or middle school and ask the kids who are into history, you’ll find lots of boys (mostly boys) who will rave on about how this or that was the absolute GOAT.
Go to Mongolia and you will see it.
We literally call Alexander “the Great”, and Caesar’s name was adopted as a title more than once by powerful rulers (e.g. Kaiser and Czar). Sounds like glorification to me.
…because that’s his name. It was how people referred to him. It’s not like people are going “He’s Grrrreat!” like Tony the Tiger.
Is this just a case of “great” having changed meaning subtly? Now it’s a superlative more than anything else, but in this usage I feel it meaning is much more about scale of what they did. Not a judgment on the morality of what they did.
It wasn’t for him, but for those who were named after him it was used to symbolise that they - like Caesar - were one of “the greats”
Great doesn’t mean good nor does it mean benevolent.
Homer’s crime was very great!
Exactly. I was kinda confused when I read the question because I dont think they are glorified at all. They probably arent shamed as much as Hitler for example because they dont have such a direct impact on our lives.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone holding Genghis Khan up as a role model.
There is a huge statue of him in Mongolia, and one of the apparently most popular Mongolian song is titled “In praise of Genghis Khan” so now you heard.
And Julius Caesar is literally known for being hated and brutally murdered by those closest to him because he was such a shit.
In some countries, it’s so “machismo” that being a descendant of Genghis Khan gets you a consumer’s discount in some establishments.
Probably more people are descendents of Ghengis Khan than aren’t. Certainly nothing special.
Either way, it’s definitely a close call.
The guy killed by the girl he was trying to rape becoming a symbol of machismo is oddly fitting.
I don’t think we glorify them, but we consider them significant figures in history. Remembering and talking/studying history and significant figures allows us to learn more about ourselves as well as learn how things can be done better than they once were. But I don’t really see these people glorified. Nobody calls them heroes or people to emulate.
We also glorify horrible people from the present, so why not?
Once they pass out of living memory, they can be whoever you want them to be. Or you could study them I guess, but that sounds like boring nerd stuff to most people.
Genghis Khan is actually an anti-example, since he’s vilified. It’s not at all clear other kings would have done any different given an unstoppable army, but yet he catches more shit than all his enemies combined.
“…not at all clear other kings would have done any different…”
Is that the standard now? Comparison? He is still unbelievably evil even by comparison to other evil people.
Him and the dynasty he created were one of the most destructive forces in human history and resulted in the horrific deaths of millions of people. By many metrics, they practiced genocide and ethnic cleansing on conquered populations. They destroyed the books of captured people’s and places of worship. They’re also well known for having destroyed farmland and aqueducts to starve out massive numbers of people. They were butchers. Mass murderers on a skill the world had never seen at that time. He erased entire civilizations from history, ones that we still barely know anything about.
Most of the things you said are true. What is also true is that he and his descendents established a unified, peaceful empire from Korea to Hungary, from southern Russia to Iran. He unified China, then divided by civil war, and brought in economists and doctors from the Islamic World. He promoted Buddhism, Daoism and Islam, and his successors included Confucians and Christians. He guaranteed safe travel and trade across his empire, as well as religious tolerance and a common set of laws.
He killed thousands (the death tolls are inflated by both his enemies and his own followers - as a warning to those who they were going to attack next), but his actions benefitted millions. How can you form any moral judgement about such a figure? All you can do is try to find out the truth, report it, and let people reach their own conclusions.
So the ends justify the means? Inflicting untold suffering on one group of people is fine if it benefits another one?
This is literally ancient history.
Yes, and? Have you not gotten to the part in your schooling where you look at history to see what can be learnt from it?
Ignoring the insult, we’re talking about Medieval times. They were famously awful to live in for everyone. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of readers won’t think I’m suggesting anything about that period should be replicated in the modern day, unless I explicitly say that.
To be totally clear, I don’t want to bring the Mongol empire back in 2024.
You’re missing the point entirely. The person I was originally responding too was saying that evan though awful things were done to people it’s fine, or justifiable because “millions” benefited from them. If you don’t understand how something like that at its base level can be applicable to modern times, that’s a you issue.
It’s not the specific actions taken or the setting/environment, but the attitude of the ends justifying the means if there’s a net positive.
All you can do is try to find out the truth, report it, and let people reach their own conclusions.
I bet you think you’re taking some sort high road to the effect of “oh I just state the facts, I’m not telling anyone what to think,” while conveniently ignoring the part where the way that you report these facts, or which ones you leave out can very much influence the conclusions people reach.
You stated that Alexander killed many people, but also his actions benefitted millions of people. These two things put together in the way that you did will lead an uninformed person to he conclusion that it’s fine that he killed people because it benefited many others. And maybe that could be true in some contexts, but you completely failed to mention the fact that he didn’t just kill a bunch of people, he executed defeated peoples and sold a whole bunch of people into slavery, which would naturally influence the conclusions a person could come to.
Any narrative will be biased, both in what it says and what it leaves out. But historians have to at least try to be impartial. I’m not a professional historian, so I can have whatever opinion I want.
You stated that Alexander killed many people
Chinggis Khan, not Alexander.
Oops, got my wires crossed with who I was talking about. But my point still stands.
You can have any opinion that you want, I haven’t said that you couldn’t. I was disagreeing with your opinion and expressing my own, you wombat. That’s how discussion works.
I’m starting to think this guy wasn’t very nice!
Very well-said!
I feel like you’ve entirely ignored the context I said that in.
If you actually want to argue pros and cons for academic purposes (they’re all long dead remember), the other person gave a good summery of the good sides of the Mongol Empire.
The Nazi’s created rocketry as we know it today and made many innovations in medicine and manufacturing.
Are we going to argue the pros and cons of the Nazi party?
This conversation wasn’t even about the Mongol empire it was about Genghis Khan
Hmm. I guess it seems hard to separate Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire to me. Pretty much everything we know about him for sure is as the guy in charge of the Mongol empire. There’s a few stories about him personally enemy chroniclers put down, but they all have that myth-y Washington and the cherry tree feel to them.
Because for centuries, western society has valued one thing above pretty all else: winning.
If someone’s an asshole, but they’ve gotten on top in something, people may say, “They’re an asshole, but hey you gotta admire that they’re so good at [insert subject].”
That’s why so many people admire Ray Kroc. Yeah, so what if he brought McDonald’s to a position of national and international dominance? That doesn’t mean he’s worthy of our respect. If anything, the way he rose to the top, being as disgusting as it was, should mean he’s anything but worthy of our respect.
Victory in something by itself shouldn’t be respected; what you do to get to victory matters equally as much, if not more.
That’s right. They are not glorified as being enlightened or particularly great at things in general. Those figures are idolized because of the power they managed to obtain and their skill in military tactis and strategy.
Exactly.
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who does that exactly?
The British with Winston Churchill, US with Reagan.
Not everyone in UK or US is a brainwashed idiot. There’s plenty of people who know their history and are in good faith.
Plenty, yes. Majority? I doubt it
…The US with Winston Churchill.
—Actually I don’t know the history surrounding Churchill, I know someone once asked in a r/explainlikeimfive reddit post, but all that I really remember was that he was super-conservative.
What he did to India is akin to what Belgium did to the Congo. He was also extremely racist, said Indians are “a beastly people with a beastly religion”, Arabs are “a lower manifestation than the jews” who “only eat camel shit”. The Jews, who he thought implanted communism in Russia as part of a conspiracy to control the world (same thing the Nazis said).
When defending the Israel plan of displacing Palestinian people, he said:
I do not admit for instance that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race or at any rate a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it.
And of course Asians wouldn’t be left out: “I hate people with slit eyes and pigtails. I don’t like the look of them or the smell of them”
I’d wager most Americans have favorable opinions about the slavers, genociders and occasional rapists who “founded” the country. And Columbus.
Also, monarchies in general have favorable opinions about terrible people.
Alexander the great is glorified in egypt
You should be more worried about why we glorify horrible contemporary people, or from the more recent past. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, Ellen DeGeneres, the list is endless. There are a lot of people that even glorify Hitler himself.
And wrt Alexander the Great, having killed a lot of people does not make a person horrible. My grandfather killed a lot of people, probably hundreds. He never wanted to talk much about it. He was a great guy and a hero. Alexander the great killed a lot of people, but in doing that he eliminated the enemies of his people. He is recorded in history for spreading civilization, arts, education. He founded many cities that flourished, some of them even stand today. He freed a lot of cities that were ruled by his people’s enemies. His conquests are one of the major reasons modern western civilization exists. He did all that as a military leader and he killed a lot of people.
Heroes don’t kill hundreds of people, they save them.
Heroes don’t kill hundreds of people, they save them.
Ah, so the people killing Nazi’s in WWII aren’t Heroes anymore. They should have saved the Nazis instead!
Are you hearing yourself?
Bro that statement alone proves that poster is obviously like 12, or trolling. Why are you bothering with a response?
You never know, they could written something out without fully considering the ramifications. It happens.
What if we glorify horrible contemporary people because we’re taught to glorify sociopathic behavior through how we’re taught about historical horrible people?
The source of this quote is generally attributed to George W. Bush aide Karl Rove:
The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. 'We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.
I fucking loathe how right Rove was and is.
I mean, the hitler comparison falls off with those specific examples, but I get that you’re saying.
First, they were successful for the most part.
Second, it is the far past. The distance in time means that most people will only ever know about the biggest brush strokes of their biography and actions. The records of the eras aren’t exactly rife with full detail for every bit of their lives. And what is there, most people encounter at the superficial level of a high school world history class.
That kind of class isn’t geared towards detail, nuance, or moral judgement. It’s about the overview.
Since all of the ones you listed are also pretty damn interesting, and made major impacts to human society (for good or ill, that’s not the point of the answer to the question as asked). This in turn means that they’re memorable compared to some random king or emperor that was just doing their job and running their nation without trouble.
In other words, they aren’t boring. And, tbh, they weren’t fascists. They never had that level of complexity to their goals. Fascist != dictator by default. That part means that until and unless you start looking at the horrible things they did, there’s no convenient modern label to apply to them in a general history class to point to them not being good people.
Remember, most entry level history classes might have a week to cover the entirety of the Roman Empire; devoting time to Caesar’s nastiness just isn’t relevant to the goal of that kind of class. The only reason he’s worth going into any detail about at all is that he changed Rome to such a degree that it’s a pivot point, and cant be entirely skipped like the majority of historical roman leaders.
From there to “glorification” is a matter of fiction. We don’t have the kind of detail that allows for interesting documentaries, so what we get outside of advanced history classes (which people won’t likely take unless they’re intending to be historians) is infotainment and outright fiction using the names of people. Once you start making books and shows and movies, entertainment and profit are the goals, not historical accuracy or even adhering to actual facts at all. Most of what people think of about Caesar is from Shakespeare.
So you then have people with disjointed and filtered ideas about historical figures, mashed together from a few facts and a lot of fiction.
Honestly, even with more recent figures, you run into the same thing. How many people do you think could give a detailed and accurate biography of either president Roosevelt? Or JFK? Or Regan? Man, there’s people that couldn’t tell you anything about the current world leaders beyond their name.
Who’s “we”? I don’t glorify these people.
Who is “we”? Many of us go to lengths to point out how important historical figures had dark aspects to their lives. This actually makes history far more interesting and relevant.
Actions we condemn today were often considered acceptable, even heroic, in their era. Many figures are celebrated for their accomplishments in fields like military leadership, politics, philosophy, or art.
Also national pride, these people become symbols of a nation’s identity and history, youre always taught they’re heroes. They also leave a lasting impact on culture, shaping the art of their era and therefore beyond. Look no further than Napoleon for this one. Or the Mughals.
Power and influence can be awe-inspiring, even if their methods are questionable. These are traits that have throughout history been associated with being morally good in a way. Fame, power, money makes you ‘good’ in many cultures over history. Kings are looked up to, they are seen as people with noble blood. Their actions are inherently correct. I genuinely believe our morality as a society has grown more stringent over time.
Sometimes, people are presented in a simplified, heroic manner without acknowledging their flaws. That’s just the nature of storytelling imo. They aren’t being critically analysed because they are stories. And we make art based on the stories and art that survive. We base stories of Alexander the Great on the art he allowed in his time.
This is brief, I have a lot of opinions on this matter lol.
