I get concerned at times with younger generations not being exposed to much history of my era ('60's) and my parent's era. I have no doubts there is a concerted effort to 'dumb-down' later generations, especially with previous history. And I think this is one of the deceptions for the last days. No doubt folks in my generation were in a similar boat when we were young. But I sense there's more historical revisionism being done today.
I do know historical revisionism was a tool used by the Communist Party in my era. One of the first sources where I heard about that idea was by the British socialist author George Orwell in his book called 1984. The story in his book carried it to the extreme. Works like Farenheit 451 went further with the idea by destroying books altogether, outlawing even posession of them. In the recent movie The Book of Eli, this theme is present with the main character having the only copy of The Bible then existent, all others being destroyed on purpose after a nuclear holocaust.
What I've learned, is that the further back you go with finding a historical work, often the more reliable; not always, but more often. Go to the library and research just subject titles in pre-'80's Reader's Digests compared with subject titles in today's editions, and you'll see part of what I mean. (That might even make a good thesis for someone, correlating the difference in subject matter covered between different eras. It would reveal a progression of ideas over time.) That's one of the problems with revisionism; part of its basis is on progressive thought. If some truths sound too old-fashioned, it should be discarded for newer progressive ideas, that's the dangerous thinking.
How is revisionism applied, someone might say? One of the problems is a lack of primary sources. A primary historical source is a work by an eye-witness, someone who was there. The four Gospel Books of The Bible are primary sources for our Lord Jesus' Ministry, crucifixion and resurrection. A secondary source is once removed, like a later disciple who was told by one of Christ's Apostles. And a tertiary source is one who was told by that disciple. The further from the primary source one gets, the less accurate the story. And that's what a lot of historical works coming out today are like. A student of history becomes a professor, does research with what's available, which usually means the amount of more modern versions available are greater. A new work winds up being based on more later revisons because of not enough primary sources being available.
With a lot of school texts revisionism is worse, sometimes with no attempt to hide a lack of research into primary sources of the era.
The effect this produces is that a later generation will tend to accept the so-called authorities of the day and their views they dug up from other less modern views, with supposed clarifications of what really happenned or what the original author meant. An example would be when the U.S. Constitutional founders declared the United States as a Constitutional Republic, that word Republic somewhere gets changed to Democracy, when the meaning of those two terms are quite different. Or some start declaring the U.S. never was known as a Christian nation, when there is much proof in primary sources about the stamp of Christianity in the early history of our nation. Going back to primary source material solves much of that revisionism. The mainstream media are some of the most guilty with historical revisionism. They know most people are too lazy to go check out primary sources for themselves.
Websites like Wikipedia perfectly fit means for doing historical revisionism. I'm not saying everything on it is a lie. It's simply too easy to put up info on electronic media that gets away from hard copies of rare primary source work. Don't be deceived by that.
Why is the idea of revisonism so important to socialists who want to place theirselves over us as our benefactors and caretakers? Simple, it helps remove the past out of the minds of later generations. That way they can more easily mold a younger generation for their purpose. In other words, for the purpose of propaganda. What and how the masses think has always been important to governments and rulers. That's why so much money and time is spent on studying and influencing public opinion (i.e., "political correctness"). Have you noticed those little info tidbits of stats in newspapers of how many like this or dislike that, believe or disbelieve something, agree or disagree with some idea? What about TV shows that represent what is in good taste, or in bad taste, much of the thinking done for you?
Bottomline:
Think for yourself, do your homework, as much as you can.
I do know historical revisionism was a tool used by the Communist Party in my era. One of the first sources where I heard about that idea was by the British socialist author George Orwell in his book called 1984. The story in his book carried it to the extreme. Works like Farenheit 451 went further with the idea by destroying books altogether, outlawing even posession of them. In the recent movie The Book of Eli, this theme is present with the main character having the only copy of The Bible then existent, all others being destroyed on purpose after a nuclear holocaust.
What I've learned, is that the further back you go with finding a historical work, often the more reliable; not always, but more often. Go to the library and research just subject titles in pre-'80's Reader's Digests compared with subject titles in today's editions, and you'll see part of what I mean. (That might even make a good thesis for someone, correlating the difference in subject matter covered between different eras. It would reveal a progression of ideas over time.) That's one of the problems with revisionism; part of its basis is on progressive thought. If some truths sound too old-fashioned, it should be discarded for newer progressive ideas, that's the dangerous thinking.
How is revisionism applied, someone might say? One of the problems is a lack of primary sources. A primary historical source is a work by an eye-witness, someone who was there. The four Gospel Books of The Bible are primary sources for our Lord Jesus' Ministry, crucifixion and resurrection. A secondary source is once removed, like a later disciple who was told by one of Christ's Apostles. And a tertiary source is one who was told by that disciple. The further from the primary source one gets, the less accurate the story. And that's what a lot of historical works coming out today are like. A student of history becomes a professor, does research with what's available, which usually means the amount of more modern versions available are greater. A new work winds up being based on more later revisons because of not enough primary sources being available.
With a lot of school texts revisionism is worse, sometimes with no attempt to hide a lack of research into primary sources of the era.
The effect this produces is that a later generation will tend to accept the so-called authorities of the day and their views they dug up from other less modern views, with supposed clarifications of what really happenned or what the original author meant. An example would be when the U.S. Constitutional founders declared the United States as a Constitutional Republic, that word Republic somewhere gets changed to Democracy, when the meaning of those two terms are quite different. Or some start declaring the U.S. never was known as a Christian nation, when there is much proof in primary sources about the stamp of Christianity in the early history of our nation. Going back to primary source material solves much of that revisionism. The mainstream media are some of the most guilty with historical revisionism. They know most people are too lazy to go check out primary sources for themselves.
Websites like Wikipedia perfectly fit means for doing historical revisionism. I'm not saying everything on it is a lie. It's simply too easy to put up info on electronic media that gets away from hard copies of rare primary source work. Don't be deceived by that.
Why is the idea of revisonism so important to socialists who want to place theirselves over us as our benefactors and caretakers? Simple, it helps remove the past out of the minds of later generations. That way they can more easily mold a younger generation for their purpose. In other words, for the purpose of propaganda. What and how the masses think has always been important to governments and rulers. That's why so much money and time is spent on studying and influencing public opinion (i.e., "political correctness"). Have you noticed those little info tidbits of stats in newspapers of how many like this or dislike that, believe or disbelieve something, agree or disagree with some idea? What about TV shows that represent what is in good taste, or in bad taste, much of the thinking done for you?
Bottomline:
Think for yourself, do your homework, as much as you can.
