
History Is Written by the Losers (2016) - admp
http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2016/11/history-is-written-by-losers.html
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vezycash
How about when the winner creates an official version of history? My own
country took easy way out by banning history from being taught in secondary
schools in an attempt to cover one huge blotch. And replaced History classes
with what's essentially patriotism with a fancy name.

They made previously compulsory subjects: Biology and Economics optional but
this basically pointless subject IS compulsory for entry into tertiary
institutions.

History classes have been reintroduced recently but the textbooks are comical.

China is rewriting history in real time with its media and internet
censorship.

Summary: I'll revise this title: History is Written by the Losers Unless the
Winners Have Something to Hide

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lupire
The article is highlighting some exceptions to the usual rule.

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DFHippie
I was surprised not to see a mention of the Lost Cause narrative of the
American Civil War.

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gwern
Are there any great historians of the South who push the Lost Cause while
being acknowledged as great, on the same level as Machiavelli, Thucydides, or
Sima Qian? If there aren't, then it's not an example and so there is no point
in mentioning it.

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DFHippie
Machiavelli isn't mentioned in the article, so I assume you are including the
comments, and this is what I was referring to as well. The thesis is "history
is written by the losers". In the comments other examples are brought forward,
including Machiavelli and Churchill. The Dunning School narrative is a
prominent example of this, and is arguably more apt than these other examples
because that is precisely its main thrust: to glorify the losers and denigrate
the winners.

Besides which, "whoever is mentioned needs to be as great as these three" is
your own special rule for which only you are the judge, which is not a
particularly convincing argument to anyone but yourself.

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gwern
> Besides which, "whoever is mentioned needs to be as great as these three" is
> your own special rule for which only you are the judge, which is not a
> particularly convincing argument to anyone but yourself.

If Tanner had meant 'any random historian', he would have said so and used
them (and also disagreed with the example I provided of Machiavelli, who is a
famous example of this trope). He used the most relevant examples, like Sima
Qian and Thucydides, who he writes about extensively elsewhere, and note by
the way the context here of the Thucydides Roundtable. It is a basic fact of
linguistics that you choose examples to be as central and relevant as possible
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle)).
Nor am I sold on the Dunning example. It may be well known to you, but it's
not that famous, and Dunning wasn't even from or educated in the South, much
less was involved in the Civil War or Reconstruction in any way as a loser.

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dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011872)

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cryptica
The other thing is that winners don't experience reality.

Success doesn't teach you anything. It just makes your life easier and this
ease can give people false confidence.

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canjobear
> Success doesn't teach you anything

I can’t think of any sense in which this is true

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ksdale
I think an illustrative example would be certain young professional athletes
who struggle when they reach the level where everyone is as good of an athlete
as they are. Throughout their amateur careers, they excelled by being a far
better natural athlete than everyone else, and may have not learned as much in
the way of strategy and tactics because they could win regardless.

I think another example could be very smart kids who breeze through school on
raw intelligence and struggle when they reach something slightly beyond their
natural abilities because they've never learned how to deal with difficult
subjects.

I don't think most success is this way, but I believe it can be.

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huherto
"History is written by the winners" I hate this quote because it is often used
to argue a point without having to provide any other facts. Just saying that
is sufficient to invalidate a whole narrative.

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cttet
It doesn't not to have fact to be supported. Is can be simply a redifinition
of winners, as who get to rewrite and distribute history.

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jhoechtl
My mother tongue is not englisch. Does

> We say that history is written by the winners. That is sometimes true. We
> have no Carthaginian accounts of their war with Rome; few historians today
> have much sympathy for Hitler.

mean, that WWII history is written by the winners or loosers? Because as an
Austria an least in can intensely confirm that the history I perceive is not
written by the loosers.

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dropit_sphere
In that context, the author is giving examples of history being written by tue
winners.

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cttet
Haven't read the article, but the title is quite an argument. So the Nazis
will write the history, according to the title? Or the author redifined the
meaning of losers?

