It has been well said "that he who controls the past, controls the future." Thus not for nothing did those in revolutionary Russia and China re-write the history books. Change the past and you change society's image of itself and thus ultimately man's view of himself as an individual being.
The sense of identity that gives man his sense of a link to his fellows comes from a shared sense of history. That "we are a single people with a same general experience and we draw from that similar lessons." That is why the totalitarians tear down the statues and re-write the history books.
This is not simply an effort to show disrespect for the old regime, it is an effort to re-shape man in a chosen image. To atomize society so that the citizen feels no connection, sentimental or logical, to his fellows and thus will pledge obedience to a new authority that will provide order and identity.
Thus did figures like Hitler, Mussolini and Lenin come to power in the wake of a period of tumult in their nations, when the old order was ripped asunder and the anchors on which man connects himself to his fellow citizens evaporate. In that moment, the totalitarian steps in to offer a new identity with himself at its apex.
In a similar vein, Jospeh de Maistre wrote:
"The first and perhaps the only source of all the evils we experience is contempt for antiquity, or, what amounts to the same thing, contempt for experience: while there is no is nothing better than what is proven. The laziness and arrogant ignorance of this century cope much better with theories that cost nothing and flatter pride, than lessons in moderation and obedience that must be painfully asked of history. In all sciences, but especially in politics, the many and obscure events of which are so difficult to grasp as a whole, theory almost always is contradicted by experience.
May Eternal Wisdom send down its rays on men destined to guide the fate of others! May also the peoples of West close their ears to the voice of the sophists, and, turning their eyes away from all theoretical illusions, fix them only on those venerable laws which are rarely written, of which it is not possible to assign neither the epochs nor the authors, and which the peoples did not make, but which made the peoples."
Frankly, it trivializes what is happening to say that the "wokes" are the ones who want to re-write history. To be sure, they do, but as likely as not they are themselves unaware that they are the intellectual heirs of what Jean Francois Revel called "the totalitarian temptation." To borrow from an even more famous quote: "If ye eat of the fruit of the tree, ye shall be as gods."
The totalitarian temptation is more to be found in the implications of the writings of Rousseau than anywhere else. He postulated that man was basically a good and moral being but that he was corrupted by society, which brought with it inequalities of wealth and power that divided man from his fellows. Those on what is called the "Left" in the West are the heirs of that tradition and "wokeism" then is merely a modern manifestation of that phenomenon.
The response to this is to be found in Edmund Burke, who wrote, "It is thus with all those who, attending only to the shell and husk of history, think they are waging war with intolerance, pride and cruelty, whilst, under the color of abhorring the ill principles of antiquated parties, they are authorizing and feeding the same odious vices in different factions, and perhaps in worse."
As you say- nuance. It's something they're allergic to. Why? Well, there are many people and powers pushing for blind acceptance of socio-political doctrines, and they've been VERY effective at it, but I suspect there's more going behind the scenes than I'm aware of, particularly in light of how it's spread far beyond the US (whose cultural stew is the one I'm most familiar with).
In 1983, 90% of all American media outlets were owned by a mere fifty companies. Some people complained that that kind of consolidation made the whole system vulnerable to manipulation by powerful entities, but they were ignored. Today, that same 90% is owned by FIVE- and two of them of attempting to merge. With that kind of power over information, you can change *the flow of history*. Yes, the internet has enabled almost anyone to become a media source- but not only do most platforms have the ability to strictly control what gets posted there (forcing the real crackpots onto overcrowded platforms that lose perceived legitimacy by their mere presence), but even those that don't aren't a threat, because the sheer volume of voices ensures only the most specialized will be heard by a decent number of people, and those tend to self-segregate in an era when we no longer have to "endure" objectionable opinions. The net result is pretty predictable.
Here in the US, the Democratic party was (historically) the party of the working class, taking steps to not only improve working conditions, but curtail the power of rising ultra-powerful corporations. My great-grandfather, himself a poor immigrant who made good, supposedly once threatened to beat his children, and even grandchildren, senseless if he discovered they'd voted for a Republican. But while party allegiances and ideals shift, it's a slow process (outside of Italy, at least), and over time, the Democratic party went from representing the interests of the poor and lowly to representing the interests of the expanding educated class. The biggest push for this probably came with the huge number of former soldiers who went to college, paying for it with funds from the GI bill, and then insisting that their children (the Baby Boom generation) do the same. Since they made more money, they became bigger donors, and the party followed the rising tide. Unfortunately, the ballooning number of graduates made the value of a degree plummet, and an increasing number of dubious programs were started by various colleges (some of which were pretty dubious themselves), that have little to no real-world value. And so their political interests began to drift further and further from day-to-day reality, urged on by hucksters trying to make a quick buck.
This is why they were so blindsided by Donald Trump: they figured his candidacy was more or less a joke, and that his vocal support base being largely working-class people meant they were all bigots, since the Republican party (the Democratic leadership figured) was that of bigotry, and WE are the party of the working class. His success showed otherwise- whatever you may think of him as a politician, he had a HUGE voter turnout among the politically disenfranchised- and the hatred hasn't passed.
Obviously, the movement of ignoring reality didn't start with him (we had people calling for the destruction of Confederate statues twenty years ago), and he's hardly the most grounded political figure our country's seen in recent years, but 2016 was when they went outright insane. Advocacy began for rolling back anti-discrimination laws to hire based on race and sex began in earnest, and results following from high and Supreme court cases lead to pushing for laws that not only didn't make sense, but were clearly based in ideology, rather than fact- even POLITICAL fact.
You'd think those with a decent knowledge of history would realize that the groups that go around tearing down statues and destroying pieces of the past aren't those who become "good guys"- but then, you don't have much knowledge of history when you insist on tearing it down.
Fact is the sensitive people aren't the "woke people"
History was rewritten hundreds of years ago to pretend like these heroes, and america were perfect.
Most of them weren't and now that Americans want real history taught and not this sissified weak version to make sensitive Americans feel warm and comfy that their heroes weren't perfect.
And everyone wants to cry stop trying to teach things that show real American history good and bad😭
So who really is the real snow flakes?
The ones who can handle the whole truth about America even the parts that look bad, or the one's that can't?
âThose that hold the pen write history.â
Sometimes it isnât properly documented to begin with.
Opinion
12Opinion
We had a run-in with that here in the states. It didnât end in an ideal way. In order for everybody to be one big happy globalist family, none of us can have any individual cultural heritage. And the only way to make that happen is to erase history.
They haven't grown up enough to understand that history is written by the winners and what actually happened is likely to be far, far more nuanced and complex than they have ever read, been taught about etc etc.
They equate their immature values in one generation with what should have been the case in every generation going back 500 years. The fact they haven't worked out that that is totally unrealistic and silly says quite how immature they are.
We have a generation of intolerant, uneducated, self-righteous, incorrigible young people who think that everything is black and white.
One day, they will learn the hard way about shades of grey.
The woke are part of a cult, a mass cult, and they don't even know it. EXACTLY like dealing with people with extreme religious ideology, they think they're right about everything and try to confirm their own bias constantly.
The bulk of them don't have a day job or any hobbies... don't even know what type of music they really like. I bet they're fun at parties. lolz.
Because theyâre revolutionaries who want to remake the world in their own image. History is full of people like this. Regardless of their ideology, history is written by the victor and in order to be the victor you have to destroy.
What happened in the past either positive or negative should be a learning experience moving forward but with the far left no matter what you do to improve or improvise they will always find something else negative to troll and bitch about.
Wokes tend to be savages and/or support savages, also leftists support rapeugees.
Because the left wants to destroy everything and replace it with something else. Left wing is based on revolution.
In USA they already say that math is rasist, I don't know how.
Are we rewriting books and documentaries? Or just pushing ugly racist statues off of public property?
Because theyâre heavily ignorant and brainwashed fools that were very spoiled and sheltered growing up.
Woke people need to do that to make themself look good, and they can't stand beibg wrong or have people disagreeing with them.
They are cringe attention seekers.
Because theyre sensitive pussies
