A Historian's Grievances
Originally posted to iFunny on 09/23/2023 (expanded). [Oct 30, 2023]
I mentioned in my previous post, as well as my earlier Guns, Germs, and Steel post, some of the methods historians use to manipulate history. Being selectively vague or overly specific when defining things is one common way that historians, and frankly academics in many other fields, manipulate things. However, it is not the only way.
Probably the most common way historians manipulate history is simply by not engaging with the actual history itself. What I mean is most historians don’t really engage with primary sources much anymore, it’s mostly secondary sources that they write about. Contemporary history is all meta-history or historiography. When the do engage with primary sources, it is invariably through a predetermined conclusion. Many times, when you actually engage with primary sources yourself, you will first be confronted with an editor/publisher’s foreword that tries to massage your opinion before you can even engage with the sources. I’ll give some more specific examples of what I mean in a bit.
Another issue is that many of the primary sources are ludicrously hard to find. I’m sure most of you have seen some cool NS imagery or something like that on iFunny or somewhere else, and then later when you tried to look it up you just couldn’t find it on Google or anything. Something similar occurs with historians where a lot of them either don’t cite their source(s) at all, or it’s vaguely sourced and therefore hard to track, or the source itself is locked away in some private collection or archive across the globe that makes it basically impossible to find without a personal connection. I’ll provide examples of this as well.
Finally, there is also a huge issue with accurately tracing sources, because many historians don’t even bother to “fact check” their sources to see if they actually are what they say they are. This is probably the most common with touchy subjects like the Holobunga, or really anything violent. Again, examples to come.
Now obviously I’m not saying that it’s intentional every time something like this happens (maybe they are just stupid or maybe they just assumed their audience would recognize what they are talking about so they didn’t source it), but it’s a little ridiculous how frequently these issues pop up, even among seasoned historians. And of course, the rose of “pop historians” has done nothing to help this either.
The Problem With Secondary Sources
I can’t tell you all how many times I’ve been forced to incorporate secondary sources into my own papers. Even if I’m writing on a topic that has literally no relevant secondary sources, I’m still made to include secondary literature (even if it’s only tangentially related). For example, I once wrote a paper about the philosophical connections between Sir Francis Bacon and St. Augustine and some historical links between the two, and I was made to include about half a dozen secondary sources, even though this is a topic that literally nobody has ever written about before (I checked) but I digress. Obviously, once you’ve finished your schooling, you won’t be forced to include them anymore but by the time you’ve completed your bachelor’s, and especially a master’s or PhD, it’s going to be second nature to you. Plus, you basically HAVE to refer to contemporary scholars in your work if you want to gain traction in the field (this is basically the academic equivalent of including big iFunny accounts in your posts in hopes of receiving a repub). And of course, it isn’t just a matter of including the secondary sources, but actually analyzing them as well.
What exactly is the point of it all? Sure you want to make sure you aren’t writing anything redundant, but also why care? If you write the same thing as someone else, and it isn’t plagiarism, isn’t that just proving the validity of the analysis? In STEM this would be called reproducibility, in history it’s called being unoriginal. Historians are almost universally Empiricists so you would expect them to larp as scientists as much as possible, and they usually do except for this one part, but anyways I digress.
More worryingly though is that you usually end up with these kind of recursive works. For example, instead of writing: “The ancient Romans practices this ritual on the 20th of August.” and citing some Roman liturgical text, historians usually write something like: “As professor Jones notes: the ancient Romans practices this ritual on the 20th of August.” You end up relying on the credibility of other historians instead of the credibility of primary sources, which may not seem inherently problematic but I will show you a specific example of how this could become an issue in a second. Not to mention that now you need to read professor Jones’ work in order to get the full context.
I’m sure you all have seen this meme (or some variation) posted by a smelly latinx before:
However this meme is literally entirely false. Caesar never said this about the Britons. I will give a TL:DR here but, if you want to read a full breakdown of it, you can find it here on this Reddit thread (r/badhistory isn’t actually half bad when it isn’t jacking off the DEBOOOONKING “Nazi misinformation” or whatever). In fact this particular meme is ITSELF a misattribution from its predecessor. This meme combines what the original meme (mis)attributed to Caesar and Cicero.
The most recent “academic” reference of this source is in The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925.1 Short aside, this book was written by Mia Bay, who is a dysgenic mixed race “academic” that focuses on basketball American history. Just thought you would like to know that. Bay is, however, citing a much earlier work by William Wells Brown titled The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements.2 We’re all thinking the same thing about the title so I’m not even going to bother making the joke. That book is pretty funny though.
Brown never bothered to cite where he got this quote from in his book (lol) and Bay never called him out on it in her work (though it should be noted that she was writing a historiography so she didn’t actually care if what he said was true just that he thought it was true, regardless she should have noted this). Eventually it made it onto the internet (allegedly first on /pol/ according to the aforementioned Reddit thread) and now we have latinx running wild with it. Neither Caesar nor Cicero ever actually said this, like I already said. Caesar never said anything of the sort, and this is as close as Cicero ever got:
Here is the other news. From my brother's letters I hear that Caesar shows signs of extraordinary affection for me, and this is confirmed by a very cordial letter from Caesar himself. The result of the war in Britain is looked forward to with anxiety. For it is proved that the approach to the island is guarded with astonishing masses of rock, and it has been ascertained too that there is not a scrap of silver in the island, nor any hope of booty except from slaves; but I don't fancy you will find any with literary or musical talents among them.3
The worst thing Cicero says is that he doubts you will find any artists among the Britons. A far cry from “the ugliest, most stupid race I ever saw”. Now you can see why this becomes a problem.
First, Brown just made up a quote from Caesar and then he grossly misinterpreted a quote from Cicero. Neither claims were sourced.
Second, Mia Bay quotes Brown in her book without ever correcting him. Again, you could say this is outside of what she was writing about, but Brown thinking something wrong about White people provides a much more interesting narrative than if he were actually correct.
Third, 4Chan pseud pop historian on /pol/ (he was probably latinx btw) copies the quotes.
Fourth, some anon (probably a latinx on the ‘Booru or something) makes le epic Anglophobic (Britphobic?) meme that butchers what the 4Chan anon already messed up.
A minimum of four people (one of which is an accredited historian) had to play this game of telephone that led to a grossly misrepresented Caesar’s thoughts on the native Britons. All of these people were wrong and these two memes probably influenced thousands of people (maybe even millions) literally just because Brown is a moron.
Now I hear you saying that I strayed from academia by looking at those two memes. Ok sure. What about this then:
In October 1939 Hitler signed a document, more an authorization than an order, that had been prepared by the KdF.
[…]
Typed on white stationery, with the German eagle and swastika as well as the name “Adolf Hitler” printed on the top left, the authorization read:
”Berlin, 1 Sept. 1939
Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. med. Brandt are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the competence of certain physicians, designated by name, so that patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted mercy death after a discerning diagnosis.
(signed) A. Hitler”
The original was kept in a safe at the KdF; copies were shown to various prospective collaborators. One copy was later sent to the Reich minister of justice, Franz Gürtner. The original and all but one copy were destroyed when the war ended. The photocopy sent to Gürtner survived, with a handwritten notation:
”Transmitted to me by Bouhler on 27.8.40
(signed) Dr. Gürtner.”4
Yes, according to contemporary historians, the legal basis for the Aktion T4 program is the original handwritten note from Adolf Hitler saying you can euthanize the disabled, and a single copy. Because, aside from the original and one copy, all of them were destroyed. The T4 program is supposed to be the testbed for gas chambers as a method for killing people. No further comment.
The Problem With Historiography
Historiography is usually pretty stupid. Sometimes it’s done well, but other times it’s basically just an excuse for revisionism, especially when you combine it with some of the other tactics I have mentioned and will mention. For example, “The Lost Cause Myth” is entirely predicated on the idea that the CSA seceded because they just couldn’t part with their slaves. Historiographies were done and they came to the conclusion that slavery was practices in the CSA and it was ended when they lost the Civil War, therefore the main cause of succession and if you disagree then you’re a “Lost Causer”.
Now to be fair some of them will also refer to the following speech by the vice president of the CSA:
Our new government['s] [...] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth5
To this I would direct one to the interesting trip to Britain and France made by one Duncan F. Kenner on behalf of Jefferson Davis, in order to offer the emancipation of slaves in return for Britain and/or France’s aid.6
Anywho, the “Lost Cause Myth” basically never covers the topic of Southern Abolitionism, the aforementioned mission Duncan Kenner was sent on, or any of the dozens of reasons why Southerners had to secede from the Union. Anyways, I’ll stop beating the dead horse (this is a topic for another, much longer, discussion anyways).
The point is someone did a historiography of the Civil War that went in assuming the Civil War was about slavery and, as they say: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. I specifically blame James M. McPherson and his book: For Cause and Comrades, specifically this section:
only 20 percent of the sample of 429 Southern soldiers explicitly voiced proslavery convictions in their letters or diaries. As one might expect, a much higher percentage of soldiers from slaveholding families than from nonslaveholding families expressed such a purpose: 33 percent, compared with 12 percent. Ironically, the proportion of Union soldiers who wrote about the slavery question was greater, as the next chapter will show. There is a ready explanation for this apparent paradox. Emancipation was a salient issue for Union soldiers because it was controversial. Slavery was less salient for most Confederate soldiers because it was not controversial. They took slavery for granted as one of the Southern 'rights' and institutions for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it.7
He just assumes that all of them were fighting for slavery without ever substantiating the claim. In fact he admits, in the same paragraph no less, that only 20% of his sample voice pro-slavery opinions. It’s circular reasoning, plain and simple. Ok seriously I will stop beating the dead horse, he is very dead now.
Another excellent example of what I’m talking about are the interviews of former slaves that were conducted by the Works Project Administration. You can find them all online now, but they come with a lengthy preface (it’s in multiple parts, that link is just the first) that tries to convince you that all of the people interviewed basically didn’t know what they were talking about. It tries to say that these slaves were more likely to tell White interviewers that slavery was good than if the interviewer was black, which IS a true statement (26% compared to 39%), but it also plainly states that even of the slaves interviewed by blacks, only 39% looked back upon slavery and their former masters unfavorably. Not exactly an overwhelming majority like you are usually led to believe. It also says that these interviews were conducted during the Great Depression, and so many of the slaves looked back on their time in a rather rosy light due to the current hardships. Uh, duh? Because it WAS better????? That doesn’t mean slaves have to say their master was great, just that it was better, and yet they still often speak highly of their former masters (lol). In fact, the sheer detail provided by many of the interviewees makes it hard to imagine they were lying or misremembering.
I highly recommend reading these interviews and the preface (links above) for yourself, like I said they are open access to the public and all online. Most of them aren’t very long either, and it’s very redpilling to anyone who is Dixiephobic.
The Problem With Sourcing
Good sourcing is also apparently surprisingly hard. Pop historians have basically no ability to source anything at all, and any historical materials made for mainstream consumption (popular biographies, web encyclopedias, etc.) all have abysmal sourcing that you would expect to see from a hungover frat dude in his 100 level US history course. Maybe the forgot to include the edition of the book, or which translation it was, or what page number a quote was from. Other times they just include an image with no source at all. Or maybe the source isn’t actually the source. Sometimes the “source” will have a description of what the image depicts and it’s relation to the article but it can also just be flat wrong.
This is also a huge problem with those online quote websites. Most of the quotes are super condensed paraphrases or just flat out fake, and not one of them actually bothers to cite the work it’s from. Seriously, go look up some leading Nazi on like A-Z Quotes or something and look at how many quotes sound like they were written by a 4th grader. It’s unreal.
I would like to note that the diaries this quote is allegedly from were found in Russia in 2013.8 I would also like to note that all of the diaries and papers allegedly authored by Himmler were found in archives located in either Russia or Tel Aviv. I am highly skeptical of their authenticity, but I can’t even read the diaries anyways so yeah.
But this can also be a problem with seasoned historians. You might expect a footnote at the end of the sentence to cite whatever they referenced and it isn’t there, and now you can’t find it. Part of it may be because the use of “Ibid.” is kind of frowned upon for some reason (very stupid, I don’t know why) and so if you cite the same book twice several pages apart you may not include a footnote a second time, but it’s not always clear to the reader that you’re citing the same thing. Even then though, a lot of the veteran historians will also just expect you to know what they’re talking about and so they won’t cite it even though they should. Very annoying.
A good example of this would be: “Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar (expanded edition)” by Mel Gordon (very redpilling book on the degeneracy of Weimar btw). The sources from this are all almost entirely from the author’s private collection, which is not open to the public. Since these sources are mostly images, it isn’t a huge problem because the fact that they are in the book is proof enough that they exist, but it does still make it very difficult to do research into particular topics covered in the book. It also does not prove that the pictures actually depict what they author says they depict. He doesn’t even bother to footnote a lot of other things either, so if it isn’t an image you’re kind of just left in the dark as to where you can find more information. He makes vague references to newspaper articles, statistics about prostitution, and includes quotes without a source. If you aren’t already familiar with the quote then you’ll have a hard time finding the original source. He includes a “sources: section at the end of the book, but you basically just have to intuit what source matches what claim since he didn’t bother to footnote or index. This is all kind of stupid for a book marketed as a sourcebook.
How many children were actually pressed into sexual service/slavery is unknown. Magnus Hirschfeld reported on once such lucrative operation on Alexandrienstrasse, where a “rapacious harem” of 14-yer-old Russia girls “lewdly beguiled” wealthy Cavaliers from Berlin’s industrial elite. The house was, remarkably, shut down by the municipal court after a sensational trial shrouded in political intrigue and late-night government machinations.9
If anyone knows the actual primary source for the above quote, I would really appreciate it.
The Problem With “Fact Checking”
The poor “fact checking” for sources among academics is frankly ridiculous. I’ve already told you about how William Wells Brown flopped with his Caesar/Cicero thing and how Mia Bay apparently didn’t catch it. However, most of it revolves around things like WW2 and slavery (for obvious reasons) so most of us are familiar with the big examples, but I’ll go over the highlights for the uninitiated.
Stolen Soul by Bernard Holstein (real name: Bernard Brougham) (sorry couldn't find this on Archive.org). Man this book was something. The TL:DR of it is that it was, for years, believed to be a 100% authentic work with completely true, factual, information in it. This was believed until the brother of the author said it was all fake. Literally nobody would have known if he said nothing. Over the course of four years he had given his testimony to the University of Western Australia, and his story had been viewed by a number of historians, and subsequently greenlit for publication. It made it to shelves for a few months before the brother called the university, and an investigation was launched. This is particularly hilarious when you read the following excerpt from the book:
But we never gave in, not really; there was that one time just before liberation but other than that we were strong. We would see the boys they put on those masturbating machines just drop, just die, right there in front of us. The absolute cruelty was beyond our belief.10
The book also claims that he lived with a pack of wolves for some time, which is a surprisingly common trope amongst Holocaust memoirs. This brings me to my next example: Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years by Misha Defonseca (real name: Monique de Wael). This book was an instant bestseller in Europe, when it was published in 1997, and it even had a movie made about it called Survivre avec les loups in 2007. Her story was so successful and so influential that she was also slated to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show.11 That is, until she announced that her story was fictional in 2008. Crazy stuff.
The same can be said about a lot of Holobunga fiction, such as turning youpins into soap, lampshades, furniture, etc. Or the infamous roller coasters of death.12 Or the idea that Josef Mengele was anything other than a run of the mill camp physician.13 Most of you already know this, but Nazi records place not emphasis on Mengele at all (he works the same shifts as any other camp physician and is never noted as having a significant role), Holobunga “survivor” testimonies on Mengele are literally always wildly inconsistent with not only accepted history about Mengele, but also with other testimonies. Mengele himself also never wrote about any of the alleged experiments he did. What really happened is that the US government made him a boogeyman after WW2 for propaganda purposes.
Finally, photographs or videos of armed conflict in general are basically always misattributed. I’m sure you all remember that scandal where ABC used shooting range footage from Kentucky to report on supposed conflict in Syria.14 Similar things happen with contemporary conflicts all the time, including with video game footage.15 The same thing happens with old war photos among historians. Photograph depicting dead people in German occupied Eastern Europe taken by the British is labled as “Victims of the Holocaust” even though there are dead individuals in German uniforms in the photo. Intellectually lazy or malicious, who knows. Result is the same.
Conclusion
I just want to reiterate that pop historians are the worst offenders here, but it’s not just them. The rise of YouTube “historians” really opened the floodgates for some random moron to read off the Wikipedia page of some event and “inform” people, even when most of what they say is wrong. But it didn’t start with them either. A lot of journalists and just amateur historians in general have written extensively in history. Many biographies are written by amateurs, and the Weimar Sourcebook I mentioned earlier was written by a journalist and yet it is basically THE book for information on sex in Weimar. But again, I cannot stress enough that even “professionals” make mistakes ALL THE TIME, especially with hot topics like slavery or the Holocaust.
If we “know” that Sally Hemmings stood by holding the candle that illuminated Jefferson’s desk as he penned the Bill of Rights, we need to realign our notion of fundamental freedoms.16
Sorry Ms. Morgan, but Thomas Jefferson did NOT in fact write the Bill of Rights, that was James Madison. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Also THOMAS JEFFERSON DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH SALLY HEMMINGS!!!!!!!17 Swarth “historians” man…..
I myself have been gaslit by professors who insist that the memoirs of people like Luigi Barzini, which discuss the issues of degeneracy in Weimar are exaggerated, or that the slaves in the WPA narratives were misremembering.18 Now I’m certainly aware that memoirs and oral histories are subject to the fallible human memory, but when you have hundreds of people saying the EXACT SAME THING you have to consider the possibility that they might be correct. That is the difference between the WPA narratives and the Mengele “victim” testimonies; WPA narratives all agree with each other while the Mengele ones do not.
Bernard Holstein. Stolen Soul: A True Story Of Courage And Survival (Self Published, 2004), 117.