I think that we have a responsibility to help people who can't help themselves. For instance: Japan invaded and conquered most of East Asia in the 30s, and abused the occupants of their new empire horribly. There was the Rape of Nanking, and the massacre of the Chinese in Singapore, and the massive sexual enslavement of foreign women into "comfort houses," and the disgusting treatment of POWS, and... the list goes on. Japanese war methods were atrocious, and America was completely justified for its taking up the sword against Imperial Japan. As for Germany, well, of course theres the Holocaust and such. Mass slaughter of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Communists, gays, etc. Although, the territories that Germany invaded had actually belonged to the country before WWI, and were torn away with the Versailled Treaty. So it wasnt so much the territorial aggression, as the humanitarian issues, that justified America's war in Europe against the Nazis.
Should Europe have declared war with the US for its genocide against the Natives or enslavement of Africans? Should the US declare war with Saudi Arabia?
"Wars are, of course, as a rule, to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace." - Theodore Roosevelt
This is NOT a history question, and you should complain at the highest possible level. It might be acceptable as a philosophy question. History should be taught objectively. It is not about right and wrong, but about the establishment of facts, or the assessment of probabilities based upon reasoned argument. The word "justified" has no more place in history than in quantum mechanics. The word "justified" is best left to typesetting!
Oh, wow, ....are you ever wrong!!! History is simply the fact of what happened. When someone "interprets" those facts is when the problems begin. Who interprets it? To what end? And what's his/her bias? When you accept someone else's interpretation of history, that's your first big mistake. It's downhill all the way after that. Baron Max
Without getting too philosophical, who establishes the facts? How are these facts established? At what point does an objective analysis of all available "facts" become history as opposed to conjecture? I do not mean to be argumentative, I sincerely would like to know. It seems the best interpreters of fact become historians, though they may not necessarily be accurate as history is debated ad infinitum.
Studying history is more than just memorizing names and dates and events. The whole purpose of studying history is to learn about cause-and-effect, and why things happened, and how they could have been avoided, and what to do when similar problems face you in the future. It has to be applicable to be of any use to anybody. For instance, I could tell you that McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war on Spain on 11 April 1898, but thats not any use unless you understand that the reason he did this is that if he had not asked COngress for a declaration of war, they would have gone ahead and done it without him, and he would have lost the respect of the people and the legislators, and his mandate to govern, so his only option was to ask for war. See, if you only know the facts and such, its no use learning it. But if you comprehend the how and the why, you can learn a bit about politics and government and foreign relations, etc. (That wasnt the best example, but it was all I could think of right now).
Facts are facts, nothing more, nothing less. If one doesn't have the facts, then it's just supposition or speculation ...which is far worse than presenting no facts at all. You're confusing historical facts with historical editorials or historical speculation. Historians are human, with human frailties and human biases. To believe historians, without knowing the historical facts, is believing in simple human speculations. Baron Max
No, you're confusing historical facts with historical speculation! Can you prove that supposition or allegation? How can you or any historian know what McKinley's reasons were UNLESS they were specifically written donw in records? See? You're confusing historical facts with historical speculation. Baron Max
So any event or period in time in which we do not have solid, reliable facts ceases to be history? In other words, we can only accept as history what is observable? This scientific method approach seems inane as time is only observable by human senses at once. It can not be repeated to verify the authenticity of our individual perspectives. When you wrote, "History is simply the fact of what happened" did you mean history is made up of historical fact, editorial, and speculation?
No, of course not. The historical facts remain, they just haven't been found yet or perhaps never will be found. But that doesn't change the fact that there were factual things that happened. "History" is a chronological list of events that happened. "Historical Speculation" is what someone does, using as many facts as possible, to reconstruct what MIGHT have happened. One can use written reports, recordings, films, and any and all kinds of different things to try to find the facts of historical events. But speculation is not, and should not be, one of those methods. No. History is facts, plain and simple. Then someone with human weaknesses, human biases, axes to grind, etc., speculates on what MIGHT have happened. Those two are completely different things. You seem to feel that speculation is somehow "history"? How did you arrive at such a disasterous conclusion? If I find/discover the bones of a Neanderthal woman with a stone spearhead and shaft lying next to her, should I immediately leap to the conclusion that all Neanderthal women carried spears into battle and on the hunt? See? That's what you seem to be wanting "historians" to do. How can you not see that it's not only wrong, it's fuckin' stupid in the extreme?! Baron Max
I haven't arrived at any conclusions. This is why I am asking the questions. I have seen your definitions of historical fact and historical speculation. I inferred from the adjectival context that they are both part and parcel of history itself. I don't want historians to do anything. But to use your example, even you seem to have made the assumption that the spear belonged to the woman, though the evidence is circumstantial. Should this find be historically cataloged as "Neanderthal female remains found" and "Stone spearhead and shaft found in close proximity"?
I should prefer to say that it needs to be contextualised to be understood. The word "interpreted" is subject to different interpretations. What must be avoided is not uncertainty, because that is often inevitable, but value judgements. Back in Victorian times, zoologists were given to approving or disapproving the behaviours of different animal species. Monogamous species were regarded as morally superior. Perhaps someone remembers the zoologist who could hardly contain himself over the slothfuless of sloths. That now seems rather ridiculous; scientifically absurd. However, history teaching all to often still abounds with praise or indignation, instead of an acceptance of what is "the way of the world". When I see a history question about "justification", I suspect a course contaminated by moral or political prejudice. In the liberal climate that so often predominates in the classroom and in academia, I suspect it is often regarded as morally superior to have been a victim than to have survived.
I think they quit writing "history books" in the early 50s. After that, we're overwhelmed with biased accounts and judgemental interpretations. And, again, to me that's not history, but editorialization instead. Baron Max
Umm Baron Max... if you're going to say history is nothing more than unbiased, nonspeculational facts, then history does not exist. For instance, going back to the McKinley and the Spanish-American War example, the only way you can know for certain that war was declared is by reading it somewhere or talking to an eyewitness. So where do you go? The newspapers of the time, certainly, would have recorded the fact that war was declared on the Spanish on 25 April 1898, but newspaper articles are written by reporters, who undeniably have their biases. Whatever happened, the reporters were writing down their own thoughts and speculations about the event (yellow journalism, remember). Or you could read about it in the diary of President William McKinley or a Congressman, but you're still getting your information from a human source, a source that writes nothing other than speculation - you can't ever avoid bias, no matter how hard you try.
If you say never you're going to have to defend pacifism to the point of doing nothing as your nation is overrun, your women are raped, and everything you hold dear is taken from you. Your going to have to show that it is better to stand by and allow the murder of your wife and children than to dare raise a hand to defend them. Tough argument to make. Any reasonable philosophy includes a right to self defense. Now, to justify your war (any war), you just need to show how it's actually self defense.
History is the fact that war was declared and that the war actually started and people were killed. You're just trying to cover up the essentials of history by point out the difficulties of recording history ...no one said that unbiased historical writing is easy! Speculation is all the other crap about why or what caused it or such bullshit. When McKinley wrote in his diary about something, that was history ...he actually DID write something in his diary. WHAT he wrote is also history. But whether or not what he wrote was true ....is speculation! The problems with history today is that we rely on old, historical speculation in order to review or write about history today. And that's still historical speculation. Hell, it's not much different to some historical fiction. The big problem is the loss of the idea of facts ...we seem to think that the "facts" are what the news anchors report. We've lost the idea, the principle, of factual information. Baron Max
