Mehring
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch
One problem with the "all history is biased" take is that it often assumes some sort of equality in level of bias, intent, goals, and impact. While I do agree that one should read all history critically, to assume that since all history is biased one must treat them the same way is naive. In a way, to get way off topic here, this is the problem of recent themese in social sciences, taking a good idea "all history must be read critically" and then running with it to an illogical extreme "since it is all biased, we can pick and choose our own versions of what is right."
Memoirs from an unrepentant facsist, supporter of Hitler, etc. will be biased. A Western Allied wartime leader's memoirs will be biased. I do think that to equate a level of bias, or to say they can somehow be treated the same way is rather shallow.
Yes, an equality of bias implies essentially that history is beyond comprehension, unknowable, since all source material is inherently flawed. Such a view is the bedrock of scepticism which advances understanding no more than uncritical adoption or acceptance of others' writings or ideas. But is it a case of "either, or"?
In my view understanding of history, or anything for that matter, can never be more than an approximation of reality, never absolute. A critical reading of history and sources from multiple views and interests will only make possible a more accurate, perhaps very accurate, approximation. The views expressed by the protagonists of history are given meaning by contextualising them in the material conditions in which they lived and the interests, often conflicting, that they served.
Should we give up because absolute truth is unobtainable? I'd rather not, knowledge continues to deepen.
@ sillyflower
We don't have to agree on history to fight a battle.
What you're saying is exactly the sort of received wisdom I refered to in an earlier post. It flies around unchallenged until it becomes incontrovertible truth which many will find offensive to dispute. But on any level, closer inspection of the facts and their circumstances does not support it. It turns out to be self-serving patriotic myth.
It was the United States which established its hegemony over our part of the world at the end of the war, at the expense of the British and French empires. Driven by the same economic contradictions as Germany, though in somewhat different circumstances, the entry of the US into the war was, one way or another, inevitable. With its domestic markets saturated, the US and its state of the art production technology needed unhindered access to world markets, similar to Germany. The old empires stood in the way of this.
Ironically, given the British are apt to criticise Americans for their lack of subtelty, Roosevelt was able to conquer the British and French empires by siding with them. A master stroke, equalled only by the remarkably far sighted end of war settlement. In stead of plundering the conquered powers through reparations or some other means, they were rebuilt as trading partners at the same technological level as the victor and given, apart from restrictions on the movement of their national capital, the same access to world markets as the US. The idea was to establish an international economic equilibrium and it worked for 25 years odd, before beginning to collapse under the weight of trade imbalances.
Britain and France may have been among the countries that won the fighting, but they did not achieve their war aims and they did not protect the freedoms that we now rather tenuously hold on to today. Those were made possible by US economic might and policy.
@ ComradeP
Anyone can be compared to anyone, the question is what identity and difference you find in your comparison. Both are to be found comparing Hitler and Churchill.
Hitler and Churchill's countries were at different stages of development and occupied different places in the world economy. In that reality, actually largely in the contradiction between the two countries, is to be found a plausible explanation for many personal charcteristics of the individuals thrown up to lead them in that time of crisis. Illness, whether national or personal, physical or mental, can be the consequence either of external action, internal weakness, environment, or some inability to meet the organism's needs. All apply to the German national organism in that period by the shed load, much less so to Britain at that time. Therein lies the source of any great difference between the mental health of the leaders. But in their determination and coldblooded ruthlessness to defend the interests of their respective national industry and capital, they were indeed identical.
One was militarily defeated, the other outmanoeuvred.
_____________________________
“Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.”
-Leon Trotsky
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