ITT, Hitler isn't real

[Structural Integrity]

Originally Posted by Sunday Telegraph

British people are ignorant of some of the most important events and people in this country's history, a new survey has revealed.

As well as an inability to recall the dates of military victories and the personalities involved, there is also huge confusion about which characters and battles are fact and fiction.

One in 10 of the 2,000 adults questioned in the survey commissioned by Blenheim Palace thought that Adolf Hitler was not a real person, and half were convinced that King Arthur existed.

Almost three-quarters did not know that the Battle of Blenheim took place 300 years ago, even though it is one of the greatest British military triumphs. Fewer than one in eight had heard of John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, who led the British to victory against the French and for whom the palace was built by the nation as a reward.

A quarter of the adults were unsure whether the Battle of Trafalgar was a real historical event, and more than half thought that Horatio Nelson commanded British troops at the battle of Waterloo. Similarly, one in seven Britons did not know that the Battle of Hastings was real.

The lack of knowledge was greeted with alarm by historians. Tristram Hunt, the historian and television presenter, said: "Perhaps more worrying is the apparent merging of fact and fiction. There has always been myth and legend in history, but these findings show that there is a real need for clear understanding. There is a clear challenge here for academics to engage with a popular audience."

John Hoy, the chief executive of Blenheim Palace - the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill - said that he was amazed that so few people had heard of the battle in whose honour the palace was named.

"By defeating the forces of Louis XIV in the War of the Spanish Succession, John Churchill changed the history of Britain and Europe. It was such a momentous event that it led Queen Anne to bestow Blenheim Palace on Churchill as a gift from 'a grateful nation'.

"The problem for many people is that they associate history with dry and dusty dates and facts. Once they realise that history is about people - the way we used to live and the way we live now - it becomes more relevant and exciting."

Researchers also found that respondents struggled with modern history. One in five believed that Harold Wilson was prime minister during the Second World War. Confusion about Britain's historical figures was laid at the door of Hollywood films, such as Braveheart, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Almost half the adults surveyed believed that Sir William Wallace was not a real person, and a quarter were convinced that Robin Hood was.

One in 20 thought that Conan the Barbarian, a character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, was a genuine person. Some also believed that Lord Edmund Blackadder and Xena Warrior Princess, characters from television series, were real.

Children are similarly ignorant of British history. Thirty per cent of 11 to 18-year-olds in a recent survey thought that Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of Hastings. A similar proportion did not know in which century the First World War took place.

However, Peter Furtado, the editor of History Today magazine, said that history teaching had been praised by inspectors as excellent. "There has been a greater emphasis in schools on dates and historical timelines," he said.

"In a way, there is just too much history and the most we can hope is that pupils are inspired to learn more and continue with history study.

"People have always been inspired by fiction to learn history. Many historians talk about the fact that a rollicking good read or film caught their imagination. It means that some people are inspired to find out more. Inevitably though, some people will get the wrong end of the stick."

Blenheim Palace, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, was designed by the architect Sir John Vanbrugh and built between 1705 and 1722 in honour of the British victory over Louis XIV of France at Blenheim, a small village on the banks of the River Danube, in 1704.

OK, I can imagine people not knowing dates of battles or some vague figures leading things, but believing Hitler wasn't real isn't quite normal... right?

[MrL_JaKiri]

Quite a lot of that is bollocks. It's like mathematicians complaining that most people don't know what the poisson distribution looks like.

These things aren't a part of the curriculum outside university, and there is little incentive to know it, so why worry?

[Structural Integrity]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Quite a lot of that is bollocks. It's like mathematicians complaining that most people don't know what the poisson distribution looks like.

These things aren't a part of the curriculum outside university, and there is little incentive to know it, so why worry?

I kind of said that... I'm not quite into this "battle here", "famous dude there" kind of things either. But 10% believes Hitler is fake... that's quite a lot, no?

[Leshy]

I believe a basic knowledge of at least the last 100 years of history can be reasonably expected from anyone with some form of education. And considering Adolf Hitler was probably the defining person of the 20th century for Europe, I'd say anyone doubting his existence, is highly stupid.

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Quite a lot of that is bollocks. It's like mathematicians complaining that most people don't know what the poisson distribution looks like.

These things aren't a part of the curriculum outside university, and there is little incentive to know it, so why worry?

it seems more like mathematicians complaining that people dont know the square root of 25.

[queball]

Who cares? Hitler isn't that important. History is overrated - people say "doomed to repeat blah blah blah", but if Hitler is at all relevant in any way to anything today, to someone without a history degree, I'd be surprised.

[Sandsnake]

I dig the 11-18 age bracket they used to find out about Cromwell and a specific battle. No one in their right minds uses an 11-18 demographic for anything unless they're digging for a significant shock result...

"In further news, 45% of all 11-18 year olds are virgins!"

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by queball

if Hitler is at all relevant in any way to anything today, to someone without a history degree, I'd be surprised.

*cough* Israel conflict *cough*

[queball]

Originally Posted by Leshy

*cough* Israel conflict *cough*

And that is similar in a useful way how?


Also I heard Mel Gibson denies the Holocaust happened can anyone confirm?

[Sandsnake]

Originally Posted by queball

And that is similar in a useful way how?


Also I heard Mel Gibson denies the Holocaust happened can anyone confirm?

History is useful when we learn from it. There's a reason intelligence communities hire on historians to help them predict world events..it's amazing how as unique as each human is, we still make the same stupid decisions in the same ways in extremely similar situations over and over again....

As for the Mel Gibson thing, it was his father that denies that. He also denies it being Al-Quaeda that crashed the planes into the WTC. Snopes explains in detail as per usual

[wu_trax]

you can have such polls about almost everything with equally shocking results. there are alyway some people who are either stupid or annoyed by the test / questions.

[queball]

Originally Posted by Sandsnake

History is useful when we learn from it. There's a reason intelligence communities hire on historians to help them predict world events..it's amazing how as unique as each human is, we still make the same stupid decisions in the same ways in extremely similar situations over and over again....

But how is knowing about Hitler useful to me? Does it help me that I can make up theories about how WWII appeasement is similar to <insert situation>?
At most I'd say it's useful to read professional historians talk about these things - like "The Road to Serfdom" might tell me about how tragedies can happen in a fairly modern society, about what to look out for and so on - but individual historical facts don't seem important at all.
Any anyway, being aware of who Hitler is, having an interest in history, and being a professional historian, are all hugely different.

[Ebany]

I was talking to a girl at work today and she told me she was part of a test group when she was at school and was never taught ANY history from before the second world war, which I thought was a bit poor. They've missed out a fair bit of time by ignoring all that.

But then, I guess given that everywhere isnt doing it now, they must have decided it wasnt a very good system.

[ChubbyChecker]

Originally Posted by queball

But how is knowing about Hitler useful to me? Does it help me that I can make up theories about how WWII appeasement is similar to <insert situation>?
At most I'd say it's useful to read professional historians talk about these things - like "The Road to Serfdom" might tell me about how tragedies can happen in a fairly modern society, about what to look out for and so on - but individual historical facts don't seem important at all.
Any anyway, being aware of who Hitler is, having an interest in history, and being a professional historian, are all hugely different.

Political leaders and officers in the armed forces would do well to know about Hitler.

[KaneED]

Some of my housemates didn't know who won World War I or II. And they're not stupid people either. ****ing disgraceful.

[wu_trax]

i always thought ww2 is all you learn about in history classes in uk?

[Tactitus]

I'm imagining how different this thread would be if the subjects of the survey had been Americans.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I'm imagining how different this thread would be if the subjects of the survey had been Americans.

we already had that, didnt we?

im just happy noone cares enough about germany to start a thread about how stupid people here are

[furball]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

i always thought ww2 is all you learn about in history classes in uk?

At the moment I'm in Year 13 in England (last year before going off to uni) and do History at A-Level.

Year 7- Vietnam War; 1066 and all that
Year 8- French Revolution and some other stuff...
Year 9- Industrial Revolution
Year 10- Weimar Republic + Nazi Germany, 1918-1939
Year 11- Soviet Russia, 1917-1939; The Cold War, 1945-63
Year 12- Nazi rise to power, etc, 1918-39; King Henry VIII + Cardinal Wolsey, 1509-29; Tzarist Russia, 1892-1917
Year 13- Neville Chamberlain + Anglo-German appeasement, 1918-39; US Civil Rights, 1865-1980

I think we can all see a great emphasis on Germany in the inter-world war years, as well as 20th century Russia and its relations.

So despite having an encyclopedic knowledge of Nazi Germany and 20th century Russia, ask me about any activities of the British Empire and you'll get a blank look for most of it. A sad state of affairs.

[*donkie*]

Originally Posted by KaneED

Some of my housemates didn't know who won World War I or II. And they're not stupid people either. ****ing disgraceful.

Please tell me your joking.

Christ on a bike, if I wasn't so interested in my own rights I'd say we take mass IQ results and cull all those who fall below "above average". That'll clear out the fat slags and the dumbasses.

[Dark-Strider]

/me bemoans the sad state of Intelligence of Britons.

/me now blames it all on Pikeys!

[Deffeh]

This helps my argument that people are stupid and cant be trusted to do anything more serious than tying their own shoelaces.

[Dante Hicks]

I'm tempted to agree with queball here.

While I think a general understanding of history is important, the mechanics or theory of history (judging the validity of sources for instance) seem to be more important than where Nelson died or who Napolean fought at Waterloo, etc. Teaching people not to fall into basic logical fallacies or whatever would be better time spent than on the specifics of the Eastern Front in WW2, etc.

My history education during the early years were dire. We had two or three years of solely learning about the kings/queens of England. The Tudors were done to death, for instance (pun unintended). But once again, I'm not sure it really matters what you specifically study, more how you study it. Too much details at an early age seems to be a waste though. I'd prefer kids were given more of a whistle-stop tour of world history, perhaps with them doing a project on a period/place of their choosing or somesuch.

Increasingly, as the sphere of knowledge increases, I suppose it gets harded to rationalise what we do/don't learn as kids. I'm horrified when people don't have a basic knowledge of evolution for instance, but then I'm happy to be completley ignorant on numerous other things (my understanding of physics is atrocious for instance). Does this matter? Probably not.

As I've advocated elsewhere, tell people how to learn, then let them get on with it.

[Zar]

my textbook historical knowledge is limited to what i was taught at school, and various readings out of interest here and there... however im a conspiracist, hence history, especially that in the last century, is of little relevance to me

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Zar

my textbook historical knowledge is limited to what i was taught at school, and various readings out of interest here and there... however im a conspiracist, hence history, especially that in the last century, is of little relevance to me

Surely it's of great relevence, because without it you'll just be making stuff up at random, instead of making stuff up for specific incidents.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Surely it's of great relevence, because without it you'll just be making stuff up at random, instead of making stuff up for specific incidents.

in that sense, perhaps yes it becomes relevant.

If you were trying to be funny, well you succeeded. Boss gave me a weird stare

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Zar

im a conspiracist, hence history, especially that in the last century, is of little relevance to me

Yeah, thanks for giving right-wing, pro-war, pro-Israel people a sense of moral superiority. Well done mate.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Yeah, thanks for giving right-wing, pro-war, pro-Israel people a sense of moral superiority. Well done mate.

i give them a sense of moral superiority, because their opnions differ from mine? Or because your opinions differ from mine, hence you assume that their morality has heightened in comparison to mine?

[Dante Hicks]

No, because you're a conspiracist and are willfully ignorant of history (according to yourself) thus your opponents automatically look superior.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

No, because you're a conspiracist and are willfully ignorant of history (according to yourself) thus your opponents automatically look superior.

better that you didn't include the word "moral" here.

I'd probably describe myself, as willfully dismissive of history as it is told to us in textbooks and modern day historians who write and follow the textbooks. Of course to those who subscribe to the history passed down through textbooks, and "historians", i who chooses to disregard all apparent "facts", am inferior, however to those who like me conform to a more conspiracist outlook, i am superior.

There is no question of morality here, its merely opinionated.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Zar

better that you didn't include the word "moral" here.

I'd probably describe myself, as willfully dismissive of history as it is told to us in textbooks and modern day historians who write and follow the textbooks. Of course to those who subscribe to the history passed down through textbooks, and "historians", i who chooses to disregard all apparent "facts", am inferior, however to those who like me conform to a more conspiracist outlook, i am superior.

There is no question of morality here, its merely opinionated.

That's not what you said though. You said that 'history is irrelevent', not 'I suspect that there are large inaccuracies caused by bias or pressure from the political environment' (or similar, less unwieldy phrases).

However, even then you still have to accept some of history, as I said above, and indeed you do; otherwise, how would you know/believe that Israel (as a state) was formed in the 20th century?

Of course, at some point you have to admit that the chance of it being accurate is pretty large (especially given that you cannot stop all sources from being discovered, and the truth will out eventually, as you don't have complete media control; unless you believe that 'they' do of course).

[Zar]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

That's not what you said though. You said that 'history is irrelevent', not 'I suspect that there are large inaccuracies caused by bias or pressure from the political environment' (or similar, less unwieldy phrases).

However, even then you still have to accept some of history, as I said above, and indeed you do; otherwise, how would you know/believe that Israel (as a state) was formed in the 20th century?

Of course, at some point you have to admit that the chance of it being accurate is pretty large (especially given that you cannot stop all sources from being discovered, and the truth will out eventually, as you don't have complete media control; unless you believe that 'they' do of course).

no mrl, don't mince words into my mouth and blow things out of context.

i said and a direct quote

however im a conspiracist, hence history, especially that in the last century, is of little relevance to me

I never said history is irrelevant.

I meant that in the context that "history as it is told is of little relevance to me in the way that i consider it to be bogus, and a bunch of lies". I apologize if my explanation wasn't sufficient for you to understand where i was getting at, - i would have thought most of you from knowing my posts for a while now would assume that, but ill re literate it for you again.

Your second point makes sense, and perhaps i agree i was too rash as passing off history as having little relevance to me, without a deeper explanation as to what i meant. How about i say, that i am dismissive of certain historical facts, pertaining to the last century, as they are told in textbook form.

There is a chance of it being accurate, and myself being wrong, however i also see a great chance in myself being correct, and as for the source part, there were obviously sources that go contrary to textbook sources, hence the fact that they exist! However i believe that these sources are somewhat surpressed from being debated alongside currently accepted "historical facts", due to the damning nature these sources would bring upon what i see as a illuminati controlled world.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Which Illuminati? The society formed by Adam Weishaupt, with support from the core of the Knights Templar (who were broken up in medieval france supposedly for 'crimes against god' or somesuch, but actually because the French king disliked their wealth and power) or the one ruled by giant lizards?

That aside, 'is of little' is almost always a way of saying 'is of no'; I forget the exact linguistic term for it, however.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Which Illuminati? The society formed by Adam Weishaupt, with support from the core of the Knights Templar (who were broken up in medieval france supposedly for 'crimes against god' or somesuch, but actually because the French king disliked their wealth and power) or the one ruled by giant lizards?

That aside, 'is of little' is almost always a way of saying 'is of no'; I forget the exact linguistic term for it, however.

The first one

[KaneED]

Incidentally, why do we have a column of Nelson if he didn't command our troops?

[Zar]

Originally Posted by KaneED

Incidentally, why do we have a column of Nelson if he didn't command our troops?

is this question directed at me?

[KaneED]

Originally Posted by Zar

is this question directed at me?

No to anyone that knows reallly, as most questions that are put into a general forum are

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by KaneED

Incidentally, why do we have a column of Nelson if he didn't command our troops?

Because Nelson was an Admiral and not a General?

He commanded a fleet, not troops. Ore were you making a funny?

[KaneED]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Because Nelson was an Admiral and not a General?

He commanded a fleet, not troops. Ore were you making a funny?

No I honestly didn't know. I get Nelson and Napolean mixed up the same way I get March and April mixed up

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Zar

There is no question of morality here, its merely opinionated.

Of course there's a moral issue here, as there is in most political arguments.

If you base your politics on willfull ignorance then you are making a moral (as well as tactical) error. Those who seek the truth are morally superior than those who gladly accept ignorance. This much is also obvious.

A lot of history is distortion, misrepresentation, propaganda, etc. That much is obvious. But by rejecting the very study of history (even if it is all lies) you are making a very grave error. How can you defeat bourgeois history if you know nothing about it?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by KaneED

No I honestly didn't know. I get Nelson and Napolean mixed up the same way I get March and April mixed up

Well, try to remember that Nelson's Column is in Trafalgar Square.

[KaneED]

i think it might be a tinge of dyslexia, i've always had the problem, except before i'd heard of them ofc..

i only know about modern history (20th century), i resented earlier history because of how appalingly it was taught.

[JonnyBGood]

I especially enjoyed the part when zar said the last 100 years of history were of little relevance to him.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I especially enjoyed the part when zar said the last 100 years of history were of little relevance to him.

Im glad to be of service. do your little head a favour and read down for mine and mrls convo

[Sandsnake]

Originally Posted by Zar

Im glad to be of service. do your little head a favour and read down for mine and mrls convo

He did. You still look like an idiot.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Zar

Im glad to be of service. do your little head a favour and read down for mine and mrls convo

I got distracted halfway when I found out where you're getting your conspiracy theories.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I got distracted halfway when I found out where you're getting your conspiracy theories.

It is rumoured that John Ramsey was seen at the Pyramids of Egypt just before 'the crash', whilst receiving a case of subpoenas implicating involvement in a sinister scheme designed to usher in the New World Order.

Makes sense to me, and 91% chance of being true.

[edit]

It is rumoured that Lee Harvey Oswald was seen at the book depository just before the Warren Commision hearings while receiving a case of magic bullets implicating involvement in a sinister scheme designed to usher in the New World Order.

100% I'd say for that one.

[Lupin]

not again fs.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

JFK committed suicide. True Story.

'Thank you for letting me live again' or whatever the line from the end of Tikka to Ride is.