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"Heroes" of history: why do we admire them?
Qingu
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Registered User regular
Moses, Julius Caesar, Muhammad, Charlemagne, Napoleon ... in many history books, these people are respected as leaders or military geniuses. In Dante's Inferno, Julius Caesar's betrayer occupies the lowest level of hell, right along with Judas.
Why on earth should we respect military conquerers? Moses and other Biblical figures may well have led the first recorded instances of religiuos genocide. Julius Caesar, too, would kill off entire towns who wouldn't acquiesce to Roman rule, and more than anyone else was responsible for eroding the Roman republic and replacing it with an autocratic empire. Muhammad led and fought in dozens of military campaigns to solidify his despotic authority in Arabia. Etc, etc.
Now, when it comes to conquistadors like Cortez and Pizarro, modern history books are much less worshipful, often highlighting how savagely they acted towards the native Americans. But why is it so rare to see history books that highlight Julius Caesar's savagery towards the Europeans, or Moses' savagery towards the Canaanites?
"History is written by the winners" may be a truism, but in modern times we've learned to at least try to balance the winner's version of history with skepticism and even criticism. So why do we continue to admire the bloodthirsty conquerers of history's distant past?
Why on earth should we respect military conquerers? Moses and other Biblical figures may well have led the first recorded instances of religiuos genocide. Julius Caesar, too, would kill off entire towns who wouldn't acquiesce to Roman rule, and more than anyone else was responsible for eroding the Roman republic and replacing it with an autocratic empire. Muhammad led and fought in dozens of military campaigns to solidify his despotic authority in Arabia. Etc, etc.
Now, when it comes to conquistadors like Cortez and Pizarro, modern history books are much less worshipful, often highlighting how savagely they acted towards the native Americans. But why is it so rare to see history books that highlight Julius Caesar's savagery towards the Europeans, or Moses' savagery towards the Canaanites?
"History is written by the winners" may be a truism, but in modern times we've learned to at least try to balance the winner's version of history with skepticism and even criticism. So why do we continue to admire the bloodthirsty conquerers of history's distant past?
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Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili is a great example of this. He re-created himself as Stalin. There was no other version of history in Soviet Russia. He erased it and got rid of anyone anyone who thought otherwise. I'm pretty sure there are still men and women alive who wish they still had a leader like Stalin, despite any evidence of how cruel he was or any hardships they endured during his rule.
Everything's selective in history. The complexities are taught to historians, but the identities are a creation of the general cultural narratives and their relevance to our modern socities, and it is always easy to attempt to understand someone as a product of their times. I read an interesting interview with one of the people behind Kingdom of Heaven the other day. Defending the fictional portrayal of a complete peace and understanding between Tiberius and Saladin, she said it was necessary to highlight just how noteworthy the lack of warfare in the Middle East was at the time. She also pointed out that she'd spent her whole life studying and getting to know Medieval figures, the great heroes of nearly a millenium, and there wasn't a single one of them she would've wanted to know personally. Arseholes, the lot of them. Sociopath, misogynistic, half crazed arseholes.
But that doesn't make good history.
Because the public's history education still doesn't match the perspectives of modern academic history, perhaps? I know that American public school's history education is often laughably abysmal, and it's only those people who take history courses in college who end up having a "good" history education.
Plus, people just like having heroes to look up to, even if those heroes are mostly fiction. History is sort of our version of ancient Greek myths; I think it's the same motivation behind lots of other pop-culture storytelling, like Star Wars and comic-book superheroes as modern mythology.
I may be nitpicking, but Moses never entered the Holy Land and wasn't a part of the cleansing fun that started when the Jews got back home.
Kind of like Herzel and Israel, I guess.
Vlad the Impaler-
Outside of Romania, he is most famous for being the guy who inspired Dracula, tortured thousands and... well that's pretty much it really. A classic example of the crazed, half barbarian tyrants of old. In Romania, though, the guy's a hero. Defended the country against the turks, freed the common people from the aristocracy and gave those durn foreigners a good seeing to with the help of a few well greased stakes. Both of these portrayals have their place, and the value placed on either of them is dependent on context.
The Rajah Of Sarawak-
Sir James Brooke was one of the romantic heroes of the British Empire. He became the "White Rajah" after seeing the piracy and tribal fighting persistent in South East Asia and outfitting himself as a privateer. He bought a boat, found a crew, sailed to Borneo, kicked some arse and in no time at all was given administrative control of the province of Sarawak. He then spent the next few years putting in place British style codes of law to protect his people, fostering naval commerce and butchering thousands and thousands of natives, pirates, and anyone who got in the way.
James Brooke was regarded as a complex guy, even for the time. Portrayals of him generally make him out to be highly intelligent, motivated, generous, friendly, dedicated to the prosperity of the native people of Borneo, probably a little gay and a thoroughly modern individual. He was also a bloodthirsty homicidal maniac. Even the Brits weren't really sure what to do with him, and charges were brought against him for the number of deaths he was responsible for, which were subsequently dropped as "unprovable". Obviously there were a number of corpses lying in the jungle that might've argued with this.
Brooke's story goes for most of the history of the British Empire. A group of decent, well meaning, civilized butchers who took over two thirds of thirds of the world in an attempt to get in to settle down and learn some manners and slaughtered millions because they weren't sure what else to do with them. Historians still aren't sure how to put that into a narrative.
The important thing is legacies.
Moses did kill a bunch of Egyptians though. Like everyone with a penis and no big brother.
Only if you don't count Aharon.
So sayeth also the post-modernists, and I tend to agree.
Respect for military talents or leadership ability does not necessarily indicate admiration of their character and/or aspiration for emulation.
Bad history has perjorative statements, good history at least attempts objectivity which may or may not be possible. Also, programs have bugs in them. Hopefully with education and effort, programs will have less bugs in them. It may seem tangential to the topic at hand, but I'm pointing out that people don't always get it right the first time. In this case, they're getting it wrong either because they just didn't do better or because they don't want to. This is common to human performance across a broad spectrum of endeavors, not restricted to history and academia.
To paraphrase a friend of mine with a degree in history, "Social history is boring as all hell. I don't give a shit what the peasants felt about things. Tell me about the kings; tell me about the generals. Cover some art and legends, but focus on those who made history."
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
To each their own, but that's a pretty cynical view of history.
Nowadays we'd probably use "Protagonist." These men were so important, so influential, that it's very easy to portray them as the "main character" of their historical period.
Which is interesting.
"Rich man's war, poor man's fight"
Indeed, I invoke Godwin.
I do understand Titmouse's point, but large groups of peasants don't make history nearly as often as rulers. When a single peasant makes history, he or she joins the ranks of kings, generals, etcetera.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Personally I also enjoy the great man approach to history but I also like the social history side of things. Our civilisation is about more than a couple of historical poster boys, its about societies, rules and millions of people doing their thing everyday to keep things ticking over. Of course this isn't always a happy thing, all* those monsters of history had either the active or passive support of their people, which kind of makes those people complicit in the crimes of their leaders.
*well most.