April 29, 2017 • 43 mins
In this week's SYSK Select episode, perhaps you equate the term to conspiracy theories and Holocaust denials, but revisionism is a genuine discipline in the field of historical study. And thanks to revisionists, we now include a lot more reality - and previously unsung people - in the history of our nations. Learn about historians determined that history is far from set in stone in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, and welcome to this weekend's edition of S
Y s K Selects. Uh. This is Chuck here. I
picked out Revisionist History. Uh, basically because it was just
a pretty darn good episode from my recollection. Um, but
of course you didn't go back and listen to it,
because why would I do that to myself? But I'd
love for you to welcome to stuff you should know
(00:25):
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck
Bryant with his uh Nazi soda? What your orange Phantom?
That's not exactly true. No, okay, well let's talk about
(00:46):
this because it's a pretty good podcast. Their episode to
discuss this. If you asked me, oh yeah, revisionist history,
I guess. Yeah. We're talking revisionist history, and for the
time being, we're talking about the origin of orange phanto
because there is a him were out there, Yeah that
orange Fanta is a Nazi soda, that it was created
by the Nazis. Yeah, that isn't quite true. Uh, like
(01:09):
there were Nazi products like Hugo Boss, that's Wwagen, Siemens, IBM, Mercedes.
I think this one to No Mercedes wasn't well Volkswagen, definitely.
The beatle was created to look like the SS helmet
from what I understand. Yeah, but Fanta Orange was created
by a coke employee in Nazi Germany, Coca Cola Germany UM,
(01:31):
which was supposedly well then that was the name of it,
and it was supposedly cut off from its parent company
during the war. Yeah, so they didn't have the supplies
they needed to make h coke. So this guy was
kind of mixed together a potion and created Fanta Orange. Um.
He went out back and dug up a bunch of
(01:52):
roots and squeezed the red headed kid. But it wasn't
like he wasn't a member of the Nazi party, and
it wasn't created four Nazis, but it was enjoyed by Nazis. Okay.
So that's where I think you can reasonably call it
a Nazi drink. It was. It was born out of
the the Nazi regime in Germany as a result of
(02:15):
directly because Coca Cola drives because of the embargo on
the Nazi regime. Get Hitler love coke too, by the way,
did he? Yeah? Um, but I wouldn't put it in
the category of like Nazi products like Volkswagen and Hugo
Boston and so Coca Cola the way it has has
it spelled out, and I mean it depends like this
story is about as good as Coca Cola can come
(02:37):
off looking while still admitting that Fanta is a Coke
product that was created in Nazi Germany. But basically their
their spiel is that, you know, Coke was cut off.
Their spiegel was that UM Coke was cut off. Coke
Germany was cut off from the parent company because Coke
wasn't doing business, and then UM, as a result of
(03:01):
the war ending Coke was like, wow, this did really well,
come back into the folds, and we'll just keep selling
Fanta and and way to go for you know, keeping
the company alive in the face of these Nazi war pigs.
UM that's apparently like the company line. I don't know,
it could be revisionist history. There are some American companies
(03:22):
that definitely did business illegally in Germany, most prominent among
them as IBM, who literally created not only the machines
but also the programs to tally the people in concentration camps.
That is not revisionist history. No, that's absolutely true. But
I just didn't I didn't even know when I brought
this drink in here that would be such a great
(03:42):
setup of the show. I just enjoyed men Orange. It
turned out pretty well. Yeah, so chucky. There's this really
great article that Conger wrote called how Revisionist History Works.
Email today tell her how good it was. I mean,
it is good, and she ignored me. It's the top
notch article. And she starts out with a pretty great
intro that I don't feel can be much improved on
because it demonstrates this whole thing pretty well. Conger talks
(04:05):
about George Washington, how as a little boy, Uh, he
was maybe a little aggressive, and he got ahold of
an axe and uh his father's ax, I believe, and
he gave a cherry tree forty wax. Then when he
saw what he had done, he gave it another forty
one and ended up chopping down the cherry tree. I
(04:27):
may have mixed legends here. Uh. And when his father
came out and saw that he had just chopped down
a cherry tree, a perfectly good money producing cherry tree,
because those things were like gold back then, he said Georgie,
what did you do? Did you cut this down? And
George Washington looked at the axe, looked at the tree,
(04:49):
looked at his father, looked at his feet, thought about
maybe a sandwich later, gonna be present one day? Shut up? Yeah,
And he said, I so I should probably be like
every other president and not tell a lie. Instead tell
the truth, because that's what our presidents do. And he said, father,
I cannot tell a lie. I did chop down this
(05:09):
cherry tree. What are you gonna do about it? I
never understood the point of that story. Was it that
he was honest, honest, forthright, upstanding, was willing to accept
the heat for what he'd done. He was accountable. There's
a lot of stuff wrapped up in just that one
little fable good with an X, exactly handy. His dad
(05:30):
had cherry tree, so he, you know, came from a
wealthy background. But the problem is is all of it's
made up. And we've talked about this before. I don't
remember what what I think it was, maybe the how
much money is there in the world. We talked about
how Washington's biographer made up a bunch of stuff. Um
remember in throwing a silver dollar all the way across
(05:51):
the Potomac. And when I'm saying, like, the problem is
there weren't silver dollars back when Washington was younger, and
I've seen the Potomac, that's impossible. Yeah, right, exactly. But
the point in is Mason Weems, h Mason Lockweens, who
was Washington's early biographer, just made up a bunch of stuff.
And what is kind of a black eye or egg
on the face of historians for a century or so
(06:14):
that followed. They just kind of bought these things hooklient
and sinker and it actually, the cherry tree story was
in our textbooks, this total fable, completely made up fable,
was told the school children as the truth. I bet
it still is in some classrooms and maybe in the ozarks,
you know, but typically outside it has been revised because
(06:38):
they found out, i think a two thousand and eight that, um,
there were no cherry trees on Washington's family childhood home,
so cut him all down right exactly, But there was
not even evidence of cut down cherry trees. So they
had to go back and say, hey, we need to
take this out of the textbooks. They did, and nobody
really was bothered by it. It's pretty minor, it is.
(07:00):
It's it's not like saying Christopher Columbus discovered America and
proved the world wasn't round and didn't commit match genocide
and tortured and rape people, right that, Yeah, that he
and his men didn't sharpen their knives on the skulls
of live Indians they encounter. Yeah, it's amazing to me
that that's we still have Columbus Day. Did you you
know the deal? Now? No one mentioned it. Well, I
(07:21):
think people are starting to pull their heads from their butts. Yeah,
I feel like this year marked the the true beginning
of the end for Columbus Day. I do not think
it's gonna be around much longer. Shouldn't be. It's just
two history is that man is too complicated, and he
did too many horrific things, even culturally relativistically. Yeah, he
(07:41):
did horrible things, and I feel like he's not going
to be honored too too far from now. Yeah, my
friend Jerry in Portland as a school teacher, and uh,
there's a thing going around Facebook about Columbus and I
shared it, of course, and Jerry said, you know, I've
the past three years, I've been able to teach this version.
So there's at least like a hundred and eighty kids
(08:01):
in Portland that are now like scarred for life with
the truth. And I was like, man, that's great. It's
about how sad is that you even have to say
this version instead of real history, right you know? Right? Well,
I mean that's part of the problem. Is history as
they figured out and maybe the I think late nineteenth
ordly twentieth century, it's objective or subjective. It's not objective,
(08:24):
and people thought that it was and that it just
kind of history happened, you talked about it, and that
was that like you there were it was just history.
It wasn't continuous and like when something happened, it happened,
and then once it was written down, that's how it was.
It was. It's a subjective, ever evolving thing. And we
figured it out, and we'll talk about when we figured
(08:45):
it out. But first, um, I mean we're what we're
talking about overall, this idea that history is meant to
be modified as new facts come to light, as attitudes change. Um.
It is called revisionism. And it's not necessarily a dirty word. Yeah,
we'll get into that. It definitely has a negative connotation
when you say, well, that's revisionist history exactly. Uh. And
(09:07):
that's one lens to to look at revisionist history through. Yeah,
let's talk about the three um major parts of revisionist history.
I think, well, this is the three ways you can
look at revisionist history. Yeah. One is a theoretical perspective.
Basically we'll say, looking at it through the lens of
African Americans instead of old white men or women or
(09:27):
you know, any other like minority. That's one example. That's
like you know when people say like get on the
right side of history. Yeah, that's basically somebody being aware
that there is a cultural social lens of revisionism. Sure
that you know what's going on is going to change
the attitude towards something that's going to change, and you're
gonna look like a pretty horrible person when there's a
(09:48):
picture of you fifty years from now holding a sign
that's Columbus right right exactly. Uh. The other is one
of the others is fact checking. Um, that's basically just
to get it right lens. Yeah, like new facts come
to life, you change the history books. And finally, the
negative perspective um that uh sees revisionism as an effort
(10:09):
to falsify or skew things for you know, usually political motives.
You know, let's talk about one of those. Congord gives
another good example of like all three of these wrapped
up in one guy. One Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. So factually,
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States.
He wrote the Constitution, wrote the Declaration of Independence, like
(10:33):
from word a disease. Yes, yes, you're right, might have
had some help. I don't know, I think other people
history exactly, but I mean, yes, he he was a
founding father. There's a lot of stuff that we know
for a fact Jefferson did right, But there's also other stuff. Um,
in particular that he had a slave with who who
(10:54):
was also his mistress. In her name was Sally Hemmings,
and he had children with her. And for many, many
years this was viewed by negative revisionists as just a
dirty rumor, yeah, which is incredibly insulting, it is to say,
because they were in love. Ye, well yeah, Nick Nolty,
you know, it wasn't like, oh he just you know,
had his way with his slaves, like he was in
(11:17):
love with Sally Hemmings and it's very insulting to say
that that's a blight on America that our president with
stoop so low, is to be in love with a
black woman, you know. Exactly. So the people who looked
at this through the negative view of revisionism, that it
was meant to sully we're on the wrong side of
history agreed. So in the late nineteen nineties, I think
(11:38):
maybe nine seven, I don't remember. Um, incontrovertible d n
E DNA evidence showed that Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson
had children together. They did it more than one, yes,
which does imply that they did it. They did it
a bunch um yeah, because the first time, I mean,
come on. Uh. So with that, we have these three
(12:02):
different lenses coming to play. You have the social theoretical lens,
which is okay, well, now we can go back and
look at history and say, um, maybe Jefferson wasn't the
only one to have a slave mistress, right, Maybe there
was a lot of this stuff going on, and maybe
black folks and white folks were co mingling more than
we thought, right exactly. Maybe at some point along that's
(12:23):
the way we um we meaning like the midnight mid
twenty century people of America put our own racist hang
ups on the people before and before during this era,
and we changed history unwittingly, it changed it back with
this fact that came to life. Then there was the
fact version yeah, which is like, maybe this is something
(12:46):
we should put in textbooks, right, you know, or more
to the point, now we can't not put this in
textbooks or the very least biographies, but textbooks do come on. Um.
And then there's a third one, the negative revisionism, which
kind of was um dispelled when this incontrovertible DNA evidence
came to light. Yeah, because up to that point you
(13:06):
could be like no, no, no, and then once the
DNA came out, it was like yes, yes, yes. Yeah.
So historians they have connor comparison to journalists, which is
I think pretty spot on. There's a responsibility there to
get it right and to not use your own skewed perspective,
(13:26):
Like you know, take the Civil War. If you still today,
if you go out in the sticks of Georgia and
ask someone about the Civil War, they're probably gonna have
some opinion. Yeah that may not be quite right. I
don't think. I don't know if people at North even
care about that stuff anymore. I think the South has
all the hang ups, sure, because we lost. They were
(13:47):
the ones, Yeah, the losers and the ones who wanted
to succeed. Yeah, up North, it's just like what happened.
But it's amazing that like this, many years later, there's
still that skewed political perspective because of your personal beliefs
in history, maybe family history, you know. Uh So let's
talk about modern revisionism, which pretty much started after World
(14:09):
War One, when the onus was put on historians to
suss it out and say, like, all right, world War
One happened, So that happened. Uh, we now have an
obligation to record this and teach the world about it.
But there were a lot of different opinions about it, right,
which makes it tough. And the term revisionist history was
actually coined a couple of decades before World War One
(14:32):
by Marxists who were grappling with um whether or not
the revolution was inevitable and how to put that down
in the history books, and revisionism was coined around this
this time by those people, but it really didn't come
into play worldwide until after World War One, and at
this time scholars started to realize that this is when
(14:56):
people figured out history is objective, Like seriously, up to
this point subjective you mean, yes, thank you. I don't
know why I can't get this straight today. But up
to this point, historians, mainstream historians overall typically believed that, like,
history was objective. Yeah. And now something like World War
(15:17):
One happened with all the world involved, everyone at a
stake in it. Because what is history besides um, looking
good you know, no one wants to look bad in
the history books or making someone look bad on purpose. Um,
and historians started to realize, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like
it's kind of up to us what goes in the
history books. And this is such a complicated, complex event
(15:40):
that maybe history isn't objective. Yeah. In thee A, the
speech was given at the American Historical Association by President
Carl Becca, and he was kind of the first guy
to really come out in public and say, you know what,
it's a living, evolving thing. It is very much subjective,
(16:01):
and it's uh subjective because it's humans memory basically the
story definitely fallible or their perspective as individuals. Uh. And
like I said, politics is usually one of the big
reasons how it gets skewed, but not just politics nationalism.
Everybody wants their country to be the winner or look
like the good guy or what have you. Um. But yeah,
(16:23):
Becker was the first to say it's subjective and therefore
it's subject to revision. And World War One was the
thing that kicked it off. Like we said, the Treaty
of Versailles really really strongly punished Germany, redrew its boundaries
and basically said, Germany, you're responsible for World War One.
You guys were the aggressor, and everybody else was reacting.
(16:45):
And then as time wore on, um new documents were
at least that showed that, no, it wasn't just Germany.
There are a lot of other factors involved, including among
the Allies that contributed directly to the beginning of World
War One, and Germany was kind of punished unfairly, so
in the League of Nations basically said hey, we need
some sort of guidelines for writing historical textbooks, and they
(17:09):
came up with that, and from that point on revisionism
was born. And then y one, Carl Becker said, yeah,
here in America, we agree history is subjective and it
can be revised. Yeah, and declassification of documents is a
big way that things can be revised, because you know,
if you don't have it's not just someone's opinion. If
(17:31):
if you don't have actual documentation and like peer reviewed stuff,
then you can't revise history, you know what I'm saying. Uh.
So that brings us to World War Two, when what
is called the age of historical consensus officially began. Um,
and I get the idea that that was just when
(17:51):
people sort of historians a banded together a little bit
more than ever before. Yeah, get that feeling. They Yeah,
there was a lot of patriotism, nationalism, and basically everybody said,
if there's anything that happened in World War Two, is
that the US emerged victorious and saved the world. Jingoism perhaps, Yeah,
(18:13):
very much. So this is among historians. And you know,
if all historians basically are on the same page that
America is awesome and kicks ass, then that's what the
history books are going to reflect. Yeah, and that held
pretty strong until the nineteen sixties, which, as anyone who
knows anything about American history knows, it was a pretty
tumultuous time. Uh. Quite a few things to Vietnam War,
(18:36):
civil rights movement, feminist movement, globalization, the Cold War, they
all combine to basically quell that nationalism a little bit. Maybe, yeah,
for sure. I mean all of the the u s
went from this sunny, happy, suburban, white picket fence Nazi
butt kicking country to one that was coming apart at
(18:59):
the seems internally. And the historians of the time of
the sixties said, like, wait a minute, if history is
this ever evolving, UM dialogue, that's table will be revised,
how are we going to document this? And what they
figured out, very wisely, was well, we need to tell
everybody's story four lenses. Yeah, well, at least I think
(19:22):
six maybe emerged from the sixties that basically history became
more inclusive. It wasn't just about the leaders anymore. It
wasn't just about how great America was. It was the
whole picture. That's what historians strove to to get to
write the four major lenses from the sixties on or political, economic, racial,
(19:43):
and sexual. That's four, it's not six. You should make
two more up. We could probably come up with a
couple that aren't like fully covered here. On political lends,
though UM obviously has to do with foreign policy. Nationalism. Um,
in the nineteen sixties, I believe you already mentioned the
Marxist revisionism outlined more of a struggle between the classes,
(20:09):
and maybe he took an approach that wasn't like, gave
the lower classes a little bit more there do, Right,
It wasn't just like, um, just because somebody was a
prominent leader doesn't mean they were a great person necessarily. Uh.
And yeah, that was a huge radical change, especially compared
to that age of consensus among historians. The economic lens
(20:30):
Charles A. Bird, a historian, had a pretty radical idea that, hey,
the Founding fathers were writing the Constitution this sort of
look out for wealthy white dudes. And I think he's
probably right. Yeah, there was a he wrote that in
I think nineteen thirteen, and it took until the TUMULTI
of the sixties before anybody ever really like kind of
(20:52):
championed itmult. I think that's right. Really, if I am
a descriptivist at the at the moment, not just tumult Yeah,
but doesn't TUMULTI run roll off the tongue a little more, well,
tumulty would be the adjective like that was a very
TUMULTI no, that'd be tumultuous. I know, that's one point.
So anyway, Beard's idea was that the framers of the
(21:16):
Constitution said, hey, let's protect ourselves, and the landowners who
owed money to the framers basically led a revolution in
eighteen hundred that was led by the election of Thomas Jefferson.
And that's where we are we live in today. But
we may have had much more of an elite society,
(21:37):
or basically we have an elite society now, we just
would have had had one for longer. So the racial lends, obviously,
uh strove to cast a light on minorities a little
more that were largely ignored thanks to the civil rights
movement um against some momentum. I remember being in school
and not learning about Malcolm X or Hue P. Newton. Who. Yeah,
(21:58):
I wasn't taught those things classes in high school. I
had to read about them on my own afterwards. College
does a much much better job, for sure, But even
you know, and this was, I mean, this is a
while ago for me. This was in the eighties. Do
you remember, but like you think, it's gotten a little better.
Do you remember when you learned hopefully at least in
high school. Um about the Native Americans supplied of Native
(22:21):
Americans in the US. I don't remember, man. I remember
ninth grade finally taking a history class where they like
spoke frankly about it, like you're like your friend in Portland,
and I don't remember my mind just being blown because
I was like, well, wait a minute, what about everything
(22:42):
I learned the last eight years, Like all that's just
total bs, like completely is contradicted by what you're saying.
Not only was this stuff like left out, I learned
the opposite, you know that they basically just went away
on their own because the white man came and they
were like, oh, this place is yours. And I remember
were being in ninth grade just learning this like wow,
(23:03):
that was a big eye opener for me. I think
that's probably why I got into history, because I was like,
this is pretty interesting stuff, Like there's more out there,
sure I want to know, like, yeah, the whole the
whole thing under the Rachel lens. Also, now you could
learn about dudes like the Tuskegee Airmen or Japanese in
tournament camps, which I never heard of until we did
(23:26):
that episode on me. Until three years ago. But um
that raises another good point, Chuck Uh. With the Japanese
in tournament camps. It wasn't in the history books before,
and then it comes out maybe in the nineties. I think,
um or it's put into the history books in the nineties,
and that kind of reflects why people struggle against revisionism,
(23:47):
or some people do, because history is ultimately zero sum,
right if you put that in the history book, the
Japanese plight, American Japanese Americans who were putting new in
terms at camps, their plight is honored just through recognition,
like this happened to you people, and now everybody knows
(24:07):
about it. But at the same time, the US government
looks bad. Yeah, and reparations are like all of a
sudden on the table and they don't want that. So
it's impossible to shine a light on something and it
not have Almost always, I can't think of one instance
a also a negative impact on something else, because what
(24:29):
is history again, if it's not somebody's screwing somebody else over?
Is that all it is? I mean, at least world history,
political history. Uh. And the final lens, of course, is
the sexual lens, which shone a light on women and said, hey,
history is not just about old white men. Yeah, there
were a lot of ladies like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and
(24:52):
so journal truth. And I think the only, like, the
only black woman I ever remember reading about, of course,
was Harriet Tubman. It's like one person, are you really
that's the only that's the only African American female in
history that made any difference was Harriet Tubman, Right, And
think about it, Like the most recent one that's mentioned
(25:13):
here is Elizabeth Katie Stanton. So apparently we ran out
of producing great women in the early twentieth century. Where
is the rest of them? So apparently we're still struggling
with that sexual lens of revisionist history. I think I
think women are definitely still fighting that fight. Included a
cool thing the other day on I think it went
(25:33):
sort of viral where this woman had her daughter, Um,
you know, like little girls play dress up and stuff
little boys to too. But um, instead of dressing the
daughter up like you know, I'm a Disney princess, um,
she dressed her up like famous women in history and
(25:54):
took pictures and just had a blast. And uh, it's
really neats, like a little photo series of this girl
dressed up as all these like great women in history,
and uh, it's very cool, very cool thing to do.
I feel like I saw that. Yeah, it was just
a couple of weeks ago. So you probably did good
for her, is what I say. Yeah, good for her. Um,
(26:14):
I guess now maybe it's a good time to do
a message break. Yeah, and after we're going to get
into correcting the facts, which is my favorite part, so Chuckers, Yeah, um,
we're talking about revisionism as a means of correcting the facts. Yeah,
(26:37):
like the game of telephone, the old adage, and that's
basically what history was. You start with a story and
it gets passed down orally or maybe even it was
written down, and it's just like a game of telephone,
things get mixed up and in the end you end
up with what is probably not the way it really happened, right,
Purple Monkey Dishwasher like like Pocahonas is her example about
(27:02):
she had this. It was a great love story between
Captain John Smith and Pocahonas and Jamestown and Disney made
a movie about it. It It seems like I'm picking up
Disney a lot, and it's well, it's the same thing
like that. Disney took this, this idea and ran with
it and created like a new well not a new character,
but he created a character who fell in love with
John Smith and they had a wacky courtship and overcame
(27:25):
all the odds and Jamestown was saying, I think he
falls down at some point maybe and there's maybe a
talking animal. Yeah. There was one problem with this though,
is Pocahonas was eleven years old and James Smith was
not a um perst. Well, pederste is exclusively with boys,
is it. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, so
(27:45):
I guess you'd be a pedophile. Yeah, let's let's just
generally say a pedophile. Uh yeah. And even though things,
you know, people courted younger back then, eleven was not
his game. So it's not true. Pocahona Is actually um
married a widower named John Rolfe. She died when she's
about twenty one. She did help, she did introduce the
(28:07):
the colonists to her tribe. The thing is and and
like do she did play a role in saving Jamestown. Um,
But yeah, she didn't fall in love with Captain John Smith. No.
And thanks to modern times, we have things like anthropology
and forensic science and archaeology, and uh, people coming out
(28:28):
like the deep throat Mark felt finally revealing I was
deep throat. I don't think he revealed himself though, did he? No,
he was uncovered. I believe documents becoming declassified, like as
time marches on and we get a little bit more modern,
we we get the facts more correct again with declassified information. Um,
(28:50):
you know something is a secret, it can't be part
of history. But then once it's declassified, these things definitely
have an effect on history and impact on history. CIA
did give LSD too, unwaiting Americans. Um, the Star Wars
program did very much help usher in the end of
the Cold War. All these come from declassified documents that
show yeah, this, this actually happened this way go back
(29:13):
and they really had an alien autop season area, right,
that's all on TV. Did you hear them Molder and
Scully or down for making another movie? They don't know
if it will happen, but I mean, if they're both game,
why not, especially her? And we're about do for the
nineties to come back in vogue. So you just look
a good bit things not working or does it have
(29:35):
a clock on there. No, it just shows I don't
have four thousand steps yet today, but you just happed it,
so it thinks you're walking. I'm just shaking my much
tv uh, because there's nothing like cheating yourself out of it,
just out of health. UM. So, like we said, updating
biographies and more importantly, uh for me, textbooks is a
(29:57):
big part of this. UM. But it's not so easy.
It's not like, hey, let's just throw in a new
chapter on Jefferson. Um. You have to actually go through
quite a process. Scholars and researchers. Uh. You know, the
first they developed these theories and thesis, they published them,
they're reviewed by academics and teachers. Uh, textbook authors meet
(30:20):
at conferences and see the new recommendations. It's kind of
a long involved process too to make a substantial change
in a textbook. Uh. And there's an actual Institute for
International Textbook Research that analyzes all this stuff and make
sure that textbooks are diversified. And uh, don't just tell
(30:40):
the history of you know, wealthy white dudes, right exactly.
This is ideal, This is the ideal process. Yeah. There's
another really big factor in this that we've talked about before,
where the biggest states are the states with the most
students and therefore by the most textbooks are the ones
who ultimately get to write the textbooks, which is why
Texas has such an outsize influence on what the rest
(31:01):
of the country learns, because they write the textbooks and
the publishers aren't going to make different textbooks for each state.
You're gonna make them for the biggest state and then
go sell them to the rest of the state. So
there are flaws in this process. And including that, there's
also you know, it's it doesn't keep up in real
time very well. Now you can't just economically, you can't
publish a new textbook every year. I think they try
(31:24):
to have about a tenure life on a textbook, but
I can't they just email history teachers and be like, hey,
on page forty two, it says that Jefferson did not
have kids with Sally Hemmings. Don't teach that part. Teach
the opposite. Yeah, And I wonder. I'm sure it varies
from county to county. I wonder how much freedom teachers
have to develop their own curriculum and other standards. But
(31:48):
I wonder how they can do their own I wonder
the impression there isn't teaching any longer, like oh, this
is a moot point when we're talking about textbooks. That's
not true. Uh sorry, sorry, teachers, I just realized something
of you. Have you listen to this, No, and you
weren't saying that in spiteful way. You're saying that like
it's sad that. Yes, exactly, teaching is, you know, stuff
to get teachers these days, thank you, just like a
(32:08):
public service, you know what teaching these days? Yeah? Yeah,
and I think it always has been you think, Yeah,
I think that the constraints put on teachers has really
tied their hands to the point where they aren't able
to teach like they should or like they want to. Yeah,
but I think it remains a public service. I just
think our education systems that need is some real reform.
(32:31):
Well it is. And it's sad that I think a
lot of teachers these days to treat it like a
public service. And and it's not bad, but I'm saying
sometimes teachers these days will be like, yeah, I'm gonna
go teach for four or five years because people are
in need of teachers. Not necessarily I want to be
a teacher for my entire career, and what they're finding
out is this generation is going to be short on
(32:54):
teachers because people are teaching for a shorter amount of time,
you know what. I'm interested in this, and we to
do an episode on that. But in the meantime, we're
gonna do a pre listener mail call out and ask
for any teachers out there who are in there on
the front lines, email us and tell us what can
be done to solve the problems with the public school system,
(33:15):
whether it's easy, complex, whatever. I'm very curious and totally
down to help anyway we can, you know, Um, alright,
so where were we textbooks? Sometimes you will publish um.
Sometimes they'll publish supplemental material that's like not every ten years,
just to get things right. Um. Yeah, because ten years
(33:37):
is a long time to go between discovering acceptance of
a new historical fact and teaching it to to kids.
That's too long. But people got up in arms. The
American Historical Association UM submitted as it's or updated it's
national history standards in textbooks, and they got negative feedback
because they were like, well, where's Daniel Boone and who's
(34:00):
this Harriet Tubman, why's she getting so much attention a
black woman, unbelievable. Yeah. So even when they get it right,
they still get go It's a it's a really good point.
It's a good segue to the negativism. Um, even when
it's true, it's still going to encounter resistance. Part of
(34:20):
it is that people hang on to their national pride,
their national story, stuff they learned as a kid. People
are fearful of new things change. Um, but what does
that mean about me? You know exactly? Like I dressed
like Daniel Boone and go out in public. So what
what happens if everybody doesn't know who Daniel Boone is
and I just look like a weirdo. Um. But another
(34:41):
part of it is because of the bad name that
revisionism has has been given by hacks and crackpots over
the years. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I remember in two
thousand three, President Bush used the turn revisionist history historians
talking about the media their coverage of the war in Iraq,
(35:01):
basically saying that, you know, some reporters are questioning the
reasons that we invaded Iraq and had sway over the
public's opinion about this, and a lot of historians for
the media to have, and a lot of historians weren't
too keen on that. You're like, hey, you shouldn't really
say that, because that's kind of knocking studying history, the
(35:22):
academic field of history, or the fact that history is
able to be revised. He was, he was making it
a negative thing. Same with um Florida. Apparently in two
thousand and six they outlawed the teaching of any postmodernist
or revisionist history and kids were only allowed to learn
the facts, which is number one impossible yea, and number
(35:45):
two um it says implicitly that revisionist history is not facts.
And what's the opposite of facts? Will lies? Man, that's
sad it is because it's basically saying we were used
to progress. Yeah, I will not progress, not only in
bad stuff, but in good stuff too. Yeah. No, we
(36:08):
are quite happy with that whole post war agent consensus thing.
We're gonna stay right there. So the rest of the country,
rest of the world, you go progress without us. Well,
that's that's crazy. You just can't do that. You can't
dig in your heels in in thwart history. It just
won't happen. Yeah, you look like you're on the wrong
side of history. That's gonna be one of our new
(36:30):
t shirts with you like pointing. Uh. One reason though,
revisionist history has negative connotations because people wrongly tie it
to things like Holocaust deniers. That is not revisionist history.
That is called negationism, and it's not the same thing.
So if you know someone who says the Holocaust didn't happen,
(36:51):
they're not revising history. There crackpots. Yeah, and probably a
troll too, yeah. Um yeah, So you can just kind
of remove the whole Holocaust and now from revisionist history.
The poem is in the public image. Those two things
go very much hand in hand, same with conspiracy theories.
But Conger kind of gives this little thumbnail handy dandy
(37:13):
guide to separating the wheat from the chaff as far
as revisionist history goes. So if you're encountering something like
a moon landing conspiracy or Kennedy assassination and conspiracy, you
have to ask yourself. Number one, is this a professional
historian or an amateur historian on the blog? Yeah, that's
(37:34):
a good one. Is this historian um out for the
truth or fame and money? So is it just sensationalized um?
And we ran into something like we almost did the
article about did the Chinese beat Columbus. That's a good
example of somebody who is a historian. I don't I
think his name is Gavin Menzies. There's just a theory. Yeah,
(37:56):
and there's like all this really tiny crumbs of circumstance
util evidence here there that um, the Chinese did beat
Columbus to the New World. The problem is, at this
moment it is just a crackpot theory. He has almost
nothing to back it up, as he looking just to
sell books. He sold a bunch of books. Well, that's
a pretty red pretty big red flag it is. It
(38:18):
is interesting, and you can't say that somewhere down the
road that we won't find that the Chinese did visit
the New World before Columbus. But as it stands like
that is so far outside of the mainstream. It's just
a crack pot idea. At this point, you know that
some guy wove into a pretty interesting book. Yeah. And
she also points out, which is totally true, that we
(38:38):
tend to be more skeptical of revisionist history. That's we
have a feel like we have a stake in right
or are very familiar with like, maybe I'm resistant to
that because I was raised the idea that Columbus discovered
the New World, Whereas if I it was from Ghana,
I'd be like, yeah, maybe the Chinese did do it.
Who cares exactly? You know, I couldn't said it better.
(39:02):
Uh So, Basically, a very small number of revisionist histories
are factual or not factual but accepted as fact in
the end. It's just tough to pull off, like Kevin
Menzies is another good example of that. But here's the thing,
revisionist history, it has a um, unearned bad name, right
(39:27):
it's an actual worried Well, we're not We're not saying
this is a fringe idea that's been brought into the mainstream.
This is a mainstream, um part of the study of history, right, Um,
that some fringe dwellers have adopted like here or there.
But for the most part, like like, revisionist history is
a real part of the discipline of history, and it's
(39:49):
a good part of it in my opinion, because, like
Congred points out, it levels the playing field. It's inclusive.
Like when revisionist history became a thing, history became more
inclusive of and it started to tell everybody's story. Yeah.
I can't wait to hear from historians. They're gonna be like,
oh dude, thank you yeah, or boy, did you guys
screw this up? Microvisionist history is nothing but crack pots,
(40:11):
Like where did you get the idea of what? No?
Um so you got anymore? I got nothing else? Thank
you for let me stay all pepped up about this one.
You know, how was a history major and like this
is like great stuff. I know. I usually just throw
the wet blanket on you. Uh that is not true. Uh,
since we said wet blank get or chuck did that
(40:32):
triggers me to say, if you want to learn more
about revisionist history, go to the website, type that in
the handy search bar. And then, since I said handy
search bar, we've got kind of a Rube Goldberg thing
going here that triggers uh listener mail. That's right. I'm
gonna call this, uh handwriting analysis from a handwriting analysts.
(40:56):
And this is my favorite thing is when I hear
from the actual people and they either say, hey, you
did a good job or you didn't do such a
good job. I don't mind this. I was surprised to
hear we did so good about the Maori. That was great. Yeah. Boy,
those Kiwi's love a little light shine in their way.
I love it. Hey, guys, just finished episode on handwriting
analysis as I arrived to work as a handwriting analysts,
(41:20):
or as we call ourselves, forensic document examiners. When I
got into my car at home and saw the title
of the episode, I had already begun a mental checklist
about the misconceptions you might pass on about the field.
Um oh, that's negative. I have to deal with them
all the time. However, I'm delighted to say you guys
absolutely nailed it. Exclamation point. I don't have a single
(41:42):
criticism or correction in this case. Each lab has its
own specialty, but at the Homeland Security Investigations Forensic Laboratory
where I work, we specialize in travel and identity documents.
Most of my work is determining if certain passport screen cards,
driver's licenses, and visas our counterfeit or altered. What I'm
trained to do handwriting examinations as well. I spent months
(42:04):
of my training and handwriting and it is not for everyone.
Let me say it is a difficult task. It takes
a lot of natural ability to accomplish. The first thing
we did in training was to take a form blindness
test to make sure we had that natural ability before
I started the job I have now though. I actually
worked for the Secret Service on the Phish database that
you mentioned. Uh. Fish is a lot like a f
(42:27):
I S for handwriting. The Secret Service processed a lot
of anonymous threat letters and I would put them into
the database to see if I could come up with
any matches. You could probably imagine how fun it was
to find a hit. Uh. There were a few times
this happened for me during the year I worked there,
and Uh, it always amazed me how well the system worked. Right.
And that is from Jordan's the handwriting animals. That's pretty awesome.
(42:49):
I like hearing from the actual people too. It's great,
Thanks Jordan, Yeah, thanks a lot. Jordan's. Um, Well, let's see,
we already asked for it, but I think compars asking
for again. If you are a teacher and you have
some ideas about how to fix the cracks and flaws
of the public education system or education system in general,
(43:10):
we want to hear about it. You can tweet to
us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at
Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our
home on the web stuff you Should Know dot com.
(43:31):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff Works dot com.
Hey everybody, and welcome to this weekend's edition of S
Y s K Selects. Uh. This is Chuck here. I
picked out Revisionist History. Uh, basically because it was just
a pretty darn good episode from my recollection. Um, but
of course you didn't go back and listen to it,
because why would I do that to myself? But I'd
love for you to welcome to stuff you should know
(00:25):
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck
Bryant with his uh Nazi soda? What your orange Phantom?
That's not exactly true. No, okay, well let's talk about
(00:46):
this because it's a pretty good podcast. Their episode to
discuss this. If you asked me, oh yeah, revisionist history,
I guess. Yeah. We're talking revisionist history, and for the
time being, we're talking about the origin of orange phanto
because there is a him were out there, Yeah that
orange Fanta is a Nazi soda, that it was created
by the Nazis. Yeah, that isn't quite true. Uh, like
(01:09):
there were Nazi products like Hugo Boss, that's Wwagen, Siemens, IBM, Mercedes.
I think this one to No Mercedes wasn't well Volkswagen, definitely.
The beatle was created to look like the SS helmet
from what I understand. Yeah, but Fanta Orange was created
by a coke employee in Nazi Germany, Coca Cola Germany UM,
(01:31):
which was supposedly well then that was the name of it,
and it was supposedly cut off from its parent company
during the war. Yeah, so they didn't have the supplies
they needed to make h coke. So this guy was
kind of mixed together a potion and created Fanta Orange. Um.
He went out back and dug up a bunch of
(01:52):
roots and squeezed the red headed kid. But it wasn't
like he wasn't a member of the Nazi party, and
it wasn't created four Nazis, but it was enjoyed by Nazis. Okay.
So that's where I think you can reasonably call it
a Nazi drink. It was. It was born out of
the the Nazi regime in Germany as a result of
(02:15):
directly because Coca Cola drives because of the embargo on
the Nazi regime. Get Hitler love coke too, by the way,
did he? Yeah? Um, but I wouldn't put it in
the category of like Nazi products like Volkswagen and Hugo
Boston and so Coca Cola the way it has has
it spelled out, and I mean it depends like this
story is about as good as Coca Cola can come
(02:37):
off looking while still admitting that Fanta is a Coke
product that was created in Nazi Germany. But basically their
their spiel is that, you know, Coke was cut off.
Their spiegel was that UM Coke was cut off. Coke
Germany was cut off from the parent company because Coke
wasn't doing business, and then UM, as a result of
(03:01):
the war ending Coke was like, wow, this did really well,
come back into the folds, and we'll just keep selling
Fanta and and way to go for you know, keeping
the company alive in the face of these Nazi war pigs.
UM that's apparently like the company line. I don't know,
it could be revisionist history. There are some American companies
(03:22):
that definitely did business illegally in Germany, most prominent among
them as IBM, who literally created not only the machines
but also the programs to tally the people in concentration camps.
That is not revisionist history. No, that's absolutely true. But
I just didn't I didn't even know when I brought
this drink in here that would be such a great
(03:42):
setup of the show. I just enjoyed men Orange. It
turned out pretty well. Yeah, so chucky. There's this really
great article that Conger wrote called how Revisionist History Works.
Email today tell her how good it was. I mean,
it is good, and she ignored me. It's the top
notch article. And she starts out with a pretty great
intro that I don't feel can be much improved on
because it demonstrates this whole thing pretty well. Conger talks
(04:05):
about George Washington, how as a little boy, Uh, he
was maybe a little aggressive, and he got ahold of
an axe and uh his father's ax, I believe, and
he gave a cherry tree forty wax. Then when he
saw what he had done, he gave it another forty
one and ended up chopping down the cherry tree. I
(04:27):
may have mixed legends here. Uh. And when his father
came out and saw that he had just chopped down
a cherry tree, a perfectly good money producing cherry tree,
because those things were like gold back then, he said Georgie,
what did you do? Did you cut this down? And
George Washington looked at the axe, looked at the tree,
(04:49):
looked at his father, looked at his feet, thought about
maybe a sandwich later, gonna be present one day? Shut up? Yeah,
And he said, I so I should probably be like
every other president and not tell a lie. Instead tell
the truth, because that's what our presidents do. And he said, father,
I cannot tell a lie. I did chop down this
(05:09):
cherry tree. What are you gonna do about it? I
never understood the point of that story. Was it that
he was honest, honest, forthright, upstanding, was willing to accept
the heat for what he'd done. He was accountable. There's
a lot of stuff wrapped up in just that one
little fable good with an X, exactly handy. His dad
(05:30):
had cherry tree, so he, you know, came from a
wealthy background. But the problem is is all of it's
made up. And we've talked about this before. I don't
remember what what I think it was, maybe the how
much money is there in the world. We talked about
how Washington's biographer made up a bunch of stuff. Um
remember in throwing a silver dollar all the way across
(05:51):
the Potomac. And when I'm saying, like, the problem is
there weren't silver dollars back when Washington was younger, and
I've seen the Potomac, that's impossible. Yeah, right, exactly. But
the point in is Mason Weems, h Mason Lockweens, who
was Washington's early biographer, just made up a bunch of stuff.
And what is kind of a black eye or egg
on the face of historians for a century or so
(06:14):
that followed. They just kind of bought these things hooklient
and sinker and it actually, the cherry tree story was
in our textbooks, this total fable, completely made up fable,
was told the school children as the truth. I bet
it still is in some classrooms and maybe in the ozarks,
you know, but typically outside it has been revised because
(06:38):
they found out, i think a two thousand and eight that, um,
there were no cherry trees on Washington's family childhood home,
so cut him all down right exactly, But there was
not even evidence of cut down cherry trees. So they
had to go back and say, hey, we need to
take this out of the textbooks. They did, and nobody
really was bothered by it. It's pretty minor, it is.
(07:00):
It's it's not like saying Christopher Columbus discovered America and
proved the world wasn't round and didn't commit match genocide
and tortured and rape people, right that, Yeah, that he
and his men didn't sharpen their knives on the skulls
of live Indians they encounter. Yeah, it's amazing to me
that that's we still have Columbus Day. Did you you
know the deal? Now? No one mentioned it. Well, I
(07:21):
think people are starting to pull their heads from their butts. Yeah,
I feel like this year marked the the true beginning
of the end for Columbus Day. I do not think
it's gonna be around much longer. Shouldn't be. It's just
two history is that man is too complicated, and he
did too many horrific things, even culturally relativistically. Yeah, he
(07:41):
did horrible things, and I feel like he's not going
to be honored too too far from now. Yeah, my
friend Jerry in Portland as a school teacher, and uh,
there's a thing going around Facebook about Columbus and I
shared it, of course, and Jerry said, you know, I've
the past three years, I've been able to teach this version.
So there's at least like a hundred and eighty kids
(08:01):
in Portland that are now like scarred for life with
the truth. And I was like, man, that's great. It's
about how sad is that you even have to say
this version instead of real history, right you know? Right? Well,
I mean that's part of the problem. Is history as
they figured out and maybe the I think late nineteenth
ordly twentieth century, it's objective or subjective. It's not objective,
(08:24):
and people thought that it was and that it just
kind of history happened, you talked about it, and that
was that like you there were it was just history.
It wasn't continuous and like when something happened, it happened,
and then once it was written down, that's how it was.
It was. It's a subjective, ever evolving thing. And we
figured it out, and we'll talk about when we figured
(08:45):
it out. But first, um, I mean we're what we're
talking about overall, this idea that history is meant to
be modified as new facts come to light, as attitudes change. Um.
It is called revisionism. And it's not necessarily a dirty word. Yeah,
we'll get into that. It definitely has a negative connotation
when you say, well, that's revisionist history exactly. Uh. And
(09:07):
that's one lens to to look at revisionist history through. Yeah,
let's talk about the three um major parts of revisionist history.
I think, well, this is the three ways you can
look at revisionist history. Yeah. One is a theoretical perspective.
Basically we'll say, looking at it through the lens of
African Americans instead of old white men or women or
(09:27):
you know, any other like minority. That's one example. That's
like you know when people say like get on the
right side of history. Yeah, that's basically somebody being aware
that there is a cultural social lens of revisionism. Sure
that you know what's going on is going to change
the attitude towards something that's going to change, and you're
gonna look like a pretty horrible person when there's a
(09:48):
picture of you fifty years from now holding a sign
that's Columbus right right exactly. Uh. The other is one
of the others is fact checking. Um, that's basically just
to get it right lens. Yeah, like new facts come
to life, you change the history books. And finally, the
negative perspective um that uh sees revisionism as an effort
(10:09):
to falsify or skew things for you know, usually political motives.
You know, let's talk about one of those. Congord gives
another good example of like all three of these wrapped
up in one guy. One Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. So factually,
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States.
He wrote the Constitution, wrote the Declaration of Independence, like
(10:33):
from word a disease. Yes, yes, you're right, might have
had some help. I don't know, I think other people
history exactly, but I mean, yes, he he was a
founding father. There's a lot of stuff that we know
for a fact Jefferson did right, But there's also other stuff. Um,
in particular that he had a slave with who who
(10:54):
was also his mistress. In her name was Sally Hemmings,
and he had children with her. And for many, many
years this was viewed by negative revisionists as just a
dirty rumor, yeah, which is incredibly insulting, it is to say,
because they were in love. Ye, well yeah, Nick Nolty,
you know, it wasn't like, oh he just you know,
had his way with his slaves, like he was in
(11:17):
love with Sally Hemmings and it's very insulting to say
that that's a blight on America that our president with
stoop so low, is to be in love with a
black woman, you know. Exactly. So the people who looked
at this through the negative view of revisionism, that it
was meant to sully we're on the wrong side of
history agreed. So in the late nineteen nineties, I think
(11:38):
maybe nine seven, I don't remember. Um, incontrovertible d n
E DNA evidence showed that Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson
had children together. They did it more than one, yes,
which does imply that they did it. They did it
a bunch um yeah, because the first time, I mean,
come on. Uh. So with that, we have these three
(12:02):
different lenses coming to play. You have the social theoretical lens,
which is okay, well, now we can go back and
look at history and say, um, maybe Jefferson wasn't the
only one to have a slave mistress, right, Maybe there
was a lot of this stuff going on, and maybe
black folks and white folks were co mingling more than
we thought, right exactly. Maybe at some point along that's
(12:23):
the way we um we meaning like the midnight mid
twenty century people of America put our own racist hang
ups on the people before and before during this era,
and we changed history unwittingly, it changed it back with
this fact that came to life. Then there was the
fact version yeah, which is like, maybe this is something
(12:46):
we should put in textbooks, right, you know, or more
to the point, now we can't not put this in
textbooks or the very least biographies, but textbooks do come on. Um.
And then there's a third one, the negative revisionism, which
kind of was um dispelled when this incontrovertible DNA evidence
came to light. Yeah, because up to that point you
(13:06):
could be like no, no, no, and then once the
DNA came out, it was like yes, yes, yes. Yeah.
So historians they have connor comparison to journalists, which is
I think pretty spot on. There's a responsibility there to
get it right and to not use your own skewed perspective,
(13:26):
Like you know, take the Civil War. If you still today,
if you go out in the sticks of Georgia and
ask someone about the Civil War, they're probably gonna have
some opinion. Yeah that may not be quite right. I
don't think. I don't know if people at North even
care about that stuff anymore. I think the South has
all the hang ups, sure, because we lost. They were
(13:47):
the ones, Yeah, the losers and the ones who wanted
to succeed. Yeah, up North, it's just like what happened.
But it's amazing that like this, many years later, there's
still that skewed political perspective because of your personal beliefs
in history, maybe family history, you know. Uh So let's
talk about modern revisionism, which pretty much started after World
(14:09):
War One, when the onus was put on historians to
suss it out and say, like, all right, world War
One happened, So that happened. Uh, we now have an
obligation to record this and teach the world about it.
But there were a lot of different opinions about it, right,
which makes it tough. And the term revisionist history was
actually coined a couple of decades before World War One
(14:32):
by Marxists who were grappling with um whether or not
the revolution was inevitable and how to put that down
in the history books, and revisionism was coined around this
this time by those people, but it really didn't come
into play worldwide until after World War One, and at
this time scholars started to realize that this is when
(14:56):
people figured out history is objective, Like seriously, up to
this point subjective you mean, yes, thank you. I don't
know why I can't get this straight today. But up
to this point, historians, mainstream historians overall typically believed that, like,
history was objective. Yeah. And now something like World War
(15:17):
One happened with all the world involved, everyone at a
stake in it. Because what is history besides um, looking
good you know, no one wants to look bad in
the history books or making someone look bad on purpose. Um,
and historians started to realize, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like
it's kind of up to us what goes in the
history books. And this is such a complicated, complex event
(15:40):
that maybe history isn't objective. Yeah. In thee A, the
speech was given at the American Historical Association by President
Carl Becca, and he was kind of the first guy
to really come out in public and say, you know what,
it's a living, evolving thing. It is very much subjective,
(16:01):
and it's uh subjective because it's humans memory basically the
story definitely fallible or their perspective as individuals. Uh. And
like I said, politics is usually one of the big
reasons how it gets skewed, but not just politics nationalism.
Everybody wants their country to be the winner or look
like the good guy or what have you. Um. But yeah,
(16:23):
Becker was the first to say it's subjective and therefore
it's subject to revision. And World War One was the
thing that kicked it off. Like we said, the Treaty
of Versailles really really strongly punished Germany, redrew its boundaries
and basically said, Germany, you're responsible for World War One.
You guys were the aggressor, and everybody else was reacting.
(16:45):
And then as time wore on, um new documents were
at least that showed that, no, it wasn't just Germany.
There are a lot of other factors involved, including among
the Allies that contributed directly to the beginning of World
War One, and Germany was kind of punished unfairly, so
in the League of Nations basically said hey, we need
some sort of guidelines for writing historical textbooks, and they
(17:09):
came up with that, and from that point on revisionism
was born. And then y one, Carl Becker said, yeah,
here in America, we agree history is subjective and it
can be revised. Yeah, and declassification of documents is a
big way that things can be revised, because you know,
if you don't have it's not just someone's opinion. If
(17:31):
if you don't have actual documentation and like peer reviewed stuff,
then you can't revise history, you know what I'm saying. Uh.
So that brings us to World War Two, when what
is called the age of historical consensus officially began. Um,
and I get the idea that that was just when
(17:51):
people sort of historians a banded together a little bit
more than ever before. Yeah, get that feeling. They Yeah,
there was a lot of patriotism, nationalism, and basically everybody said,
if there's anything that happened in World War Two, is
that the US emerged victorious and saved the world. Jingoism perhaps, Yeah,
(18:13):
very much. So this is among historians. And you know,
if all historians basically are on the same page that
America is awesome and kicks ass, then that's what the
history books are going to reflect. Yeah, and that held
pretty strong until the nineteen sixties, which, as anyone who
knows anything about American history knows, it was a pretty
tumultuous time. Uh. Quite a few things to Vietnam War,
(18:36):
civil rights movement, feminist movement, globalization, the Cold War, they
all combine to basically quell that nationalism a little bit. Maybe, yeah,
for sure. I mean all of the the u s
went from this sunny, happy, suburban, white picket fence Nazi
butt kicking country to one that was coming apart at
(18:59):
the seems internally. And the historians of the time of
the sixties said, like, wait a minute, if history is
this ever evolving, UM dialogue, that's table will be revised,
how are we going to document this? And what they
figured out, very wisely, was well, we need to tell
everybody's story four lenses. Yeah, well, at least I think
(19:22):
six maybe emerged from the sixties that basically history became
more inclusive. It wasn't just about the leaders anymore. It
wasn't just about how great America was. It was the
whole picture. That's what historians strove to to get to
write the four major lenses from the sixties on or political, economic, racial,
(19:43):
and sexual. That's four, it's not six. You should make
two more up. We could probably come up with a
couple that aren't like fully covered here. On political lends,
though UM obviously has to do with foreign policy. Nationalism. Um,
in the nineteen sixties, I believe you already mentioned the
Marxist revisionism outlined more of a struggle between the classes,
(20:09):
and maybe he took an approach that wasn't like, gave
the lower classes a little bit more there do, Right,
It wasn't just like, um, just because somebody was a
prominent leader doesn't mean they were a great person necessarily. Uh.
And yeah, that was a huge radical change, especially compared
to that age of consensus among historians. The economic lens
(20:30):
Charles A. Bird, a historian, had a pretty radical idea that, hey,
the Founding fathers were writing the Constitution this sort of
look out for wealthy white dudes. And I think he's
probably right. Yeah, there was a he wrote that in
I think nineteen thirteen, and it took until the TUMULTI
of the sixties before anybody ever really like kind of
(20:52):
championed itmult. I think that's right. Really, if I am
a descriptivist at the at the moment, not just tumult Yeah,
but doesn't TUMULTI run roll off the tongue a little more, well,
tumulty would be the adjective like that was a very
TUMULTI no, that'd be tumultuous. I know, that's one point.
So anyway, Beard's idea was that the framers of the
(21:16):
Constitution said, hey, let's protect ourselves, and the landowners who
owed money to the framers basically led a revolution in
eighteen hundred that was led by the election of Thomas Jefferson.
And that's where we are we live in today. But
we may have had much more of an elite society,
(21:37):
or basically we have an elite society now, we just
would have had had one for longer. So the racial lends, obviously,
uh strove to cast a light on minorities a little
more that were largely ignored thanks to the civil rights
movement um against some momentum. I remember being in school
and not learning about Malcolm X or Hue P. Newton. Who. Yeah,
(21:58):
I wasn't taught those things classes in high school. I
had to read about them on my own afterwards. College
does a much much better job, for sure, But even
you know, and this was, I mean, this is a
while ago for me. This was in the eighties. Do
you remember, but like you think, it's gotten a little better.
Do you remember when you learned hopefully at least in
high school. Um about the Native Americans supplied of Native
(22:21):
Americans in the US. I don't remember, man. I remember
ninth grade finally taking a history class where they like
spoke frankly about it, like you're like your friend in Portland,
and I don't remember my mind just being blown because
I was like, well, wait a minute, what about everything
(22:42):
I learned the last eight years, Like all that's just
total bs, like completely is contradicted by what you're saying.
Not only was this stuff like left out, I learned
the opposite, you know that they basically just went away
on their own because the white man came and they
were like, oh, this place is yours. And I remember
were being in ninth grade just learning this like wow,
(23:03):
that was a big eye opener for me. I think
that's probably why I got into history, because I was like,
this is pretty interesting stuff, Like there's more out there,
sure I want to know, like, yeah, the whole the
whole thing under the Rachel lens. Also, now you could
learn about dudes like the Tuskegee Airmen or Japanese in
tournament camps, which I never heard of until we did
(23:26):
that episode on me. Until three years ago. But um
that raises another good point, Chuck Uh. With the Japanese
in tournament camps. It wasn't in the history books before,
and then it comes out maybe in the nineties. I think,
um or it's put into the history books in the nineties,
and that kind of reflects why people struggle against revisionism,
(23:47):
or some people do, because history is ultimately zero sum,
right if you put that in the history book, the
Japanese plight, American Japanese Americans who were putting new in
terms at camps, their plight is honored just through recognition,
like this happened to you people, and now everybody knows
(24:07):
about it. But at the same time, the US government
looks bad. Yeah, and reparations are like all of a
sudden on the table and they don't want that. So
it's impossible to shine a light on something and it
not have Almost always, I can't think of one instance
a also a negative impact on something else, because what
(24:29):
is history again, if it's not somebody's screwing somebody else over?
Is that all it is? I mean, at least world history,
political history. Uh. And the final lens, of course, is
the sexual lens, which shone a light on women and said, hey,
history is not just about old white men. Yeah, there
were a lot of ladies like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and
(24:52):
so journal truth. And I think the only, like, the
only black woman I ever remember reading about, of course,
was Harriet Tubman. It's like one person, are you really
that's the only that's the only African American female in
history that made any difference was Harriet Tubman, Right, And
think about it, Like the most recent one that's mentioned
(25:13):
here is Elizabeth Katie Stanton. So apparently we ran out
of producing great women in the early twentieth century. Where
is the rest of them? So apparently we're still struggling
with that sexual lens of revisionist history. I think I
think women are definitely still fighting that fight. Included a
cool thing the other day on I think it went
(25:33):
sort of viral where this woman had her daughter, Um,
you know, like little girls play dress up and stuff
little boys to too. But um, instead of dressing the
daughter up like you know, I'm a Disney princess, um,
she dressed her up like famous women in history and
(25:54):
took pictures and just had a blast. And uh, it's
really neats, like a little photo series of this girl
dressed up as all these like great women in history,
and uh, it's very cool, very cool thing to do.
I feel like I saw that. Yeah, it was just
a couple of weeks ago. So you probably did good
for her, is what I say. Yeah, good for her. Um,
(26:14):
I guess now maybe it's a good time to do
a message break. Yeah, and after we're going to get
into correcting the facts, which is my favorite part, so Chuckers, Yeah, um,
we're talking about revisionism as a means of correcting the facts. Yeah,
(26:37):
like the game of telephone, the old adage, and that's
basically what history was. You start with a story and
it gets passed down orally or maybe even it was
written down, and it's just like a game of telephone,
things get mixed up and in the end you end
up with what is probably not the way it really happened, right,
Purple Monkey Dishwasher like like Pocahonas is her example about
(27:02):
she had this. It was a great love story between
Captain John Smith and Pocahonas and Jamestown and Disney made
a movie about it. It It seems like I'm picking up
Disney a lot, and it's well, it's the same thing
like that. Disney took this, this idea and ran with
it and created like a new well not a new character,
but he created a character who fell in love with
John Smith and they had a wacky courtship and overcame
(27:25):
all the odds and Jamestown was saying, I think he
falls down at some point maybe and there's maybe a
talking animal. Yeah. There was one problem with this though,
is Pocahonas was eleven years old and James Smith was
not a um perst. Well, pederste is exclusively with boys,
is it. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, so
(27:45):
I guess you'd be a pedophile. Yeah, let's let's just
generally say a pedophile. Uh yeah. And even though things,
you know, people courted younger back then, eleven was not
his game. So it's not true. Pocahona Is actually um
married a widower named John Rolfe. She died when she's
about twenty one. She did help, she did introduce the
(28:07):
the colonists to her tribe. The thing is and and
like do she did play a role in saving Jamestown. Um,
But yeah, she didn't fall in love with Captain John Smith. No.
And thanks to modern times, we have things like anthropology
and forensic science and archaeology, and uh, people coming out
(28:28):
like the deep throat Mark felt finally revealing I was
deep throat. I don't think he revealed himself though, did he? No,
he was uncovered. I believe documents becoming declassified, like as
time marches on and we get a little bit more modern,
we we get the facts more correct again with declassified information. Um,
(28:50):
you know something is a secret, it can't be part
of history. But then once it's declassified, these things definitely
have an effect on history and impact on history. CIA
did give LSD too, unwaiting Americans. Um, the Star Wars
program did very much help usher in the end of
the Cold War. All these come from declassified documents that
show yeah, this, this actually happened this way go back
(29:13):
and they really had an alien autop season area, right,
that's all on TV. Did you hear them Molder and
Scully or down for making another movie? They don't know
if it will happen, but I mean, if they're both game,
why not, especially her? And we're about do for the
nineties to come back in vogue. So you just look
a good bit things not working or does it have
(29:35):
a clock on there. No, it just shows I don't
have four thousand steps yet today, but you just happed it,
so it thinks you're walking. I'm just shaking my much
tv uh, because there's nothing like cheating yourself out of it,
just out of health. UM. So, like we said, updating
biographies and more importantly, uh for me, textbooks is a
(29:57):
big part of this. UM. But it's not so easy.
It's not like, hey, let's just throw in a new
chapter on Jefferson. Um. You have to actually go through
quite a process. Scholars and researchers. Uh. You know, the
first they developed these theories and thesis, they published them,
they're reviewed by academics and teachers. Uh, textbook authors meet
(30:20):
at conferences and see the new recommendations. It's kind of
a long involved process too to make a substantial change
in a textbook. Uh. And there's an actual Institute for
International Textbook Research that analyzes all this stuff and make
sure that textbooks are diversified. And uh, don't just tell
(30:40):
the history of you know, wealthy white dudes, right exactly.
This is ideal, This is the ideal process. Yeah. There's
another really big factor in this that we've talked about before,
where the biggest states are the states with the most
students and therefore by the most textbooks are the ones
who ultimately get to write the textbooks, which is why
Texas has such an outsize influence on what the rest
(31:01):
of the country learns, because they write the textbooks and
the publishers aren't going to make different textbooks for each state.
You're gonna make them for the biggest state and then
go sell them to the rest of the state. So
there are flaws in this process. And including that, there's
also you know, it's it doesn't keep up in real
time very well. Now you can't just economically, you can't
publish a new textbook every year. I think they try
(31:24):
to have about a tenure life on a textbook, but
I can't they just email history teachers and be like, hey,
on page forty two, it says that Jefferson did not
have kids with Sally Hemmings. Don't teach that part. Teach
the opposite. Yeah, And I wonder. I'm sure it varies
from county to county. I wonder how much freedom teachers
have to develop their own curriculum and other standards. But
(31:48):
I wonder how they can do their own I wonder
the impression there isn't teaching any longer, like oh, this
is a moot point when we're talking about textbooks. That's
not true. Uh sorry, sorry, teachers, I just realized something
of you. Have you listen to this, No, and you
weren't saying that in spiteful way. You're saying that like
it's sad that. Yes, exactly, teaching is, you know, stuff
to get teachers these days, thank you, just like a
(32:08):
public service, you know what teaching these days? Yeah? Yeah,
and I think it always has been you think, Yeah,
I think that the constraints put on teachers has really
tied their hands to the point where they aren't able
to teach like they should or like they want to. Yeah,
but I think it remains a public service. I just
think our education systems that need is some real reform.
(32:31):
Well it is. And it's sad that I think a
lot of teachers these days to treat it like a
public service. And and it's not bad, but I'm saying
sometimes teachers these days will be like, yeah, I'm gonna
go teach for four or five years because people are
in need of teachers. Not necessarily I want to be
a teacher for my entire career, and what they're finding
out is this generation is going to be short on
(32:54):
teachers because people are teaching for a shorter amount of time,
you know what. I'm interested in this, and we to
do an episode on that. But in the meantime, we're
gonna do a pre listener mail call out and ask
for any teachers out there who are in there on
the front lines, email us and tell us what can
be done to solve the problems with the public school system,
(33:15):
whether it's easy, complex, whatever. I'm very curious and totally
down to help anyway we can, you know, Um, alright,
so where were we textbooks? Sometimes you will publish um.
Sometimes they'll publish supplemental material that's like not every ten years,
just to get things right. Um. Yeah, because ten years
(33:37):
is a long time to go between discovering acceptance of
a new historical fact and teaching it to to kids.
That's too long. But people got up in arms. The
American Historical Association UM submitted as it's or updated it's
national history standards in textbooks, and they got negative feedback
because they were like, well, where's Daniel Boone and who's
(34:00):
this Harriet Tubman, why's she getting so much attention a
black woman, unbelievable. Yeah. So even when they get it right,
they still get go It's a it's a really good point.
It's a good segue to the negativism. Um, even when
it's true, it's still going to encounter resistance. Part of
(34:20):
it is that people hang on to their national pride,
their national story, stuff they learned as a kid. People
are fearful of new things change. Um, but what does
that mean about me? You know exactly? Like I dressed
like Daniel Boone and go out in public. So what
what happens if everybody doesn't know who Daniel Boone is
and I just look like a weirdo. Um. But another
(34:41):
part of it is because of the bad name that
revisionism has has been given by hacks and crackpots over
the years. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I remember in two
thousand three, President Bush used the turn revisionist history historians
talking about the media their coverage of the war in Iraq,
(35:01):
basically saying that, you know, some reporters are questioning the
reasons that we invaded Iraq and had sway over the
public's opinion about this, and a lot of historians for
the media to have, and a lot of historians weren't
too keen on that. You're like, hey, you shouldn't really
say that, because that's kind of knocking studying history, the
(35:22):
academic field of history, or the fact that history is
able to be revised. He was, he was making it
a negative thing. Same with um Florida. Apparently in two
thousand and six they outlawed the teaching of any postmodernist
or revisionist history and kids were only allowed to learn
the facts, which is number one impossible yea, and number
(35:45):
two um it says implicitly that revisionist history is not facts.
And what's the opposite of facts? Will lies? Man, that's
sad it is because it's basically saying we were used
to progress. Yeah, I will not progress, not only in
bad stuff, but in good stuff too. Yeah. No, we
(36:08):
are quite happy with that whole post war agent consensus thing.
We're gonna stay right there. So the rest of the country,
rest of the world, you go progress without us. Well,
that's that's crazy. You just can't do that. You can't
dig in your heels in in thwart history. It just
won't happen. Yeah, you look like you're on the wrong
side of history. That's gonna be one of our new
(36:30):
t shirts with you like pointing. Uh. One reason though,
revisionist history has negative connotations because people wrongly tie it
to things like Holocaust deniers. That is not revisionist history.
That is called negationism, and it's not the same thing.
So if you know someone who says the Holocaust didn't happen,
(36:51):
they're not revising history. There crackpots. Yeah, and probably a
troll too, yeah. Um yeah, So you can just kind
of remove the whole Holocaust and now from revisionist history.
The poem is in the public image. Those two things
go very much hand in hand, same with conspiracy theories.
But Conger kind of gives this little thumbnail handy dandy
(37:13):
guide to separating the wheat from the chaff as far
as revisionist history goes. So if you're encountering something like
a moon landing conspiracy or Kennedy assassination and conspiracy, you
have to ask yourself. Number one, is this a professional
historian or an amateur historian on the blog? Yeah, that's
(37:34):
a good one. Is this historian um out for the
truth or fame and money? So is it just sensationalized um?
And we ran into something like we almost did the
article about did the Chinese beat Columbus. That's a good
example of somebody who is a historian. I don't I
think his name is Gavin Menzies. There's just a theory. Yeah,
(37:56):
and there's like all this really tiny crumbs of circumstance
util evidence here there that um, the Chinese did beat
Columbus to the New World. The problem is, at this
moment it is just a crackpot theory. He has almost
nothing to back it up, as he looking just to
sell books. He sold a bunch of books. Well, that's
a pretty red pretty big red flag it is. It
(38:18):
is interesting, and you can't say that somewhere down the
road that we won't find that the Chinese did visit
the New World before Columbus. But as it stands like
that is so far outside of the mainstream. It's just
a crack pot idea. At this point, you know that
some guy wove into a pretty interesting book. Yeah. And
she also points out, which is totally true, that we
(38:38):
tend to be more skeptical of revisionist history. That's we
have a feel like we have a stake in right
or are very familiar with like, maybe I'm resistant to
that because I was raised the idea that Columbus discovered
the New World, Whereas if I it was from Ghana,
I'd be like, yeah, maybe the Chinese did do it.
Who cares exactly? You know, I couldn't said it better.
(39:02):
Uh So, Basically, a very small number of revisionist histories
are factual or not factual but accepted as fact in
the end. It's just tough to pull off, like Kevin
Menzies is another good example of that. But here's the thing,
revisionist history, it has a um, unearned bad name, right
(39:27):
it's an actual worried Well, we're not We're not saying
this is a fringe idea that's been brought into the mainstream.
This is a mainstream, um part of the study of history, right, Um,
that some fringe dwellers have adopted like here or there.
But for the most part, like like, revisionist history is
a real part of the discipline of history, and it's
(39:49):
a good part of it in my opinion, because, like
Congred points out, it levels the playing field. It's inclusive.
Like when revisionist history became a thing, history became more
inclusive of and it started to tell everybody's story. Yeah.
I can't wait to hear from historians. They're gonna be like,
oh dude, thank you yeah, or boy, did you guys
screw this up? Microvisionist history is nothing but crack pots,
(40:11):
Like where did you get the idea of what? No?
Um so you got anymore? I got nothing else? Thank
you for let me stay all pepped up about this one.
You know, how was a history major and like this
is like great stuff. I know. I usually just throw
the wet blanket on you. Uh that is not true. Uh,
since we said wet blank get or chuck did that
(40:32):
triggers me to say, if you want to learn more
about revisionist history, go to the website, type that in
the handy search bar. And then, since I said handy
search bar, we've got kind of a Rube Goldberg thing
going here that triggers uh listener mail. That's right. I'm
gonna call this, uh handwriting analysis from a handwriting analysts.
(40:56):
And this is my favorite thing is when I hear
from the actual people and they either say, hey, you
did a good job or you didn't do such a
good job. I don't mind this. I was surprised to
hear we did so good about the Maori. That was great. Yeah. Boy,
those Kiwi's love a little light shine in their way.
I love it. Hey, guys, just finished episode on handwriting
analysis as I arrived to work as a handwriting analysts,
(41:20):
or as we call ourselves, forensic document examiners. When I
got into my car at home and saw the title
of the episode, I had already begun a mental checklist
about the misconceptions you might pass on about the field.
Um oh, that's negative. I have to deal with them
all the time. However, I'm delighted to say you guys
absolutely nailed it. Exclamation point. I don't have a single
(41:42):
criticism or correction in this case. Each lab has its
own specialty, but at the Homeland Security Investigations Forensic Laboratory
where I work, we specialize in travel and identity documents.
Most of my work is determining if certain passport screen cards,
driver's licenses, and visas our counterfeit or altered. What I'm
trained to do handwriting examinations as well. I spent months
(42:04):
of my training and handwriting and it is not for everyone.
Let me say it is a difficult task. It takes
a lot of natural ability to accomplish. The first thing
we did in training was to take a form blindness
test to make sure we had that natural ability before
I started the job I have now though. I actually
worked for the Secret Service on the Phish database that
you mentioned. Uh. Fish is a lot like a f
(42:27):
I S for handwriting. The Secret Service processed a lot
of anonymous threat letters and I would put them into
the database to see if I could come up with
any matches. You could probably imagine how fun it was
to find a hit. Uh. There were a few times
this happened for me during the year I worked there,
and Uh, it always amazed me how well the system worked. Right.
And that is from Jordan's the handwriting animals. That's pretty awesome.
(42:49):
I like hearing from the actual people too. It's great,
Thanks Jordan, Yeah, thanks a lot. Jordan's. Um, Well, let's see,
we already asked for it, but I think compars asking
for again. If you are a teacher and you have
some ideas about how to fix the cracks and flaws
of the public education system or education system in general,
(43:10):
we want to hear about it. You can tweet to
us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at
Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our
home on the web stuff you Should Know dot com.
(43:31):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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