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SYSK Selects: How Revisionist History Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to this weekend's edition of S
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Y s K Selects. Uh. This is Chuck here. I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: picked out Revisionist History. Uh, basically because it was just
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a pretty darn good episode from my recollection. Um, but
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of course you didn't go back and listen to it,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: because why would I do that to myself? But I'd
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: love for you to welcome to stuff you should know
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Bryant with his uh Nazi soda? What your orange Phantom?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: That's not exactly true. No, okay, well let's talk about
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: this because it's a pretty good podcast. Their episode to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: discuss this. If you asked me, oh yeah, revisionist history,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah. We're talking revisionist history, and for the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: time being, we're talking about the origin of orange phanto
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: because there is a him were out there, Yeah that
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: orange Fanta is a Nazi soda, that it was created
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: by the Nazis. Yeah, that isn't quite true. Uh, like
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: there were Nazi products like Hugo Boss, that's Wwagen, Siemens, IBM, Mercedes.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I think this one to No Mercedes wasn't well Volkswagen, definitely.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The beatle was created to look like the SS helmet
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: from what I understand. Yeah, but Fanta Orange was created
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: by a coke employee in Nazi Germany, Coca Cola Germany UM,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: which was supposedly well then that was the name of it,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and it was supposedly cut off from its parent company
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: during the war. Yeah, so they didn't have the supplies
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: they needed to make h coke. So this guy was
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: kind of mixed together a potion and created Fanta Orange. Um.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: He went out back and dug up a bunch of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: roots and squeezed the red headed kid. But it wasn't
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: like he wasn't a member of the Nazi party, and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: it wasn't created four Nazis, but it was enjoyed by Nazis. Okay.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So that's where I think you can reasonably call it
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a Nazi drink. It was. It was born out of
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the the Nazi regime in Germany as a result of
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: directly because Coca Cola drives because of the embargo on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the Nazi regime. Get Hitler love coke too, by the way,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: did he? Yeah? Um, but I wouldn't put it in
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the category of like Nazi products like Volkswagen and Hugo
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Boston and so Coca Cola the way it has has
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: it spelled out, and I mean it depends like this
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: story is about as good as Coca Cola can come
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: off looking while still admitting that Fanta is a Coke
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: product that was created in Nazi Germany. But basically their
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: their spiel is that, you know, Coke was cut off.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Their spiegel was that UM Coke was cut off. Coke
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Germany was cut off from the parent company because Coke
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: wasn't doing business, and then UM, as a result of
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the war ending Coke was like, wow, this did really well,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: come back into the folds, and we'll just keep selling
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Fanta and and way to go for you know, keeping
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the company alive in the face of these Nazi war pigs.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: UM that's apparently like the company line. I don't know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: it could be revisionist history. There are some American companies
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that definitely did business illegally in Germany, most prominent among
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: them as IBM, who literally created not only the machines
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: but also the programs to tally the people in concentration camps.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: That is not revisionist history. No, that's absolutely true. But
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I just didn't I didn't even know when I brought
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: this drink in here that would be such a great
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: setup of the show. I just enjoyed men Orange. It
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: turned out pretty well. Yeah, so chucky. There's this really
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: great article that Conger wrote called how Revisionist History Works.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Email today tell her how good it was. I mean,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it is good, and she ignored me. It's the top
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: notch article. And she starts out with a pretty great
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: intro that I don't feel can be much improved on
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: because it demonstrates this whole thing pretty well. Conger talks
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: about George Washington, how as a little boy, Uh, he
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: was maybe a little aggressive, and he got ahold of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: an axe and uh his father's ax, I believe, and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: he gave a cherry tree forty wax. Then when he
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: saw what he had done, he gave it another forty
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: one and ended up chopping down the cherry tree. I
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: may have mixed legends here. Uh. And when his father
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: came out and saw that he had just chopped down
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a cherry tree, a perfectly good money producing cherry tree,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: because those things were like gold back then, he said Georgie,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: what did you do? Did you cut this down? And
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: George Washington looked at the axe, looked at the tree,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: looked at his father, looked at his feet, thought about
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: maybe a sandwich later, gonna be present one day? Shut up? Yeah,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And he said, I so I should probably be like
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: every other president and not tell a lie. Instead tell
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the truth, because that's what our presidents do. And he said, father,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell a lie. I did chop down this
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: cherry tree. What are you gonna do about it? I
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: never understood the point of that story. Was it that
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: he was honest, honest, forthright, upstanding, was willing to accept
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the heat for what he'd done. He was accountable. There's
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff wrapped up in just that one
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: little fable good with an X, exactly handy. His dad
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: had cherry tree, so he, you know, came from a
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: wealthy background. But the problem is is all of it's
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: made up. And we've talked about this before. I don't
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: remember what what I think it was, maybe the how
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: much money is there in the world. We talked about
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: how Washington's biographer made up a bunch of stuff. Um
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: remember in throwing a silver dollar all the way across
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the Potomac. And when I'm saying, like, the problem is
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: there weren't silver dollars back when Washington was younger, and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I've seen the Potomac, that's impossible. Yeah, right, exactly. But
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the point in is Mason Weems, h Mason Lockweens, who
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: was Washington's early biographer, just made up a bunch of stuff.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And what is kind of a black eye or egg
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: on the face of historians for a century or so
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that followed. They just kind of bought these things hooklient
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and sinker and it actually, the cherry tree story was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in our textbooks, this total fable, completely made up fable,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: was told the school children as the truth. I bet
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: it still is in some classrooms and maybe in the ozarks,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you know, but typically outside it has been revised because
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they found out, i think a two thousand and eight that, um,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: there were no cherry trees on Washington's family childhood home,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: so cut him all down right exactly, But there was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: not even evidence of cut down cherry trees. So they
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: had to go back and say, hey, we need to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: take this out of the textbooks. They did, and nobody
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: really was bothered by it. It's pretty minor, it is.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: It's it's not like saying Christopher Columbus discovered America and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: proved the world wasn't round and didn't commit match genocide
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: and tortured and rape people, right that, Yeah, that he
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and his men didn't sharpen their knives on the skulls
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: of live Indians they encounter. Yeah, it's amazing to me
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that that's we still have Columbus Day. Did you you
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: know the deal? Now? No one mentioned it. Well, I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: think people are starting to pull their heads from their butts. Yeah,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like this year marked the the true beginning
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of the end for Columbus Day. I do not think
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be around much longer. Shouldn't be. It's just
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: two history is that man is too complicated, and he
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: did too many horrific things, even culturally relativistically. Yeah, he
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: did horrible things, and I feel like he's not going
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to be honored too too far from now. Yeah, my
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: friend Jerry in Portland as a school teacher, and uh,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: there's a thing going around Facebook about Columbus and I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: shared it, of course, and Jerry said, you know, I've
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the past three years, I've been able to teach this version.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So there's at least like a hundred and eighty kids
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: in Portland that are now like scarred for life with
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the truth. And I was like, man, that's great. It's
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: about how sad is that you even have to say
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: this version instead of real history, right you know? Right? Well,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I mean that's part of the problem. Is history as
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they figured out and maybe the I think late nineteenth
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: ordly twentieth century, it's objective or subjective. It's not objective,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and people thought that it was and that it just
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: kind of history happened, you talked about it, and that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: was that like you there were it was just history.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It wasn't continuous and like when something happened, it happened,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and then once it was written down, that's how it was.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: It was. It's a subjective, ever evolving thing. And we
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: figured it out, and we'll talk about when we figured
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: it out. But first, um, I mean we're what we're
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: talking about overall, this idea that history is meant to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: be modified as new facts come to light, as attitudes change. Um.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: It is called revisionism. And it's not necessarily a dirty word. Yeah,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: we'll get into that. It definitely has a negative connotation
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: when you say, well, that's revisionist history exactly. Uh. And
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: that's one lens to to look at revisionist history through. Yeah,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the three um major parts of revisionist history.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I think, well, this is the three ways you can
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: look at revisionist history. Yeah. One is a theoretical perspective.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Basically we'll say, looking at it through the lens of
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: African Americans instead of old white men or women or
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you know, any other like minority. That's one example. That's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: like you know when people say like get on the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: right side of history. Yeah, that's basically somebody being aware
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that there is a cultural social lens of revisionism. Sure
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that you know what's going on is going to change
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the attitude towards something that's going to change, and you're
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: gonna look like a pretty horrible person when there's a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: picture of you fifty years from now holding a sign
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: that's Columbus right right exactly. Uh. The other is one
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: of the others is fact checking. Um, that's basically just
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to get it right lens. Yeah, like new facts come
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to life, you change the history books. And finally, the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: negative perspective um that uh sees revisionism as an effort
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to falsify or skew things for you know, usually political motives.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You know, let's talk about one of those. Congord gives
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: another good example of like all three of these wrapped
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: up in one guy. One Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. So factually,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: He wrote the Constitution, wrote the Declaration of Independence, like
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: from word a disease. Yes, yes, you're right, might have
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: had some help. I don't know, I think other people
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: history exactly, but I mean, yes, he he was a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: founding father. There's a lot of stuff that we know
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: for a fact Jefferson did right, But there's also other stuff. Um,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: in particular that he had a slave with who who
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was also his mistress. In her name was Sally Hemmings,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and he had children with her. And for many, many
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: years this was viewed by negative revisionists as just a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: dirty rumor, yeah, which is incredibly insulting, it is to say,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: because they were in love. Ye, well yeah, Nick Nolty,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't like, oh he just you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: had his way with his slaves, like he was in
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: love with Sally Hemmings and it's very insulting to say
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that that's a blight on America that our president with
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: stoop so low, is to be in love with a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: black woman, you know. Exactly. So the people who looked
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: at this through the negative view of revisionism, that it
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: was meant to sully we're on the wrong side of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: history agreed. So in the late nineteen nineties, I think
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: maybe nine seven, I don't remember. Um, incontrovertible d n
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: E DNA evidence showed that Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: had children together. They did it more than one, yes,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: which does imply that they did it. They did it
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a bunch um yeah, because the first time, I mean,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: come on. Uh. So with that, we have these three
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: different lenses coming to play. You have the social theoretical lens,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: which is okay, well, now we can go back and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: look at history and say, um, maybe Jefferson wasn't the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: only one to have a slave mistress, right, Maybe there
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: was a lot of this stuff going on, and maybe
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: black folks and white folks were co mingling more than
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: we thought, right exactly. Maybe at some point along that's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the way we um we meaning like the midnight mid
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: twenty century people of America put our own racist hang
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: ups on the people before and before during this era,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and we changed history unwittingly, it changed it back with
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: this fact that came to life. Then there was the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: fact version yeah, which is like, maybe this is something
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: we should put in textbooks, right, you know, or more
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: to the point, now we can't not put this in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: textbooks or the very least biographies, but textbooks do come on. Um.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And then there's a third one, the negative revisionism, which
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: kind of was um dispelled when this incontrovertible DNA evidence
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: came to light. Yeah, because up to that point you
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: could be like no, no, no, and then once the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: DNA came out, it was like yes, yes, yes. Yeah.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So historians they have connor comparison to journalists, which is
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I think pretty spot on. There's a responsibility there to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: get it right and to not use your own skewed perspective,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Like you know, take the Civil War. If you still today,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: if you go out in the sticks of Georgia and
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: ask someone about the Civil War, they're probably gonna have
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: some opinion. Yeah that may not be quite right. I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: don't think. I don't know if people at North even
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: care about that stuff anymore. I think the South has
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: all the hang ups, sure, because we lost. They were
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the ones, Yeah, the losers and the ones who wanted
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to succeed. Yeah, up North, it's just like what happened.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But it's amazing that like this, many years later, there's
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: still that skewed political perspective because of your personal beliefs
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: in history, maybe family history, you know. Uh So let's
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: talk about modern revisionism, which pretty much started after World
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: War One, when the onus was put on historians to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: suss it out and say, like, all right, world War
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: One happened, So that happened. Uh, we now have an
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: obligation to record this and teach the world about it.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: But there were a lot of different opinions about it, right,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: which makes it tough. And the term revisionist history was
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: actually coined a couple of decades before World War One
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: by Marxists who were grappling with um whether or not
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the revolution was inevitable and how to put that down
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: in the history books, and revisionism was coined around this
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this time by those people, but it really didn't come
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: into play worldwide until after World War One, and at
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: this time scholars started to realize that this is when
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: people figured out history is objective, Like seriously, up to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: this point subjective you mean, yes, thank you. I don't
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: know why I can't get this straight today. But up
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to this point, historians, mainstream historians overall typically believed that, like,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: history was objective. Yeah. And now something like World War
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: One happened with all the world involved, everyone at a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: stake in it. Because what is history besides um, looking
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: good you know, no one wants to look bad in
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the history books or making someone look bad on purpose. Um,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: and historians started to realize, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: it's kind of up to us what goes in the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: history books. And this is such a complicated, complex event
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: that maybe history isn't objective. Yeah. In thee A, the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: speech was given at the American Historical Association by President
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Carl Becca, and he was kind of the first guy
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to really come out in public and say, you know what,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it's a living, evolving thing. It is very much subjective,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and it's uh subjective because it's humans memory basically the
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: story definitely fallible or their perspective as individuals. Uh. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: like I said, politics is usually one of the big
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: reasons how it gets skewed, but not just politics nationalism.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Everybody wants their country to be the winner or look
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like the good guy or what have you. Um. But yeah,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Becker was the first to say it's subjective and therefore
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it's subject to revision. And World War One was the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: thing that kicked it off. Like we said, the Treaty
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of Versailles really really strongly punished Germany, redrew its boundaries
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and basically said, Germany, you're responsible for World War One.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: You guys were the aggressor, and everybody else was reacting.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And then as time wore on, um new documents were
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: at least that showed that, no, it wasn't just Germany.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of other factors involved, including among
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the Allies that contributed directly to the beginning of World
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: War One, and Germany was kind of punished unfairly, so
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: in the League of Nations basically said hey, we need
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: some sort of guidelines for writing historical textbooks, and they
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: came up with that, and from that point on revisionism
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: was born. And then y one, Carl Becker said, yeah,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: here in America, we agree history is subjective and it
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: can be revised. Yeah, and declassification of documents is a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: big way that things can be revised, because you know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: if you don't have it's not just someone's opinion. If
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: if you don't have actual documentation and like peer reviewed stuff,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: then you can't revise history, you know what I'm saying. Uh.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: So that brings us to World War Two, when what
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: is called the age of historical consensus officially began. Um,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and I get the idea that that was just when
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: people sort of historians a banded together a little bit
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: more than ever before. Yeah, get that feeling. They Yeah,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of patriotism, nationalism, and basically everybody said,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: if there's anything that happened in World War Two, is
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: that the US emerged victorious and saved the world. Jingoism perhaps, Yeah,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: very much. So this is among historians. And you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: if all historians basically are on the same page that
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: America is awesome and kicks ass, then that's what the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: history books are going to reflect. Yeah, and that held
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: pretty strong until the nineteen sixties, which, as anyone who
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: knows anything about American history knows, it was a pretty
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: tumultuous time. Uh. Quite a few things to Vietnam War,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: civil rights movement, feminist movement, globalization, the Cold War, they
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: all combine to basically quell that nationalism a little bit. Maybe, yeah,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: for sure. I mean all of the the u s
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: went from this sunny, happy, suburban, white picket fence Nazi
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: butt kicking country to one that was coming apart at
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the seems internally. And the historians of the time of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the sixties said, like, wait a minute, if history is
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: this ever evolving, UM dialogue, that's table will be revised,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: how are we going to document this? And what they
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: figured out, very wisely, was well, we need to tell
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: everybody's story four lenses. Yeah, well, at least I think
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: six maybe emerged from the sixties that basically history became
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: more inclusive. It wasn't just about the leaders anymore. It
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't just about how great America was. It was the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: whole picture. That's what historians strove to to get to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: write the four major lenses from the sixties on or political, economic, racial,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and sexual. That's four, it's not six. You should make
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: two more up. We could probably come up with a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: couple that aren't like fully covered here. On political lends,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: though UM obviously has to do with foreign policy. Nationalism. Um,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, I believe you already mentioned the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Marxist revisionism outlined more of a struggle between the classes,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and maybe he took an approach that wasn't like, gave
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the lower classes a little bit more there do, Right,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just like, um, just because somebody was a
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: prominent leader doesn't mean they were a great person necessarily. Uh.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that was a huge radical change, especially compared
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to that age of consensus among historians. The economic lens
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Charles A. Bird, a historian, had a pretty radical idea that, hey,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the Founding fathers were writing the Constitution this sort of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: look out for wealthy white dudes. And I think he's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: probably right. Yeah, there was a he wrote that in
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I think nineteen thirteen, and it took until the TUMULTI
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of the sixties before anybody ever really like kind of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: championed itmult. I think that's right. Really, if I am
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a descriptivist at the at the moment, not just tumult Yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: but doesn't TUMULTI run roll off the tongue a little more, well,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: tumulty would be the adjective like that was a very
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: TUMULTI no, that'd be tumultuous. I know, that's one point.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: So anyway, Beard's idea was that the framers of the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Constitution said, hey, let's protect ourselves, and the landowners who
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: owed money to the framers basically led a revolution in
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundred that was led by the election of Thomas Jefferson.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: And that's where we are we live in today. But
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: we may have had much more of an elite society,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: or basically we have an elite society now, we just
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: would have had had one for longer. So the racial lends, obviously,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: uh strove to cast a light on minorities a little
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: more that were largely ignored thanks to the civil rights
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: movement um against some momentum. I remember being in school
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and not learning about Malcolm X or Hue P. Newton. Who. Yeah,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I wasn't taught those things classes in high school. I
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: had to read about them on my own afterwards. College
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: does a much much better job, for sure, But even
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and this was, I mean, this is a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: while ago for me. This was in the eighties. Do
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: you remember, but like you think, it's gotten a little better.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Do you remember when you learned hopefully at least in
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: high school. Um about the Native Americans supplied of Native
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Americans in the US. I don't remember, man. I remember
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: ninth grade finally taking a history class where they like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: spoke frankly about it, like you're like your friend in Portland,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and I don't remember my mind just being blown because
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, wait a minute, what about everything
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: I learned the last eight years, Like all that's just
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: total bs, like completely is contradicted by what you're saying.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Not only was this stuff like left out, I learned
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the opposite, you know that they basically just went away
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: on their own because the white man came and they
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: were like, oh, this place is yours. And I remember
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: were being in ninth grade just learning this like wow,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that was a big eye opener for me. I think
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that's probably why I got into history, because I was like,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this is pretty interesting stuff, Like there's more out there,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: sure I want to know, like, yeah, the whole the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: whole thing under the Rachel lens. Also, now you could
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: learn about dudes like the Tuskegee Airmen or Japanese in
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: tournament camps, which I never heard of until we did
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: that episode on me. Until three years ago. But um
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that raises another good point, Chuck Uh. With the Japanese
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: in tournament camps. It wasn't in the history books before,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and then it comes out maybe in the nineties. I think,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: um or it's put into the history books in the nineties,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and that kind of reflects why people struggle against revisionism,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: or some people do, because history is ultimately zero sum,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: right if you put that in the history book, the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Japanese plight, American Japanese Americans who were putting new in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: terms at camps, their plight is honored just through recognition,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: like this happened to you people, and now everybody knows
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: about it. But at the same time, the US government
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: looks bad. Yeah, and reparations are like all of a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: sudden on the table and they don't want that. So
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to shine a light on something and it
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: not have Almost always, I can't think of one instance
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a also a negative impact on something else, because what
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: is history again, if it's not somebody's screwing somebody else over?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Is that all it is? I mean, at least world history,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: political history. Uh. And the final lens, of course, is
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the sexual lens, which shone a light on women and said, hey,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: history is not just about old white men. Yeah, there
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: were a lot of ladies like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: so journal truth. And I think the only, like, the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: only black woman I ever remember reading about, of course,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: was Harriet Tubman. It's like one person, are you really
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that's the only that's the only African American female in
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: history that made any difference was Harriet Tubman, Right, And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: think about it, Like the most recent one that's mentioned
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: here is Elizabeth Katie Stanton. So apparently we ran out
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of producing great women in the early twentieth century. Where
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: is the rest of them? So apparently we're still struggling
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: with that sexual lens of revisionist history. I think I
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: think women are definitely still fighting that fight. Included a
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: cool thing the other day on I think it went
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: sort of viral where this woman had her daughter, Um,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you know, like little girls play dress up and stuff
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: little boys to too. But um, instead of dressing the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: daughter up like you know, I'm a Disney princess, um,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: she dressed her up like famous women in history and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: took pictures and just had a blast. And uh, it's
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: really neats, like a little photo series of this girl
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: dressed up as all these like great women in history,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and uh, it's very cool, very cool thing to do.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like I saw that. Yeah, it was just
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago. So you probably did good
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: for her, is what I say. Yeah, good for her. Um,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I guess now maybe it's a good time to do
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a message break. Yeah, and after we're going to get
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: into correcting the facts, which is my favorite part, so Chuckers, Yeah, um,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: we're talking about revisionism as a means of correcting the facts. Yeah,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: like the game of telephone, the old adage, and that's
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: basically what history was. You start with a story and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it gets passed down orally or maybe even it was
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: written down, and it's just like a game of telephone,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: things get mixed up and in the end you end
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: up with what is probably not the way it really happened, right,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Purple Monkey Dishwasher like like Pocahonas is her example about
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: she had this. It was a great love story between
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Captain John Smith and Pocahonas and Jamestown and Disney made
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: a movie about it. It It seems like I'm picking up
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Disney a lot, and it's well, it's the same thing
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: like that. Disney took this, this idea and ran with
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: it and created like a new well not a new character,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: but he created a character who fell in love with
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: John Smith and they had a wacky courtship and overcame
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: all the odds and Jamestown was saying, I think he
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: falls down at some point maybe and there's maybe a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: talking animal. Yeah. There was one problem with this though,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: is Pocahonas was eleven years old and James Smith was
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: not a um perst. Well, pederste is exclusively with boys,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: is it. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, so
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd be a pedophile. Yeah, let's let's just
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: generally say a pedophile. Uh yeah. And even though things,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: you know, people courted younger back then, eleven was not
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: his game. So it's not true. Pocahona Is actually um
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: married a widower named John Rolfe. She died when she's
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: about twenty one. She did help, she did introduce the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the colonists to her tribe. The thing is and and
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: like do she did play a role in saving Jamestown. Um,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: But yeah, she didn't fall in love with Captain John Smith. No.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: And thanks to modern times, we have things like anthropology
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and forensic science and archaeology, and uh, people coming out
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: like the deep throat Mark felt finally revealing I was
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: deep throat. I don't think he revealed himself though, did he? No,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: he was uncovered. I believe documents becoming declassified, like as
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: time marches on and we get a little bit more modern,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: we we get the facts more correct again with declassified information. Um,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know something is a secret, it can't be part
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of history. But then once it's declassified, these things definitely
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: have an effect on history and impact on history. CIA
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: did give LSD too, unwaiting Americans. Um, the Star Wars
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: program did very much help usher in the end of
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the Cold War. All these come from declassified documents that
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: show yeah, this, this actually happened this way go back
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and they really had an alien autop season area, right,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that's all on TV. Did you hear them Molder and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Scully or down for making another movie? They don't know
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: if it will happen, but I mean, if they're both game,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: why not, especially her? And we're about do for the
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: nineties to come back in vogue. So you just look
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a good bit things not working or does it have
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a clock on there. No, it just shows I don't
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: have four thousand steps yet today, but you just happed it,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: so it thinks you're walking. I'm just shaking my much
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: tv uh, because there's nothing like cheating yourself out of it,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: just out of health. UM. So, like we said, updating
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: biographies and more importantly, uh for me, textbooks is a
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: big part of this. UM. But it's not so easy.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's not like, hey, let's just throw in a new
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: chapter on Jefferson. Um. You have to actually go through
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: quite a process. Scholars and researchers. Uh. You know, the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: first they developed these theories and thesis, they published them,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: they're reviewed by academics and teachers. Uh, textbook authors meet
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: at conferences and see the new recommendations. It's kind of
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: a long involved process too to make a substantial change
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: in a textbook. Uh. And there's an actual Institute for
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: International Textbook Research that analyzes all this stuff and make
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: sure that textbooks are diversified. And uh, don't just tell
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the history of you know, wealthy white dudes, right exactly.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: This is ideal, This is the ideal process. Yeah. There's
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: another really big factor in this that we've talked about before,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: where the biggest states are the states with the most
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: students and therefore by the most textbooks are the ones
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: who ultimately get to write the textbooks, which is why
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Texas has such an outsize influence on what the rest
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: of the country learns, because they write the textbooks and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the publishers aren't going to make different textbooks for each state.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: You're gonna make them for the biggest state and then
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: go sell them to the rest of the state. So
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: there are flaws in this process. And including that, there's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: also you know, it's it doesn't keep up in real
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: time very well. Now you can't just economically, you can't
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: publish a new textbook every year. I think they try
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to have about a tenure life on a textbook, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I can't they just email history teachers and be like, hey,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: on page forty two, it says that Jefferson did not
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: have kids with Sally Hemmings. Don't teach that part. Teach
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the opposite. Yeah, And I wonder. I'm sure it varies
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: from county to county. I wonder how much freedom teachers
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: have to develop their own curriculum and other standards. But
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I wonder how they can do their own I wonder
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the impression there isn't teaching any longer, like oh, this
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: is a moot point when we're talking about textbooks. That's
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: not true. Uh sorry, sorry, teachers, I just realized something
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: of you. Have you listen to this, No, and you
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: weren't saying that in spiteful way. You're saying that like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: it's sad that. Yes, exactly, teaching is, you know, stuff
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to get teachers these days, thank you, just like a
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: public service, you know what teaching these days? Yeah? Yeah,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and I think it always has been you think, Yeah,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I think that the constraints put on teachers has really
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: tied their hands to the point where they aren't able
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: to teach like they should or like they want to. Yeah,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: but I think it remains a public service. I just
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: think our education systems that need is some real reform.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Well it is. And it's sad that I think a
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: lot of teachers these days to treat it like a
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: public service. And and it's not bad, but I'm saying
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: sometimes teachers these days will be like, yeah, I'm gonna
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: go teach for four or five years because people are
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: in need of teachers. Not necessarily I want to be
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a teacher for my entire career, and what they're finding
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: out is this generation is going to be short on
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: teachers because people are teaching for a shorter amount of time,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: you know what. I'm interested in this, and we to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: do an episode on that. But in the meantime, we're
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: gonna do a pre listener mail call out and ask
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: for any teachers out there who are in there on
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the front lines, email us and tell us what can
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: be done to solve the problems with the public school system,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: whether it's easy, complex, whatever. I'm very curious and totally
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: down to help anyway we can, you know, Um, alright,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: so where were we textbooks? Sometimes you will publish um.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll publish supplemental material that's like not every ten years,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: just to get things right. Um. Yeah, because ten years
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: is a long time to go between discovering acceptance of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a new historical fact and teaching it to to kids.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: That's too long. But people got up in arms. The
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: American Historical Association UM submitted as it's or updated it's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: national history standards in textbooks, and they got negative feedback
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: because they were like, well, where's Daniel Boone and who's
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: this Harriet Tubman, why's she getting so much attention a
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: black woman, unbelievable. Yeah. So even when they get it right,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: they still get go It's a it's a really good point.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: It's a good segue to the negativism. Um, even when
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: it's true, it's still going to encounter resistance. Part of
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: it is that people hang on to their national pride,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: their national story, stuff they learned as a kid. People
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: are fearful of new things change. Um, but what does
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that mean about me? You know exactly? Like I dressed
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: like Daniel Boone and go out in public. So what
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: what happens if everybody doesn't know who Daniel Boone is
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and I just look like a weirdo. Um. But another
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: part of it is because of the bad name that
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: revisionism has has been given by hacks and crackpots over
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the years. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I remember in two
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: thousand three, President Bush used the turn revisionist history historians
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: talking about the media their coverage of the war in Iraq,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: basically saying that, you know, some reporters are questioning the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: reasons that we invaded Iraq and had sway over the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: public's opinion about this, and a lot of historians for
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the media to have, and a lot of historians weren't
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: too keen on that. You're like, hey, you shouldn't really
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: say that, because that's kind of knocking studying history, the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: academic field of history, or the fact that history is
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: able to be revised. He was, he was making it
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: a negative thing. Same with um Florida. Apparently in two
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: thousand and six they outlawed the teaching of any postmodernist
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: or revisionist history and kids were only allowed to learn
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the facts, which is number one impossible yea, and number
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: two um it says implicitly that revisionist history is not facts.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: And what's the opposite of facts? Will lies? Man, that's
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: sad it is because it's basically saying we were used
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to progress. Yeah, I will not progress, not only in
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: bad stuff, but in good stuff too. Yeah. No, we
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: are quite happy with that whole post war agent consensus thing.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: We're gonna stay right there. So the rest of the country,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: rest of the world, you go progress without us. Well,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: that's that's crazy. You just can't do that. You can't
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: dig in your heels in in thwart history. It just
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: won't happen. Yeah, you look like you're on the wrong
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: side of history. That's gonna be one of our new
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: t shirts with you like pointing. Uh. One reason though,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: revisionist history has negative connotations because people wrongly tie it
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: to things like Holocaust deniers. That is not revisionist history.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: That is called negationism, and it's not the same thing.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: So if you know someone who says the Holocaust didn't happen,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: they're not revising history. There crackpots. Yeah, and probably a
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: troll too, yeah. Um yeah, So you can just kind
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: of remove the whole Holocaust and now from revisionist history.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: The poem is in the public image. Those two things
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: go very much hand in hand, same with conspiracy theories.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: But Conger kind of gives this little thumbnail handy dandy
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: guide to separating the wheat from the chaff as far
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: as revisionist history goes. So if you're encountering something like
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: a moon landing conspiracy or Kennedy assassination and conspiracy, you
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: have to ask yourself. Number one, is this a professional
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: historian or an amateur historian on the blog? Yeah, that's
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: a good one. Is this historian um out for the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: truth or fame and money? So is it just sensationalized um?
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And we ran into something like we almost did the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: article about did the Chinese beat Columbus. That's a good
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: example of somebody who is a historian. I don't I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: think his name is Gavin Menzies. There's just a theory. Yeah,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: and there's like all this really tiny crumbs of circumstance
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: util evidence here there that um, the Chinese did beat
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Columbus to the New World. The problem is, at this
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: moment it is just a crackpot theory. He has almost
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: nothing to back it up, as he looking just to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: sell books. He sold a bunch of books. Well, that's
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a pretty red pretty big red flag it is. It
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is interesting, and you can't say that somewhere down the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: road that we won't find that the Chinese did visit
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the New World before Columbus. But as it stands like
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: that is so far outside of the mainstream. It's just
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a crack pot idea. At this point, you know that
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: some guy wove into a pretty interesting book. Yeah. And
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: she also points out, which is totally true, that we
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: tend to be more skeptical of revisionist history. That's we
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: have a feel like we have a stake in right
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: or are very familiar with like, maybe I'm resistant to
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: that because I was raised the idea that Columbus discovered
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the New World, Whereas if I it was from Ghana,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, yeah, maybe the Chinese did do it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Who cares exactly? You know, I couldn't said it better.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Uh So, Basically, a very small number of revisionist histories
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: are factual or not factual but accepted as fact in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the end. It's just tough to pull off, like Kevin
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Menzies is another good example of that. But here's the thing,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: revisionist history, it has a um, unearned bad name, right
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: it's an actual worried Well, we're not We're not saying
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: this is a fringe idea that's been brought into the mainstream.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: This is a mainstream, um part of the study of history, right, Um,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: that some fringe dwellers have adopted like here or there.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, like like, revisionist history is
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: a real part of the discipline of history, and it's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: a good part of it in my opinion, because, like
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Congred points out, it levels the playing field. It's inclusive.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Like when revisionist history became a thing, history became more
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: inclusive of and it started to tell everybody's story. Yeah.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear from historians. They're gonna be like,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: oh dude, thank you yeah, or boy, did you guys
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: screw this up? Microvisionist history is nothing but crack pots,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Like where did you get the idea of what? No?
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Um so you got anymore? I got nothing else? Thank
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: you for let me stay all pepped up about this one.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: You know, how was a history major and like this
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: is like great stuff. I know. I usually just throw
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the wet blanket on you. Uh that is not true. Uh,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: since we said wet blank get or chuck did that
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: triggers me to say, if you want to learn more
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: about revisionist history, go to the website, type that in
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the handy search bar. And then, since I said handy
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: search bar, we've got kind of a Rube Goldberg thing
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: going here that triggers uh listener mail. That's right. I'm
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: gonna call this, uh handwriting analysis from a handwriting analysts.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: And this is my favorite thing is when I hear
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: from the actual people and they either say, hey, you
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: did a good job or you didn't do such a
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: good job. I don't mind this. I was surprised to
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: hear we did so good about the Maori. That was great. Yeah. Boy,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: those Kiwi's love a little light shine in their way.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I love it. Hey, guys, just finished episode on handwriting
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: analysis as I arrived to work as a handwriting analysts,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: or as we call ourselves, forensic document examiners. When I
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: got into my car at home and saw the title
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: of the episode, I had already begun a mental checklist
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: about the misconceptions you might pass on about the field.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Um oh, that's negative. I have to deal with them
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: all the time. However, I'm delighted to say you guys
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: absolutely nailed it. Exclamation point. I don't have a single
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: criticism or correction in this case. Each lab has its
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: own specialty, but at the Homeland Security Investigations Forensic Laboratory
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: where I work, we specialize in travel and identity documents.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Most of my work is determining if certain passport screen cards,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: driver's licenses, and visas our counterfeit or altered. What I'm
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: trained to do handwriting examinations as well. I spent months
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: of my training and handwriting and it is not for everyone.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Let me say it is a difficult task. It takes
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of natural ability to accomplish. The first thing
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: we did in training was to take a form blindness
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: test to make sure we had that natural ability before
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I started the job I have now though. I actually
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: worked for the Secret Service on the Phish database that
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: you mentioned. Uh. Fish is a lot like a f
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I S for handwriting. The Secret Service processed a lot
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: of anonymous threat letters and I would put them into
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the database to see if I could come up with
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: any matches. You could probably imagine how fun it was
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: to find a hit. Uh. There were a few times
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: this happened for me during the year I worked there,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and Uh, it always amazed me how well the system worked. Right.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: And that is from Jordan's the handwriting animals. That's pretty awesome.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I like hearing from the actual people too. It's great,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks Jordan, Yeah, thanks a lot. Jordan's. Um, Well, let's see,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: we already asked for it, but I think compars asking
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: for again. If you are a teacher and you have
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: some ideas about how to fix the cracks and flaws
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: of the public education system or education system in general,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. You can tweet to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, and you can join us at our
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: home on the web stuff you Should Know dot com.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.