The History of The World According To Gits

[marshtide]

Via chairman_wow, today's helping of "...oh really." Really. "Because the world was Eurocentric." Really. Is that so.

Right. Looking a bit further. There's a thing in the Financial Times that is an extract from his paper, in which he says that Eurocentrism is fine, because Europe is really rich and stuff, which I find myself interpreting to mean that in his world people without money are hardly people at all, so what other parts of the world could possibly matter?

But he says,

Let me not be misinterpreted. The point of studying western ascendancy is not to slip covert imperialist apologia into the curriculum. On the contrary, the great strength of this framework is that it allows students to study world history without falling into the trap of relativism, i.e. arguing as if the Ashanti Empire were in some way the equal of the British Empire.

...so it's all OK! He doesn't want to be misinterpreted, so I'd better delete my post and go away. No, wait. Also, what is the man on about with that comparison, and why is this all about whose army income dick is biggest again?

Look. Telling people that Europe is the fucking be all and end all of civilisation for the past five hundred years is what we call relativism, actually, and encouraging fucking imperialism apologist bastards to keep doing their thing, and also bloody stupid. This is not an exhaustive list & I'm sure I could do some more creative things with swear words if you have a moment. Being a world power is not actually the same thing as ruling the world, and have we seriously not done enough to erase other cultures from our world-view yet? Do we need to keep trying?

This is actually just a quick sample of the things he says, here and in other places on the internet that I've just been wandering through, that make me go ICK ICK ICK. I saved the full version for valborg, who is good at dealing with righteous fury.

Anyway, I don't think that some kind of structure to history as taught in schools is actually necessarily a bad thing, and there absolutely is a problem with the scope of history as taught in the UK right now - but if the suggested structure only reinforces the already pretty entrenched idea around here that European History Is World History then I'm against.

(Hi! My computer is alive again, but became alive right before my mother came to visit for a long weekend, so I continued to not be online. I think there are quite a few things I meant to check out. I just need to find them.)

Comments

[branchandroot]

*attempts to parse that comparison*

*turns it upside down and tries again*

So... he doesn't want anyone to think he's in favor of imperialism because the great strength of the curriculum is to make it obvious that imperialism was right?

For fuck's sake.

[marshtide]

Erm. Something like that. He keeps doing this "I don't want you to think of me as an apologist, but the British Empire really was all that!" thing, in much the same way that people go "I'm not racist, but..." - and he'll admit, for example, that the British Empire did terrible things, but then redirect attention by talking about how horribly the French and Belgians behaved in Congo, and never return to the stuff we did wrong, opting instead to talk about how shining we were in comparison, as if that was even true (though I'm afraid I've lost that particular link; I've been through too much of his bullshit in the last few hours & don't fancy digging again right now, so that'll have to remain horribly sourceless). His version of "comparative history" seems to be "ways in which I say We are better than Them" right through, actually.

[silveradept]

So the UK thinks Texas did a bang-up job and they want their own, now?

[marshtide]

*wry* I don't know if the Guardian is right about how much influence the guy has/will have. I'm still disgusted with both his ideas generally & with the idea that he might be being listened to! History in UK schools is already very Eurocentric in a problematic way, or such was my experience. We don't need more.

[silveradept]

Definitely not. Haven't they figured out from the example of United States schools that are jingoistic to a fault and produce people woefully inadequate in the task of learning from their history?

[annotated_em]

What a load of absolute horseshit.

[marshtide]

Yes. And the more one reads about the guy the worse it gets, somehow.

[crystal]

ADajfaafjafjf that is so fucking annoying. I love how he can mention the Ming and the Ottoman empire, and then suddenly say, "Yeah, but Europe still rulez and is the only one that counts, man."

How can anyone in their right mind read that article and not feel all wrong about it? I didn't know historians could be such dicks =(

[marshtide]

He can say that because his dick is doing the talking. :|

Every profession has its assholes. I just prefer it when no-one is talking about the possibility of the government employing them.

[pulchritude]

oh lol...so what about the, say, two thousand years when there wasn't Western ascendancy? What's supposed to be taught about those years? "The West was just waiting for a chance/building up their might/etc. etc. etc."? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

There are so many things I can say to this, but honestly, I can only lol. Oh well, the more ignorant people are the harder they eventually fall! I'm personally mean/spiteful enough to be happy about that.

[marshtide]

I know right! I mean "The West" has had various powers over the years but so has everyone else. For fuck's sake.

We were just having a nap to make sure we were all fresh and bright and ready for empire-building, which is of course the ultimate goal of any civilisation worth talking about. That's totally how it happened.

I worry about how much damage they get to do beforehand though. Otherwise it'd be hilarious.

[chairman_wow]

Ooh, I didn't see that FT thing when I originally looked into it (granted, I only did a quick Google News search since I was in a rush).

Urgh, it's so frustrating, because he starts off making good points about history being a good guide to the present and the future and so on, but then he keeps going. I don't mind people studying the history of Europe, or Imperialism, or whatever, but not if it's the only thing you're ever going to learn in school. That is not the point of history class. You're not going to get any skills from something as biased and deterministic as a ~narrative of ascent~.

Also why does he keep going on about percentage of population and income. Only rich populous nations are interesting or worth studying now?


Ah, I don't know, I guess I'll save my righteous anger until we see how much power he's actually going to have and what he does with it. But I'm not hopeful.

[marshtide]

I definitely don't mind people studying imperialism if it's presented critically, not as some kind of bullshit nostalgia for glory days. it IS an important part of our history, and it's important that we understand what we did to other parts of the world as well. That doesn't really feel like what he's talking about somehow! And argh, god, the whole "narrative of ascent" is just. Ick ick ick ick. Are we seriously not over that whole thing yet?

Yes! Didn't you know! Only rich people are people. He's a financial history dude who keeps writing books about how capitalism is awesome, isn't he, so I guess the bias isn't exactly hidden... but oh god.

It's bad enough that people are holding onto these views, let alone that other people might listen to them...