"My Side's Better than Your Side," a short rant about history

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malthaussen

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I used to be a contributor to a soi-disant "history" board, but the attraction paled quite quickly.  Pourquoi?  Because it was full of "Who was better, Gnoflacks or Pugsees" type posts, and posts like "Who is your favorite historical character,"  and "Who is the evillest (sic) character in history,"  und so weiter.  Clio weeps, but Thalia is laughing (as usual).

I wonder why this should be?  History is badly taught in the USA, this I know from personal experience, and although I am not qualified to comment on the pedagoguery of other countries, I doubt it's very well taught elsewhere, either, because history is a very difficult subject to do well.  It's quite easy to do poorly.  Reduced to mere memorization of dates and facts, it fits easily into standardized test formats, and is generally considered one of the most boring and irrelevant subjects in the Liberal Arts, themselves considered boring and irrelevant by all right-thinking people.  Such a shame, really, because history can be a lot of fun.  If you can control your gag reflex.

I launch this rant, because lo and behold, we have here a soi-disant "history" section that is dedicated to posts such as the above.  Now, children, I'm all for fun and games.  Whatever gets you through the night.  I'd prefer, however, that you'd call your games something other than "history."  "Who is better, Samurai or Knights" is an entertaining subject, and may provoke a lot of discussion, but history it is not. 

History is not personality journalism, it is not figuring the over/under on a speculative matchup between military systems that existed in widely-separated spheres of time and space.  History is about critical interpretation of evidence, primarily textual, in an effort to find out (trivially) what really happened, and (more importantly), to try to figure out what makes people tick.  That's why it's one of the Humanities, doncher know.

As applied to the game MB, "history" can be addressed to answer certain questions of bare fact:  eg, was this helm in use at such-and-such a date, and thus add to the "realism" of the game, but it is pretty well useless, since the game isn't about history, it's merely set in an historical context.  Insofar as the devs and modders want to "get it right,"  history may be of use to them, but otherwise it has no application.  Nor does the game teach anything about history (except, possibly, what helm may have been in vogue at such-and-such a date, provided the designer of that helm has done his homework), which is quite all right, as it makes no claim to do so.

So, Malthaussen you evil troll, you, what would be an appropriate subject for a "history" section?  That's a tough question, since "history" these days is so closely caught up in politics and prejudice that historical discussion (which is, after all, all about interpretation to begin with) generally leads to flame-wars, frustrations, and moderators banning users en masse.  But let's try a simple, relevant historical question, which may not be so inflammatory.

The game depicts a social and military milieu that is essentially chaotic, with bands of freebooters roaming about, raiders raiding, chaos on all sides, and little, if any central direction.  In this way it resembles, somewhat, Europe during the period of the latter 100 Year's War, or the 30 Year's War without the gunpowder and religion.  What are the factors leading to the rise of nation-states and the regulation of this generalized chaos into more devastating, but less widespread (usually) occurrences?  What is the literature on the subject? (always a vital historical question, since history is waged in books and sources, primary and secondary)  You have one hour.  Good luck.

  -- Mal
 
malthaussen said:
I launch this rant, because lo and behold, we have here a soi-disant "history" section that is dedicated to posts such as the above.  Now, children, I'm all for fun and games.  Whatever gets you through the night.  I'd prefer, however, that you'd call your games something other than "history."  "Who is better, Samurai or Knights" is an entertaining subject, and may provoke a lot of discussion, but history it is not. 

I'd like to point out that people who actually make threads like those are flamed to oblivion in the first few pages.
 
Swadius:  Is this in fact the case?  I see 40 pages for Vikings/Samurai, 34 for Romans/Spartans, and 13 for Pirates/Ninjas.  I've only scanned the subjects, after you posted your response, but they appear to be addressing the initial question and not hijacked elsewhere, nor flaming the OP.

  -- Mal 
 
malthaussen said:
Swadius:  Is this in fact the case?  I see 40 pages for Vikings/Samurai, 34 for Romans/Spartans, and 13 for Pirates/Ninjas.  I've only scanned the subjects, after you posted your response, but they appear to be addressing the initial question and not hijacked elsewhere, nor flaming the OP.

  -- Mal

We got tired of flaming them in the Samurai VS. Knights thread already a few years ago when people persisted on making them despite of our comments :razz:.

And what is this "you have one hour" about?
 
Swadius:  "you have one hour" is a feeble attempt at humor.  I am aware that my "suggested" question rather resembles a question on a test, and thus I append the time limit that is usually applied to such questions.

You will discover, if I hang around this board much, and you read many of my posts, that my mind rather more resembles Terry Pratchett's than otherwise.  Be warned.

M. Lazarou:  as my whole post was about the question you ask, I am really at a loss as to how I might expand upon it to make it clearer.  Apologies.

  -- Mal
 
malthaussen said:
Swadius:  "you have one hour" is a feeble attempt at humor.  I am aware that my "suggested" question rather resembles a question on a test, and thus I append the time limit that is usually applied to such questions.

You will discover, if I hang around this board much, and you read many of my posts, that my mind rather more resembles Terry Pratchett's than otherwise.  Be warned.

M. Lazarou:  as my whole post was about the question you ask, I am really at a loss as to how I might expand upon it to make it clearer.  Apologies.

  -- Mal

Oh, you have Alzheimer's? Bummer..
 
I've actually found myself learning a little from those threads, for example roughly when Iceland was Christened and that the Bujinkan federation holds no 'poof' that their art was used by unproven ninja. Not that I'm defending them, but where would you suggest people wondering about such things should dump their questions, beyond nowhere?
 
@ malthaussen: Yes, the ultimate goal of history is to find out what happened and what makes people tick.  However, there is a lot of "personality journalism" involved in that.  For example, what made Alexander the Great tick?  To begin there, you have to have an idea of his personality.  Hence the study of individuals and their behaviour.  Or have I misunderstood what personality journalism is?

Secondly, if just one person walks away and decides to looks something up, be it about why warrior 1 would beat warrior 2 or why personality a was/ was not an idiot, then those stupid and pointless threads you hate so much have contributed, in their own way, to the study of history.

Thirdly: do you mean to tell me that you don't have a historical personality/artefact/culture that you respect and have a real interest in, or vice versa, for whatever reason.  Even academic historians have favourites.

Finally, yes, this is a History forum.  But it's a forum on a board for a computer game.  It's not exactly the review board for Antiquity.

I did have a sentence to wrap all this up, but it seems to have abandoned my brain-ship...
 
Kvedulf:  that happens to me all the time.  'Tis a bummer.

Merlkerl:  Normally I wouldn't dignify.  But a response to your remark rather follows from what I've written in response to Kvedulf.  No, I don't have Altzheimer's, just certain symptoms of the early stages of the condition.  Beware what you say, you never know where your foot will end up.

To expand a bit more to Kvedulf:  I don't hate those threads, I just think they aren't history.  In fact (for my sins), I've participated in such discussions, as I said, they can be fun.  Where should they be put otherwise than in a history subforum?  I don't know, how about a "Speculative" forum, or a "Popcult History Forum?" 

I find it hard to dignify "personality journalism" with the appelation "study,"  doubtless I'm just a snob.  Yes, I have my personal favorites (Socrates, Yeshua bar-Joseph, and David Hume rank high on my list, "The wise guys of history"), but I wouldn't dignify such preferences with the name of "history."  On reflection, though, this is probably just another matter of personal preference.  But then, all rants are about personal preferences, aren't they?

  -- Mal
 
To expand a bit more to Kvedulf:  I don't hate those threads, I just think they aren't history.  In fact (for my sins), I've participated in such discussions, as I said, they can be fun.  Where should they be put otherwise than in a history subforum?  I don't know, how about a "Speculative" forum, or a "Popcult History Forum?"
That's my point. I don't think it matters.

Those threads concern the application of historical knowledge. I really don't see the harm.
 
This thread is even less of a historical discussion than the "Pirates vs Ninjas" thread. It should go in the Website and Community subforum. :razz:
 
About the first post, could you keep it in, well, English? If I wanted German or French I'd go to the relevant forums.  :neutral:

But more on topic, where else would you want the pseudo-historical banter? Other than the obvious place that is.
The sage's guild doesn't deal with M&B though, not much to discuss about the game other than a timeline of releases and beta's.
 
Merlkir said:
malthaussen said:
Swadius:  "you have one hour" is a feeble attempt at humor.  I am aware that my "suggested" question rather resembles a question on a test, and thus I append the time limit that is usually applied to such questions.

You will discover, if I hang around this board much, and you read many of my posts, that my mind rather more resembles Terry Pratchett's than otherwise.  Be warned.

M. Lazarou:  as my whole post was about the question you ask, I am really at a loss as to how I might expand upon it to make it clearer.  Apologies.

  -- Mal

Oh, you have Alzheimer's? Bummer..
Oh jesus Merlkir, you win more than Micheal Phelps.
 
well, in the first place, those X vs Y threads are a kind of moronic, but there are decent posters who have real arguments and who are able to prove their opinions, and i think i can learn some things of those decent posters and people are free to post topics, i don't care so
 
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