Showing posts with label Herodotus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Herodotus. Show all posts

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Revisionism




...And I want to quote for you, to you, from the oldest history book in Western civilization. Not just because it's a book, but I think this is a point one can make about any history course, it doesn't matter what the subject is. It can be Social History, Political History, Intellectual History, any history. It can be the History of Ancient Rome, it could be Post-1945 United States, it could be any history. But any history course ought to do the two things that Herodotus named in the opening sentence of the oldest history book we have. This is Herodotus, The History. Isn't it great when you're writing the first book, what are you going to call it? The History; no subtitles, nothing fancy, just — "I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds manifested by both the Greeks and the barbarians, fail of their report, and together, with all of this, the reason why they fought one another."
I don't know how closely you listened to that, but what has Herodotus just said? He's basically said history is two things. It's the story, it's the color, it's the great deeds, it's the narrative that takes you somewhere; but it's also the reason why, it's also the explanations. That's what history does. It's supposed to do both of those things. Some of us are more into the analysis, and we're not so fond of story. Some of us just love stories and don't care about the analysis — "oh, stop giving me all that interpretation, just tell me the good story again.
This is what goes on, of course, out in public history all the time: "just tell us the old stories and just sing us the old songs, make us feel good again. Stop interpreting, you historians, and worst of all, stop revising."
 You notice how that word 'revision' has crept into our political culture? When politicians don't like the arguments of people who disagree with them they accuse them of being revisionist historians. It was even a poll-tested word for a while when Condoleezza Rice was using it. "Revisionist, revisionist." As though all history isn't revisionist.


My favorite story about revisionism is my buddy, Eric Foner, was on a talk show once. About 1992. He was on one of those shouting talk shows with Lynne Cheney, who at that — Dick Cheney's wife — who was then head of the NEH. And this was a time — you won't remember this — we were having this national brouhaha over what were called National History Standards. 
And Lynne Cheney, if you remember, a real critic of these National History Standards. She didn't particularly like some of the ideas that the historians were coming up with. So on this talk show — it was Firing Line where you get two people on and they just shout at each other for an hour, or a half hour, and the producers love it. 
And Foner is pretty good at rapid fire coming back, he's pretty good at it. Anyway they had this set-to and she kept accusing him and other historians of being "revisionist." 
And Eric says the next morning he got a phone call from a reporter atNewsweek and she said, "Professor Foner, when did all this revisionism begin?" 
And Foner said, "Probably with Herodotus." 
And the Newsweek reporter said, "Do you have his phone number?" 


Never underestimate the ignorance — H.L. Mencken said this, I didn't — never underestimate the ignorance of the American people. Or of journalists, or of — .

Black people according to Herodotus

ahaykh-abd-al-qurnah

Herodotus, a Greek historian, wrote a history of the known world 2,440 years ago. It is the oldest book we have where a person we would call White talks at length about black-skinned people.

Three things set him apart from the way Whites talk about Blacks in our time:

  1. He did not divide the world by race. He divided it by continent – Europe, Asia and Libya (Africa) – and by language – Greek and barbarian – but not by race. He talks about people with black skin, but not about “black people” as if they were one of the main kinds of humans. He applies the term “Ethiopian” to some black-skinned people, but not to all.
  2. Egyptians were black. He saw Egyptians as having black skin and woolly hair (Herodotus, 2.104). He visited Egypt 75 years after the Persians had taken over but before the Greeks, Romans and Arabs had. He travelled the whole length of the country from north to south.
  3. No colourism. In his time, people with black skin, like Egyptians and Ethiopians, were more civilized than some with white skin, like Scythians and Celts. Lighter-skinned Greeks got much of their civilization from darker-skinned Egyptians. White-skinned people were not even the most beautiful:

    “The Ethiopians to whom Cambyses sent these gifts are reputed to be the tallest and most beautiful of all peoples.” (3.20)

The incomplete list of people with black skin in Herodotus:

  • Egyptians – seen as having the most ancient civilization, way older than Greece.
  • Ethiopians (Nubians, etc) – live south of Egypt. Meroe is their mother city (2.29). Civilized but not as civilized as Egypt (2.30). They once ruled Egypt (2.100, 137-139). Herodotus seems to apply the term “Ethiopian” to more than just Nubians: he also talks about long-lived Ethiopians (3.17-26, 97) and cave-dwelling Ethiopians (4.183). Most of them would have been Nilo-Saharans.
  • Asian Ethiopians (Dravidians?) – look just like Ethiopians but their hair is straight instead of woolly. They serve in the Persian army in their own divisions as part of the Indian contingent (7.70).
  • Colchians – live on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Because they have black skin, woolly hair and practise circumcision, Herodotus says they are clearly Egyptian (2.104).
  • short men (Pygmies?) – live along what is probably the Niger River (2.32-33) and somewhere on the west coast of Africa (4.43). They live in cities. Those along the Niger practise sorcery. Those on the coast, called dwarfs, wear clothes made of palm leaves.

Other Africans: Herodotus talks about the people who live along the coast between Egypt and Carthage (4.168-180) and along the caravan route that goes west across the Sahara (4.181-199). He does not bring up their skin colour, but remarks on the long hair of those who live along the coast. Most of them would have been Berbers.

In Africa, Herodotus visited Egypt and, just to the west, Cyrene. The rest he knows about from asking questions, particularly in Egypt.

Cicero called Herodotus the “Father of History”. Plutarch called him the “father of lies”. Herodotus felt his duty was to report what he had seen and heard. He expresses doubts about some of what he reports, but puts it out there to let readers come to their own conclusions.

Source: Herodotus, “History” (425 BC). See above for book and section numbers. 

See also:

Thursday 25 September 2014

What is Code Pink..?

"Professor Foner, when did all this revisionism begin?" 

And Foner said, "Probably with Herodotus." 

And the Newsweek reporter said, "Do you have his phone number..?" 


Brian Lamb : "Why did you change your name from Susie Benjamin to Medea?


Medea Benjamin : "Oh, that was a long time ago, Brian. I was 18 years old, I went to college, I started reading the Greek myths and every month I would ask my friends to call me something different. My original name was Susan, I was the little Susie, there were always many Susies in the class. 

And I liked the name Medea. 

I read a version that said she never killed her children, but she was a powerful woman and that's why they blamed her for that. 

I thought, aha, I want to recover that name. 

And I just think it's a pretty name."


"...Herodotus reports another version, in which Medea and her son Medus fled from Athens on her flying chariot, to the Iranian plateau and lived among the Aryans, who then changed their name to the Medes."





Ms. Masooda Jalhal, former Afghan Minister of Women, to a Code Pink Delegation to Kabul : "It is good for Afghanistan to have more troops – more troops committed with the aim of building peace and against war, terrorism, and security – along with other resources. Coming together they will help with better reconstruction."

Medea Benjamin: "We [also] heard a lot of people [in Afghanistan] say they didn't want more troops to be sent in and they wanted the U.S. to have a responsible exit strategy that included the training of Afghan troops, included being part of promoting a real reconciliation process and included economic development; that the United States shouldn't be allowed to just walk away from the problem. So that's really our position."





WASHINGTON — Two men protesting U.S. support of the Nicaraguan rebels were arrested Thursday when they began shouting from the public gallery at the Iran- contra hearing and attempted to unfurl a banner.

The outburst occurred as Lt. Col. Oliver L. North was being questioned. Capitol police quickly seized the men, identified as Michael Spencer Kreis, 41, and Michael Evan Bardoff, 35, both of Baltimore, and escorted them from the Senate Caucus Room. They were charged with demonstrating inside a federal building and disrupting a congressional proceeding, both misdemeanors with maximum penalties of $500 fines and six months in jail.

The pair shouted: "What about the cocaine dealing that the U.S. is paying for?" and "Why don't you ask him how many non-combatants were killed?" Their banner read: "Ask About Cocaine Smuggling." This apparently referred to allegations that some contra leaders have been involved in drug smuggling, a topic that has not been addressed in North's interrogation.

Friends said the two are affiliated with a group called the Emergency Response Network. When the shouting started, North turned around in his chair. The hearing was suspended for about 10 minutes while the protesters were removed.


Foundation Cash Funds Antiwar Movement
By: Julia Duin 
Washington Times | Thursday, April 03, 2003



The American antiwar movement is decked out with all the elements of the counterculture, but it is getting some very establishment funding. 

In a few months, foundations and donors have kicked in millions of dollars to help antiwar groups stage demonstrations, take out expensive newspaper and TV ads, maintain Web sites, hire and pay staff, and lease office space in high-rent New York, Washington and San Francisco locales. 

Most work under the umbrella of sympathetic "fiscal sponsors," groups with tax-exempt status that have also lent out staff and office space. For instance, Code Pink Women for Peace, a feminist movement known for its pink clothing and awarding of "pink slips," or pink lingerie, to legislators they deem pro-war, operates under the aegis of Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization with a $4.2 million budget. 

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, a director for Global Exchange, says they are paying a bargain $400 a month for a cubicle office at 15th and H streets in the District. More space for Code Pink is on loan from two organizations down the hall, the National Organization for Women and the Institute for Policy Studies. 

Code Pink has raised $70,000 to $80,000 in its four-month existence, mostly through its www.codepinkalert.org site and sales of Code Pink buttons and T-shirts, "which we can't keep in stock," she adds. 


The Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank, has released a drumbeat of antiwar essays in recent months. The institute has a $2.2 million budget for 2003 provided by the Turner, Ford, MacArthur and Charles Stewart Mott foundations, among others. 

The brunt of the peace funding, says institute director John Cavannagh, is being done by smaller foundations able to quickly shift funds from other programs. 

"Individual peace groups have all gone out and raised funds," he says. "It's a lot of money, but I don't know how much. There's a pooling of resources between peace groups I've not seen before, which explains the large numbers of demonstrations and peace marches created." 

For instance, the institute's 2002 foreign policy budget of $400,000, which includes antiwar activism, received $50,000 from the HKH Foundation, $50,000 from the Arca Foundation, $20,000 from the Samuel Rubin Foundation, $15,000 from the Solidago Foundation and $50,000 from the MacArthur Foundation.


Medea (about to murder her children) by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1862)


I quote The Enemy:

"In Corinth, Jason abandoned Medea for the king's daughter, Glauce. Medea took her revenge by sending Glauce a dress and golden coronet, covered in poison. This resulted in the deaths of both the princess and the king, Creon, when he went to save her. 

It is said that her two sons Mermeros and Pheres helped their mother's revenge and were murdered by Corinthians for their crime. According to the tragic poet Euripides, Medea continued her revenge, murdering her two children Tisander and Alcimenes. Only one son Thessalus survived. Afterward, she left Corinth and flew to Athens in a golden chariot driven by dragons sent by her grandfather Helios, god of the sun.

Before the fifth century BC, there seem to have been two variants of the myth's conclusion. According to the poet Eumelus to whom the fragmentary epic Korinthiaka is usually attributed, Medea killed her children by accident.

The poet Creophylus, however, blamed their murders on the citizens of Corinth.

Medea's deliberate murder of her children, then, appears to be Euripides' invention although some scholars believe Neophron created this alternate tradition.

Her filicide would go on to become the standard for later writers.

Pausanias, writing in the late 2nd century, records five different versions of what happened to Medea's children after reporting that he has seen a monument for them while traveling in Corinth.

Fleeing from Jason, Medea made her way to Thebes where she healed Heracles (the former Argonaut) from the curse of Hera (that leads to the murder of Iphitus his best friend). In return, Heracles gave her a place to stay in Thebes until the Thebans drove her out in anger, despite Heracles' protests.

She then fled to Athens where she met and married Aegeus. They had one son, Medus, although Hesiod makes Medus the son of Jason.

Her domestic bliss was once again shattered by the arrival of Aegeus' long-lost son, Theseus. Determined to preserve her own son's inheritance, Medea convinced her husband that Theseus was a threat and that he should be disposed of. As Medea handed Theseus a cup of poison, Aegeus recognized the young man's sword as his own, which he had left behind many years previous for his newborn son, to be given to him when he came of age. Knocking the cup from Medea's hand, Aegeus embraced Theseus as his own.

Medea then returned to Colchis and, finding that Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother Perses, promptly killed her uncle, and restored the kingdom to her father. 

Herodotus reports another version, in which Medea and her son Medus fled from Athens on her flying chariot, to the Iranian plateau and lived among the Aryans, who then changed their name to the Medes.


David Blight:

And I want to quote for you, to you, from the oldest history book in Western civilization. Not just because it's a book, but I think this is a point one can make about any history course, it doesn't matter what the subject is. It can be Social History, Political History, Intellectual History, any history. It can be the History of Ancient Rome, it could be Post-1945 United States, it could be any history. But any history course ought to do the two things that Herodotus named in the opening sentence of the oldest history book we have. 

This is Herodotus, The History. 

Isn't it great when you're writing the first book, what are you going to call it? The History; no subtitles, nothing fancy, just — "I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds manifested by both the Greeks and the barbarians, fail of their report, and together, with all of this, the reason why they fought one another."

I don't know how closely you listened to that, but what has Herodotus just said? 

He's basically said history is two things. It's the story, it's the color, it's the great deeds, it's the narrative that takes you somewhere; but it's also the reason why, it's also the explanations. 

That's what history does. It's supposed to do both of those things. Some of us are more into the analysis, and we're not so fond of story. Some of us just love stories and don't care about the analysis — "oh, stop giving me all that interpretation, just tell me the good story again." 

This is what goes on, of course, out in public history all the time: "just tell us the old stories and just sing us the old songs, make us feel good again. Stop interpreting, you historians, and worst of all, stop revising." 

You notice how that word 'revision' has crept into our political culture? When politicians don't like the arguments of people who disagree with them they accuse them of being revisionist historians. It was even a poll-tested word for a while when Condoleezza Rice was using it. "Revisionist, revisionist." 

As though all history isn't revisionist.

My favorite story about revisionism is my buddy, Eric Foner, was on a talk show once. About 1992. He was on one of those shouting talk shows with Lynne Cheney, who at that — Dick Cheney's wife — who was then head of the NEH. And this was a time — you won't remember this — we were having this national brouhaha over what were called National History Standards. 

And Lynne Cheney, if you remember, a real critic of these National History Standards. She didn't particularly like some of the ideas that the historians were coming up with. So on this talk show — it was Firing Line, where you get two people on and they just shout at each other for an hour, or a half hour, and the producers love it. And Foner is pretty good at rapid fire coming back, he's pretty good at it. 

Anyway they had this set-to and she kept accusing him and other historians of being "revisionist." And Eric says the next morning he got a phone call from a reporter at Newsweek and she said, "Professor Foner, when did all this revisionism begin?" 

And Foner said, "Probably with Herodotus." 

And the Newsweek reporter said, "Do you have his phone number?" 

Never underestimate the ignorance — H.L. Mencken said this, I didn't — never underestimate the ignorance of the American people. Or of journalists, or of — .