History Written by Victors?

If you listen to most historians you will often hear the refrain that history is written by the victors.  I believe that this is generally true.

It takes time, often generations, and a change in the makeup and spirit of the people for the history of the “losers” to be written properly.  Often that is not even possible, given the fact that the victors have destroyed any chance of the defeated garnering the facts necessary to tell their story in any meaningful manner.

But I have seen two real exceptions to this rule in my lifetime.

The American Civil War

Soon after Reconstruction was ended in the late 1870’s, the southern story was rewritten almost totally by politicians, southern historians, and apologists.  It became a war about State’s Rights, about the southern states wanting to exercise their constitutional rights and the northern states not letting them.  Hell, I even bought into this crap most of my life.  This is until I just mentally hunkered down and realized the only “state’s right” that they were referring to was the right to hold people (yes people) in perpetual bondage (a.k.a., slavery).   And the Civil War was fought over the issue of the northern states not willing to let this stuff being spread further and further throughout the country as well as not forcing their states to support this travesty.

That was their “state’s rights” in a nutshell.  Tie this in with the antebellum southern image and they just plain rewrote history in America for over 100 years.  It has only been in the last few decades that this crap has come to a head and the B.S. does not fly so well.

But I will give them credit where credit is due.  They rewrote the scenario so damned well that they were able to sell it to a whole lot of people for a long, long time.

Contributions of Non-dwg

First of all, a definition.  DWG is an acronym for “Dead White Guys”.  It is somewhat pejorative when it comes to discussing history.  This is because, in the main, most of western history has been the story of the accomplishments of “Dead White Guys”.  That has been demonstratively untrue and unfair.  It has disregarded and eliminated the contributions of women and minorities throughout the ages.

However, in response to this we seem to have been going the opposite direction to our equal peril.  We have been telling the story of minorities and women, be they Black Studies or Women’s Studies, to the exclusion of the DWG’s .  This inevitably gives a tainted and biased view of the contributions of the minorities and women that is every bit as biased as what went before.  And it is wrong.

I know that some would say that you must emphasis those issues to correct past mistakes but like the pendulum of a clock you are still swinging it away from straight.  If you want to do right, do right.

The contributions of non-DWG’s is varied, diverse, fabulous and profound.  From the mathematical contributions in early pre-electronic  computer calculations for space; to the perfection of blood transfusions; to inventing a fire safe; to taming the peanut.

But where I draw the line at this is that while it is laudable that a person is the first Woman-Black-Chicano-Asian-Native American-Etc. to accomplish something that is great.  That is historical in the context of that sex, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, what have you.  It is a sign that we as a people are going forward and that is a good thing, and about damned time.

But let us not forget that this is not historical in the scheme of things itself.  We need these people, but that in and of itself is not historical.  What they do with it is.  Do they solve cancer?  Do they save lives?  Do they contribute?  Then and only then are they worthy of historical significance!

In our attempt to be politically correct, just existing has become history-making.  And that is wrong.

Just to be clear here, I am all in favor of discussing the contributions of women and minorities.  I am all in favor of discussing the firsts and the odds that were (and still need to be) overcome to get to equality and to contribute.  This is not the point.  What I am talking about is the cultural move towards overemphasis of these accomplishments to the point that we do not have a real picture of history.  This, sadly, can include the environment in which they live and do live.