How reliable are the historical accounts that constitute our vision of history? Are they as ironclad and indisputable as we imagine or are they, in fact, correspondingly full of holes that they can unaccompanied be classified as propaganda? associate me as I inspect a TV documentary as conflict study and arrive to a beautiful shocking conclusion!
Recently, I was watching a archives Channel documentary more or less the Dark Ages upon TV. At first glance, it looked in imitation of a bullet-proof, very convincing historical account that told a entirely simply mapped-out bill of the collapse of the western Roman Empire and civilization and the onset of a millennium of rebellion and turmoil in western Europe, known as the Dark Ages. Backed in the works by a series of historical re-enactments to corroborate the claims made by the academics, the war they made seemed to be irrefutable upon the surface.
Still, thinking urge on upon it, what strikes me now is how flimsy and full of holes the deed in point of fact is and how biased, researcher and propagandist this archives Channel documentary, as a whole, was. genuine academic scholarship or a deliberate raise a fuss at misinformation and propaganda? You be the declare as I methodically dismember... I object analyze... the documentary and the claims it makes.
For one thing, the documentary presents us later a series of supposed scholars or academics making various claims-presenting us taking into consideration their explanation of historical events, their psychotherapy of the repercussions of these events, their assessments of key historical personalities, etc. The scholars-who may categorically easily be pseudo-academics, for all we know-all had such highbrow credentials that their claims could not in fact be taken seriously. Who were these characters-really? What publications could they insert their names to? How authenticated are their claims, as such?
Even if their claims can be corroborated or attached to legitimate academic publications in imitation of legitimate university merit, what they are not telling you is that their bank account of reality, as expressed by them in the documentary, is in fact only one bank account along with several competing versions, each having equal, if not greater, academic merit. every they are acquit yourself is presenting their remarks of the facts as the authoritative truth-backed going on by historical re-enactments to create the untrue broadcast that the viewer is actually observing archives "as it happens" suitably to speak.
And furthermore, even if the balance of archives they offer you is conclusively acknowledged as the abandoned passable version, academically speaking, what they are not revealing to you is how much of the description is purely studious and how much is based on difficult evidence. Typically, what they reach is tolerate little shreds of fragmentary evidence of no question dubious truth and later construct an enlarge hypothesis out of it. It remains uncertain how much of the hypothesis is inferential and how much is supreme fabrication based on canceled assumptions or extrapolations from personal experience or even on purpose contrived to broadcast a socio-political agenda or interpret a private opinion. For example, I axiom choice documentary in which a scholar made a pretty far-fetched claim-that he had outdoor evidence that centuries pre-dating Christ, other Jewish Messiah had lived, died and been resurrected in Jerusalem, fittingly that Jesus was merely an imitator. However, the evidence he presented to corroborate his affirmation was appropriately flimsy-a partially eroded rock-cut slab subsequent to some of the key text wiped out-that it became beautiful evident that he was distorting the evidence to fit his claims.
Furthermore, even if the tab of records that these so-called historians gift to you is undeniably the on your own realizable inference that could logically be drawn from the easily reached sources, they pull off not flavor just how authenticated or believable the sources are in the first place. Are they fragmentary archaeological remains acquired from the black-market? Or are they long enduring historical accounts where the indigenous text has long in the past been purposeless to records and every that survives is a fragmentary copy that has, itself, been copied and recopied by hand countless epoch and may enhance any number of editorial errors or distortions?
So, if you analyze it carefully, it becomes beautiful self-evident that what appeared, at first, to be an irrefutable clash is actually appropriately fabricated, contrived and full of holes that it can lonesome be classified as pseudo-scholarship. It is actually propaganda-not records at all-and the historical re-enactments on your own underscore that idea. It is propaganda meant either to reinforce existing societal prejudices or to announce a socio-political agenda or to justify the endeavors of present-day politicians by claiming a historical precedent (of dubious authenticity). The irony is that any enormous academic would be familiar of this and how chronicles itself is full of such attempts at propaganda and myth-making-which is why many supposedly ironclad historical accounts are themselves suspect and of dubious authenticity.
And, so, one has to bewilderment what is the hidden agenda that such propagandists are attempting to promote. Is it whatever like, for example, the racist, racially supremacist agenda of Nazi pseudo-scholars? Or the left-wing, navely pluralistic social agenda of more highly developed academics? Or is it an attempt, by some, to justify distinct modes of criminal tricks by presenting us taking into consideration a dubious historical precedent-suggesting, for example, that because xenophobia, polygamy, genocide and sodomy were ample practices in ancient civilizations such as Greece, Rome and Judea, they should be excusable in the gift day as well?
Horizon Cybermedia is nearly systematic such attempts at propaganda and eyewash by mainstream media sources. In this "Information Age," in which social media are becoming increasingly prevalent and more and more people have right of entry to lawless ahead of its time media technology, one has to wonder just how legitimate and accurate the suggestion is... and how much of it are distortions or dishonest attempts at misinformation and propaganda.
The last concern we dependence is for universal access to media technology to create a "Misinformation Age" of widespread questionable information. However, it should also be noted that thanks to the universality of modern media technology, it is now easier to ask universally-held assumptions and prejudices and the veracity of so-called authoritative sources of information.
Please get check out our ongoing film series Exploration behind Uday Gunjikar at our website http://www.explorationtheseries.com. The current film is a visual tour of some of the key sites in the city of Calcutta, India. progressive episodes visit the ski resorts of big Bear Lake, CA and the rock-cut Buddhist temples of the Kanheri Caves close Mumbai, India. We look speak to to your continued support, entertainment and information.
No comments:
Post a Comment