Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many more…
These people had beliefs and worldviews that were so horribly, by today’s standards, that calling them fascist would be huge understatement. And they followed through by committing a lot of evil.
Aren’t we basically glorifying the Hitlers of centuries past?
I know, historians always say that one should not judge historical figures by contemporary moral standards. But there’s a difference between objectively studying history and actually glorifying these figures.
Who’s “we”? I don’t glorify these people.
A good though to have in ones mind when thinking about this topics is that you will probably be seen as someone horrible and barbaric with evil-morals by future standards.
It’s not a modern standards thing, Genghis Khan was seen as a complete monster in his own time.
Probably by people conquered by him. People riding by his side probably would have a different view of him.
I think it’s a publication bias thing. Because so much was written about these people in their day, they become mascots for the time period. And what they did, while objectionable, is impressive. They had a massive influence on recorded history.
My own theory is that there is so much written in these times because of the massive inequality then. Books, statues, etc are expensive. In times of ecomonic equality, especially before the press, people would be less likely to waste time and resources on such things. Thats money better spent on improving their and their communities lives. But when you have massive inequality and a narcisist in charge, you get books, statues, and massive projects dedicated to the men who can afford them.
I think you are right. But I don’t think that’s the whole story.
I think it is also just the fact that they were the winners of history. And we like winning more than we like being moral.
And we like winning more than we like being moral.
I wonder why when it comes to “humanity is awesome” variations of sci-fi, we always have to lean so hard on creating a fictional alien race that is somehow worse than humans to prove how “awesome” we are.
Maybe, just maybe, we’re kind of fucking assholes.
Those aliens also display a core experience that we have anxiety about: being colonized. Interestingly, Stargate, a franchise partially created by the US Air Force very accidentally portrays what interacting with alien species who didn’t establish a system of colonization might look like. There are multiple cultures humanity encounters in that franchise who don’t have weapons but have farming implements we can’t even imagine. That franchise shows a universe where Humanity leaves earth and discovers we’re a bunch of violent weirdos who don’t fit in with the rest of the universe. There’s some other colonial powers we encounter, of course, when Earth needs to be the good guys. But like… Think about that. We might be so steeped in a system that’s been inflicted on us that our first contact with a non-earthbound culture might see that culture being like “so the workers produce all the value, and you beat them up? Why? This doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t they be rewarded for the value they provide?”
I feel like the show does a good example of being entertaining while also showing those stark contrasts between the civilizations like you’ve commented. Even more so in the later part of “Stargate Atlantis” where it’s more “cowboys and indians” style. They’re trying to “save” all the planets in the Pegasus galaxy but tend to shoot anything they don’t understand and constantly undermine themselves by making poor decisions when it comes to relations and dealing with people. The inhabitants of the galaxy have continued being successful at trade and socializing (except for a few outliers who can still be known to show honor) even while being under constant threat for their entire recorded history.
You can always hop on over to [email protected] for more discussions.
I think part of it also stems from our “colonization” of other species on Earth.
We exploit the living shit out of every other living thing while telling ourselves those living things are somehow different from us, don’t experience the same fears, the same pains, and so on. Those of us with an inkling of self-reflection can see how they are like us just by looking at how they react to similar stimulus. We aren’t different but we’ve spent a millennia telling ourselves that we are simply because we have language and can create tools. Both things other animals clearly have and do, but since we don’t understand those animals, instead we treat them as inferior.
I think part of the panic of colonization of other species comes from the deeply rooted realization that we have been brutal, violent executioners of millions of species who may have had similar reasoning capabilities as we do but simply don’t have thumbs so they can do things like write down their language or codify it in any way. Like how humans lived for millions of years without written language…
Anyway, yeah, visceral guilt for being real fucking bastards and killing off so many species that we literally kicked off a mass fucking extinction.
We also glorify horrible people from the present, so why not?
Do we glorify them, or do we just learn about them because they had a huge impact on the world?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone holding Genghis Khan up as a role model.
Go to Mongolia and you will see it.
Exactly. I was kinda confused when I read the question because I dont think they are glorified at all. They probably arent shamed as much as Hitler for example because they dont have such a direct impact on our lives.
And Julius Caesar is literally known for being hated and brutally murdered by those closest to him because he was such a shit.
Genghis Khan isn’t as glorified as the rest, because, …, he’s not white/European. He’s glorified in Mongolia and some other Asian countries, but not in the western world.
But the rest of them? Yes, we do. Maybe not always so overtly, but the implied greatness of most of these figures is tied to how much wars they waged and how many peoples they subjugated. And if you simply go to any primary or middle school and ask the kids who are into history, you’ll find lots of boys (mostly boys) who will rave on about how this or that was the absolute GOAT.
In some countries, it’s so “machismo” that being a descendant of Genghis Khan gets you a consumer’s discount in some establishments.
Probably more people are descendents of Ghengis Khan than aren’t. Certainly nothing special.
The guy killed by the girl he was trying to rape becoming a symbol of machismo is oddly fitting.
We literally call Alexander “the Great”, and Caesar’s name was adopted as a title more than once by powerful rulers (e.g. Kaiser and Czar). Sounds like glorification to me.
…because that’s his name. It was how people referred to him. It’s not like people are going “He’s Grrrreat!” like Tony the Tiger.
Is this just a case of “great” having changed meaning subtly? Now it’s a superlative more than anything else, but in this usage I feel it meaning is much more about scale of what they did. Not a judgment on the morality of what they did.
Great doesn’t mean good nor does it mean benevolent.
People with a breeding kink and weird desire to populate the world with their shitty sperm abso-fucking-lutely look up to Genghis Khan and the whole “so many people are related to Genghis Khan because he fathered so many children with so many women” thing.
See: Elon Musk. Or even better, don’t see him.
Bootlickers have a need for daddy worship.
Actions we condemn today were often considered acceptable, even heroic, in their era. Many figures are celebrated for their accomplishments in fields like military leadership, politics, philosophy, or art.
Also national pride, these people become symbols of a nation’s identity and history, youre always taught they’re heroes. They also leave a lasting impact on culture, shaping the art of their era and therefore beyond. Look no further than Napoleon for this one. Or the Mughals.
Power and influence can be awe-inspiring, even if their methods are questionable. These are traits that have throughout history been associated with being morally good in a way. Fame, power, money makes you ‘good’ in many cultures over history. Kings are looked up to, they are seen as people with noble blood. Their actions are inherently correct. I genuinely believe our morality as a society has grown more stringent over time.
Sometimes, people are presented in a simplified, heroic manner without acknowledging their flaws. That’s just the nature of storytelling imo. They aren’t being critically analysed because they are stories. And we make art based on the stories and art that survive. We base stories of Alexander the Great on the art he allowed in his time.
This is brief, I have a lot of opinions on this matter lol.
Murderous people are great if they’re spreading your culture and bringing your country prosperity. They’re terrible when you’re the one being murdered.
Hitler is particularly bad because he murdered out of plain racism. Exterminating a people was about as important as conquering territory. He didn’t kill “for he country”, he killed because he wanted to and he killed for the country.
I doubt Genghis Khan invaded Europe to get rid it white people. He sought empire, and didn’t much care about the peoples he murdered. He’s still considered evil where I’m from, though. It all depends what side of the fight you were on.
I think the trend to criticise historical figures based on today’s standards is a rather recent one. There’s a reason all those statues were built to slavers and rampaging murderers, even after they’ve died.
This stuff still comes up today, though. For instance, the Belgians wanted to mint a special coin to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon (obviously a bad guy if you’re not French) but the French objected, not wanting a valid 2 euro coin that celebrated their defeat. As a result, Belgium altered the coin (making it only legal currency within Belgium) so France couldn’t veto it. Funnily enough, the French didn’t seem to consider Napoleon very controversial when it comes to their coin commemorating him.
Plus, most of these figures don’t have much objective history written about them anyway. Stories putting Caesar in a negative light would’ve needed to come from Caesar himself, because he was the most influential author about his own life. He also just made up tons of shit during his failed attempts at conquest.
Historic people aren’t often remembered for who they were, but rather for what they represent. For Caesar, that was transforming the political design of the Roman Empire. For Genghis Khan, it was the mongol invasion. For Columbus, it was the start of European interest in the Americas. The people are just a metaphor for the things they represent or set in motion. Even people considered to be good in general did bad things, like keep slaves or abuse their spouses, but it’s not really about them as a person most of the time.
Conversely why do we act horrified that someone in the past didn’t act according to standards that only exist today and pressures that don’t.
We are horrified by our ancestors actions because we’re different than them, we don’t understand them. We have the benefit of hindsight and can see the results of their actions. We put ourselves into their world and view it with our standards of today, because we don’t want to think we could do the same now that we know better. I can be horrified by the actions of someone in the past but also know that the further back into the pastI look the less I understand of history people.
Once they pass out of living memory, they can be whoever you want them to be. Or you could study them I guess, but that sounds like boring nerd stuff to most people.
Genghis Khan is actually an anti-example, since he’s vilified. It’s not at all clear other kings would have done any different with an unstoppable army, but yet he catches more shit than all his enemies combined.
“…not at all clear other kings would have done any different…”
Is that the standard now? Comparison? He is still unbelievably evil even by comparison to other evil people.
Him and the dynasty he created were one of the most destructive forces in human history and resulted in the horrific deaths of millions of people. By many metrics, they practiced genocide and ethnic cleansing on conquered populations. They destroyed the books of captured people’s and places of worship. They’re also well known for having destroyed farmland and aqueducts to starve out massive numbers of people. They were butchers. Mass murderers on a skill the world had never seen at that time. He erased entire civilizations from history, ones that we still barely know anything about.
Very well-said!
I’m starting to think this guy wasn’t very nice!
Most of the things you said are true. What is also true is that he and his descendents established a unified, peaceful empire from Korea to Hungary, from southern Russia to Iran. He unified China, then divided by civil war, and brought in economists and doctors from the Islamic World. He promoted Buddhism, Daoism and Islam, and his successors included Confucians and Christians. He guaranteed safe travel and trade across his empire, as well as religious tolerance and a common set of laws.
He killed thousands (the death tolls are inflated by both his enemies and his own followers - as a warning to those who they were going to attack next), but his actions benefitted millions. How can you form any moral judgement about such a figure? All you can do is try to find out the truth, report it, and let people reach their own conclusions.
So the ends justify the means? Inflicting untold suffering on one group of people is fine if it benefits another one?
This is literally ancient history.
Yes, and? Have you not gotten to the part in your schooling where you look at history to see what can be learnt from it?
Ignoring the insult, we’re talking about Medieval times. They were famously awful to live in for everyone. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of readers won’t think I’m suggesting anything about that period should be replicated in the modern day, unless I explicitly say that.
To be totally clear, I don’t want to bring the Mongol empire back in 2024.
You’re missing the point entirely. The person I was originally responding too was saying that evan though awful things were done to people it’s fine, or justifiable because “millions” benefited from them. If you don’t understand how something like that at its base level can be applicable to modern times, that’s a you issue.
It’s not the specific actions taken or the setting/environment, but the attitude of the ends justifying the means if there’s a net positive.
All you can do is try to find out the truth, report it, and let people reach their own conclusions.
I bet you think you’re taking some sort high road to the effect of “oh I just state the facts, I’m not telling anyone what to think,” while conveniently ignoring the part where the way that you report these facts, or which ones you leave out can very much influence the conclusions people reach.
You stated that Alexander killed many people, but also his actions benefitted millions of people. These two things put together in the way that you did will lead an uninformed person to he conclusion that it’s fine that he killed people because it benefited many others. And maybe that could be true in some contexts, but you completely failed to mention the fact that he didn’t just kill a bunch of people, he executed defeated peoples and sold a whole bunch of people into slavery, which would naturally influence the conclusions a person could come to.
Any narrative will be biased, both in what it says and what it leaves out. But historians have to at least try to be impartial. I’m not a professional historian, so I can have whatever opinion I want.
You stated that Alexander killed many people
Chinggis Khan, not Alexander.
I feel like you’ve entirely ignored the context I said that in.
If you actually want to argue pros and cons for academic purposes (they’re all long dead remember), the other person gave a good summery of the good sides of the Mongol Empire.
The Nazi’s created rocketry as we know it today and made many innovations in medicine and manufacturing.
Are we going to argue the pros and cons of the Nazi party?
This conversation wasn’t even about the Mongol empire it was about Genghis Khan
Hmm. I guess it seems hard to separate Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire to me. Pretty much everything we know about him for sure is as the guy in charge of the Mongol empire. There’s a few stories about him personally enemy chroniclers put down, but they all have that myth-y Washington and the cherry tree feel to them.
Because for centuries, western society has valued one thing above pretty all else: winning.
If someone’s an asshole, but they’ve gotten on top in something, people may say, “They’re an asshole, but hey you gotta admire that they’re so good at [insert subject].”
That’s why so many people admire Ray Kroc. Yeah, so what if he brought McDonald’s to a position of national and international dominance? That doesn’t mean he’s worthy of our respect. If anything, the way he rose to the top, being as disgusting as it was, should mean he’s anything but worthy of our respect.
Victory in something by itself shouldn’t be respected; what you do to get to victory matters equally as much, if not more.
That’s right. They are not glorified as being enlightened or particularly great at things in general. Those figures are idolized because of the power they managed to obtain and their skill in military tactis and strategy.
We all exist because of those people’s exploits.
That’s basically where the concept of glory begins.
I don’t understand in what way we wouldn’t exist without their exploits?
Well, take me for example. Both of my grandmothers had to leave Pommern due to the second world war. If Hitler hadn’t started shit I never would’ve been born.
The phrase was "we all exist because of those exploits *, that seems a bigger claim
How is simping them any different from calling them “basically Hitler from the past”? If you’re talking with your feelings, what you are saying is by definition not-objective, like with simps, but also with haters. I doubt you or OP are any more informed on history than the average Lemmy rando. By starting with the desired conclusion, rather than with arguments, the discussion is already beginning on subjective terms.
Imagine it’s 7500bce… Most humans are still hunter gatherers but in a few places people have started banding together to form cities. The world is savage, hard, and dangerous. Life is short and cheap, and just like chimpanzees today don’t feel any moral qualms about murdering rival troop members, humans hadn’t really evolved socially to the point of thinking of all humans as inherently “special” or worthy of life… Some could say we still haven’t all evolved to this point.
In that context what we were left with was a bunch of sociopaths. And no wonder. Most people would be somewhat sociopathic if their siblings died in infancy or were carried off to be slaves or eaten by wolves, their parents were murdered in front of them, their village was slaughtered and burned, etc. So these city people, and soon the surrounding people’s, saw sociopathic behavior as normal and even something to be worshipped. (Again, some of us still do)
Sociopaths don’t hesitate to harm other people to increase their own power and wealth, even when they don’t really need anything more to live comfortably. In a world where might makes right, this was a huge advantage and the most horrible and brutal sociopaths rose to become kings of their city states.
There is some evidence that hunter gatherers groups would occasionally get a sociopath among them, but more often than not that person would be shunned and banished from the family. It was only when cities became a thing that there were tons of people from many families, so even if you’re family kicked you out, you could just find other sociopaths who had been kicked out, and together you could just kill anyone who denied you.
There’s also the fact that as soon as people started settling down and using agriculture to create excess food, the hunter gatherers around them started trying to take that food because hey, free food. So then you need to start defending your food stores, and again sociopaths rise to the top because they are the most ruthless “defenders”.
Those sociopathic traits continued in the ruling class throughout all of human pre history and history. Right down to today where people continue to worship the sociopaths like Musk, Trump, or even Hillary. It’s a childish thought process of “my dad can beat up your dad”, which makes me feel safer, even if sometimes my dad also beats me.
(side note: freefall is an awesome webcomic, you should read it!)
