"History is written by the victors"

[Jacob]

Okay, so, a lot of people i know always say this.

...and a lot more people i don't know repeat it.

So, do you think it's true?

It's funny, 'cos whenever this topic ever comes up, i'll always say "Yeh, like the Nazis, they had some pretty good ideas, really, but..." and then i'll get cut-off.

I'll be told that the Nazis didn't have any good ideas.

I'll be told that the Nazis were evil abominations that didn't know their left from their right.

I'll be told i'm wrong.

...even though 'History is written by the victors'.

Discuss.

[Wil]

Seeing as you've come back to the Oddworld Forums, you must be a loser, so it stands to reason you don't understand.

[Jacob]

Understand...what, exactly?

[Wil]

My post.

[Leto]

History about the Nazis wasn't written by the Nazis, innit.

[Wings of Fire]

I don't get what that has to do with that.

[Hazel-Rah]

He's saying because the Nazis got their balls ripped off in WWII the Allies got to write about them, so history is written by the winner.

[Daxter King]

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" - Modern Warfare 2

Its an alright game, but it has some cool quotes.

[Mac Sirloin]

The Nazis probably would have revolutionized medicine.

Probably.

[ziggy]

Hitler was a meth addict like all white supremacists.

[Hazel-Rah]

Daxter: I don't think you should be crediting Modded Warfail for that quote lol

Mac: Yeah well too bad their "German engineering" could save them from a little snow...

[ziggy]

A Modded Warfare leaves two with one eye and a cynical rabbit alien

[Bullet Magnet]

The losers are often dead, or otherise in no position to write the history that their children will be taught.

[ziggy]

What about J.C.

[scrabface]

we all lost so sentence makes perfect sense.

[Hazel-Rah]

What about Japan? They lost the war but still write their own history. I heard once that they teach their children about Hiroshima and Nagasaki but not about Pearl Harbor, might not be true BUT WHAT IF IT IS???

Eh, what they should teach is how they owe everything they are today to Winston Chruchill, just sayin' nigga...

[scrabface]

Pearl harbor = laissez-faire

[Bullet Magnet]

Look at Germany. Had the Nazis won the war, we'd all be Nazis and Nate-less, looking back on "our" achievements in the forties with fondness and everything.

As it is, Germany stopped being evil, and now every German child is a friggin' expert on what their country did as it is drilled into them every semester, and the whole world forces them to bear the sins of their great-grandfathers.

[Dynamithix]

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" - Modern Warfare 2

Its an alright game, but it has some cool quotes.

I hate the game, but I like one of the ending quotes as it can be mixed to:

"30,000 years ago I lost five men and my fucking watch."

[Nate]

What about J.C.

He didn't write his own history. He'd probably be horrified if he knew how he was being remembered.

'History is written by the victors'.

Yeah? So? This is the most fundamentally uncontroversial thing you've ever said. I can't believe you and my Year 7 History teacher have the same taste in debate topics.

I'd be more surprised if you could find someone who disagrees with you.

[Dipstikk]

Hitler was a meth addict like all white supremacists.

THIS LOL

[Wings of Fire]

What about Japan? They lost the war but still write their own history. I heard once that they teach their children about Hiroshima and Nagasaki but not about Pearl Harbor, might not be true BUT WHAT IF IT IS???

It's not true, but the Russians teach that Stalin was a great man in high school.

[OANST]

It's not true, but the Russians teach that Stalin was a great man in high school.

Actually, it's the reverse. Russia has gone through intense de-Stalinization while Japan has decided, very publicly, to rewrite the history of World War II, so that the Japanese people can feel pride again (their stated reason).

[scrabface]

Look at Germany. Had the Nazis won the war, we'd all be Nazis and Nate-less, looking back on "our" achievements in the forties with fondness and everything.

As it is, Germany stopped being evil, and now every German child is a friggin' expert on what their country did as it is drilled into them every semester, and the whole world forces them to bear the sins of their great-grandfathers.

lol. you mean the government or actually all the people? because that would be bullshit.

[Jacob]

"Yeah? So? This is the most fundamentally uncontroversial thing you've ever said."

...it wasn't meant to be controversial?

And my point wasn't really whether History was written by the victors, it's more along the lines of 'is everything said about the Nazis true?'

If History is written by the winners, surely that leaves a lot of Bullshit being stirred about the Nazis.

[OANST]

I don't understand. Are you looking for us to say that Hitler did indeed build a lot of roads?

Okay. Hitler did indeed build a lot of roads.

[Manco]

I'm waiting for Jacob to eventually come out with "but is everything written about the Holocaust really true?"

[ziggy]

Hitler was a pretty good painter too.

[STM]

The past was written by the winners, for example, WW2...the Nazis seems to be the common focus here, well we know a lot about them from what the War winners saw...but is the past solid, surely the past only exists in the human imagination and if they think they new something happened in the past and they told everyone and that became fact, that would be the past....ugh, too much 1984

[Daxter King]

Hitler was a pretty good painter too.

Bullshit. He didn't even get in to that one school.