Imperialism

[Virgil61]

Before we go way off here allow me to interject.  I personally am not all that concerned about natural evolutions of a discussion as long as they maintain a constructive atmosphere.  While Virgil and Onasander seem to be developing an adversarial relationship, its been largely done in a respectful manner.

 

Nothing personal, but if someone is going to cruise a history board and make sweeping statements against historians they should be challenged to present specific facts. For every marxist there are about a dozen professional non-marxist historians who've written on a topic. Even fewer marxists have written on the topic of Roman history for that matter, although I own at least one study of crowds in the Republic done by a marxist-ish historian I've yet to read.

[Primus Pilus]

Agreed, I simply meant to say there was nothing wrong with the topic going off-topic, in light of the need for your response. (which I happen to agree with and feel no need to add anything since the response seems more than adequate in my estimation) This nullification of the historian theory makes no sense to me personally.

 

But let's not make this about whether or not it is right for me to moderate, or if going off-topic is ok. Please continue with your previously scheduled discussion.

[Zeke]

Well......to add this conversation of Imperlism,

 

Most historians would agree with me that the Romans unlike Hitler and Nepoleon, did not have huge grotesque maps laid out in front of them and they didn't think about counquring the world. In the begining the Romans didn't even know what was over the Alps other then a bunch of Celtic tribes. The Romans never had any intention (In the begining of coarse) of counquring people like the Carthiginians or the Greeks.

 

If the early Republican Romans had seen their future Imperial Counterparts.....they would have stood amazed! Imperlism was the last thought on the Republican's mind.

[Onasander]

Above all else, I have deep respect for Virgil, whenever I see his name, I remember he used to be a 1Sgt and also a member of the airborne community, and is my senior; and in a lot of cases where I don't reply to a topic, its because he already said what I wanted to say, because we agree on a lot of stuff. The only two areas I disagree with him are the Byzantine-Roman continuity issue and this. Any conflict between us has been respectible for the most and only increases our insights into history in areas neither of us might not of bother to look before.

 

I'm not against the historian, but I do believe reforms are needed in not just the historical media in how we interperate things but in the world wide arena of thought.

 

As to Micheal Parentti, I had no idea that he wrote a book on Caesar, I have read his Blackshirts vs Reds though and was extreamly disappointed, only the beginning of the book dealt with the subject, and though I did learn a few things, the book was geared way to much towards propaganda for his political beliefs and his Anti-American stance that for the most part had very little to do with what the title suggested the book was about. Though he was communistic minded, I wouldn't call him a Marxist, a Marxologist perhaps, but he doesn't hold to all of Marx's beliefs, and said so in the book, though he gave reverance to him on several occasions.

 

I support neither the left nor the right, and hold myself to no political parties. I support the republican ideals of our forefathers, but beyond that, my political ideology is my own, carved from what my idea of what right or wrong is.

 

I've read books over the years by a variety of different ideologies and philosophies.... perhaps my favorite historian is Tocquerville in writting the "The Old Regiem and the French Revolution", perhaps the greatest history book I ever read, the standard all should aim for.

 

As to putting down all the left, I certainly wasn't. I first came up with my basic belief from a adaptation of a Anarchist interntet publication (and anarchist are considered farther left than most communist I know) describing how in Europe during the early 1900s how various nationalistic movements gained their dominate political ideologies via the news media; that a small ethnic group within the boundries of a larger nation could have a completely different outlook on world events due to the isolation of thier groups language publications. Communist in Russia, Fascist in Italy, Anarchist in Spain, Monarchist in England, Republicans in France.... and within each nation counter-groups who are isolated from other ideological perspectives that were not attractive to the intelligencia in charge of reporting the news to their populations.

 

It was as if having different colored lens on a map, each lens eliminates a different color, something different will be missing each time you switch to a new color.

 

Another aspect of my disgruntled push (not against anybody on these boards, these have been long established traditions in the academic community and I hold nobody responsible for unknowingly continuing) can be best illustrated through a class I did today on the acronym SALUTE, used in US Army recon for describing a location. The A in SALUTE stands for activity. I had a few pictures of Jedi with their lightsabers pulled out next to Bin Laden. Now, three guys had to describe what they saw from the pictures and write down a quick description of it. All was sightly different from what they interpreted, and the anwsers were not bad, one thought they were all allied, another thought the two jedi were guards watching bin laden, and the third thought the two jedi were ready to fight with Bin Laden stuch in the middle. I was satisfied with the anwsers, since one could interperate the situation those ways from their perspective, but their teamleader said there was no right anwser in observing it, and all three were wrong. Now, I didn't say anyhing then, but I know when it comes to the question of right or wrong, you can report honestly from a subjective standpoint and be justified from what you saw, but from a objective standpoint be horribly wrong. Ideology have a way of contorting and manipulating the verdict of research.

 

In history, if we wanted evidence to support a claim that an ancient people was this kind of grower of wheat, we could go to the history books, in which a historian may very well be justified in repeating what is said. But if we dug thier fields and found great evidence of potatoe farming, but no signs of wheat, we would no longer be justified, and likely wrong... people continuing the wheat theory would be in a tough position trying to show evidence to justify thier position. However, if we said this or that group held themselves or others inclusive to some idenity (such as American or Japanese), as soverigns of thier communial idenity.... and they gave their basis for their ideological standings to the annals od history for us to read, then we have to analysis off their chosen prerequisites, and not from our own standards as outsiders using different ideological standards for their idenity. This crashes strongly against some of the beliefs of Marxists in Camera Obscura. Sovernignty is sociological, the group has to accept it's exsistance, or else they'll unknowingly will act independent of it. Marxist do not see it this way, instead the true power if via the modes of production, there analysis of history can shed a lot of evidence on the stuff of the nature of the wheat field above, but rarely do their analysis prove thier deductions limited to thier own ideology. Changing modes of production with Genetic Ancestory and you get the Nazi belief, which was justifiable to thier group, but not to the standards of others people's, like Canadians who are of two seperate genetic peoples. It's a idea similar to Swami Vivikananda's Name and Form.

 

If the politically recognized sovernignty changes it's form within the group, such as when rome went from kingdom to republic, republic to empire, so long as the members that consituted the idenity before recognize the new sovernign and it's authority to modify the national ideology, such as when allowing the Italic states to become citizens or the population of the empire to become citizens, it's no longer the right of outsiders, be they contemporary of thousands of years in the future, to say otherwise. But, I think there should be continuity between the members of the group that produces the soverign, which would be the most important factor in continuity (in the case of civil wars), as well as the soverign during the reorganization of the standards of inclusiveness. (I should point out, soverign does not have to be the individual, in a true democracy, it would be everyone part-and-parcel, so long as it is socially accepted).

[Onasander]

Imperialism, though not on the scale of conquering Carthage or Greece, did exsist. The Fabs (am I correct with the family?) set out to towards Veii in a campaign of obstuct and conquer early-on in the history of Rome.

[Virgil61]

Above all else, I have deep respect for Virgil, whenever I see his name, I remember he used to be a 1Sgt and also a member of the airborne community, and is my senior; and in a lot of cases where I don't reply to a topic, its because he already said what I wanted to say, because we agree on a lot of stuff. The only two areas I disagree with him are the Byzantine-Roman continuity issue and this. Any conflict between us has been respectible for the most and only increases our insights into history in areas neither of us might not of bother to look before.

Nice clarifications Onasander, it sure beats "all historians suck". Well thought out. Having said that, I'd agree that quite a few do. I hope someday you get a chance to take a historiography class at a decent college.

 

Sorry 'bout the negative rep vote, I was in a crotchety mood that day, I'll fix that when the board allows it.

[Ursus]

I'm glad to see people are seeing these discussions are not meant to be taken as a life and death situation. Nothing to get too worked up over. We even have occasional bouts of humor around here. Having said that, heated disagreement doesn't really bother me. The one thing that bothers me as a moderator is intentional stupidity like some of the less mature and/or more trollish types that we occasionally have to ban.

 

On the subject of history, the biggest thing I learned in college is that most so-called scholars have an agenda. You have to determine what that agenda is before you can place a value on their work. Marxism per se is now a rare phenomenon, but virulent post modernism seems to be the new orthodoxy among the so-called intellectual class. They evangelize worse than militant Monotheists.

[Virgil61]

On the subject of history, the biggest thing I learned in college is that most so-called scholars have an agenda. You have to determine what that agenda is before you can place a value on their work. Marxism per se is now a rare phenomenon, but virulent post modernism seems to be the new orthodoxy among the so-called intellectual class. They evangelize worse than militant Monotheists.

Absolutely agree. Whenever I read a history I always ask myself from what point of view the historian is writing from. It doesn't invalidate that historian's work, but it gives the reader an idea of what bias that author holds if if it's not a conscious one. One of the best classes I ever took was a historiography course to complete a BA in History. That's one reason I enjoyed "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" by Parent. He's flawed definitely, but he makes a great point about how writers on Rome have written from the point of view of their own class bias relegating the majority of Romans to being a part of the mob. Again, it doesn't make their contributions invalide, it just gives the reader a heads up.

 

I've always thought that marxism held some useful analytical tools for studying history.

[Onasander]

Marxism does hold some good tools for history, in societies where classes were/are polarized, they do present a few useful tools, as well as in other parts of life; however, I don't tnk in the same format as they do, and see great flaws in their logic. Now, don't take this as me being anti-communist, I'm just anti-marxist.... though I can remain civil discussing stuff with them. is

 

Unfortunately, Marxism isn't dead in the arena of history; they gone underground on the net; most leftist ideological sites I've visited has at least one marxologist on it, and they got little to other than to write now that the Soviet Union is no longer around, and as Karl Marx was a greek historian, many try to mimic their great guru.

 

Given time, this force will re-emerge in the academic community with it's new characteristics, since about 60% of the sites I've visited are run by college students, half of which seem to be Canadian

[M. Porcius Cato]

The original issue (in a nutshell) was whether imperialism is (1) potentially good but not always good; (2) always bad; or (3) never good or bad because all that matters is power.

 

Here's a fourth possibility that I think comes close to the truth. Imperialism is most often much better in the long run for the conquered than the conquering.

[Andrew Dalby]

The original issue (in a nutshell) was whether imperialism is (1) potentially good but not always good; (2) always bad; or (3) never good or bad because all that matters is power.

 

Here's a fourth possibility that I think comes close to the truth. Imperialism is most often much better in the long run for the conquered than the conquering.

 

That may well be true! The British and French are heartily sick of it (most of them). The Russians are probably about to throw in the towel. But are the Americans tired of it yet?

 

Sorry. Off topic.

[Ursus]

Sorry. Off topic.

 

I can always move it to a forum where it won't be.

 

 

But are the Americans tired of it yet?

 

I kind of am. I remember during the Clinton Administration when some our NATO allies begged us to bomb the hell out of Serbia in the name of "humanitarianism." Actually, I think it was because our alllies didn't want Balkan refugees in their backyard, and they didn't have the will or the means to take action themselves. I remember thinking to myself this wasn't exactly the best use of our military forces, but our allies didn't seem to mind our overbearing imperialism at the time.

 

For that matter, if the world tires of American imperialism, why does it so readily suck up the mindless pop-culture and consumerism we are so keen on exporting? "Baywatch" used to be the biggest television show on the planet. I guess no one minds American imperialism as long as Pamela Anderson puts a friendly face (and figure) on it.

[Moonlapse]

I started writing a post, but I'm sure you guys know how I think by now.

[tflex]

For that matter, if the world tires of American imperialism, why does it so readily suck up the mindless pop-culture and consumerism we are so keen on exporting? "Baywatch" used to be the biggest television show on the planet. I guess no one minds American imperialism as long as Pamela Anderson puts a friendly face (and figure) on it.

 

HAIL Pamela Anderson!!!!

Edited February 4, 2006 by tflex

[M. Porcius Cato]

To get back on topic, during those temporary lulls in expansion, were the Romans simply tired of imperialism? Clearly not for some time after the sack of Carthage and Corinth (which seemed to convince Rome that they world was theirs for the taking), but eventually the expansionism did die down.

 

(BTW, historians have mercy upon us if Pamela Anderson is our most lasting influence!)

Edited February 5, 2006 by M. Porcius Cato