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, suitably full of holes that they can without help be classified as propaganda? colleague me as I examine a TV documentary as court case study and arrive to a pretty shocking conclusion!
Recently, I was watching a archives Channel documentary approximately the Dark Ages upon TV. At first glance, it looked when a bullet-proof, categorically convincing historical account that told a no question understandably mapped-out credit of the collapse of the western Roman Empire and civilization and the onset of a millennium of mayhem and turmoil in western Europe, known as the Dark Ages. Backed happening by a series of historical re-enactments to corroborate the claims made by the academics, the stroke they made seemed to be irrefutable upon the surface.
Still, thinking put up to on it, what strikes me now is how flimsy and full of holes the case really is and how biased, scholarly and propagandist this history Channel documentary, as a whole, was. genuine academic scholarship or a deliberate toss around at misinformation and propaganda? You be the regard as being as I methodically dismember... I set sights on analyze... the documentary and the claims it makes.
For one thing, the documentary presents us with a series of supposed scholars or academics making various claims-presenting us like their comments of historical events, their chemical analysis of the repercussions of these events, their assessments of key historical personalities, etc. The scholars-who may unconditionally easily be pseudo-academics, for all we know-all had such rarefied credentials that their claims could not really be taken seriously. Who were these characters-really? What publications could they tote up their names to? How valid are their claims, as such?
Even if their claims can be corroborated or attached to genuine academic publications next legal instructor merit, what they are not telling you is that their report of reality, as expressed by them in the documentary, is in point of fact forlorn one financial credit in the middle of several competing versions, each having equal, if not greater, academic merit. every they are perform is presenting their comments of the facts as the authoritative truth-backed in the works by historical re-enactments to create the false ventilate that the viewer is actually observing history "as it happens" fittingly to speak.
And furthermore, even if the explanation of history they have enough money you is conclusively acknowledged as the deserted satisfactory version, academically speaking, what they are not revealing to you is how much of the relation is purely intellectual and how much is based upon difficult evidence. Typically, what they pull off is give a positive response tiny shreds of fragmentary evidence of unconditionally dubious veracity and after that build an overdo hypothesis out of it. It remains vague how much of the hypothesis is inferential and how much is unadulterated fabrication based on invalid assumptions or extrapolations from personal experience or even on purpose contrived to publicize a socio-political agenda or interpret a private opinion. For example, I saying complementary documentary in which a scholar made a pretty far-fetched claim-that he had outside 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 allegation was hence flimsy-a partially eroded rock-cut slab subsequently 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 bank account of chronicles that these so-called historians present to you is undeniably the solitary realizable inference that could critically be drawn from the genial sources, they reach not spread just how valid or believable the sources are in the first place. Are they fragmentary archaeological remains acquired from the black-market? Or are they long permanent historical accounts where the original text has long past been loose to archives and all that survives is a fragmentary copy that has, itself, been copied and recopied by hand countless time and may total any number of editorial errors or distortions?
So, if you analyze it carefully, it becomes pretty self-evident that what appeared, at first, to be an irrefutable lawsuit is actually in view of that fabricated, contrived and full of holes that it can unaided be classified as pseudo-scholarship. It is actually propaganda-not history at all-and the historical re-enactments unaided underscore that idea. It is propaganda designed either to reinforce existing societal prejudices or to publicize a socio-political agenda or to justify the events of present-day politicians by claiming a historical precedent (of dubious authenticity). The irony is that any supreme 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 wonder what is the hidden agenda that such propagandists are attempting to promote. Is it all like, for example, the racist, racially supremacist agenda of Nazi pseudo-scholars? Or the left-wing, navely pluralistic social agenda of more open-minded academics? Or is it an attempt, by some, to interpret clear modes of criminal behavior by presenting us considering a dubious historical precedent-suggesting, for example, that because xenophobia, polygamy, genocide and sodomy were tolerable practices in ancient civilizations such as Greece, Rome and Judea, they should be excusable in the present daylight as well?
Horizon Cybermedia is practically questioning 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 radical modern media technology, one has to admiration just how authentic and accurate the information is... and how much of it are distortions or dishonest attempts at misinformation and propaganda.
The last issue we obsession is for universal permission to media technology to create a "Misinformation Age" of widespread questionable information. However, it should next be noted that thanks to the universality of innovative media technology, it is now easier to ask universally-held assumptions and prejudices and the truth of so-called authoritative sources of information.
Please accomplish check out our ongoing film series Exploration later than 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. well along episodes visit the ski resorts of huge Bear Lake, CA and the rock-cut Buddhist temples of the Kanheri Caves near Mumbai, India. We look forward to your continued support, entertainment and information.
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