Are there any historians at the History Channel?

[regent]

It is often difficult for the editors to find the correct film to go with the dialogue, and much of the time it really doesn't matter. Putting together the proper film to match the script would take much more money and much more time, and maybe creating an interest to go further, is the important thing.
The problem with history, and perhaps its real use today, is politics. Look at these boards most of use history to convey our political beliefs; it seems politics, not history gives us motivation. Were we to post an historical event with no politics how much would it garner?
Yet, these boards are great, I would suspect it gives us a chance to exhibit our interest, and more importantly do more research. I often think somewhere in this political approach is the key to teaching or learning history, but there is also a major problem with this approach?

 

[Picaro]

It is often difficult for the editors to find the correct film to go with the dialogue, and much of the time it really doesn't matter. Putting together the proper film to match the script would take much more money and much more time, and maybe creating an interest to go further, is the important thing.
The problem with history, and perhaps its real use today, is politics. Look at these boards most of use history to convey our political beliefs; it seems politics, not history gives us motivation. Were we to post an historical event with no politics how much would it garner?
Yet, these boards are great, I would suspect it gives us a chance to exhibit our interest, and more importantly do more research. I often think somewhere in this political approach is the key to teaching or learning history, but there is also a major problem with this approach?

Yes. I use this quote as a sig on another board; it came from a post in the History.net forums on the myth of the smallpox blankets thing that was all the rage a few years ago.:

At what point did history become ethics? Why should we subvert the elusive search for facts to moralist concerns? If you want to be a preacher, go preach. If you want to save the world, go into politics. If you want to invent a world free of evil, take Prozac. -Dave Williams, George Mason Univ.

 

[Picaro]

It is often difficult for the editors to find the correct film to go with the dialogue, and much of the time it really doesn't matter. Putting together the proper film to match the script would take much more money and much more time, and maybe creating an interest to go further, is the important thing.
The problem with history, and perhaps its real use today, is politics. Look at these boards most of use history to convey our political beliefs; it seems politics, not history gives us motivation. Were we to post an historical event with no politics how much would it garner?
Yet, these boards are great, I would suspect it gives us a chance to exhibit our interest, and more importantly do more research. I often think somewhere in this political approach is the key to teaching or learning history, but there is also a major problem with this approach?

Yes. I use this quote as a sig on another board; it came from a post in the History.net forums on the myth of the smallpox blankets thing that was all the rage a few years ago.:

At what point did history become ethics? Why should we subvert the elusive search for facts to moralist concerns? If you want to be a preacher, go preach. If you want to save the world, go into politics. If you want to invent a world free of evil, take Prozac. -Dave Williams, George Mason Univ.

I dug up William's entire post. Unfortunately, I didn't save the link with it, but it's at History.net in a thread on the smallpox blankets controversy.

And here is what bothers me so much about modern "scholarship." At what point did history become ethics? Why should we subvert the elusive search for facts to moralist concerns? So what if they are on or off the hook? If you want to be a preacher, go preach. If you want to save the world, go into politics. If you want to invent a world free of evil, take Prozac. It was said in Ecclesiastes and it still is true today, people suck. They did then, all of them. They do now, all of us. History is the history of self-interested, competing, aggressive, selfish, murderous humans. At what point did it become a morality play? -Dave Williams, George mason Univ.