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Why do we glorify horrible people from the distant past? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (17 children)

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 given an unstoppable army, but yet he catches more shit than all his enemies combined.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (16 children)

"...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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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