/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5956930]

The Romans enslaved, annexed, and genocided millions upon millions of people over the course of their existence. All of their neighbors hated them with a passion, despite their extravagant and advanced technology. And yet, the Romans have been very warmly regarded in literature and history for quite a long while, even in territories previously subjugated by them.

Do you think modern, villainized cultures will be viewed more fondly in the popular culture of the far future? The Nazis, the USSR, and Communist China, for example?

[Anonymous No.5956936]

>>5956930
The sheer lack of self awareness in this post is astounding.

[Anonymous No.5956943]

>>5956936

I'm so upset. I've re-analyzed all of my world views and come around to believing in yours.

[Anonymous No.5956944]

>>5956930

No, they were all failures.

[Anonymous No.5956946]

>>5956944

China wasn't, and for that reason, it will be fondly remembered. Mao will be as well-remembered as Julius Caesar in 2000 years, mark my words. People didn't like him after he got Pompey killed, but propaganda is a hell of a drug.

[Anonymous No.5956956]

>>5956944

Sparta and Carthage come to mind.

[Anonymous No.5956995]

roman conquest was nothing at all like our modern, industrial, nationalist conquests

[Anonymous No.5957006]

>>5956956

Those states embodied the classical virtues which established civil society. Though they eventually lost eminence, they were still ideologically associated with the victors.

[Anonymous No.5957008]

>>5957006

Shogunate Japan?

[Anonymous No.5957009]

>>5956946
>Information is spread and preserved the same as it was 2000 years ago

[Anonymous No.5957017]

>>5957009

Don't undersell the Roman patricians on their aptitude for cultural knowledge.

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5957026]

the villainization will definitely fade but as for the fondness it depends on the successors of the culture. the british empire was one of the most bloodiest in the world history and it's fondly remembered because it affected some of the most important currently countries, so was about the roman empire, communist china is honestly more on the victim side comparing to something like these two empires but it has a good chance to be fondly remembered in the future if it gets significantly more important

[Anonymous No.5957121]

>enslaved, annexed, and genocided millions upon millions of people over the course of their existence
>thinking this is unique to the romans

am i being memed on here....?

[Anonymous No.5957147]

Depends on how modern civilizations play out. They might be advanced enough that they realize humans basically act on their natural instinct and fighting wars and kill over ideologies was normal to the 1900s because its kind of a normal progress of culture and so they might see it from a detached viewpoint like we looks at romans since we are detached from their society.

[Anonymous No.5957158]

>>5957121
where did he say it was unique to the romans? it was just an example

[Anonymous No.5957160]

>>5956930
>hated them with a passion
Rome Haters

[Anonymous No.5957176]

>>5956946
>he thinks Mao will be the one who is most remembered

Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax!

[Anonymous No.5957203]

>>5956930
Historians have a hard on for anyone who conquers and provides technological/cultural advancements at the same time. If you're the 'height' of your period you'll be regarded warmly in the history books.

[Anonymous No.5957229]

The Romans are pretty much the foundation of western culture (other than the greeks), Of course they are going to be looked at warmly. When you think of the nazis or the USSR you arn't thinking of the art or culture they produced, you are thinking of their radical beliefs and actions and what knot. The Nazis only lasted like 20 something years and the USSR less than a century, so they didn't have a good a chance as the Romans for producing culture though but what do I know. China is still communist so its they still have a chance to undergo some cultural golden age that will be looked upon as "warm" in the future.

[Anonymous No.5957233]

>>5956930
Russell Brand will make sure the USSR is looked upon warmly

[Anonymous No.5957269]

Nazis lost because of a poor strategic vision, they will be regarded as failures, even after everyone forgets how evil they were. Which will eventually happen.

USSR's client states were never properly absorbed into their empire, they were failures, and will be regarded as such.

Chinese will probably be an insular force as they grow, not the conquering stuff of legends.

Rome were back to back world champs for fucking centuries. Sure, they lost wars, but the guys that won ended up regretting it. I don't think there will be future legends like Rome. Those times are past us.

[Anonymous No.5957278]

>>5956930
No, because when our generation becomes immortal machines our opinions will be fixed for all time as the opinions of humanity.

[Anonymous No.5957283]

>>5957008

The nips have a high regard for Nobunaga. Is he their Caesar? I do not know.

[Anonymous No.5957295]

People remember the Romans fondly? If you talk to any authentic pleb, like a middle-bracket Christian somewhere, about the Romans, they'll immediately drop words like 'evil' and 'perverted'. And people like you might remember them fondly, but you're fondly remembering them as immoral.

[Anonymous No.5957299]

how do you think the greatest villains in human history, the united states of american, will be remembered?

[Anonymous No.5957309]

>>5957299
once the earth is finally cleansed of the white menace and restored to its ancient splendor, not even the word 'state' will be remembered

[Anonymous No.5957323]

>>5957309
>the chinese forgetting the word "state"
lol

[Anonymous No.5957324]

>>5957323
>the chinese
>not white

there's a reason they have such high IQ

[Anonymous No.5957333]

So you're saying Capitalist America will be well regarded in the future, long after the fact?

[Anonymous No.5957341]

>>5957333
Uh, I don't know if you heard but America is the greatest nation in the history of the world

[Anonymous No.5957377]

>tfw one of the greatest novels ever written tried to bump you down a notch or two and failed

[Anonymous No.5957379]

>>5957299
on similar levels as Britain in the 1800s today

[Anonymous No.5957387]

>>5957333
if marx was right maybe it will seem like a stagnation but it was certainly very culturally rich era so its not terrible in that regard.

[Anonymous No.5957389]

>>5957377
>...because of miserable little fanboys like yourself.

[Anonymous No.5957397]

>>5957269
>Sure, they lost wars, but the guys that won ended up regretting it.
Doesn't that apply to the Third Reich?

[Anonymous No.5957399]

>>5956930
>The Romans enslaved, annexed, and genocided millions upon millions of people

Name them.

[Anonymous No.5957400]

Romans...they're the guys who crucified Jesus, right? They're certainly not warmly regarded in the only history book that matters--The Bible.

[Anonymous No.5957415]

>>5957389
>anon, hop on. I ll lead you from the path of obscurity to eternity.

[Anonymous No.5957421]

Will the US be seen the same way in 2000 years as Rome is today?

[Anonymous No.5957423]

>>5957397
No.

[Anonymous No.5957436]

>>5957400
When was the last time you read the Bible? The pharisees crucified Jesus. Pilate just kinda hung around not giving a fuck and was confused more than anything, and just wanted the Jews to stop causing trouble. He spent more time arguing in favor of Jesus.

[Anonymous No.5957438]

>>5957176
This. Deng is the one that'll get remembered.

[Anonymous No.5957443]

>>5957399
>rome dindu nuffing
>THE MASSACRES NEVER HAPPENED
Nice try Julius.

[Anonymous No.5957444]

>>5957438
For starting them down a mad path to over consumption and global extinction? Ye-no, not remembered long really.

[Anonymous No.5957451]

>>5957444
>mfw I know chinese people who had it "good" the days before Deng. They remember how some days they had an entire egg they could split between each other.

Only a fucking spoilt suburban moron would see china's development as something wrong.

[Anonymous No.5957454]

>>5957443
It just seems like a modern interpretation of antiquity, basically talking as if they holocausted everyone.

[Anonymous No.5957488]

>>5957443
the point is that it was normal style of warfare back then, so nobody gave a shit

[Anonymous No.5957500]

>>5957444
when he started China was on a "mad path", he is the reason they are the economic powerhouse they are today. You can't really think that improving the lives of over a billion isn't something that isn't going to be remembered.

[Anonymous No.5957507]

>>5957500
Don't you get it? If they had followed Mao's path they would developed solar power and nuclear fusion and would of become shangri-la by nao.

[Anonymous No.5957618]

Neo-Assyrians
>skull piles
>genocide
>flay rebels alive, staple their skins to the main gates of their city, brag about it in inscriptions
>mass relocation and dislocation of populations
>"haha the assyrians were not nice fellows XD"

Achaemenids
>massacre entire populations on approach to babylonia
>mass relocation and dislocation of populations
>brutal suppression of rebellions
>"cyrus was uniquely humanitarian and cosmopolitan even if he had bronze age morals :^)"

Greeks
>SOP on conquering city is to butcher men, enslave women and children
>semi-regularly glass entire cities for being especially annoying
>melian dialogue
>athenian retreat from syracuse, men choking down river water polluted with the blood of thousands of their own comrades, cut down mercilessly, survivors enslaved
>"greek society could be harsh but the greeks were the best people ever!"

Romans
>carthage and corinth in 146
>mass enslavement of populations
>half the population is servile, completely dehumanized, habitually raped, abused, and exploited until death, for centuries
>absorb and sometimes annihilate entire civilizations through brutal conquest for centuries
>glorified brutality, torturing slaves, prisoners, and animals to death for hundreds of years
>"roman society could be harsh but romans were our forebears and the best coolest dudes ever!"

Medieval states
>aristocratic mindset incredibly brutal and rapacious in a way we can't even fathom
>90% of population virtually servile and habitually abused
>"nobles were not nice people :P"
>bulgar-slaying
>"basil was a statebuilder who got shit working again :^)"
>dynasty founding through the sociopathic slaughter of your entire extended family
>"oh clovis XDD"
>vikings literally called fags by other vikings if they didn't join in butchering children
>"vikings are badass!!!"
>mongols literally called fags by other vikings if they didn't join in butchering children
>"mongols are badass!!!"
>brutal suppression and colonisation of baltic pagans
>"teutonic knights are badass!!!"
>ivan the terrible, the biggest sociopathic monster in history
>"statebuilder :^)"

Modern states
>"Peter was a statebuilder :^)"
>"Russian serfdom was unfortunate!"
>"1795 was certainly a ruthless political move by the east european monarchs!"
>"LOL reign of terror jeez wouldn't want to be an aristocrat with a head"
>"Africa and India had regrettable excesses of colonialism but wow look at all this statebuilding!!"
>"Bismarck was a statebuilder, his poor treatment of Catholics and Poles was part of his strategy!!"
>"Polish interwar imperialism was realpolitik!"
>"Mussolini probably shouldn't have conquered Ethiopia!"

Stalin
>genocided millions
>considered statebuilder albeit sociopath, always dispassionately reported
>stalinist historians exist in mainstream

Nazis
>OH GOD WE NEED AN ENTIRE DEPARTMENT
>50% OF ALL HISTORY CLASSES MUST BE NOW ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST BEING BAD
>UNIQUE EVENT IN HISTORY, UNIQUELY EVIL
>eeEEEEEEVIL CONQUERORS

[Anonymous No.5957642]

>>5957618
Anti-semite detected

[Anonymous No.5957697]

>>5956930
>All of their neighbors hated them with a passion
Why is it that so many of their neighbours emulated them? Why did some many Germanics convert to Christianity? Why did the Franks and Charlemagne emulate them?

You are placing a modern perspective on the past. You are placing modern colonial/nationalistic struggles onto the past. In the past, often a high culture would absorb a lower culture.

Rome took a lot of knowledge from the Greeks. Germanics took a lot from the Romans. Vikings and Magyars took a lot from Christendom. Heck, the Mongols took a lot from China.

Nowadays we don't see one culture being absorbed by another - more two cultures in conflict of one another.

Your historical narrative is incorrect. The time they lived in was not a time where knowledge was disseminated.

There is a great book called - Before France and Germany that charts the beginning of the division of the territory being a dynastic one between the descendents of Charlemagne dividing up the territory.

The past was a lot more malleable. Imperialism, nationalism etc and how we see it isn't like it was seen in the past.

[Anonymous No.5957709]

>>5957697
>Imperialism, nationalism etc and how we see it isn't like it was seen in the past.
Now let me give you an example: On a BBC documentary on the Crusades they judged the Christians because of a massacre. They said that during a siege the Crusaders killed everyone. And they were placing a moralistic view that this was bad and you should feel guilty.

Now every single Medieval siege had this: a group of attackers would try to force a surrender. They would offer terms. If these terms were not agreed upon then they would either try and starve them out or attack. If they managed to breach the walls and the attackers did not surrender? Then people were butchered.

Pratically all cultures did this. All cultures. And yet this documentary was placing moral blame and guilt upon a singular culture - our own. Because it is the current historical view to be anti-Western. To view our culture as creating many problems. This view is narrow as people don't include the good parts of our culture and they don't see the good parts (or themselves) as being a product of the culture, they feel outside it.

Stop putting your moralistic and modern day context onto the past. CONCEPTS HAVE CHANGED OVER TIME. You can't compare a massacre of the past to a massacre happening today. Not when everything about it is vastly different.

[Anonymous No.5957719]

>>5957618
Lol this is pretty true. The nazis gets disproportionate amount of attention if you compare them to past atrocities or even modern day equivalents.

[Anonymous No.5958129]

>>5956946
>Mark my words
In 2000 years I'll be sure to remember your 4chan post, bub.

[Anonymous No.5958165]

>>5957697
>>5957709
great posts. might i add that it is not necessarily bad to place modern concepts onto the past so long as they are not moralistic ones? and even so, sympathies such as non-violence and temperance can be traced from our modern conceptions to antiquity. it is just that these concepts had not be crystallized into what we understand them to be. but overall, historical judgments of the past must be free from moral/personal opinion however historical judgments of the present are free game. how else will the historians of the future understand the mores of our cultures?

[Anonymous No.5958173]

>>5957451
There is still poverty there.

>>5957500
He'll be remembered for a while, just not for very long since we'll all be dead.

[Feminarkist !!XI7SJUHr/Uv No.5958175]

>>5957618
some good stuff in here but I have to wonder if you have any examples of the kind of coverage you're straw-historianing towards the end. I mean... who besides /pol/ types commends the colonial ventures in Africa and India on grounds of "statebuilding"? Colonialism created failed states or deeply troubled ones (India) at best, this is uncontroversial. Heavy, guilt-ridden coverage of the history of colonialism is widespread in most history departments, if not as untouchable (thanks to the lack of a convenient left-right convergence) as similar coverage of the Holocaust. And what mainstream Stalinist historians?

[Anonymous No.5958200]

>>5957026
>most bloodiest
Why are people like you allowed to post on /lit/?

[Anonymous No.5958608]

>>5957399

The Avernii, the Nevarii, Carthage, Macedon, Athens, Sparta, the Iceni.

All attacked, conquered, enslaved, and often genocided by Rome.

[Anonymous No.5958627]

>>5957158
It's not an example. It's a default fact that should never be removed.

[Anonymous No.5958658]

>>5957006
>still believes history is written by a guy named Victor

[Anonymous No.5958670]

>>5957415
>I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it . . . this extraordinary man, whom it is impossible not to admire.

[Anonymous No.5958686]

>>5958200
of course it's a tripfag too

[Anonymous No.5958692]

>>5957438
Deng is just like any other anti-democratic capitalist dog. At least Mao has a story and a proper character: that is what remembrance requires.

[Anonymous No.5958697]

>>5957500
> You can't really think that improving the lives of over a billion isn't something that isn't going to be remembered.
Mao did that and yet the West forgets this.

[Anonymous No.5958704]

>>5957618
> Nazis
> Popular support from the silent masses

> Everyone else
> Small establishment which established these awful acts and to which the evil can be generally be pointed to. Armies, aristocracies, extremists.

[Anonymous No.5958711]

>>5958670
> The revolution has moved to Germany in 1805
> In 1814 Napoleon's ultimate defeat is caused by Prussian army taking control of the state and betraying Napoleon, prompting other German states to follow the road to Battle of Leipzig
bravo hegel

simply epic

[Anonymous No.5958937]

>>5956930
Pax Romana

[Anonymous No.5959083]

>>5957333
Pax Americana will definitely be noted.

[Anonymous No.5959093]

>>5957618
>semi-regularly glass entire cities for being especially annoying

I lol'd. Rome did this with the tribes for a long time.

[Anonymous No.5959110]

>>5956930
that's already happened

[Anonymous No.5959137]

OP confirmed for faggot.
It was another world. Another simpler time. People weren't aware of the things that happened in other parts of the empire. Their conquests weren't the same in scope as, let's say, the short-lived military glory of the Third Reich.

[Anonymous No.5959251]

>>5957176
My nigga.

Although it will probably be similar to a Julius-Augustus situation. The ideological founder and great visionary leader, and the more pragmatic reformer who actually got things running straight.

[Anonymous No.5959269]

>>5959251

This makes a lot of sense, I'd place my money on it coming true.

[Anonymous No.5959276]

>>5957176
Deng will be remembered for destroying the revolution.

[Anonymous No.5959301]

>>5958608
>All attacked, conquered, enslaved

No shit, not disputing that because that's not the point.

>often genocided

'Genocided'

This is what I'm talking about. Fucking modernists throwing out terms they don't understand like buzzwords. Show me an instance where the Romans intentionally set out to wipe a people off the face of the Earth. The only thing that come's close is Caesar's campaign against the Gauls and that itself was more complex than simply aiming to destroy them. The concept of genocide most likely didn't even exist because the idea of a people being genetically bound wasn't even known.

[Anonymous No.5959322]

>>5959251
yeah, there is no way that Mao will be forgotten. China is still an open history book so who knows what the future holds.

[Anonymous No.5959328]

>>5959276
>Letting Jiang Qing and the gang of four run things
>Washed up actress and her beta orbiters.
>Better than bringing the country into the 20th century.

China would have collapsed into bloodshed, purges, and civil war if Deng hadn't taken over. He was far from perfect, but at least he managed to keep the country together and keep people from starving to death.

[Anonymous No.5959336]

>>5959301
Carthage must be destroyed.

[Anonymous No.5959353]

>>5957507
Solar power? That gigantic fucking dam they built isn't even enough, they really don't need highly expensive solar panels that will supply a limited amount of power. Nuclear fusion would be nice but not even the Western world has any commercial plants running

[Anonymous No.5959440]

>>5959336
That's in the context of 'We must destroy the Carthaginian empire' not 'We must wipe the Carthaginians and their bloodline off of the planet'

Still misunderstanding what genocide is.

[Anonymous No.5959478]

>>5957618
Is this a stawman convention? I've never seen so many of them packed into such a small space before.