Power users and mods just keep repeating: “History is not a science because culture (i.e., god) is all-powerful. We might use evidence but we distrust grand theories.”
I wish everyone in that thread a big
The OP is transparently there to start an argument. They have mostly good points, but that’s always a dicey means of communicating and it’s going to fall flat (as it did) if you take it to a niche community that doesn’t have a real fault line on the matter. OP is going to a small circle of history students, history academics, and dudes who watch 20-hour videos on Rome and asking “why aren’t you idiots Marxists?” – no shit there is no worthwhile response.
Of course the comments are obnoxious, and you also have mods in there doing the classic “we don’t want to talk about this so we’re going to call you uncivil for disagreeing” bit. A disaster of a thread all around.
We might use evidence but we distrust grand theories
Unless of course it’s anti-sovietism, neoclassialism, some half garbled form of zombie Keynesianism and of course the guiding star; white identitarianism
Then we reecive the blessing of all-mighty culture (i.e. god)
They just keep saying the same shit over and over again. I thought I was crazy to write that liberal historians have regressed to a pre-Enlightenment state and just replaced “god” with “culture,” but r/askhistorians is saying “yeah, that’s actually exactly what we do, and we’re proud of it!”
No scientist would ever say “it’s impossible to understand things,” but it’s apparently a totally normal take from libs to conclude that there are no patterns to human behavior and everything is just individualistic, subjective, and random.
i’ve never seen someone so pressed about intersectional theory. the AH people made a misstep in not identifying their practice as such but it’s pretty damn obvious.
they also misidentify why history isn’t science: because it’s literature and interpretation. it is not a science in which evidence cannot compel a conclusion, identifying the constant relitigation of history as a scientific process embarrasses the historian’s writing talent and expects there to be an attainable truth at the end of the process.
I’m getting a Master’s in history and I have no desire to read all that.
Too fucking bad! You’re gonna read it, and you’re gonna like it! Now START READING!
Medieval Europe. Doing my thesis on the crusades but I might abandon that path after years of floundering.
You could be grover furry 2.0 and spend time investigating the history of the Soviet union and become infamous in the historical world as a funny bit.
All serious though best of luck with your thesis dude!
