Godless Capitalist, I still don’t understand you. I didn’t say the conquistadors brought health and prosperity to the Incas (though it is a fact that this was an unintended but important eventual consequence). I merely said, to whoever it was that killed the last Inca shaman, “Thank you.” Even if it was am unscrupulous and brutally violent Spaniard who was motivated by base aims and dirty conscience.
I will be forced to post some gruesome details of Inca rites in order for you to admit that nothing conquistadors have done came close to what Incas were doing to themselves.
And besides, I’m only tangentally concerned about the Inca people, and prosperity thereof. I’m mostly concerned about “cosmic justice”, for lack of better word, and I can’t help but feel glee at those who got what they deserved. And the Incas really deserved it.
Megan, you keep referring to Objectivist historians. Specifically whom are you referring to? Aren’t you a little too young to criticize professionals with such certainty? And as for your comment about “modern historians” goes, I would be very careful, if I were you, in trusting “modern history”. Don’t think you’re the only one with an in-depth interest in history; just check my profile to to find out that I am intensely passionate about it myself, and by now I’ve spent a lot of time and effort in learning about history and about historians. I can make these generalizations with little fear for finding exceptions:
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if it’s a modern historical theory, it’s probably cynical and highly toxic to any person who is still innocent enough to believe in ideals and heroes.
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if it’s a classic historical theory, it’s probably filled with a very careful attention to facts and just as careful attention to hero-worship, both their own and of their readers. If they must pull down an image that is viewed with admiration, they hastily attempt to replace it with something else.
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if it’s a ‘modern’ historian, he will be prominent and very well respected by scholars and academia, but his conclusions ought to be taken with a great deal of care, and a large grain of salt. For example, that guy who wrote “Germs and Steel”. These men will not waste a minute of sleep over insulting the Founding Fathers a little more, belittling America just a tad bit extra, and diminishing the importance of reason and proper cultural values, as that author has done in abundance. His great contribution to history was to teach men that the Greeks owed their superiority to abundance of vitamins and proper climate. Similarly, the African cultures were just as good, but were unable to develop due to unfavorable environment. He should tell that little fairy tale to the Israelis, who built a jewel in the middle of a desert, but hey.
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if it’s a ‘classical’ historian, with a classical approach to history (i.e. an old fashioned historian), he will be an outcast and viewed condescendingly as non-objective and untrustworthy. It is THIS man that you can trust to be careful with your heroes, to treat them with respect just as you do, and to defend them and their cultures against modern historians. See for example Victor Davis Hanson, a wonderful man but practically considered a joke by any self-respecting modern scholar.
Ok I’ll cut this short, because I don’t want to make this into a treatise on modern vs classical historians (though you can PM me about it if you want, or start a new thread). The point is, don’t listen to your modern historians too much, read more Enlightenment/19th century historians and their incredibly rare modern descendants.
As for scalping, give me a break. It is undoubted that the English were primitive and barbaric at one point in their history, and maybe they retained some traces of that by the Middle Ages. But the fact remains that by the time of American invasions, they did not engage in scalping, and the American Indians did. It’s not as if the Indians were somehow virtuous before and that’s what prevented them from scalping; maybe they just didn’t think of it, I don’t know; the fact remains that once they were exposed to this activity, they immediately began to engage in it, on their own initiative, with brutal frequency and pleasure, and continued doing this for centuries after any possible European would even think of such a thing.
Don’t take any offense for me saying this, but you ought to read less modern historians, and make less criticism of “Objectivist historians”. Criticizing more of the former, and reading more the latter, just might be a good reversal to your trend. Along with reading Ancient and Enlightenment historians, as I said earlier. In my opinion no historian today can hold a candle to Polybius, for example, including Victor Hanson whose scholarship is of premium quality and allegiance to ideals is undeniable. Edward Gibbon would come close, but he wrote his books in 1776. They are still unsurpassed today, as even the moderns will admit.
). I think its important as a historain to study all cultures, not because they are all equally philosophically correct, but because IT ALL HAPPENED, and I’d like to know about it.