Posted on by Florent

The most serious historical fallacies in western academic textbooks

It’s a topic we can’t avoid any more. Let’s start….

(2) Among the most serious historical fallacies:
A. Whig Fallacy (Whig History) dominating western culture after the 19th century
B. Judeo-Christian fallacy, recently dominating UK&US academy after WWII

(3) A – Whig Fallacy
Sir H. Butterfield, Prof of History & Vice-Chancellor of Uni of Cambridge wrote The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) on how historical positivism of the Whigs (political fraction in UK) was based on a series of assumptions creating a western myth.

(4) The “Whig history” sees ancients as having primitive minds, unlike our own, painting certain periods of history with brighter or darker colours (e.g. dark ages).
Butterfield considered this Whig tendency as a “mental trick” drawing false lines of historical causation.

(5) “The fallacy of the whig historian lies in the way in which he takes his short cut through this complexity. […] and impute lessons to history which history has never taught and historical research has never discovered” ~ Sir H. Butterfield

(6) In the 19th century historians deified ancient Greeks & Romans rejecting the significance of the evolution of the christian world with one catchy phrase: dark ages. As if modern institutions (e.g. Universities, Hospitals, Civil Code) appeared suddenly out of thin air.

(7) Of course behind the “Whig history” we have strong political motivation. Friends of democracy & parliament had reasonable bias against a visible & powerful “enemy”: the Catholic Church, representing not only the heritage of the middle ages, but also a strong political actor.

(8) Modern atheistic arguments (e.g. Sam Harris, Dawkins) are almost exclusively based Whig history… on steroids.
Tim O’Neill, an atheist himself, does extensively good job on debunking the BS of pop-scientists spreading their historical ignorance

(9) example: the Greco-Roman values are considered ideal but lost in christian world. Is this true?
Greeks had a temples with 100s of girls pushed to holy prostitution. Romans brutally crucified & killed in arenas. The christian world legally introduced something new: humanism.

(10) B – The Judeo-Christian fallacy
Many people are shocked when they learn that the word “judeo-christian” was introduced in christian scholarship after the WWII and the concept was not used by the fathers of the Church. It was coined by some Jewish converts to Christianity.

(11) In fact Chrysostomus, the greatest father of Byzantine Christianity (Orthodox), also known for introducing Christmas, was explicitly clear on the anti-Judeo nature of Christianity.

(12) The Judeo-Christian myth plays on the ignorance of the masses who falsely believe that:
a. [modern] Judaism is based on Old Testament (it’s not)
b. in a certain time & place a culture was transformed from following the Mosaic law to follow Jesus. This never happened.

(13) The Jewish culture NEVER transformed to Christian. In contrast, the Greek culture transformed to Christian. In the west there was a cultural shift from Plato/Aristotle to Jesus. The Mosaic Law was used only as a reference, never as a cultural or religious belief system.

(14) The proximity between Plato & Christianity (using the SAME greek vocabulary & key-concepts) was explicitly taught by the Church Fathers even by Protestants and philosophers during the enlightenment.

(15) In Voltaire’s philosophical dictionary, in the lemma of “Plato” his first sentence goes like this:
Les Pères de l’Église des quatre premiers siècles furent tous grecs et platoniciens
(The fathers of the Church, of the first four centuries, were all Greeks and Platonists)

(16) The church taught the Greco-Christian history of the west:
Examples from the New Testament
word “prophet” is NOT Jewish, it’s Greek coined by Plato
word ψυχή (soul) coined by Thales (mathematician)
word αμαρτία (sin) used by philosophers
word Genesis is greek
etc.

(17) St. Paul had an amazing Greek education, openly acknowledging this reality. Addressing to the Athenians he quotes a Stoic poet on God, presenting “Christian God” as the “Stoic god” of Greeks.
Note: God – Zeus related to Δίας [greek], Deus [latin], Dieu [french]

(18) Both Whig & Judeo-Christian fallacy are products of the same basic assumption: the greeks suddenly disappeared from historical scene (maybe abducted by aliens), deleting 1000 years of Greek Byzantine culture, building a gap in western history. A gap filled with BS narrative.

Some comments:
Western Scholars during the last 300 years copy-paste the same narrative: Greeks where deductive (mathematics) and the west does Science (inductive). This criticism grew out of proportion presenting Greeks as cartoons picking up axioms (models) & blindly believing them.

So this story can be traced back to Descartes & Francis Bacon (Scientific Method) criticising the dogmatic approach of the Aristotelian establishment of their time.
Today it’s different. Scientists don’t read Plato or Aristotle from the original, thus spreading misinformation.

Both parents of Aristotle came from great families of doctors, his father had written a book on medicine. Alexander the Great also had studied medicine. Yes, the greeks proposed crazy medical models but tested them through time. They knew how to play with induction & deduction.

So, it could be essentially anchored in the perceived axiomatic nature of The Elements and its multi millenia influence I guess.
Exactly. The shadow of Euclide was heavy but selecting axioms wasn’t an arbitrary choice. The Greeks examined where axioms lead. The verb άγω (lead somewhere) is found in both induction (επ-αγωγή) & deduction (απ-αγωγή) like athletes trained to run in both directions.
Aristotle:

Source

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On Taleb’s Romans vs. Greeks (3)

That’s accurate. Note that “diehard” here is not metaphorical, it’s literal. The Greeks literally died massively for 100s of years defending the Byzantine territories e.g. Even after 1453 (fall of Constantinople) the Ottomans couldn’t take over Crete for the next 2 centuries.

According to the original byz sources of Phrantzes or Sphrantzes (Φραντζής) the Cretans where the last to abandon the battle defending Constantinople and among the first rising against the occupation (1771). The Cretan style (& music) remains the symbol of “national” in Greece.

That’s why the most famous Byzantine national song (ΑΚΑΘΙΣΤΟΣ ΥΜΝΟΣ, Τη Υπερμάχω Στρατηγώ) remains the strongest inspiration for Greek military, of course in greek language, lasting from 626 AC! Byzantines were in the most LITERAL sense DIEHARD Greeks.

Source

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On Taleb’s Romans vs. Greeks (2)

Monsieur Taleb, all summer you’re sliding one degree per day. You don’t like models unless…. they’re your own & for 6-year-olds?

Romans were the COPIERS & CENTRALISERS of history. To be Roman is to copy what Greeks invent, centralise it & dehumanise it e.g. theatres to arenas.

Did Cato expelled greek doctors also? Medicine was (and still remains) the ultimate test of BS models, developed by Greeks throughout the Roman & Byzantine period. The inability of Romans to form & test new models is evident in their low-innovation copy-paste legalistic culture.

Medicine was (and remains) the ultimate test of BS models. It needs COURAGE equal to Achilles to propose a radical new model against old wisdom. For every 100 models (hypotheses) only 1 may be useful. It’s safer to play the Roman Rationalist & reject all models as BS.

To sumarize:

– Romans: centralisation + deductive reasoning (legal science)
– Greeks: decentralisation (demos) + testing models with high-level semiotics & inductions (medicine)
– Byzantines: deductive (legalistic) + inductive (modern hospitals)

Some more comments
So this story can be traced back to Descartes & Francis Bacon (Scientific Method) criticising the dogmatic approach of the Aristotelian establishment of their time. Today it’s different. Scientists don’t read Plato or Aristotle from the original, thus spreading misinformation.

I remember the time when a doer was judged by the roughness of his hands, not by his best-selling books against tawkers. I also remember the time when hard-working Protestants were recognised as the pillars of modernity. Things have changed.

Source 1, Source 2

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Anachronisms

Dawkins spent his career pretending he doesn’t understand anachronism. A clown of an atheist circus quoting Old Testament against… Christianity. In his mental salads the humanistic christian morality is just a logical standard. Now he understands anachronism!… wait… what?

Anachronism à la carte! All those who condemn & criticise christianity are the same who later criticise Athens based on… christian morality! They’re not crazy. They pretend they don’t understand how history works and how christian religion revolutionised western humanism.

In every topic scientific or philosophical we need standards. Hypocrites constantly change standards. They criticise Old Testament (or Athens) using morality that Byzantines (=christianity) introduced (e.g. women’s rights) AND they criticise Byz using modernity as standard!

We have:
– “hard sciences” called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
– social sciences & liberal arts / humanities (e.g. literature, history)

Scientism is the false belief that only the “scientific method” (experiments) reveals the important truths in life.

Source

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On diversity in french football team

Trevor doesn’t get it. US came too late to the diversity party. The french created the game and know the main rule: NEVER overshadow national identity symbols. When the ambassador of France corrects your multiculturalism you should take notes, for your social safety.

It’s worth noting that Trevor is neither an American nor a French citizen. No skin in the game. If France & US undergo social collapse, he’ll continue making jokes, as a citizen of S. Africa with a certain racial, national & political orientation (to put it lightly).

You can argue with crazy hypocrites who change their standards constantly in the same conversation. In the same video he claims he can use the word “Africans” because it’s not racist, but not others, cause it’s racist, and he’s the only one to judge you… based on your… race.

I generally don’t support politicians or ambassadors but this time the ambassador represents accurately not only the Fr gvmnt, the Fr people but also the Fr black community. In US blacks are african-americans. In France they are French. Period. Every other identity comes 2nd.

Look, I’m not trying to justify or explain anything here. I’m just stating a reality: my black friends were offended by Trevor. They feel French & blue team OFFICIALLY represents France. Of course, after the game some partied in traditional African themes embracing their culture.

Source

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Individualism and civic virtue

Peterson keeps claiming individualism is key, as opposed to collectivism. It’s one of the countless things he doesn’t get: ↑↑ individualism PUSHES the wheel of ↑↑ collectivism. Our heritage is civic engagement (CIVIC VIRTUE) not individualism, even in Ecclesia (church).

Let’s elaborate: The greeks where quite accurate in their definitions. If many celebrity psychologists are idiots…. then what’s the etymology of the word “idiot”? If we don’t understand this, we can’t understand anything about CIVIC VIRTUE.

Idiot: From Old French from Latin idiota ‘ignorant person’, from Greek ΙΔΙΩΤΗΣ. ΙΔΙΩΤΗΣ: The private individual = ignorant person = absorbed in his individuality & doesn’t participate in ecclesia of demos (the gathering of people) or later in ecclesia (church).

Legal review: There isn’t such a thing as “human rights”, it’s an illusion. e.g. “the right to work” translated in communism as forced labor. Instead there is such thing as LAW that guarantees
(a) public order &
(b) certain liberties or privileges, perceived often as “rights”.

Legal review: The MAIN purpose of any modern legal system is NOT to serve justice nor “human rights” but to guarantee public ORDER. That’s why the “ultimate law” is always a separate military law, restricting liberties & rights, enforced when ORDER is in danger.

Legal review: The part of law called as “subjective law” contains all the articles that give certain liberties (freedoms) to the subjects (the people) when public order is not in danger.

Dictatorships shrink the “subjective law” e.g. the liberty of expression.

So, the legal system recognises an ASYMMETRY between the State (holding increased powers & privileges) and the subjects, the people.
The “social contract” (by Rousseau) is a tacit acceptance in a republic, a contract by the people to exchange [some] liberty for order.

In the west we talk about “politicians” today. Why? They became a separate class! How? In cultures of individualism people don’t participate in civic life, and they “de facto” [legal term] surrender the privileges of soft power & hard power to political cast (oligarchy).

For comparison, back in 1689 when “The Bill of Rights” was passed, Isaac Newton was a member of the parliament!
Newton, was NOT a politician, he was an active citizen (personal responsibility), like so many other active citizens that founded modern parliamentary republics.

INDIVIDUALITY is a privilege of parliamentary republics, guaranteed by “subjective law”. But this creates a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOP:
↑ rights –> ↑ individuality –> ↑ people don’t participate in civic life (no civic virtue) –> elite hijacks institutions –> ↓ rights

To summarise all this complexity, the greeks named “individual” as “idiot”, the ultimate synonym of stupidity. When free citizens wilfully surrender [de facto] their civic rights to an elite (oligarchy) or tyrant, that consolidate their power with new laws [de jure].

Plutarch noticed that tyrants visited villages making sure people stayed occupied their PRIVATE / INDIVIDUAL businesses. Ancient tyrants promoted one thing: individuality and one-per-one negotiation. It’s ironic that Peterson teaches this as “glory” of western civilisation.

According to Plutarch Tyrants manipulate people by making “butter out of milk”. How? By manipulating individuals to blindly follow their narrow self-interest in collective outbursts (collectivism). That’s how tyrants consolidated power: ↑ individuality –> ↑ collectivism

When someone asked Demaratus, Spartan King, why the Spartans disgrace those who throw away their shields but NOT those who abandon their helmets? he answered: helmet is used for their our own safety but the shield for the safety of all [the whole line].
Plutarch, Moralia

That’s why, even today in modern times, the synonym of traitor is “ρίψασπις”, the person who drops his own shield, putting in danger the whole group. Keeping his helmet (personal, individual safety) is worthless.

Source

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Textbook Monoculture

Why most textbooks in the same subject teach the same material & views? Take any random english textbook in medicine, biochemistry, statistics etc. you’ll see more or less the same structure. In non-english background, suddenly, contents & views may vary.

Example: in clinical physiology, english textbooks handpick a set of diseases (the same set) and present their underlying mechanisms. Non-english textbooks in physiology often focus on pragmatic real-life clinical issues like fever, pain etc.

Example: open any random english textbook in biochemistry, pathology etc., you can predict even the diagrams and the images you’re going to see. They’re copy-paste. But if you open a book, in the same subject, from Jaypee Brothers (India) you may see a different approach.

Textbook monoculture gives the false impression to students that there is such a thing that we call “science” which is solid and everybody agrees with. All medical textbooks present the same images on how lipids cause heart attacks & questioning this becomes a hubris.

The heart-bit of textbook monoculture is centralised examinations & credit transfer. US textbooks prepare students for SAT exams, USMLE exams (for doctors), bar examination (for lawyers), providing the “correct answers” for those exams.

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Big Pharma and censorship

So what is “Big Pharma”? Let’s google. It’s a set of conspiracy theories which claim “that the medical establishment […] operate for sinister purposes and against the public good”. It’s a conspiracy!

Do you criticise the ridiculous US medical costs? you’re a BigPharmaphobe.

The Rational Wiki, edited by the skeptics & atheists presents Big Pharma in the category of “Conspiracy” claiming “the overwhelming majority of criticism comes from non-scientific bases”. You see, BMJ doesn’t criticise Big Pharma.

Source

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Cognitive ability != Critical thinking

High cognitive ability
1. ability to strongly stereotype
2. ability to learn = adapt classifications (stereotypes) by training

Cognition is NOT critical thinking

Cognitive ability = susceptible to stereotype training by those who control culture & education

The highly educated, once trained to say “the filthy Jew” (Nazism) are now trained to say “you’re an antisemite” (e.g. when criticising Israel).

We see the same trend with highly educated people (intellectual elite) bringing in politics the stereotypes of their training.

In the graph we see the correlation of University education & voting for the left.

The dictionaries of Larousse and Le Robert are the most famous in France, illustrated, targeting children with high cognitive abilities (a thirst to learn).

This is how children are trained to stereotype. In one cover we see Obama & in the other we see Che Guevara.

The most shocking graphs, come from Edelman global reports, demonstrating that in all countries the “informed population” (higher cognitive abilities) have consistently HIGHER TRUST to official institutions (NGOs, TV media, Government) than the “non-informed”.
Example: US 2018

And here is my favourite one: left-wing voters (in the LGTB++/Soros train of education) are highly educated, like the supporters of Obama & Hillary.
Hillary supporters have + 34 POINTS in their trust in mainstream media! And of course they trust NGOs more.

I found these trends consistently in all countries that I checked, UK, Brazil, China, France etc.
You can download the most recent, “2018 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report”

In China they indoctrinate about the importance of Government. In the west they indoctrinate about the importance of NGOs. This reflects the beliefs of the general population expressed as trust. But the “highly informed” (higher cognition) express STRONGER TRUST!

Liberal indoctrination is a trend every STEM field, not only in humanities. This graph is from Nature, we see the same trend in all scientific fields. Take a closer look at astronomy & astrophysics. Do you see anything strange?

Mathematics, Economics & Engineering seem to be the last castles, they still have some conservatives left, under a ton of liberal pressure.

Source

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Black Slavery (2)

We have to withstand a rain of BS from all directions. Christian “orthodoxism” is criticised as being against liberal democracy. Why did the British in the 19th c. called greek orthodox as radical monks?Because they were preaching on liberation!

Slavery was definitively abolished
– 1848 in French colonies
– 1865 in US
and….

– 1822 in Greece (40 years before Lincoln!) slavery was definitively abolished, inspired by “radical orthodox monks”. Greek revolution (Orlov revolt, 1770) started BEFORE the French.

It reminds me of all the skeptic academics saying Jesuits are Catholic dogmatics against science (!). That’s’s not a rain, it’s a storm of BS. You can’t find more scientifically inclined religious group than the Jesuits. This is their “strong card” not the weak one.

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