Thinking of History as "Propaganda"

Following up on my previous post on history, this one is a tad more radical, so bear with me.

The story we tell ourselves about what happened in the past, due to human biases, can be construed and twisted to serve a distinct purpose. We see this most readily (and especially recently) in our monuments, but it is also very apparent in our museums. There is honest history out there, certainly when showcasing primary evidence from a time period. But when we curate anecdotes and try to weave a story from history based on achieving a goal, we steer what many will take at face value as history into something more like propaganda.

I say this mostly to encourage a healthy dose of skepticism in our lives. As we're seeing now with the removal of Confederate monuments and the renaming of landmarks, we can move past the biases of our predecessors, and make sure our society reflects our current values. Something like the symbols of the Confederacy are a bit more apparent, but something like an American History museum, can be more subtle.

History is told by the victors, so the struggles or valid motives of the other side can often be misrepresented. The plight of Native Americans comes to mind. We are slowly coming to terms with that aspect of our history, but obviously it is far too late to do us much good. The damage is done. When we tell the story of our country's founding, we often paint ourselves in a positive light, versus being more objective in the showcasing of the way we handled this unprecedented culture clash between our fore-bearers and the Native Americans. Sometimes the stories aren't told at all, which is the true tragedy.

All this being said, we need monuments, and we need museums. We need to preserve artifacts and honor our heroes. We just need to do it in a way that properly shows our past; the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we need to be open minded and independent thinkers who will be able to see a representation of the past, and know it may not be the full story.

History is Human

As a history major in college, I've always had an affinity and appreciation for the story of our world. I often visit museums and monuments, taking moments to look into the context that lead us to now. Certainly nowadays this is a contentious issue in terms of who we decide to erect statues to and which ones we decide to take down.

While we create our collective memory of the past (meaning it is subject to our whims and limited by what we have left to examine), there is a universal thread that hit me recently; history is human.

We often exalt the figures of the past, making it hard to imagine and relate to them (especially since we don't have many realistic depictions of people until recently with the advent of video with color). But what is sobering to realize, is that these people we make monuments to and learn about in books, were just that, people. They were humans figuring out their way in the world as best they could, often making mistakes, and victims to their emotions. They made meaning as best they could with what they had, and did as well as they could muster with what they had. The impressive part is that they survived, thrived, expanded, and made it possible for us to be here in an amazing time to be alive (albeit at great cost and certainly we are in an imperfect world still). 

It makes me feel like we can give these historical figures a bit of a break. They did all they could to improve life in their time (and often succeeded), we need to continue the tradition and use the incredible tools at our disposal to expand the common good. To be clear, I don't mean this to say we should give people free passes for the awful things they did. We should not honor people who embodied any sort of hateful ideology. With that being said though, history has always been made by humans working hard and working together. And while we are the cause of many of our own problems, we are also the solution to those problems.

People will be learning about our time in the future. What do we want them to say?

The Early History of Massively Multiplayer Online Games

(Image Source)

The MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) market has been largely dominated by the game we all know and love; World of Warcraft. But with the glory days of Wow well and truly done with, let’s take a look at the earliest MMO’s to be released.

MMOs are Open World Games Online that allow for massive player bases on the same servers. Of course, so many MMO’s have come out over the years, so this post will only cover a handful.

Meridian 59 -

Arguably the first true MMO ever released. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t met with much popularity, but it was revolutionary in its own right. It launched as an early form in 1995 and was released commercially in 1996. The game itself boasted such features as; modifiable character stats and attributes, levelable professions, PvP (Person vs. Person) combat and even a loot system. The game is now available for free as an open-source project and is still run by the original developers.

Ultima Online -

Ultima Online was originally created, in part at least, as a social and economical experiment. The game was initially released in 1997 The game was a predecessor to a series of single player games. So the developers had to figure out a way to make each player feel like the center of attention and allow for big social interactions, at the same time. Since release the game has had 8 expansions released, and so has a multitude of features. These features include world PvP and PvE, world events, questing, levelable characters and much more.

EverQuest -

Unlink M59, EverQuest was a remarkable success. The game massively surpassed uptake expectations when it was released, in 1999. It was the first commercially viable MMO to use a 3D engine. The game plays host to a huge pool of classes, all with defined roles. It has instance style encounters, as well as true leveling and talent systems. EverQuest is heralded as one of the first true MMORPGs, and is a game WoW took a lot of it’s influence from.

RuneScape -

This had to be thrown in. RuneScape came out in 2001, but the RuneScape you see today is very different to it’s origin. The game runs in-browser, which seriously limits how detailed it can be. But, remarkably, RuneScape is still a success even today. Even with bad graphics and horrible controls, RuneScape has managed to sit atop its own thrown for over a decade. Although it doesn’t really have any unique features.

World of Warcraft -

And this brings us to 2004, the release of World of Warcraft. Every MMO player knows about WoW. The game holds the world record for total subscriptions. And the developers boast that in 2014 over 100 million user accounts had been created for it. The original game was fairly basic, but the formula Blizzard created with the game is responsible for it’s success.

So that’s a brief delve into the history of MMOs. Hopefully, I’ve inspired you to try some games you’d otherwise ignore. Look at them as artifacts; relics of a time gone by. Loads of MMOs came out between these games, and afterward. There’s even some in the pipeline today. If these sorts of games interest you, you can find plenty of them for free!

Book Review: The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City is a historical narrative written by Erik Larson and published in 2004 that explores the true events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (otherwise known as the World's Columbian Exposition, in honor of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the "New World"). The narrative delves into the planning and creation of the fair, as well as the evil deeds carried out by one man in the shadows of this magical global event.

I have to admit first off that I have been sitting on this book for a little while now. My partner gave it to me to read so we could share in the story together. I just took my time with it since there were some sort of slow parts to the narrative (more on that later).

The most compelling parts of this book (to me) are the parts that follow the dark realities of Chicago in the late 19th century, focusing mostly on the criminal behavior of one "Dr. H. H. Holmes", the alias of Herman Mudgett, one of the first documented serial killers in modern times. He was a counterfeiter, committed insurance fraud, theft, and murder. He also created a "castle" of sorts in Chicago to be able to commit many of his crimes and destroy any evidence. He was an awful human being but as is often the case, he is the most compelling and interesting part of the book since his character is just so fascinating.

The parts of the book that were far less interesting to me (even as a history major) were the long passages about the tedious planning of the fair. I found myself reading these parts just waiting to get to the next section involving Holmes. The fair planning parts definitely made the book hard to get through at times, but it really picks up towards the end, so I strongly encourage folks who pick up the book to keep with it.

With all that being said, there are a lot of fun little details that add context to the narrative. Both things that were of the time (the cereal Shredded Wheat was debuted at the fair) and the future (Walt Disney was said to be inspired by accounts of the fair). There are sad details and interesting ones as well that make it worthwhile to pay attention all the way through to all of the story arcs and vignettes that are told.

It is said truth is stranger than fiction, and this book supports that theory. Every detail packs so much more of an emotional punch since it all actually happened. While it wasn't strong all the way through, and I would have liked it to be a little bit more concise, it is a full story of the fair and what happened all around it, good and bad.

I recommend this book especially because a movie is in development now which I am very curious about.

You can pick up The Devil in the White City at any of your favorite book retailers.

Thanks for stopping by!

Movie Review Monday: National Treasure

Welcome to another edition of Movie Review Monday!

This week's film is the 2004 action adventure National Treasure, starring Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean.

The plot surrounds a secret treasure that has been hidden for hundreds of years, with clues to its location scattered throughout the United States on historical artifacts, put there by the Founding Fathers (among others). It's up to Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) and his team of historians to track it down before Cage's evil ex-partner Ian Howe (Bean) gets to it.

What I like about this movie is that it is a unique combination of elements. It's a historical action movie with aspects of Indiana Jones, and Ocean's Eleven. While it has some cool historical aspects to it, the depth is pretty shallow so it focuses mostly on the fun of it all. While I wish there was more historical influences, the movie is simple, silly, and fun, which is all that is ever really warranted of a movie experience as far as I'm concerned.

I had felt like I'd seen the movie before from it's repeated airings on cable and references from other things, but finally sitting down to watch it in it's entirety was nice. You can sort of check your brain at the door and just have some simple fun. It didn't challenge any of my expectations of it, and it could have been better, but it is a watchable and enjoyable movie.

Check out National Treasure streaming right now on Netflix.

Thanks for stopping by!

Movie Review Monday: The Untouchables

This week's movie is 1987's The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, and Robert De Niro. The film dramatizes the historical events of Al Capone's downfall during the Prohibition Era of American history. As a history major, I enjoyed seeing movies set in real historical contexts. This movie unfortunately seems to simplify these events into an action movie, which doesn't make for a terrible movie, it just feels like there could have been more substance. The acting isn't too great either so that doesn't help much with the story. The action however, is pretty solid, with Costner, Connery, and Garcia taking down the bootleggers in brutal fashion.

As with a movie like Olympus Has Fallen, there isn't much more to discuss here. This movie doesn't work for me as well as some other classic 80's action movies since it has some trouble with pacing for me where something like Commando, for example (which needs to be back on Netflix, it was for a time), is able to avoid since it is just straight action without a focus much on plot. What is so unique about this era of action movies is that they somehow get away with it, where The Untouchables doesn't.

I'll leave you to see what you think of this movie. It's streaming on Netflix now and isn't terrible but it's not great either from my estimation. I watched this movie mostly since it was sitting in my queue for a very long time. I'd be interested to hear what any of you think.

Thanks for stopping by!

On Being a History Major in Student Affairs

Reflecting back to my recent interviews, I found myself conceptualizing myself as being someone who, due in large part to my history major at the University of Delaware, needs to have some context to things to be able to fully understand and appreciate them. It could be current events and their historical precedence, or it could be an initiative from a supervisor and wanting some further explanation behind why we are doing something besides "because I said so" or "because that's how we've always done it". I need something more than that. What I need to hear contextually as a proud history major working in student affairs is a logical context preceding our actions. I need to hear that a new effort is backed up by theory, data, or exceptional practices from colleagues and fellow higher education institutions. We should never be making decisions, in student affairs or otherwise, on whims or emotions or simply personal anecdotes. We need to pull from more credible bases.

A history professor I had in college once told me that the study of our past is captured well by the metaphor of "a turtle on a fencepost". This means to say that the turtle could not have possibly gotten up on that fencepost on its own. Someone had to do something to put it there. Pretty much every major thing happening in the world today is like that turtle. It was caused by the actions of someone or something. It is crucial for us to understand these phenomena and causes, as to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

While this contextual philosophy of mine was garnered from a very macro perspective, I see it being highly applicable to the work I do on a micro level every day. We need to learn from the past to improve for the future. We need to build upon the successes we've had, avoid making the mistakes again we've made before, and work to continuously improve to better serve our students.

I don't think I wasted my undergraduate degree coming into student affairs. I think it has made me a better professional.

Book Review: American Nerd

The 2009 book, American Nerd: The Story of My People, written by Benjamin Nugent, is an exploration of the history behind the word "nerd" intermixed with stories from Nugent's past. It reads like a long blog post or magazine article on the subject, covering the wide breadth of the issue of bias toward nerds. I just finished reading it and I found it to be a light, engaging read on the subject, a tad different from my previous review of Nerds by David Anderegg. Anderegg is an academic and Ph.D, while Nugent is a writer, which definitely benefits the latter in the feel of the book. They cover very similar territory but where American Nerd differs is in the personal stories and a more thorough delving into the history, where Nerds goes more into why the bias against nerds is bad by extrapolating about what it means for our future.

I found Nugent's anecdotal stories from his past to be spot on of my own experience with fellow young nerds back in the day. The reasons why people are "nerdy" are highly complex and diverse. It might be an escape or it might be a bonding mechanism, both of which can take varying shapes. Nugent also gives a nice overview of different aspects of nerd culture for those who may be unaware, which I appreciate since it allows for this book to lean towards a wider audience.

This book is great for simply existing and expanding the conversation of the issues facing the geek/nerd community. I'm excited to keep engaging in the literature behind the debate so that I can be the best informed I can be. I definitely recommend this book as a great place to start for anyone interested.

Check back soon for another review! Thanks for stopping by!

Self-Reflection: Moving Forward by Looking Back

So I write to you all tonight a month after my last post, fresh from my summer work and thrown right into the thick of training for the next academic year. Not having a break to speak of at all was frustrating on some levels but I am thankful for the opportunity to be doing some great work consistently with even greater people. That being said, I wanted to get some more thoughts down as I sit here in my apartment after a long week of training.

Something I think a lot about is the past. I was a history major as an undergraduate student so I appreciate the story that every person has and the fact that everything that happens around us has some sort of context through which it happened. A professor shared a fun anecdote that explains this. He described the discipline of history as a "turtle on a fencepost", as to say that turtle could not have gotten up there on it's own so there is some story there to explore. History is the same way. Whether it is something that happened yesterday or two hundred years ago, there is a story there to learn and grow from.

Another great quote is "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It applies to the history of us as humans but also our own personal stories. To simply forget whatever came before deprives us from an amazing learning experience. Granted, one has to be comfortable enough to take a hard look at themselves, but I think the results are very powerful. Being able to analyze and scrutinize our own behavior and choices, especially with the help of a trusted confidant, is really one of the only ways to constantly grow and develop to be the most good, prudent, and self-aware person we can be.

So, in order to be the best professionals and best people we can be, I think we all need to stop every once in a while and take a look back at where we've been in order to better get where we're going.