The one that immediately springs to mind doesn’t exactly fit the criteria, because it wasn’t even true at the time that I was taught it in public school in Texas. But my history teacher taught me that no real historian called it the “American Civil War,” and that it was correctly called “The War of Northern Aggression.” And, of course, although the Confederacy did want to keep slavery legal, their actual central reason for seceding was “states rights.”
Like I said, both of those are simply lies. Only propagandists call it “The War of Northern Aggression”, and it was always explicitly about slavery.
The sad thing is that I believed and repeated these lies for years after that. Note that, like most people, I didn’t have access to the internet to easily check things myself. Since at the time I had zero interest in reading about history, it was difficult to correct my knowledge.
It has demonstrated, to me at least, the importance of keeping propaganda away from children. The more you lie to children, the harder it will be for them to become functioning adults.
Whereas the actual phrase should be “the atomic bombings were necessary to force an immediate total surrender and scare them damn commies before they could take any credit for the Pacific theatre”
The narrative of the Pacific theater still being an intractable or unbeatable long-term conflict in 1945 was hugely overstated, and also leant heavily on racist notions of the Japanese being “brainwashed”.
Also, most wars could be ended more quickly by committing war crimes, we don’t allow it as a justification when it’s done by the losing side. There was also the option of using them on purely military targets, instead of the middle of a major city, murdering a six-figure number of civilians.
The “brainwashed” thing is somewhat true, at least from the perspective of an outsider, not due to a racial thing, but there is a cultural aspect in addition to the tendency for all sides to be brainwashed by their own propaganda.
But the Japanese propaganda told their soldiers to fight to the death, because if the Americans captured you, it would be worse than death. So, from the outside, they did appear to be brainwashed in that regard. Of course, Americans had similar propaganda making Japanese seem as evil as possible, often in the most racist way, so you’d have to say that Americans were brainwashed, too.
Also, culturally, I think American culture emphasizes each person more, while Japanese emphasizes community more, which means things like kamikaze are easier to sell. And that sort of thing also appears like brainwashing to the outside.
I mean, kamikaze pilots did exist, so there had to be a certain level of what you’re calling “brainwashing”.
And unless it’s also a myth (completely possible), but weren’t there Japanese soldiers found on an island years after the war had ended who were convinced that it was still going on?
I’d be curious if you listened to this what you would think. It does a really good job of laying out the timeline of decisions. I don’t think the atomic bombs were nessecary to draw the war to a close.
They had literally agreed to surrender before the first bomb dropped, their only condition being that the emperor remain, which the US agreed to anyway.
In our timeline, after two nuclear bombs were dropped, a coup almost happened that would have blocked the surrender of Japan. Would it have been different without the bombs?
Similarly, in the US Northeast, I learned about the civil rights movement as a solved problem, and that slavery was basically the only (and long gone) system of oppression we’d had. “Black and brown people have their equal rights now, carry on!”
I had a college professor, Honors US History, teach us that the Civil War was about trade, an agrarian society against an industrial society. Which makes sense and is true in part, but I wish I had known to bring up the various state letters of secession naming slavery as the #1 concern. LOL, Mississippi’s is a doozy.
I don’t recall specifically being taught that, but I do recall believing that was a fact at the time, so it is very likely that I was taught that in class.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a couple of slaves like that, but even so, it’s a misleading statement. I actually think that using the truth to lie is a worse sin than just outright lying, because it’s easier to mislead more people like that.
When I went to grade school, I think it really depended on the local school district. I was lucky enough to grow up in a nice area with well-funded schools, and I have relatively few complaints about the education I received. However, in doing school activities, I had the opportunity to see schools in poorer districts, and there was a distinct difference.
At the time, I didn’t think too much about the difference, except that I didn’t feel as safe in some schools.
But looking back… Now I know why parents always shop around for better school districts, because there are some places where it would have been far more difficult to get a decent education.
That’s my knowledge from many decades ago. Maybe it’s gotten worse since then.
The one that immediately springs to mind doesn’t exactly fit the criteria, because it wasn’t even true at the time that I was taught it in public school in Texas. But my history teacher taught me that no real historian called it the “American Civil War,” and that it was correctly called “The War of Northern Aggression.” And, of course, although the Confederacy did want to keep slavery legal, their actual central reason for seceding was “states rights.”
Like I said, both of those are simply lies. Only propagandists call it “The War of Northern Aggression”, and it was always explicitly about slavery.
The sad thing is that I believed and repeated these lies for years after that. Note that, like most people, I didn’t have access to the internet to easily check things myself. Since at the time I had zero interest in reading about history, it was difficult to correct my knowledge.
It has demonstrated, to me at least, the importance of keeping propaganda away from children. The more you lie to children, the harder it will be for them to become functioning adults.
“The atomic bombings were necessary” was something we were expected to internalize as an indisputable hard fact, like gravity and oxbow lakes.
Whereas the actual phrase should be “the atomic bombings were necessary to force an immediate total surrender and scare them damn commies before they could take any credit for the Pacific theatre”
Is it not just the misinterpretation of the fact that the US wanted to end the war quicker to prevent sending more soldiers into a meatgrinder?
You can certainly call that “necessary” to prevent further deaths of US soldiers.
The narrative of the Pacific theater still being an intractable or unbeatable long-term conflict in 1945 was hugely overstated, and also leant heavily on racist notions of the Japanese being “brainwashed”.
Also, most wars could be ended more quickly by committing war crimes, we don’t allow it as a justification when it’s done by the losing side. There was also the option of using them on purely military targets, instead of the middle of a major city, murdering a six-figure number of civilians.
The “brainwashed” thing is somewhat true, at least from the perspective of an outsider, not due to a racial thing, but there is a cultural aspect in addition to the tendency for all sides to be brainwashed by their own propaganda.
But the Japanese propaganda told their soldiers to fight to the death, because if the Americans captured you, it would be worse than death. So, from the outside, they did appear to be brainwashed in that regard. Of course, Americans had similar propaganda making Japanese seem as evil as possible, often in the most racist way, so you’d have to say that Americans were brainwashed, too.
Also, culturally, I think American culture emphasizes each person more, while Japanese emphasizes community more, which means things like kamikaze are easier to sell. And that sort of thing also appears like brainwashing to the outside.
I mean, kamikaze pilots did exist, so there had to be a certain level of what you’re calling “brainwashing”.
And unless it’s also a myth (completely possible), but weren’t there Japanese soldiers found on an island years after the war had ended who were convinced that it was still going on?
I’m pretty sure the largest consideration was keeping the Soviets from claiming land in Asia the same way they did in Europe.
Also, we had this shiny new toy and a war was on; we weren’t going to not use it.
I’d be curious if you listened to this what you would think. It does a really good job of laying out the timeline of decisions. I don’t think the atomic bombs were nessecary to draw the war to a close.
https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go
I think there might be an argument for the first bomb, but the second was completely unnecessary.
Not true.
Even after the second bomb, Japan almost faced a military coup in order to keep the war going. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyūjō_incident
They were not going to surrender without a massive show of force because of their culture.
They had literally agreed to surrender before the first bomb dropped, their only condition being that the emperor remain, which the US agreed to anyway.
Can you read?
In our timeline, after two nuclear bombs were dropped, a coup almost happened that would have blocked the surrender of Japan. Would it have been different without the bombs?
Similarly, in the US Northeast, I learned about the civil rights movement as a solved problem, and that slavery was basically the only (and long gone) system of oppression we’d had. “Black and brown people have their equal rights now, carry on!”
I had a college professor, Honors US History, teach us that the Civil War was about trade, an agrarian society against an industrial society. Which makes sense and is true in part, but I wish I had known to bring up the various state letters of secession naming slavery as the #1 concern. LOL, Mississippi’s is a doozy.
I was taught it was about states rights, too. In Kentucky, they were less forceful about calling it the "war of northern aggression.
Did you get taught that some slaves liked being slaves because it meant all their needs were met and they didn’t have to worry about anything?
I don’t recall specifically being taught that, but I do recall believing that was a fact at the time, so it is very likely that I was taught that in class.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a couple of slaves like that, but even so, it’s a misleading statement. I actually think that using the truth to lie is a worse sin than just outright lying, because it’s easier to mislead more people like that.
Somewhere Bibi is frowning sternly at you
The texas schooling system is horrendous.
Most texans are genuinely dumb as shit because of how they’ve been hamstrung by their “education.”
When I went to grade school, I think it really depended on the local school district. I was lucky enough to grow up in a nice area with well-funded schools, and I have relatively few complaints about the education I received. However, in doing school activities, I had the opportunity to see schools in poorer districts, and there was a distinct difference.
At the time, I didn’t think too much about the difference, except that I didn’t feel as safe in some schools.
But looking back… Now I know why parents always shop around for better school districts, because there are some places where it would have been far more difficult to get a decent education.
That’s my knowledge from many decades ago. Maybe it’s gotten worse since then.