What are some of the worst modern views that we project onto history?

As a synthesis of this, the linear progressive narrative applied to past thinkers.
Let's say you have two factions at the royal court, the "liberals" and the "conservatives", or "modernists" and "traditionalists", whatever.
Well, people will assume that the liberal faction was closer to modern liberals than to modern conservatives in all points, and the conservative faction was closer to modern conservatives than to modern liberals in all points, and generally that the liberal faction really was always more liberal than the conservative faction on all issues according to our modern sensibilities.

Obviously, the liberal/conservative factions were liberal/conservative relative to their own culture and contemporary issues, not to our own.
This is so common and wrong on so many levels, I wonder if there's a word for it.

>X pre-french revolution figure was from the left/right wing

That the younger generations have a schismn with the older generation when it comes to culture, worldview and politics.

This was described as far back as in ancient Egypt and Greece

'linear progress' as a whole is the big trap of history. It's real easy to think of it all leading to us, and as our culture as a peak.

'It's the current year' never fails to make my blood boil, but I know that I make similar assumptions about our superiority.

When you don't have an alphabet, public sanitation system, roads, etc. then yeah, you're pretty fucking behind

>applying modern morality to past actions and people
>applying modern ideas of nationality and state

It really bothers me most when modern people reduce history to materialistic determinism rather than recognize the gradual unfolding of divine providence as God reveals His will through the outworking of His creation.

Did they have ice cream and deoderant?

Yes.

I agree with this, but in the sense that people today think that people in the past defined themselves by the country they live in like we do today, when in reality back then it was all about the tribe/nation/ethnicity, borders were meaningless in this regard

an athenian and a spartan were kinsmen even though they were politically divided and warred with each other

like when i hear someone go "durr bavarians ar not germun dey were an independant country once hurr" i feel like taking a shit

Treating every polity as a nation-state
Modern sexualities
The value of 'realism' in art

because technology = progress xddd

>oh well we've increased our life expectancy and decreased child mortality but that ain't progress, banging sticks together is however

what is progress for you then? who can sing kumbaya louder?

Existence of nationalism before modern times.

Was there an equivalent back then? Or was it just loyalty?

>nationalism
>left-wing/right-wing politics
>wrong side of history
>determinism

Looking at medieval conflicts as conflicts of nations.

>WE WUZ

Eschatology.

The notion that history is progressing toward some end wherein everything is fulfilled, and on account of which everything is given meaning.

Also reading back modern ideas into historical thinkers, rather than recognizing the developments from the former to the latter.

>getting more interested in American Indian history
>look up books at the local library
>almost all of it is "WE EUROS WUZ ACTUALLY INJUNS N SHIT"

People in the past were virtuous and good, until [current political ideas I oppose] came around.

Yep, I think fucking Socrates ranted about the younger generation nothing taking sports seriously or something

"It's the current year" has legitimacy, though, when you divorce it from the progressivist notion that there is some kind of moral or civil endpoint toward which we are moving.

If you view it as the recognition that certain cultures have been cognizant of certain problems, and given our prosperity and artifices and legal systems, ought to have solved already, then it's fine to indulge in a little current-yearism.

>[insert group I don't like] were nothing but mudhut dwelling savages until [my identity group] came along and civilized them

This. An example of this which springs to mind is the fact that the liberal movement in early-mid 19th century Germany (i.e. the German Bund) was one of the driving forces behind German nationalism, which would be regarded by modern liberals as very illiberal indeed.

>Rome fell because of capitalism
>Rome fell because of socialism
>Rome fell because of immigration
>Rome fell because of Christianity
>Rome fell because of degeneracy

The worst view we project onto history is our modern concept of love. marriage in early and ancient europe was almost entirely steered by either familial agreements or looking for one to take care of you. Love was what you showed/felt to your prostitute or mistress.

When they make a movie about the middle ages and everyone in the film is either a detached agnostic or someone who just uses religion for political purposes.

Degeneracy.

They were conflicts of kings, right? Because nobody would've thought of themselves as a Frenchman or an Englishman, just someone under the banner of their king.

Why did Rome fall?

Hyper inflation, years of internal political struggles and civil wars, plagues, mass corruption, over-extension, over-reliance on mercenaries, and finally hostile armies taking advantage of it all.

>"Julius Caesar is my favorite Roman Emperor"
>Charlemagne and Justinian I weren't Roman Emperors

>'Western civilization' includes every civilization in Europe from the Minoans to the modern west, while everyone east of Greece are 'eastern' or 'oriental'
>Europe, Asia and Africa existing before modern times as anything other than landmasses

This

It's even worse when they replace "Western" with "white", as if our modern racial constructs applied to people living 2,000+ years ago.

>People in the past believed the Earth was flat
This still pisses me off. Stand on a mountain and look at the curvature of the earth. Watch a boat go out to sea across the horizon. The only thing you can assume with the only evidence being your eyes is that the earth is round, and you don't need Eratosthenes to tell you that shit. Either that, or peasants just didn't think about it.

There's probably more "Flat Earthers" here and now in modern society with all our scientific innovations, knowledge, education, and distribution of information than there were in a time where sickness was explained by "Humors or something."

Good/evil

Mr. Hegel?

Wuz u kangs?

Rape

>implying there is anything wrong with rape
>except it being 'wrong'

Are you actually trying to say anything here.

If you think our "modern racial constructs" are "modern" at all you're sadly mistaken..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts

All the classical examples point to the ancients seeing differences between groups like the Celts and Greeks, which people today wouldn't recognize as being a different race.

Just 200 years ago and our concept of what qualified for "white" or "black" and what attributes they had was completely different.

>Implying "civilization" isn't a kind of social disease
>Implying nearly every group in existence wasn't forcibly civilized by others

I could literally just start listing off the names of groups that were forced to adopt civilization by another. Spoiler alert: it would include the name of every settled society currently living on Earth.

The chain of which all goes back to its primordial origins in Atlantis.

aka Ur. But basically yes.

>'It's the current year'

Nothing makes me more butthurt than this desu. Saying that we should have something because

>it's 2016

Or saying that something can't happen because it's

>current year

Is the most retarded thing in the entire world. Linear progression is just ridiculous.

People thinking that people who currently inhabit their countries are the exact same people who lived there for all eternity.

overpopulation is the core cause for almost all of the world's sociopolitical issues and you're trying to define progress around it, dumbass.

Preach,

preach more temporally relativistic keeper of secrets.

hallalluja

>le kings and emperors were ebil because muh democracy muh freedums muh human rites

>overpopulation is the core cause for almost all of the world's sociopolitical issues

t. Massive dumbass

How is it not?

By and large, that's true for the Old World according to all research

Fucking Otzi the Iceman was directly related to the people right near his burial spot

[spoiler] r o m e ` n e v e r ` f e l l [/spoiler]

But Al-Andalus was a tolerant melting pot for most of its time, although there were some sultans not quite in favor of that

It fell in 1922

this.

...

shit wrong image

Unequal distribution of wealth, moron.

>Celts and Greeks, which people today wouldn't recognize as being a different race.

bahahahaha

>Or was it just loyalty?
mostly, you didnt fight for France, you fought for the nobleman who happened to be your lord, who in turn had sworn allegiance to the King of France
France is also somewhat of an anachronism, since the King of France was more like 'Lord of the royal domains and the guy all the other nobles have to swear allegiance to', since there were no real states.
the first example of a state that comes to mind and that still exists is the Netherlands, who became a 'state' in 1581
before 1581 they were a collection of all sorts of domains which were officialy unified by the burgundians into a single domain-ish
but even the Republic is a poor example, since it was more of a union of provinces than a real country
until the rise of successful centralizing monarchs there was no such thing as 'states', nationalism is afaik a 19th century 'invention'

>before 1581 they were a collection of all sorts of domains which were officialy unified by the burgundians into a single domain-ish
*before 1581 they were a domain that was part of the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs, and before that they were domain created by the Burgundians out of all sorts of domains

You are Spanish.

"[World leader before 1950] was evil because he believed in racism!"

"[World leader before 2000] was evil because he didn't support gay rights!"

Hostility between groups and discrimination were constant features of Muslim rule in Spain, after all the justification for the invasion itself was predicated on the righteousness of expanding the caliphate.
You could argue that the British Raj was a tolerant melting pot, but that would be to completely ignore the reality of the situation and the balance of power.

>Linear view on history
>Those that occupy the land today occupied the land 1000's of years ago
>Modern morals shaping views on historical times
>Idea of the "noble" savage and how Europeans are supposedly evil for what they did, while conveniently ignoring why these people were considered savages in the first place (ritual sacrifice, cannibalism etc).
>Crusades were evil, but let's ignore the Jihad into Europe in Iberia and later the Balkans
>Discussing slavery while not talking about the Ottomans
>Attempting to imply that the cause of the Fall of the Roman Empire or similar crisis in history can be attributed to a single point or event.

There's definitely more that I'm forgetting. These are the worst though.

>Fall of the Roman Empire or similar crisis in history can be attributed to a single point or event.
muh invading barbarians

oh and you may have pointed it out but im calling it anyway,
>event x happened because they wanted (current status)
such as, French Revolution to get rid of the Monarchy, 80 Years War because the dutch wanted their own country etc etc etc

At least in recent history: The idea that Capitalism or Socialism determines if a country fails or succeeds.

That Imperialism was the fault of classical liberalism

Because of ideas and ideologies that I don't like

>Imperialism and colonialism were bad both in the long and short term

What were the French Revolution and 80 Years War about then?

Belief in evil, mostly. Not that past people were any better about that.

Bread and the right to practice Protestantism.

>and the right to practice Protestantism

Contributed but I wouldn't say it was a greater (or even separable) cause than the steadily increasing perception of foreign control.

...

I keep hearing some statistic about average intelligence increasing in the modern era, so supposedly we really are smarter. But frankly the world seems to be doing a very poor job of reflecting that.

But that's caused by overpopulation. Specifically in first-world countries.

And then even if we did spread all those resources evenly, everyone's standard of living would be sub-Soviet Union.

>first world counties
>overpopulated
So then why are the lefties whining about MUH REPLACEMENT RATE WE NEED DEM IMMIGRANTZ

So, modernist evaluation is actually perfectly fine. It's a great way of evaluating how cultures change over time and how much our constructs of right and wrong are dependent on the context of our lives.

However, when it's the default and only way people interpret the past, it can be pretty disgusting.

the economists, government officials and many capitalists/business owners say that, for economic reasons, largely to do with national debt.
many leftists just repeat this argument

should refer to

We need more progress, then. Increase the world GDP to 10 times it's current value, and do everything to slow world population growth so that it doesn't significantly rise above 10 billion.

Then, once the world has stabilized provide everyone with VR and other stuff that makes them happy.

you're grossly oversimplifying complex socio-political issues. You sound like an idiot.

also, do you have anything more than platitudes and annecdotes to back up what you are saying? no? Then shut the fuck up, troll.

>Idea of the "noble" savage and how Europeans are supposedly evil for what they did, while conveniently ignoring why these people were considered savages in the first place (ritual sacrifice, cannibalism etc).
Don't be retarded, many native tribes didn't do any such things. The main reasons savages were considered savage was being less technologically advanced and not being Christian.

Retard statement by a retard. Tribalism is a key part of not only humans but other animals as well. If you had a minority of 10% niggers in ancient Greece be assured that people would've noticed.

Just because whites aren't one coherent group of political and societal common grounds or at least have not always been for the most part, does not mean we aren't more inclined to trust a white man than a black man. You're the classic revisionist liberal