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Americans are absolutely convinced their narratives about Soviet history are correct despite never actually learning anything about Soviet history (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I’ve spent the last few years devouring Soviet history. Books, papers, blog posts, podcasts, all of it. I can’t get enough. Not to brag, but I do feel as though I’ve achieved a certain level of understanding about the USSR, its history, and eventual collapse. But I’ve also put the work in.

And yet, whenever I engage people I know IRL or online, I’m amazed by how doggedly people will defend what they just inherently “know”: that the Soviet Union was an evil totalitarian authority dictatorship that killed 100 million of its own people and eventually collapsed because communism never works. None of these people (at least the people I know IRL) have learned anything about Soviet history beyond maybe a couple days of lectures and a textbook chapter in high school history classes. Like, I get that this is the narrative that nearly every American holds in their heads. The fact that people believe this isn’t surprising. But what is a little surprising to me is that, when confronted with a challenge to that narrative from someone they know has always loved history and has bothered to learn more, they dig their heels in and insist they are right and I am wrong.

This isn’t about me, I’m just sharing my experience with this. I’m just amazed at how Americans will be completely ignorant about a topic (not just the USSR) but will be utterly convinced their views on that topic are correct, despite their own lack of investigation into that topic. This is the same country where tens of millions of people think dinosaurs and humans walked around together and will not listen to what any “scientist” has to say about it, after all.

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[+] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The 13th Amendment, still in effect (and therefore defended) is the "I'm not racist, but..." of the US constitution.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

I'm sorry, but arguing that the history of a country that was built around a mythology of manifest destiny and white supremacy is irrelevant to the country's current actions of white supremacy and manifest destiny is pretty silly.

But if you'd prefer something more relevant. There's always The Jakarta Method.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

No one is going to defend slavery? Bruh slavery is still legal in the US. It was never outlawed. Slavery never ended.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

pointing to things a country did hundreds of years ago as proof of why it is evil today.

k. let's just do the last 20 years.

the death of a million+ people in Iraq and Afghanistan. the destruction of the Libyan state and immiseration of the people there. the social murder of a million+ people (mostly old, poor and black) domestically due to letting covid rip to ~~make line go up~~save the economy. the social murder of millions more internationally to protect bill gates's intellectual property. the social murder and immiseration of countless people every year by treating housing and health care as commodities. the bolivian coup & subsequent empowerment of fascists there that murdered tens of thousands. the school of americas-trained death squads running guatemala. the coup in honduras in 2009. the blockade on cuba & venezuela that's murdered probably close to a million (if 90s iraq is any analog) and immiserated countless more. the us-backed brazilian coup that empowered christofascists there to burn the amazon and do their own genocide there.

and it's not like 1873 to 2003 was any different, so maybe get your head out of your ass