Historical science versus pseudoscience. Not so long ago, on the pages of "VO", a discussion on pseudo-historical topics flared up again and again accusations were heard that malicious historians had conspired and were hiding from poor Russian citizens some "secrets and mysteries" of history that were extremely important to them. That, here, they say, that's why we don't know her. Although, in fact, the reason here is different, namely the inability to learn oneself and intellectual laziness.
The latter, however, is not so much a fault as the misfortune of many of our citizens. Probably many of those who visit VO traveled in reserved seat cars. Pay attention to what people do while traveling. They eat, look at cell phones, and even read. But how? Many still have their lips moving at the same time, that is, they pronounce the readable text to themselves. Such reading allows you to assimilate only 20% of the text! It happens that the lips themselves are motionless, but the larynx moves. This is "laryngophone reading" - 50 to 50. And only when the text is scanned with the eyes ("quick reading"), the text is assimilated by 80-90%. But fast reading is not taught in our schools, especially in classes where there are many people from the "southern countries", after all, it is already difficult for them to read. Advertisers are well aware that a layman forgets 90% of the information he read in 90 days. Hence the formula "90 + 1" - and everything can start from the beginning. As a rule, only the trade mark remains in the mind, except perhaps the name of the person they are talking about. This is why there is no better advertisement than a scandal!
That is, it is clear that people with a poor vocabulary and primitive reading technology can only be interested in something completely sensational: the Egyptians who invented the helicopter and the electric light bulb, the Maya Indians who flew on jet planes, the Russian-Tartarian nuclear war, which went on from 1780 to 1816. Here you can strain the gray matter of your brain, even remember something, and then tell the “peasants” so that they, these same peasants, then tell someone else. Read dozens of volumes of PSRL "fools dumb", and it is so clear that they are all forged …
That is, it is difficult to interest people with a real story, but it is easy to do all sorts of nonsense. There is another reason for this. The reason has to do with the way we teach history at school.
Let's remember that the history of the Ancient World is taught to children in the 5th grade. And she's … scanty. And therefore not very interesting. But it simply CANNOT BE another. Do you know why? Because at this age children, our Russian children in the first place, are simply not ready to learn everything that is the same ancient culture and history.
Well, for example, when in the fifth grade we studied the history of Ancient Egypt, we were told about some beast-headed gods and the first myths about the creation of the world. But we were not told, and in the textbook it is not, that among the Egyptian gods there was such a god - Atum. This god was bisexual and held his "female part" in his hand. He created the world by pouring his seed into his own mouth and then spitting out the cat goddess Tefnut and her husband Shu. According to the Egyptians, this is how the universe appeared.
Or, for example, the story of the goddess Aphrodite. It seems that everyone knows that she was born from sea foam, right? In fact, the story of Aphrodite begins from the moment when her father Uranus was emasculated by his own son Kronos because only cyclops monsters were born to Gaia from Uranus. Kronos threw his father's genitals into the sea, and when the reproductive organ of Uranus fell into the depths of the sea, the "white foam" just formed, and from it the goddess of love Aphrodite was born.
But, of course, the strangest myth comes from the same Egypt. And it is understandable why fifth-graders are not told about it, and you will not find it in textbooks. The fact is that after the son of Osiris Horus took the throne, the evil Seth did not accept his defeat and decided to regain power. But the Egyptians believed that anyone who was, so to speak, “used as a woman,” could not be a god. So Seth, having conceived something unkind, came to Horus at night, and in order to make his claims to the throne groundless, he reclined with him as with a woman. Isis, learning what the misfortune happened to her son, asked him to fill the pot with his sperm and poured it into Setu's salad. He, not suspecting anything, ate the salad and became pregnant. So Horus managed to keep his throne. Very funny story, isn't it? But now imagine that the teacher tells all this to five-year-old children, and your daughter got to write an essay about the battle of Horus and Set in all its details!..
But you can tell them about how the Romans worshiped the winged phallus (by the way, many children will find out what it is at the same time, otherwise they know the other names of this thing, but this is not!), And how Scandinavian the god Loki was supposed to make the daughter of the giant Skadi laugh, and he did this by tying a rope to his testicles, and with the other end tied it to a goat, which he also whipped with a twig. About how the penis of the same Osiris was eaten by fish, and Isis, his wife, molded a new one for him from clay, and, becoming pregnant by him, gave birth to a son, Horus.
The fact that the emperor Caligula opened a brothel, in which one of his three sisters can be obtained for 30 thousand sesterces, and the emperor Heliogabalus, speaking on stage, “did this and that,” and besides, he was also “did , it is also hardly worth telling in the fifth grade, as well as in the sixth … But after reaching the age of 18 it seems to be already possible, but the Ancient world at this age no longer passes, and if they do, then only in universities at special historical departments.
But let's leave the ugliness alone and turn to the military topic. Was it not reported to us quite recently, and in a textbook for the 4th grade, that the knights were drowned in the Battle of the Ice? But the fact that their water "flood" is reported in the text of the chronicle, which is older than the earliest reports about it by as much as 100 years. What, new eyewitnesses during this time have appeared, as well as the "self-seeker" who saw there "God's regiment in the air"?
We read on. 7th grade textbook. "The knights moved" like a pig ", in the middle there was a heavily armed infantry in iron shells and with axes …". Where did this nonsense come from and how did it get into the school textbook? Where, in what chronicle did the authors "dug up" these axes? Chud was there in the allies of the knight brothers. Chud! "People from the forest", for whom such weapons as a spear and a knife were the ultimate dream. Just do not think, as 99% of our citizens think about it, that a spear is a wooden two-pronged fork to turn hay. No, this is a spear, with an iron tip and a crossbar behind it, so that it does not penetrate far into the flesh.
Let us also recall the explanation, which is again found in textbooks, that because Bobrok Volynets did not enter the battle on the Kulikovo field, that … he was waiting for the south wind. And then the south wind blew, carried dust in the eyes of the Tatars, and then he led them into the attack. But how could this even be, because it was the Tatars who stood in the south, and the Russians in the north! How many teachers he asked, no one could explain. And all because, although a teacher must learn all his life, in reality our teachers do not want to do this. That is, they did not read I. N. Danilevsky, and therefore do not know how he explains it. And it is explained logically.
Or here is another good example of the fact that it is impossible to perceive literally in history, including the chronicle, and a considerable intellect is needed to understand many sources correctly. So, "The Tale of Bygone Years" reports that Prince Svyatopolk the Damned "died between lyakhi and chakhi", in the desert … And there were historians who even began to search for this place. But philologists pointed out that “between lyakhi and chahi” at that time meant “no one knows where”, and not at all a specific place on the Czech-Polish border. And now, not knowing many of these little things, you can make many absolutely incredible "discoveries", including finding the place of his death!
And we must always remember that there have been and will always be more C grade students than excellent students and good students. And where are they all, these C grade students from the "pedyushniki", got to? From my 1977 issue, for example, did everyone go where? To school! And all the excellent students went to work where? To the university! I just want to exclaim: "Poor school!" C grade students went to work in school in the USSR, and now they go there. There were exceptions (oh, yes!), Of course, there were, in the USSR, and today they also exist, but there are few of them. As always, everything fits into the standard scheme: 80 and 20. 80% of mediocre people go to work in school, and 20 … also often go there, but then leave.
In a word, this problem is long-standing, even from the time when it was somehow decided that people without university degrees are quite capable of creating a society more perfect than the one ruled by graduates of Oxford and Yale. And even they did something. It is only later, however, that they outplayed these "comrades". But the conviction that deep knowledge in the humanitarian fields, by and large, is not so necessary, remains. And this is not true! If you, albeit without a special education, are interested in something in the same historical field, then you need to start with the simplest thing, that is, take and simply consistently accumulate information. To begin self-education not with reading "revelatory books" in bright covers, but with the historiography of any issue. From primary sources. That is, to lay a certain foundation of knowledge. And only then, standing on it, move somewhere in breadth and depth. And only then come out with statements that historians do not say something there. The C-grade students do not say anything - because they themselves do not know. But there are also good specialists, and one should look at them and their published works, moreover, published in reputable publications and necessarily with reviews of the Russian Academy of Sciences or relevant institutes. Dissertation, master's and doctoral dissertations, are also an excellent source of information, moreover, they are all posted on the Internet today.
