#anyway i still call those kinds of photos renaissance paintings out of spite

[milfbrainrot]

ramblingg

reblogged a post earlier from a historiany person about how distrust in historians online is really fucked up and how standing against it makes actual historians come off as killjoys and they are so right. "historians don't want you to know this" or blanket "historians will say they were just friends" sentiments are harmful, esp in the rise of people opting to believe conspiracy theories over institutional research. of course biases seep through, of course some historians are going to go the "they were friends" bs because all people within a field of study are going to be varied, but we wouldn't know there's anything to """lie""" about in the first place if other historians weren't educating on opposing takes or evidence.

anywayyy i added some tags tho about how historian attitudes while making these corrections can sometimes... end up causing a loop of hostility when done too rudely, then deleted bc i figured it was not the time or place lol. and without the context of my own history almost becoming a humanities girlie it probably wouldn't have not come off right. but also. i do think about it a lot. not just historians, but i suppose i have the most examples for it.

when you go into a specialized field of study you are going to become more knowledgeable on it than the average person. that is the point. it becomes your job to hold this knowledge because not everyone in the world can hold it, and there is knowledge you aren't going to hold because you opted to study this thing instead. it has to realistically be a community effort to help keep facts alive. we need to be cognizant of not spreading misinfo or chase gut feelings about not having all the facts, but a lot of times there's no reason for someone to realize they're wrong about certain things.

so i think it is reasonable to expect people to make mistakes like equating heiroglyphs to emojis or calling baroque composition renaissance. when those posts or term misuses become super widespread i'm sure that is frustrating and it does need to be corrected if there's an opportunity to. and it can put a damper on the fun to have someone come in and shift things, but hey if the basis of a joke isn't true then we deserve to move onto jokes that are grounded in more accurate comparisons. it's great to learn more.

us being receptive to that teaching is just one side of the coin. historians or whatever specialist is coming in to correct have to understand that a well-intentioned misunderstanding or misuse of a term from an average person, who by definition of being average would not have learned this specialized knowledge, is not a personal attack on them. you are not your field. so if you do jump onto a post swinging about how annoying it is to see misconceptions pushed like this, people are going to get annoyed lol. you are, in that setting, being a killjoy because you're being a dick to people who have no reason to have known otherwise that they were wrong about something that is, frankly, a low risk thing to be wrong about typically.

malicious history rewrites or more overtly harmful skewed facts deserve outrage, of course, but when most of the interactions the average person on here sees from historians might be hostile attacks about how stupid we all are for not knowing renaissance isn't baroque, it doesn't inspire much desire to learn more... and you aren't really representing yourself or your field very well. you are not doing a very good job of being humanity's communal knowledge holder here if you're alienating people from knowledge when delivering it.

again, it is also up to us to do what we can to curb misinfo and to understand that one person does not represent the entire field. critical thought, etc. it is just a two-way street too.

basically i just wish people could understand "historians/scientists/whatever are lying to you!!!!!" bullshit IS a personal attack, or some conspiracy theorist positioning themselves as more of an authority than scientists does deserve outrage because that's so harmful! but "omg isn't it crazy that emojis are like modern day hieroglyphics" is... not a personal attack nor is it all that harmful on its own, and it is kind of weird to treat it with the same offense as the prior examples when understandably stepping in to correct or elaborate lol. if anything you'd think those would be opportunities to talk about what you're passionate about.