I understand the joke and I know the victors write the history books, by virtue of being alive. But they don't always make themselves look like the good guys in those history books.
> they don't always make themselves look like the good guys in those history books
I think judging past history reasonably from our current perspective isn't quite so easy.
From the perspective of today, virtually every human that ever lived in the past had views that could be considered some kind of racist, sexist, homophobe, religious extremist, etc even if they were very decent humans by the standards of their day. Even the great abolitionists, philosophers, people considered to be saints, or other humans that tried to be wholesome in their time likely had some views that would be considered totally repugnant to many today or committed actions that were considered reasonable then, but akin to war crimes now.
From the perspective of 100 or 200 years from now, I'm sure everybody living today around 2022 will be considered to have committed gross and obvious crimes against decent human morality and will be considered to have had totally backwards thoughts on something or another. I'd hope proper context is taken into account when they look back at us, so I think it's fair to try and do the same when we judge the past.
>But they don't always make themselves look like the good guys in those history books.
Of course they do. Do you have any examples to the contrary?
Many times, their distant ancestors look back and realize their actions were poor, and revise the history books, but that usually takes generations at least.
