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NRM rebranding - Railway Museum


Andy Y
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20 minutes ago, DK123GWR said:

We might criticise these accounts for lacking 'historical accuracy' but this is a term which takes our history (that is, the current consensus about what happened in the past) to be the closest approximation of the truth available to us,


To me, and it might just be me, ‘historical accuracy’ is about whether an account is true to known, objective facts. As a random example: King William I was crowned at Westminster on Christmas Day 1066.

 

The trouble, of course, is that one doesn’t have to go very far back in time to get to the point where very few objective facts exist, and those that do exist are so scattered and random that they leave huge amounts of space for speculation and interpretation.

 

Coming in the other direction, and my feeling is that the British colonial era falls partly into this, more recently the number of objective facts that are known, or can be accessed with a little work, is absolutely enormous, but still scattered and random in comparison with “everything that happened, in atomic detail”. That gives opportunity not only for speculation (although a bit less) and interpretation, but also for selection. The historian has to select from all the millions of known, recorded, verifiable from multiple sources, objective facts, and doing that is bound to involve bias, however hard anyone tries to avoid it (and, often they don’t).

 

And, all of that is before you get to simply making stuff up, which has even happened in the trivial field of railway history (the dreaded steam scrapping dates and places).

 

Its no wonder history is forever changing!

 

 

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5 hours ago, Davey said:

With all respect no you can't. You can interpret history, put your own slant on it, but you can't change the facts of what actually happened, especially when the facts are not known, however much you might want to.

 

Davey


For some reason this reminds me of a certain Donald Rumsfeld and “unknown unknowns”.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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Putting my academic hat on, I’m pleased to see the NRM launching this project. These kind of things tend to rile daily mail readers as they see a deluge of ‘wokeness’ and fear it will replace more traditionally comforting racist and misogynistic research. Fear not, it is simply academia scrambling to make up for several hundred years of under representation in its work. 
 

As several have already noted, the past is in the past while history is very much in the present. It is about time the stories of the forgotten, marginalised, and used get told.

 

David 

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42 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Donald Rumsfeld didn't no nuffink.  Not never nohow!

Rumsfeld always gets mocked for talking about known and unknown unknowns, but really, it's a perfectly valid distinction

A Known Unknown is a factor that we  know about and would like to take into account, but we don't know what its state is.

An Unknown Unknown is a factor that could have a crucial influence, but we're unaware of it.

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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Rumsfeld's statement made perfect sense to me at the time and still does. The trouble is there are sections of the media who don't fully listen to what people say, they are only after something to take the piss out of; and they have a large audience who accept any journalistic slant on any story. It saves them the effort of actually listening to people. 

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32 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Rumsfeld always gets mocked for talking about known and unknown unknowns, but really, it's a perfectly valid distinction

A Known Unknown is a factor that we  know about and would like to take into account, but we don't know what its state is.

An Unknown Unknown is a factor that could have a crucial influence, but we're unaware of it.

It was a very good description of how to understand and manage risks. Rumsfeld got mocked by a bunch of journalists who didn't understand what he was saying, and so assumed that he was talking rubbish. 

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2 hours ago, bmthtrains - David said:

Putting my academic hat on, I’m pleased to see the NRM launching this project. These kind of things tend to rile daily mail readers as they see a deluge of ‘wokeness’ and fear it will replace more traditionally comforting racist and misogynistic research. Fear not, it is simply academia scrambling to make up for several hundred years of under representation in its work. 
 

As several have already noted, the past is in the past while history is very much in the present. It is about time the stories of the forgotten, marginalised, and used get told.

 

David 

 

Your post rather proves the point people are making,

 

I don't think all the varied and often comprehensive research over that 20 odd years on the 'exploitation' (aka poor working conditions and often relativity poor pay)  of the railway industries workforce - plus the wider community - to be either racist or misogynistic.  The conditions endured by navies was covered by a number of programs this year (mostly Ch5 though), something which is only really possible with recent research. The only way recent research could be seen to insufficient is if it didn't give the relevant academics the ability to virtue signal that their research was aligned with current dictact (as in the soviet mode). So stories of the forgotten, marginalised and used have been told, unfortunately its not the stories etc of the right set of people for current preoccupations.

 

Given one family member spent most of the second half of the C19 trying to eradicate slavery in Africa and another died leading 'colonial' troops to attack axis forces in C20 the presumption that there is a need to 'decolonise' history is as much academicly idiotic to me as it is offensive to me. Others may disagree. In some respects NRM is covering its arese to get the relevant tick in the box; it just sounds that they may be taking it seriously. One of the points was about the Indian railways and the Raj.  While there was definitely a monetary and control gain from initiating development and trade - there was a lot of descenter involvement who were often more interested in humanitarian issues. I went to a presentation about a decade ago and one presenter spent 20 minutes saying that the development Indian railways was oppressive since it provided opportunities for Anglo-Indians etc who were not sufficiently Hindu.  Hmm. 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Bomag said:

Your post rather proves the point people are making,


I’m afraid you’ve lost me. What point that which people are making? 
 

More widely, as a late-middle-aged white bloke, I do wonder why so many people get so antagonised by ‘threats’ to study and make known the history of colonialism and slavery.

 

You are clearly pretty much antagonised by it, so maybe you could elucidate? 


What is that bugs you about the idea? Do you think it shouldn’t be studied and made known? If so, why?

 

I genuinely am deeply mystified, because I can’t for the life of me see anything wrong with it. Plenty of other sub-sets of the past have had attention at different times and, as an instance, most of the ‘mechanical’ history of railways has been done-to-death out of all proportion to its long-run importance, so looking at the broader socio-economic impacts of railways seems as good as subject as any.

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14 minutes ago, Bomag said:

 

Your post rather proves the point people are making,

 

I don't think all the varied and often comprehensive research over that 20 odd years on the 'exploitation' (aka poor working conditions and often relativity poor pay)  of the railway industries workforce - plus the wider community - to be either racist or misogynistic.  The conditions endured by navies was covered by a number of programs this year (mostly Ch5 though), something which is only really possible with recent research. The only way recent research could be seen to insufficient is if it didn't give the relevant academics the ability to virtue signal that their research was aligned with current dictact (as in the soviet mode). So stories of the forgotten, marginalised and used have been told, unfortunately its not the stories etc of the right set of people for current preoccupations.

 

Given one family member spent most of the second half of the C19 trying to eradicate slavery in Africa and another died leading 'colonial' troops to attack axis forces in C20 the presumption that there is a need to 'decolonise' history is as much academicly idiotic to me as it is offensive to me. Others may disagree. In some respects NRM is covering its arese to get the relevant tick in the box; it just sounds that they may be taking it seriously. One of the points was about the Indian railways and the Raj.  While there was definitely a monetary and control gain from initiating development and trade - there was a lot of descenter involvement who were often more interested in humanitarian issues. I went to a presentation about a decade ago and one presenter spent 20 minutes saying that the development Indian railways was oppressive since it provided opportunities for Anglo-Indians etc who were not sufficiently Hindu.  Hmm. 

Briefly, history as read, was usually written by the victorious and powerful. If it hasn't been updated blame the same types for not allowing that or being arsed to do it.

 

14 minutes ago, Bomag said:

 

Here is the history of your post! Yup, gone.

P

 

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18 hours ago, Davey said:

It's a pity they don't spend the money on something useful. YOU MAY WANT TO, BUT YOU CANT CHANGE HISTORY!!!!

 

Davey

You obviously mean you can't change the convenient version of History written by the Victors and oppressors? Is that the case?

P

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:


I’m afraid you’ve lost me. What point that which people are making? 
 

More widely, as a late-middle-aged white bloke, I do wonder why so many people get so antagonised by ‘threats’ to study and make known the history of colonialism and slavery.

 

You are clearly pretty much antagonised by it, so maybe you could elucidate? 


What is that bugs you about the idea? Do you think it shouldn’t be studied and made known? If so, why?

 

I genuinely am deeply mystified, because I can’t for the life of me see anything wrong with it. Plenty of other sub-sets of the past have had attention at different times and, as an instance, most of the ‘mechanical’ history of railways has been done-to-death out of all proportion to its long-run importance, so looking at the broader socio-economic impacts of railways seems as good as subject as any.

 

The points bmthtrains was relating in terms of the implication if you are not researching race or colonialism your research is racist and misogynist. The concentration on colonialism and slavery (well transatlantic slavery in most cases) implies in some cases that the negative impact on the working classes, the old and the disabled of railways and industrial revolution in the C18-C20s is not relevant or worth researching. There is an implication in some of these statement that researching the impact of anything on to large number of the UK working classes was defacto racist. So I have no problem with doing research which covers a broader brush than currently done; but that is not what is proposed, both by NRM specificity and many institutions in general. Its a narrow topic to show that you are fully 'educated', what many people define as 'Woke'.  Its research to show you 'care', and hopefully they won't find anything they cannot resolve, other than cancelling somebody.

 

As an example, the impact of the French wars (1793-1816) on society and its use and development of technology is not as well researched as it could be and has some surprising twists e.g. there was a dearth of horses in the period 1808-1816 as the Army kept on drafting them for the peninsular war. This directly led to the first commercial use of steam locos. Lets look at anything historial in the news for the period. Well its Picton. While he was thoroughly unpleasant and fatal to many while a governor in the west indies his impact on the wider world was as one of Wellingtons trusted generals. Without his military acumen (i.e. not being nice to people) and ability to get his men to kill large numbers of Frenchman in battle (they got him at Waterloo though) the C19 history of western Europe may have been blighted by even more conflict by not definitively ending the wars in 1816.  The outcome is that a picture to Picton is being removed based his time in the indies. If the picture had had a note added that he was responsible for killing a large number of people, including many under his care due to his lack of obvious care/compassion (unlike General 'Daddy' Hill for example) then fine but that is not what is going to happen.  

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2 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

You obviously mean you can't change the convenient version of History written by the Victors and oppressors? Is that the case?

P

 

Written and oral records are kept by those who survive, that does not mean its always its the 'winners' - there are plenty of 'heroic' tales from losing sides. Some of them even true. Even winners cannot influence history if they are dead - see what happened to Nelson's family.

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3 minutes ago, Bomag said:

 

Written and oral records are kept by those who survive, that does not mean its always its the 'winners' - there are plenty of 'heroic' tales from losing sides. Some of them even true. Even winners cannot influence history if they are dead - see what happened to Nelson's family.

Actually they can, if their version was the taken version and anyone else who can deny it and provide proof is also dead then it is the only history on offer.

 

Also at a political government level history is defined generally to make the country look better and be politically motivated, hence the subjects most of us were taught at school, that there are alternative viewpoints and documents is for us to find by ourselves by looking at other countries takes on things, or other people documents.  But the further back you go the more difficult it will be to find documents that may shed new light on events already written about.

 

Winston Churchill is a current example of how you can paint a person different ways depending on what part of their history you read - it's all there but depending on how you want to paint him he can be saviour or a sinner - in reality he was both, a flawed person just like most other people of that time and probably now.

 

Something interesting to consider, in a few million years if humans still exist they may or may not have access to records of our time.  They may be astounded at some of things we did good and bad but equally it may all be lost and they could be staring at a very dark sky as the ever accelerating expanding universe has accelerated so much that light from other stars no longer reaches us.  There will be no astronomers and no ability for them to look back in time at the stars to understand the physics and history, it just wont be visible.  Historians in a way are similarly impacted, they can only see what is presented to them through written words, objects and imagery, if you only have what you have before you then that is your history.  Lets just hope that the archives of the future is not just a pile of Made in Chelsea/The only way is Essex recordings.

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19 minutes ago, Bomag said:

The concentration on colonialism and slavery (well transatlantic slavery in most cases) implies in some cases that the negative impact on the working classes, the old and the disabled of railways and industrial revolution in the C18-C20s is not relevant or worth researching


How so?

 

Its implicit in what you say that you’ve not had time to look at the very large bodies of work that have already been published about the history of working people through the industrial revolution and beyond. There is stacks of it, from broad studies like Coleman’s “The Railway Navvies” or Bagwell’s “The Railwaymen” (history of the NUR), right through to locally-published detailed accounts of life in particular places at particular times. There is a study underway now about the history of on-track safety and personal accidents. There are countless books of first-hand reminiscences by individual railwaymen. There are large and well structured museums devoted to the everyday lives of people in Britain in the period you mention.

 

The subject can never be “finished”, but to imply that no effort has been devoted to studying it or making it known, or that spending £9000 studying something else is threatening the study of it, is disingenuous.

 

It might do us all good to broaden our horizons a bit, and realise that there were people beyond these shores “making Britain”, just as there were people down mines, in fields, in factories, and in offices in this country. All that cotton, rubber, tea, coffee, wheat, frozen meat, hardwood timber, and all the other stuff we imported by the very many boatloads, came from somewhere, and there were men and women planting, picking, sawing, etc etc to get it here, and not all of them labouring under kind and gentle rule.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Lets just hope that the archives of the future is not just a pile of Made in Chelsea/The only way is Essex recordings.

Like in the Doctor Who story set in the far future when they had a jukebox loaded with the 'great works of classical Earth composers', which turned out to be Britney Spears. 

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3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:


I’m afraid you’ve lost me. What point that which people are making? 
 

More widely, as a late-middle-aged white bloke, I do wonder why so many people get so antagonised by ‘threats’ to study and make known the history of colonialism and slavery.

 

You are clearly pretty much antagonised by it, so maybe you could elucidate? 


What is that bugs you about the idea? Do you think it shouldn’t be studied and made known? If so, why?

 

I genuinely am deeply mystified, because I can’t for the life of me see anything wrong with it. Plenty of other sub-sets of the past have had attention at different times and, as an instance, most of the ‘mechanical’ history of railways has been done-to-death out of all proportion to its long-run importance, so looking at the broader socio-economic impacts of railways seems as good as subject as any.

 

Maybe because most of it is skewed to make the "white man" out as the baddie? Mostly by other white people I hasten to add.

 

Worth pointing out that slaves were bought from other black people and Arabs, not stolen by white men. Usually sold by their own tribe so they could buy weapons. But if you go to the Slavery Museum that is virtually ignored. It's all "let's blame the white man".

 

Worth going to, even though it's very biased. Liverpool is a city that has grown up, recognised it's part and moved on.

 

https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/international-slavery-museum

 

Most of the people being vilified now were minor shareholders in companies like somebody would own shares in BT or British Gas. In the future are people going to be having their statues vandalised because they owned a few shares in BP? Or drove a car?

 

However most of these people protesting don't give a monkeys that slavery is happening now. In sweatshops in Bradford, illegal immigrant UBER riders delivering pizzas, being forced to pick fruit, cockle pickers, prostitution, etc. They are only interested in something that happened 200 years ago.

 

 

 

Jason

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My tongue in cheek comment about the daily mail has been taken far too seriously. My point is that faux moral outrage at inclusive research agendas generally stems from a fear that ONLY research to do with under represented groups will now be seen as having value, and that the daily mail loves stories about anything that threatens the comforting level of ignorance and bigotry of much of its readership.

 

The main issue here is that institutionally academia has historically prioritised research perspectives that have been woefully exclusive and not considered race, gender, or sexuality in any meaningful way. This does not mean individual examples of historical research are now in anyway less important because they didn’t address these issues, rather that overall vast gaps have been engrained into the historical narrative and that it is absolutely right that these are being addressed. 
 

I have literally just come out of a meeting with Research England and they made the same point - the population of researchers in this country, and the topics of their research, do not reflect the diverse makeup of the UK and is not representative.


The decolonisation of history is vitally important and NRM are doing exactly what they should be, addressing important gaps in our understanding of the past and taking a more inclusive stance. How anyone could argue against those aims is beyond me.

 

David

Edited by bmthtrains - David
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