Wikipedia as a mirror of modern culture
To study the lifestyle of our ancestors, until now, scientists have used the methods of archeology . Scientists rummaged in the ground, hoping to find there by chance the remaining artifacts from the past: coins, weapons, tools, clothing and household items. Scientists have carefully studied these artifacts in order to restore the picture of the life of a particular historical epoch in pieces: how people lived then, how they earned their bread, how they ate and dressed.
But such methods cannot provide comprehensive information about the past. The problem is that very few items of everyday life are made of reliable materials that can survive for many years in the ground. In addition, by artifacts it is difficult to judge many aspects of the social life of people, for example, their sexual relations.
The past centuries have retained almost no evidence about the everyday life of ordinary people: who they considered themselves, in which gods they believed. Surprisingly, even after the invention of the printing press and the flowering of literature, almost nothing survived. The literature of the past years provides practically no valuable information to historians, so they learn about life, for example, of the 19th century, still from excavations. The problem is that during their lives, people have little understanding of which surrounding objects will be most valuable to historians. However, the information age gave us a wonderful solution to the problem: this is a project of a national encyclopedia .
The study of Wikipedia for a particular era allows you to completely abandon the archaeological excavations, because it provides the most accurate slice of society and a list of all possible artifacts that archaeologists could hope to dig in the ground, writes ConsortiumInfo.
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Wikipedia is an ideal tool for the historian, because the popular project provides a complete picture of the life of society: our beliefs, beliefs and our cultural values, even if they turn out to be shocking. Modern culture can really shock anyone (see the list of the most popular Wikipedia articles for three days).
For example, we can judge about the sexual relations of the ancient Egyptians only by the shape of the recesses on special beds for sex, as well as by rare examples of rock art. But modern Western civilization will leave behind in Wikipedia exhaustive information on this topic, including a list of the most popular positions .
One can argue about the accuracy and objectivity of Wikipedia in relation to historical facts. But the point is that Wikipedia contains the most detailed, accurate records of how people from different cultures see their own lives. Even if there are mistakes in the articles, these very mistakes (and the fact of the disputes around them) say a lot about modern life.
Another important point: the national versions of Wikipedia are conducted in different languages and help preserve the cultural characteristics of modern life in a given country for posterity. Someday, our descendants will be able to find out that in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century, for example, drug addicts used spoons when they used heroin, holding them over a flame, to melt the drug; that watching television series from a certain category of TV viewers caused strong emotions and addiction to receiving these emotions , as well as many other interesting facts.
But such methods cannot provide comprehensive information about the past. The problem is that very few items of everyday life are made of reliable materials that can survive for many years in the ground. In addition, by artifacts it is difficult to judge many aspects of the social life of people, for example, their sexual relations.
The past centuries have retained almost no evidence about the everyday life of ordinary people: who they considered themselves, in which gods they believed. Surprisingly, even after the invention of the printing press and the flowering of literature, almost nothing survived. The literature of the past years provides practically no valuable information to historians, so they learn about life, for example, of the 19th century, still from excavations. The problem is that during their lives, people have little understanding of which surrounding objects will be most valuable to historians. However, the information age gave us a wonderful solution to the problem: this is a project of a national encyclopedia .
The study of Wikipedia for a particular era allows you to completely abandon the archaeological excavations, because it provides the most accurate slice of society and a list of all possible artifacts that archaeologists could hope to dig in the ground, writes ConsortiumInfo.
')
Wikipedia is an ideal tool for the historian, because the popular project provides a complete picture of the life of society: our beliefs, beliefs and our cultural values, even if they turn out to be shocking. Modern culture can really shock anyone (see the list of the most popular Wikipedia articles for three days).
For example, we can judge about the sexual relations of the ancient Egyptians only by the shape of the recesses on special beds for sex, as well as by rare examples of rock art. But modern Western civilization will leave behind in Wikipedia exhaustive information on this topic, including a list of the most popular positions .
One can argue about the accuracy and objectivity of Wikipedia in relation to historical facts. But the point is that Wikipedia contains the most detailed, accurate records of how people from different cultures see their own lives. Even if there are mistakes in the articles, these very mistakes (and the fact of the disputes around them) say a lot about modern life.
Another important point: the national versions of Wikipedia are conducted in different languages and help preserve the cultural characteristics of modern life in a given country for posterity. Someday, our descendants will be able to find out that in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century, for example, drug addicts used spoons when they used heroin, holding them over a flame, to melt the drug; that watching television series from a certain category of TV viewers caused strong emotions and addiction to receiving these emotions , as well as many other interesting facts.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4645/
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