I'm The Cynical Historian, your source for analytical history on RU-vid. I make episodes on historical subjects that are meant to be insightful and provocative. Episodes range from my series on "Based on a True Story" movies, to whatever mini-documentary I want to make, often in a video-essay style.
Great job following up on Johnny’s video. It was nice to see you go into more depth than the quick-response live reaction I did to this. You can tell that Johnny is still just breaking the surface of investigating the church as he is de-converting from the LDS Church. There are some really dramatic events he might still not know about. Like you mentioned, I think there’s a lot he has yet to learn about how things went down in Kirtland, Ohio. No doubt he would have wanted to mention them, even in passing (the Fanny Alger affair, the Kirtland Bank fiasco, the tar and feathering instead of castrating him by the mob in response to getting too “familiar” with young girls in the area). I think he wanted to steer away from the history that may be more disputed too. I am looking forward to his future videos on the subject as he continues his journey. It was sure fun going through the Mormon Church History Museum with you and Mr Beat this year!
Now the cartels are too strong and intalled too in-depth inside Mexico. They even use their own people as cattle to pass the drugs through the border. But what can you do, nuke the border? Invade Mexico with the US Army? The war on drugs is a joke everywhere and a pointless waste of resourses and effort. They should focus on contrubuiting on strong institutions, education, the creation of good jobs that way people won't have to put their life on the cartels anymore.
As an ex-Mormon myself, it seems like Harris definitely mixed in teachings from the church about their history and actually researched information. The church twists the truth quite a bit, especially with the early history surrounding Joseph Smith, so it personally makes a lot of sense where Harris is coming from. He definitely should’ve actually done the real research before just assuming the church’s narrative was true
I only ever watched Harris's viral video on why he left, but I did watch Alyssa Grenfell for a while (until her BetterHelp sponsorship). Honestly, just as I'm not interested in religious history from within the church/tradition (too much skin in the game, so to say), I fear ex-practitioners have too much emotional baggage to be even-handed when handling their former religious history.
I am not a fan of most of Harris' work (though I do give props for excellent production value), but I have a bigger issue with his Mormon videos. Generally speaking, I don't trust any historian covering the LDS church that is either a practicing Mormon or ex-LDS (with one notable exception). I preface this by saying that while Mormons are the nicest people on earth and the best neighbors you could ask for (I live 3 miles from the Mormon Temple in Mesa, AZ), I think the LDS Church is a cult and that Joseph Smith was a charlatan. I think if anyone does any serious reading into the Church, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion. But the topic of Mormon history is too polarizing for historians too close to the church and can't be covered objectively by a person in either camp. For practicing Mormons it's clear why this is a problem--they have to explain the unexplainable. Worse, church conform/defend the official LDS narrative and doctrine, they often whitewash nearly the entire history the church. For ex-Mormons, all to often, they are angry and left the church for a reason- they have axes to grind. And even the ones that don't have axes to grind, their world view is still shaped by their upbringing as a Mormon. They may have left the church, but taking the LDS glasses off is too painful because you must confront the fact that everyone you love and care about has lied to you about fundamental aspects of life. The one notable exception I noted above is Fawn Brodie. Her biography of Smith "No Man Knows My History." It is the definitive Smith. And Brodie wrote this while still a practicing Mormon. And not just an average Mormon, Brodies's whose father was a member of the Quorum of Twelve and her uncle (David McKay) became President of the LDS Church just a few years after the books publication--in fact, she was granted access to the LDS Archives simple because she was McKay's niece. She was excommunicated from the church a year after the book's publication.
I still like Paul Kennedy's argument--we and the Ruskies were the last ones standing after ww2 and we were almost inevitably going to rub agai st each other, especially considering Berlin and the rest of Germany.
My grandpa probably has alzheimer's or dementia too (he isn't diagnosed but he's had memory issues for well over a decade, they have gotten extremely bad recently to the point where he has been unable to recognize my own aunt, his daughter, when she stayed with him for a week while my grandma went on vacation). I'm a fan of basically nothing Reagan did but I don't wish Alzheimer's or dementia on anyone.
Although, I'm not familiar with Harris and his content, I certainly give you props for the constructive criticism you offered he and his team. Thank you. The reason I originally clicked on this content was that I watched the complete series on Early Mormon history that was created over on Derek Lambert's Mythvision Podcast channel a few years ago, which I thought was very good historical overview of the craziness that Joseph Smith used to birth that religion.
Appreciate the video @CynicalHistorian as an ex-Mormon and history teacher it frustrates me to see history disregarded like this. I wrote my capstone paper on the enslavement of Native Americans in Utah during the early 1850s so seeing natives sidelined like this is also incredibly frustrating when their story needs to be told.
I went to law school, retired cop and combat vet. Harris oversimplified guns and went to Switzerland a country of 9 million. We have 340 million! He has no clue about Constitutional rights versus European countries that give no Constitutional rights.
As a descendant of John D. Lee, I found his “history” mostly parroting church propaganda. Read Bagley’s book if you want an excellent breakdown of the massacre.
24:50 Cool that I can add "indirectly responsible for the creation of Fox News" to the list of reasons why I hate David Zaslav. And I don't care that he was the victim here, he shouldn't have cancelled all those animated shows.
Fascinating video! As someone who is in the process of deconstructing Mormonism it can be soooo confusing because of just how much information there is out there and most LDS are raised with a sanitized version of Mormonism. I think for those that leave or deconstruct can find it hard to untangle what we were taught for years and the reality and numerous historical records. I recently began reading Ben Parkers, Kingdom of Nauvoo and theres still so much Im learning.
I distinctly remember my history book as a freshman in a Texas public high school where the first page of the Civil War section had a pie graph listing the reasons for the war. Slavery had a 25% slice of that graph. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. I showed my dad and he couldn't believe they were teaching us that. .
As someone who just finished all three volumes of Footes Civil War narrative, I concur. That said, politics aside, I did learn some valuable details regarding the execution of the war.
I've been trying to figure out why Jonny Harris is such a cuck and now that I find out he's a former mormon makes perfect sense. Do you know if he's from Utah?
No, Harris is a Propagandist. Literally accepts cash from certain anti-humanists from Switzerland that gets my comment deleted for mentioning. He, himself, is a danger to humanity and should be held _fully_ accountable.
16:40 Did you meant the Northwest Ordinance of 1787? The Land Ordinance of 1785 set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west, the standard for admiting a state from a U.S. territory once it achieved a population of 60,000, was established by the Northwest Ordinance
Reminds me of when I first left the cult but hadn't yet deconstructed what I had learned (still haven't a decade later, probably never will get it all). Everything he says is just verbatim mormon propaganda.
As a hobby historian/someone who's interested in history his videos immediately gave me red flags all over the place, alone for the fact that he does not cite any sources. And generally, when a video looks too good, I'm inclined to believe, more effort has been put into the editing than the research. When he kept perpetuating the good old "Dark Ages" myth I was done.
Didnt harris get like... caught being sketch with climate change after getting involved with some Davos type big bucks? Like not shocked that he's still being sketchy with propagandaish type stuff
I have the feeling Harris intended to give a “balanced” view of Mormonism, but unfortunately I think he drew from a lot of his personal experiences and things he was told growing up. It’s kind of hard to cite that as well.
His videos on the subjects felt like he was still kind of protecting what he learned when he was part of the LDS and not to ruffle feathers with the church. Not sure if it was intentional bias but it was definitely felt.
see a healthy dose of paranoia that we are being lied to around every corner is good. we really need media literacy. history entertainment channels are great... but we have to remember that they are not in themselves authorities on history. there is way too much nuance to cram in a video without making selections on the narrative you want to lean towards. it is like people forget that historic telling are only as accurate as the research put into it.
Thank you for making this video. I was raised mormon, systematically lied to about our history for decades, and Johnny Harris' similar whitewashing of mormon history lost me as a fan. If he couldn't research and present mormonism correctly, there's no reason to think he was doing any better with other subjects.
