The past was not that cute

We need this for the Romephiles who definitely don't think they would have been slaves during the Roman Empire.

In the same vein, a racist meme shared around the internet is that supposedly some black people, while remembering their shattered ancestry, say "We were kings" [in Africa]. But a lot of white people will genuinely believe they were kings or at least related to kings.

And these erroneous class beliefs are very very common.

It even goes so far as to be used to widely support racism in the "my people" argument. Sir, sit down, statistically you were a illiterate or barely-literate peasant like the rest of us!

This is what happens when you use history as a political tool. This is how the powers that be erase class consciousness from peoples brains. They keep showing us a flawed history that almost always sides with the rulers and we adopt it. They make us forget what we are and where we come from so we side with the oppressors.

What?!

Many people romanticize their past so much that they side with historical oppressors. Oppressors who most likely subjugated most of their ancestors.

This is not a coincidence, but is the result of consuming media from people who engage in this same act of romanticizing their history, or this media comes from people who were themselves actually related to these oppressors.

Right.

I'm gonna stick with "What?!"

Peoples idea of their own history are influenced by the media (print, film, tv, etc).

The owners of said media often prefer to fund historical content from the perspective of rulers, as this reflects their class character and aspirations. Meaning they have an infatuation with royalty because they do not think of themselves as lowly.

The people then adopt similar mechanisms of reflection to how they view their ancestors in the past.

I say this mechanism of reflection is a political tool designed to entice average people to think of themselves as above average in the past. And thus eliminate any consciousness of historical class continuation.

If you say "what?!" again, I'm just gonna have to assume you disagree but are too afraid to do so out loud.

Isn't it the other way around - people, especially when young, like to imagine themselves as someone special, so the media give them the perspective of the most special individuals they can find? Being a king, on its own, may not qualify - but the popular shows are rarely about "just" kings, it's mostly about ones who did something impressive (if evil; though I agree that last part tends to be edited out).

In fantasy literature, a hero is almost certainly either a prince or at least of royal blood; in sci-fi, he's at least a progeny of a war hero or great inventor. Even in romance slice-of-life, you'll get mysterious amnesiacs, rich CEOs children, shrewd nerds with underworld connections, etc. much more often than statistically possible - nobody wants to read about "normal people", not really (when we think we do, it's just the author writing so well that he convinced us his "normal people" are different!)

I can't rule out the possibility that this natural tendency is being exploited and manipulated in some cases, but the stories have always been about heroes, long before anyone thought of erasing anyone else's class consciousness.