*"History - An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."
- Ambrose Bierce
* "History is more or less bunk."
- Henry Ford
* "A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it."
- Mark Twain
* "Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it."
- Oscar Wilde
* "All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
* "To demand exactitude of history would be to offend against the idea of the strictness that pertains to the humanistic sciences."
- Martin Heidegger
Speed's recent thread about the "end of history" has stuck in my mind of late and spurred more thoughts on just what history even is.
Opinions vary so widely across a wide swath of topics on just which "history" is the correct version, whether on the most mundane of issues or those that have set new socio-political paradigms, irrevocably altered populations, cultures, etc.
One has to ask just how much of what we call or know as history really is just that - and how much is something else ranging from pure fantasy to exaggeration to foggy recall to spot-on fact...at least insofar as fact is objectively applied. How much of what we think we know is even remotely close to truth or reality? Do most even care, so long as the history they think they know supports their worldview or ideals, etc?
Does it even matter?
Currently in Europe, supposedly enlightened liberal democracies, challenging certain aspects of World War Two, for instance, are already criminalized in some nations, and a move is afoot to make such inexplicably backward legislation universal throughout the EU. Similarly, though in reverse, asserting that a calculated mass-murder or genocide of Armenians did occur, is evidently a criminal act of some nature in Turkey. The cynical Pontifs of old would be proud.
What a frightening Dark Ages-like chill this casts across the very pursuit of historical truth! Must we only accept one orthodox version of any given version of history? Should we, as supposedly freedom-loving people accept such illogical efforts stifle even benign debate of major historical events? If so, then indeed it would seem that the cynicism or critical attitude toward history as noted above is probably understated.
Maybe history is dying in more ways than we even know...maybe much of it never "lived" in the first place.
- Ambrose Bierce
* "History is more or less bunk."
- Henry Ford
* "A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it."
- Mark Twain
* "Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it."
- Oscar Wilde
* "All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
* "To demand exactitude of history would be to offend against the idea of the strictness that pertains to the humanistic sciences."
- Martin Heidegger
Speed's recent thread about the "end of history" has stuck in my mind of late and spurred more thoughts on just what history even is.
Opinions vary so widely across a wide swath of topics on just which "history" is the correct version, whether on the most mundane of issues or those that have set new socio-political paradigms, irrevocably altered populations, cultures, etc.
One has to ask just how much of what we call or know as history really is just that - and how much is something else ranging from pure fantasy to exaggeration to foggy recall to spot-on fact...at least insofar as fact is objectively applied. How much of what we think we know is even remotely close to truth or reality? Do most even care, so long as the history they think they know supports their worldview or ideals, etc?
Does it even matter?
Currently in Europe, supposedly enlightened liberal democracies, challenging certain aspects of World War Two, for instance, are already criminalized in some nations, and a move is afoot to make such inexplicably backward legislation universal throughout the EU. Similarly, though in reverse, asserting that a calculated mass-murder or genocide of Armenians did occur, is evidently a criminal act of some nature in Turkey. The cynical Pontifs of old would be proud.
What a frightening Dark Ages-like chill this casts across the very pursuit of historical truth! Must we only accept one orthodox version of any given version of history? Should we, as supposedly freedom-loving people accept such illogical efforts stifle even benign debate of major historical events? If so, then indeed it would seem that the cynicism or critical attitude toward history as noted above is probably understated.
Maybe history is dying in more ways than we even know...maybe much of it never "lived" in the first place.
I do believe a great deal of the present is in essence a fraud, a manipulated politically driven illusion. And the mass-media, the entertainment complex, mass-marketers, much of acedemia, and indeed the government all labor tirelessly to portray the world as they "wish it to be" much more so than it really is. Television is perhaps, the most egregious offender in how it nakedly presents, nay promotes uber-egalitarianism, homosexuality, hyper-materialism/consumerism(buy, buy, buy!) radical feminism, etc. Some will no doubt find this a progressive position to take - showing the world how it "should be" rather than how it is. But how long before this "well-meaning" deception permanently skews our whole concept of reality itself, particularly knowing how much life immitates art today? Indeed, to some degree, is this not already the case?
