History is a terrible judge.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Speaking of important people, I am reminded of an oft-repeated and wholly invalid principle that time gives us the perspective needed to judge things in a more complete fashion. How this foolishness ever gains credibility is beyond me. It seems to me that in the throes of contemporary events, we are keenly aware of the puppet-nature of mankind, how leaders are driven more than the drivers, and how a multitude of competing influences form and shape a history beyond any conscious or deliberate efforts of single individuals or groups thereof.

The truth is, however, that time is a terrible game of informational attrition. Each passing day sees the fading of countless reams of data and knowledge and memory. As time passes, we get dumber, and to think that historians can levy judgment in any accurate sense with naught but scraps of records and paper is silly. Why do we think this? Why do we even recognize in our own lives this truth, yet ascribe all wisdom to the horribly broken enterprise of history?

It is really rather a terribly circular way of looking at things: those things that don't disappear are the "most important", and the "most important" things are those that happen to survive. Otherwise, why would anyone keep them? We know the answer... our historical record is the product of happenstance. A series of accidents and near-misses. Most of it gets burned up in fires, or soaked by waters, or deteriorated by time and must and fungus. And so we dig and we find a piece of pottery and proclaim, "Here lies the answer!"

Silliness. History is a waste of time. More than that, history is a fiction.

Comments

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Well, some main principles of historical research theory actually agrees with many of your statements here. One of the main things to remember is that there is no complete way to get an objective and whole truth, and what is left in archival material is not necessarily representative of what is "most important". You (in a general sense) have to look for the gaps and pauses in material and ask why they are there, as well as take into account flawed human oral documentation, speculative sources etc.
History is neither fiction nor truth, it is a speculative research project that will never be finished. But it's not silliness, it is actually just as important as social sciences and political analysis, in the same way as a senior citizen is important in regards to a college student.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

In the case of books, I think the devision between fiction and non-fiction is not truthiness versus non-truthiness... but rather a statement of author's intent.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I think in the human perception, maybe scientific research which is peer reviewed comes closest to what people would constitute as "reality" maybe? Or maybe rather it would be called "truth" by many, but we could allow "reality" to be a little biased, as long as people are aware of the bias...

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

There are worse territories to stumble through in the end of the day.