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

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It would portray honestly the views of both sides in specific events while doing its best to avert bias with regard to either. The problem is that most histories give lip service to this idea but clearly support one or the other side. The bigger problem with that is that there are very few, if any, cases where historical matters are clearly in favor of one or the other side.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether or not it's attaching value judgments or not. For instance the Korean War is a pretty unambiguous war in favor of South Korea even under Syngman Rhee, the Second Indochina War was not so clearcut at the time and even moreso with the historical viewpoint.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's the point. It doesn't always happen. I mean if you were to ask people who started the Cold War, you could start a flamewar over that and there's people still living who remember that (not many, to be sure, but some). Most people could give a pretty fair version of the Roman Empire or the Han Empire, but that's partly because time has passed to the point where unless you're a Turk, Russian, or *really* reactionary German nobody gives a shit who's the right successor to the mantle of Caesar Augustus.