History – what is it?

We write history all the time. It should come as no surprise that it also changes all the time. The official or accepted view is there and there are alternative views. The views change as new knowledge and understanding develops. Versions of history are made to suit people’s agendas.

Lack of courage to tell the truth also matters.

The public is without deep knowledge and can’t possibly tell.  We may have to leave the notion of historical correctness. It’s all relative to something! There is always more to discover.

History may even be plain false. Stories could be invented, created for political purposes, suppressed, given the wrong weight or interpretation and so on.

History could also be written in a detailed manner with sounds and smells and colours, or it could be written from the standpoint of the master of political strategy, in many instances there was just not anybody there to tell – there are endless possibilities as to how history comes out.

It can be broad and cover everything that happens on a continent, in the world, or it could represent the view as seen from a country.

The historian can be a learned woman or a press officer or a propaganda person – who do you believe?

So we should be careful: at least we should have some historical distance in time, subjectivity must not be present, sources and conflicts of interest should be shown, judgment must be impartial, the historian must be learned and not personally involved.

There are lots of incidents that could have been part of history, but never made it – often for no good reason.

The things that we see today – will they be part of history one day or are there too many hoaxes, fabrications that has to be uncovered first?

What if the historical assumptions we base our society on are false, incomplete or carefully crafted productions? Whose thoughts should gain the upper hand, who has been left out? Has there been too much control – of previous thinking and doing – and not enough freedom? What is the reality?

History is somebody’s invention – always. Be a sceptic – always.

Leave a Reply