-- Chief Jacob Thomas, Cayuga Nation
Sometimes, the people will begin to tell the same story, but all from different angles, different perspectives, and the historian will think that there is an overall trend, or ebb and flow to it all, and maybe the historian will be right.
But with each death, history comes to an end. As with each birth it begins again.
Update:
Wintersweet quotes a striking image of history from Laurie Anderson. This image recurs elsewhere here, where I've forgotten for the moment.
The origiator of this image is Walter Benjamin in one of his Theses on History. He is commenting on a painting of Paul Klee.
Isn't it interesting how we can use imagery, metaphor without knowing who made, or discovered it, and how much it dominates our life.
Swords clash on the fields of battle, burning cities cast a sickly orange glow in the sky, a civilization rises and falls. Suddenly, inspiration strikes and a new invention or idea is unleashed upon society. People always rebuild, things can change, but in many ways they also stay the same. George Satayana said that "Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." History not only acts as a guide to the past, but can also be a map to what the future might bring. There are patterns of historical change, history can sometimes be seen move in cycles.
The annals of history are filled with many stories and places. The dazzlingly white city of Rome and its eventual takeover of the known world. The Declaration of Independence and the eventual ascendancy of the United States. The whirr of the Wright brothers' first airplane. The battlefields of the 20th century. History is a thing that encompasses all idea and concepts. Ostensibly it is about the passage of time and things that have happened in the past, but it is really so much more. History covers all topics and exerts its influence on all things. When a new idea or invention is created, it is looked at in relation to the ideas of the past. How is this thing different? Is it better? Does it improve on something? Even the concept of "new" itself relates to something's placement within history. As Hegel said, history "unites the objective with the subjective side...It comprehends not less what has happened than the narration of what has happened." He is saying that history is concerned with telling us the story of the world. Like all stories, history has overriding themes, through the course of time these themes can repeat themselves.
History cannot help but to repeat itself, man looks into the past and tries to emulate what they admire. Machiavelli even told his aspiring princes "the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled." This can lead to great things, like the evolution of ideas and technology. It helps us to move from the clip clop of horses hooves to the whine of a jet engine. It helps us evolve from the early republics of Ancient Greece, to the ideas of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, to the modern democracies of today. This emulation can also be a curse upon the world, like Hitler using a false idea of an Aryan race to somehow justify the slaughter of millions, or the misappropriation of the Koran by radical Muslims.
The story of history is filled with many tales that might sound the same, the rise and fall of a great civilization, or the evolution of societies and ideas. It is like a great cycle of death and rebirth, of growth and decay that flows through time. The only difference is the dates and the players involved. It is through the study of these tales that we are brought enlightenment, so we can study the progression of ideas and see where we are headed. And especially so we can learn from the mistakes of the past and avoid them when they come up again.
Node your homework!
For countless centuries, scientists, philosophers, archeologists, and historians, have been pursuing the goal of revealing the truth about the events that happened before their birth. Multitudes of lives have been spent toiling over massive records of relevant episodes in the epic of man's existence. And yet, while the effort behind these actions has not been futile, has any common truth, or agreement on such a truth come into being? While these people have sought to eliminate all error from the accounts of specific events, have they succeeded in anything but incorporating the views of their own time into these precious recollections of history? It seems that if so much time and energy has been channeled into the preservation and reconstruction of this subject, a certain outcome of accuracy and fact should result. And yet, all that is said about any event that occurred in the past, be it the existence of King Arthur, or the fall of the Ming Dynasty, can be argued, debated, and ultimately, proven to be completely false.
The quest for truth that inspires historians can be considered to be a foolish enterprise, as no truth is ever revealed. It is impossible to obtain a completely accurate account of any given event, as no human being is omniscient. "Whoever wants the total reality," writes Jacques Barzun," must first gain access to the mind of God". The error that so many consider to be the ultimate flaw of history is indeed history in itself. We cannot escape our nature. To be human is to err, and to form bias, and make mistakes. Even when one attempts to obtain pure knowledge, one is already bound to a certain opinion of the subject, regardless of one's wishes. The reason history exists is to provide inconsistent, flawed accounts of the conflicts that lead up to the current state of affairs.
Any action worth the interest of a person living hundreds, even thousands of years later than the action occurred, must be quite remarkable. If the human race lived in perfect harmony, never erring in its decisions, or making ridiculous little mistakes, there would be no need to record the past, as it would be boring and monotonous. Every incident that comes to be preserved as a fragment of history is the result of a mistake on behalf of some unfortunate individual. Take the fame of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, for example. The idol of multitudes of people for thousands of years, currently worshipped by 33% of the world , he is perhaps the most well known personage in Western Civilization. And yet, would he be quite this famous if Judas Iscariot had not betrayed him to the sate? Would Jesus' characteristic image of suffering remain intact if Pontius Pilate had used a different, less painful way, of disposing of criminals than crucifixion? Would the life of Jesus interest anybody if he did not die so valiantly, and if it were not described with the fervernt passion and exaggeration found in the New Testament?
It is the element of human error and opinion that makes history as it is. It is impossible to escape the capacity of the human mind. To remove the error and bias that permeate historical accounts would be to modify history itself, which is exactly what everyone seeks to avoid. Plagued by the guilt of being imperfect, historians fail to realize that it is this imperfection that is the root of history, and the only reason it exists. Independence from human imagination, thought, and even general stupidity, is unthinkable and unnecessary. The curiosity with which humans perceive the world around them, whether in the present, or the past, is enough to provide the history that is needed. Flawed, distorted, and incomplete, history is exactly the way it should be.
Sources: The Future We Deserve, by Jacques Barzun Major Religions of the World, http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
What is history and why is it important that we study it?
History is the recorded method of tracking events that happened in the past whether the recording be through story, myth, word-of-mouth, music, song, writing/literature, or merely through leaving behind ones bones and body parts for others to find a later date. History is, overall, any form of left behind record that can be used to piece together past events at a period of time somewhere in the future, and it is necessary to study history because one needs to learn about the future mistakes one might make, through those that were made by current people and by ones predecessors in the past, in order to avoid making similar mistakes and rediscovering what good things came of other choices.
For hundreds of years historians have pieced together the past through simple objects like bones, weapons, preserved corpses, and very primitive tools. These objects are better associated with very ancient civilizations or humans such as the Homo Erectus and similarly dated civilizations. More recent peoples can be studied through means such as semi-recorded writings, or even fully recorded methods- books, movies, picture stories (however these are more left to individual interpretation) and other similar writings. There are also many different types of "un-recorded" or...it is unclear how one would classify certain literatures, so an example would seem much more appropriate; texts such as the "first" version of the bible, and the books of the apostles are examples of this type of "un-recorded" histories; records which have no obvious authors that are still living or who can be truly traced back to their date. Such authors like these recorded events in unique styles that can be followed and, for the most part can be verified, but do not have any traceable authors, or whose authors may have been many people working in collaboration with a common goal to which they were so devoted that they were willing to give up their individual identities for a common cause. These texts are almost never completely accurate, because of the fact that they have been rewritten so many times that the originality of the first text has been lost in the new interpretations. Despite backsets like these, however, one will find that history continues to provide insight into the past and will provide such into the future. Note to the Reader: I meant no offense to those who believe in the Bible- this is merely an examination of history, and not a religious discussion.
History has been and will continue to be an invaluable way of conveying ones culture to ones descendants. People constantly, whether consciously or otherwise, record their actions- they write in journals, write poetry, draw pictures, write or play music, or simply talk to one another. These are just a few examples of how people record history, and every one of those methods is invaluable. Ones descendants may find knowledge in them, may find out how to deal with problems, may find about their own genealogical histories, or simply find reassurance in the fact that someone else has gone through a trial much like their own. Many, many times people have found comfort in the knowledge that their parents have gone through similar trials, and have found strength in the knowledge that those elders have overcome them. Whether or not one believes it, there is comfort to be found in the suffering of those before, because they see that they are not alone in the emotions and feelings that they experience, whether good or bad. I know that I am reassured when I stumble upon an old journal from my father and see that he went through many of the same trials that I am and have gone through. Whether or not people believe it, there is comfort in the suffering of those before you because you see that you are not alone in what you feel, and you see help in dealing with the things you will have to experience. One may also discover possible paths that they might have taken, which can now be avoided.
One might look at the past and think to him or herself that they would never make similar mistakes such as those that were made in the past, because of the fact that one simply wouldn't have the opportunity, but in truth a person is probably just as likely to do so if they have an opportunity which is similar, but not quite the same, and that person doesn't quite realize it. In truth those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, and those who cannot forget history are condemned to relive it. History needs to be read and valued for what the situation may represent in the future, as well as in the past. If one cannot see history for what it is; a record to guide them both for choices they might make, as well as for choices that were already made, then one will have no value for it. History must be studied if for no
