History is a fickle mistress. It is
perhaps the academic area where the "facts" are extremely hard to prove. This
is part of the challenge of a professional historian: piecing together the
past. But how does one separate fact from reality?
The aforementioned challenge is
three-fold: the fallibility of human nature and political agendas. Becker
further explores the first challenge in his article "What is Evidence?" Historians
have an extremely difficult task; where the "Mr. Everyman's history is very
informal and mainly based on private affairs, the professional historian must
preserve past events on a grand and very public scale. However, the
professional historian, must like the Everyman, is only human and is limited by
the confines of his own time and place. It too is impossible to escape the myth
that is woven into our culture, no matter how hard a historian may try (16).
Another conflict is that between historians
and political figures. History is littered with examples of the past being "rewritten"
for the sake of political advancement. This is especially true even in American
culture (Woodward, 30-34). It is even possible to change or hide historical
events in today's society, although the methods are slightly less transparent,
through classifying information, controlling archives and releasing specific
information from them, and even paying historians (Woodward, 36).
It is the historian's job then to
attempt to preserve history in a way that represents the "truth." Of course, this
could be considered next to impossible. In my opinion, the first step to
confronting this issue is to confront the political agendas that come with
controlling the past. Woodward does a great job stressing the importance of
such a thing, and praises those historians that defend the importance of
historical integrity (38). "Scarcely any popular leader in our history has been
able to secure acquiescence of the historical guild in his enterprise of
controlling the past. Such leaders have repeatedly met with resistance from the
historians" (37). This first step of ensuring that all of the current
information is available for research and consumption is essential to painting
an accurate picture of "true" past events.
Secondly, historians must continue
doing what they already do best: work extremely hard to verify and find new
information. It is not secret that we as human beings demand physical evidence
to support opinions before we even begin
to accept them as truth. (Deterring slightly from the topic at hand, this is
probably why many people have an issue believing in God; belief based on faith
alone is difficult and improbable for many people.) Nothing is more exciting
than finding a new shred of physical evidence that can help historians add a
new piece to the puzzle. This is why archaeology is such an important science (and
perhaps I feel this way because I spent a lot of time with Dr. Schuler last
year). It is true that this probably falls more into the realm of archaeologist
rather than historian, but it is also true that the two could arguably not
exist without the other. Without archaeologists, there would be no physical
evidence to even record history from our place in time today; with historians,
there would be no need to even have archaeology. The point remains: for a truly
accurate picture of history, a great amount of physical evidence is needed - which
is easier said than done.
An overlooked part of creating a
truer version of the past is unraveling the myth that is so tightly wound into
our history. It is not secret that school history books are filled with stories
that are not only just slightly wrong, they are blatantly false. No matter how
many times a story is disproven, textbooks still continue to print them as if
they were fact. This is mind-boggling, but there are probably explanations for
such things. Perhaps it is more convenient and less time-consuming to just use
the same stories; however I believe that people just simply want to believe that
these falsities are just true. Sometimes the truth is simply not as neat and
tidy as we want to believe; sometimes history makes us uncomfortable or
disproves our point of view. No matter how many books and articles are written
about lies in the history books, it will take something big to change them.
"Ay, there's the rub." Maybe we the
people do not want to hear the actual truth. This is the historian's uphill
battle. Steps certainly can be taken to counter-act political agendas, false
records, and lack of a physical record, but human fallibility and stubbornness is
perhaps something that cannot be overcome.
