Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts:
Wineburg's main argument deals with the nature of studying history; from why study it at all to how to study it properly once you've decided to do so. Wineburg spends a great deal of time discussing the balance that one needs to establish between the familiarity of "known" history and the strangeness of "the distant past". On both sides we run the risk of misinterpreting the content of a document. If we feel too familiar with the work we can "contort the past to fit the predetermined meanings we ave already assigned it". On the other hand, if something is too foreign to us we can become "detached" and turn the work into "a kind of esoteric exoticism". I agree wholeheartedly with Wineburg and thus agree with his conclusion that "historical thinking [...] is neither a natural process" but that it is an "achievement", or a goal to be reached. Unfortunately for us Wineburg, nor any other historian that I know of, has given us a the perfect ratio, or a mathematical formula if you will, of how to mix the two extremes. We must simply learn to find equilibrium between the uncertainty of new (to us) historical events and the familiarity of our presumptions.
"Simply" however, turns out to not be so simple after all. Historians across the ages have argued on the best way to approach historical thought and the best ways to develop the skills needed to comprehend history. The Bradley Commission for example says that a student must "suspend [their] knowledge" and throw away any perceived connection they had before study to attain the "sense of empathy" needed for historical study. Despite this, the example that Wineburg gives of the high school student Derek shows that he needed his "existing beliefs" to "[shape] the information he encountered". It is for this reason that I especially adhere to the belief that history is a "foreign country, not a foreign planet". While it is strange and exotic and may be completely different from the society that we know today, human history is still human. The figures of the past may be alien and obscure to our paradigms and society, but they are still governed by the very same things that make us human today. They are just as prone to greed, ambition, love, pain, envy, wistfulness, sorrow, joy as we are today. This emotional connection is our bridge to the past, the thing that most allows us to try and understand not only what happened, but why.
Of course we're limited in our knowledge not only because we don't have completely unbiased, factual reports of what happened, but because the past is so foreign to us that we cannot hope to fully comprehend it. We can't study the past like we can study geology or biology because everything that is from the past exists in the present (At least until we get time travel, come on engineers!). Any historical evidence that exists today is no longer something in the past, but something that come from before and exists in the here and now. Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars may have been penned long ago but we read it in the present, changing it's meaning to fit our culture today. Wineburg comments on this as well when he states that "we must consider the possibility that they drew [Egyptian Hieroglyphics] differently because they saw them differently". Our interpretations will always differ from those of the ancient Egyptians because they interpreted things in the past as part of their present and we will interpret things in the past as part of our present.
So why should we study history at all? If merely trying to understand what happened in the past is so difficult, let alone why it happened, why bother at all? Anyone can say "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it", but what does that really mean? I have no definitive answer for you. I have my own opinions an speculations of course, but I would truly like to hear what someone else has to say. Wineburg touches on the idea and Professor Belanger discussed it on the first day as well, but why does everyone else care about history? Or why don't you? Is this class a waste of time, and we just need to take it because Stonehill's administration is insane? Please leave your thoughts below or let me know f you have a full response on your own blogs.
Adieu,
Jon
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