(Sorry if the image on the right is offensive to some)
What really defines history? Simply put it’s just “a retelling of past events which is professedly true.” (Pg. 156). This definition uses the word “professedly”, meaning to “claim knowledge of.” I mean there’s evidence of what we’ve been told through textbooks throughout grade school, but how do we know such things happen the way they did? A high level of skepticism is always in place when talking about history. We can really only know for a fact what we see through our own experience in life. People will believe in what they want to hear, which it will not always be the case.
I found this picture with Jesus and a dinosaur coexisting to be humorous only because I know, or at least think I know, because of what I’ve learned in school. And the only source to base this on comes from science. It’s only been proved through carbon dating to be false. History in a sense is related to theory, where scientists theorize through mounting evidence that things did or did not exist and when it happened. History can be in the short term also. We always want to know the history, or the "truth", behind things. For example when buying a used car we want to know the vehicles history of whether or not it has been in a crash or not. But can we really trust a piece of paper that says that it's clear of all accidents? Only the person with the first hand experience would know.
I remember in my high school history class we watched a movie called History of the World Part 1. Although having an accurate timeline of events in ancient, medieval, and (at the time) modern history, the way certain events played out were so ridiculous things could’ve never happened that way! Or so we believe. If there were a movie exactly like this, but without all the outrageous scenes and just the way it’s told in a history book, would it be likely to attract more attention, thought, and or ideas? This brings up the point that people will believe in what they want to be true, rather than accepting the actual truth. This is why there are so many questions in history and in turn, the word history in itself.
2 comments:
I like that you say only the person with first hand experience would know. We can take History of the World to be as true as some textbooks because they just tell stories. I doubt the little details of either can be completely accurate. History of the World just gets the general idea and sacrifices a little accuracy for comedic effect making it a lot more interesting to watch.
Can we ever, really, take 'history' seriously? How would we learn (or teach) history differently if we always approached the past from a standpoint of (sometimes dark) comedy?
The phrase "vehicles history" should have an apostrophe after vehicle and before the s, because it is possessive.
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