If it is in the text, it must be true. This is the mindset that many people have, and it is the way of thinking that our education system is instilling in students nationwide. However, as many of us have come to realize, not everything written, even if it is done so in stone, is true, or is the truth. History or any telling of an occurrence, whether it is oral or written, is just that, his-story, it is the perspective of someone, of a single person or some people. Yet, student throughout the country is being taught that this one perspective is what really happened, that nothing else could have occurred or it could not have happened any other way. For example, as mentioned in class, the newer generation in
Let's try this again
14 years ago
2 comments:
Or rather, next time we cite something from a text, we should be wary of the very idea of truthfulness, and mark the text as a perspective, not a source of 'truth'. When you say "His-Story," this is a bit of a linguistic swerve from the actual etymology: 'histoire' is the French word from which 'history' derives, and it has nothing to do with the masculine form. In fact, in French, the word "histoire" is feminine. Maybe we need to start saying "les histoires" instead of "History."
Your post reminds me of the advanced history class I took in high school that forced me to question the sources that we read, whether it was a textbook, letter, or document. My teacher always asked us what were the values and limitations of the source. I found that some of the documents I read, especially from the Civil War (between the North and South) were extremely biased. Even with photos and drawings, some were extremely biased because the artist only chose to include what he wanted the reader to see. So I agree that whenever we use a source it is important to judge how reliable the text is and to what extent we should believe in it.
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