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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1156860" data-attributes="member: 8447">Okay, I feel a need to chime in on two sides:  trained historian and storyteller.What "really" happened in history is a damn loaded question to begin with.  Do you "really" know what happened to your friends yesterday?  How do you know?  Obviously anything they told you left out parts of their thoughts, actions, etc.  There is an automatic filter.Be that as may be, you can still have a good notion as to what, in the main, happened.My own field of study was 12th century England.  Do I know what "really" happened, say, June 13, 1175 in London near a specific priories?  No.  Do I have a general sense of social structures, politics, and standards of living for the era?  Yes.  Do I fully understand the medieval English mindset?  I could never claim this.  I worked through a combination of documents, both translated and not, archaeological evidence, and previous historians interpretations, sifting carefully to gain some small measure of expertise regarding the concept of oath-breaking (my MA topic).  I can say that I never got to "know" a specific individual, can never really know what it is like to live in that world as I do not eat the same foods under the same conditions, wear the same clothes made in the same manner, and am not surrounded by the same crowds with their interests of the day.But to say I know nothing about that era is farcical.There are two general schools of thought working here -- The Past Is Gone and The Past Is A Foreign Country.  Let us consider the first proposition.  If The Past Is Gone, never to be recovered or understood, then our own lives must start fresh each day.  What happened before we were born, even if by a day, can never be understood.  If we are to accept this mode, then we cannot hold the past responsible for anything.  Indeed, the only matters that may be truly "known" are matters that we go through, that we experience.  Do I "know" what 9/11/2001 was like?  From my own perspective of waking up and seeing the news, yes; from the perspective of the people in the planes, in the Twin Towers, no.  This, however, becomes a case of reductio ad absurdum -- following this proposition to its (il)logical conclusion, all we really "know" is what is happening at a given moment to ourselves, thus our own personal past is dead and we can never even truly know what is happening to others around us.The second proposition, The Past Is A Foreign Country, is a useful model up to a point.  In this we assume that what happened before us takes place under conditions that are more or less foreign to us, with different values, judgements, tastes, and vocabulary.  This means that when you approach historical information you need to assume that the values of another time and place will not exactly mirror your own.  Just as you prepare to visit a foreign country by finding out about exchange rates, places of interest, and the like, so, too, will you find out about the past -- not knowing every detail the way a native does, and probably concentrating too heavily on certain "shiny spots", but still getting some feel and appreciation for a different place and time.  In the end, however, you are merely a tourist, not a participant, and you will bring the interests and interpretations of your own world and time into the mix, a filter between you and "what really happened".But there is a third path that is vastly important and commonly overlooked -- The Past As We Assume It Happened.  This is actually the single most vital aspect of history, far more important than any other, yet is poo-pooed and ignored by most established historians.  We "know" things about the past -- we have been handed stories, shown pictures, etc.  This is the history we work with on a day-to-day basis.  More than half of it is hookum, but it affects how we percieve the world around us.  A fine example of this is the Battle of the Alamo.  Most people in the United States "know" that Davey Crockett, Jim Bowie, and the gang fought to the last man against the Mexican army.  In doing so they provided an example of courage and honour that has rung through U.S. history, a story that is repeated and many attempt to emulate in their own periods of need.  However, there is a school of thought, based on documentary evidence, that suggests that the defenders of the Alamo actually surrendered and were shot by a firing squad.  This is an argument taking place between academics at the moment in an attempt to understand what "really" happened.  But to most Americans the story remains.  Since the story remains, we act upon it as if it were real, whether it proves to be or not.  What we think happened, ultimately, is much more important that what actually happened.  However, when we as individuals learn more, we put aside previous beliefs and pick up new ones.  This gives us a new basis to work from.What "really" happened in history?  It all depends on what you mean by the question.</blockquote>

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