History

 I finished "The Historians" by Cecilia Ekbäck the other day. It took me a long time to get into the book. I was very slowly making my way through it until I hit about half-way mark. And then I got completely sucked in and couldn't put it down.

The things we humans are capable of. The extreme cruelty, stupidity, and degradation. The expectations of privilege. The claims of superiority. But also: self-sacrifice, integrity, and courage. 

Throughout the book, there was the theme of historical truth, weaving in and out. It very much hit close to home.

Two things I learned in history classes in school:

• History will be re-written, depending on who is in power and what country you are in.
• There is no truth.

I hated history. I still do. 

I have to admit that in college (I was required to take a couple of courses in history) things were much better. For the first time, I did not feel like somebody was trying to pour waste into my brain. We were looking at and analyzing different sources, different perspective. There was no attempt to pass the interpretations of events as THE TRUTH.

But... to this day, history is not something I like to read about. It feels like history is a whore who will say anything as long as it gets payed. History is constantly being re-written in response to political situation. Just look around. You know, the whole thing with taking down old monuments? It's all very familiar. Don't get me wrong - I don't think there should be Stalin's busts sitting in every building. But - see what I mean - yesterday, "our dear leader"; today, a mass murderer. Yesterday, a great explorer; today, another mass murderer. Yesterday, a general; today, an enslaver.

Perhaps, we think of ourselves as better, more enlightened, more sensitive, more anti-racist than people who came before us. Perhaps we are. Does this mean we have to poo-poo all over the previous generations? Are we really that much better?

What would it take to turn us into monsters? Not much. A common goal. Fear. Money.

Anyway, I digress....

Here is a quote from "The Historians":

"She asked about history and about truth..."

...

"Well, it was as if she was trying to gauge how easy it was to hide the past... discover if you could reshape history after the fact."

"We used to talk about that. Debate how much of history was written by the decision makers in the way they wanted..."