What Is History? Part 3
To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not, have taken care to appear such in their writings. —Bolingbroke
To know history means to have thought about it. —Jacques Barzun
History is neither written nor made without love or hate. —Mommsen
Any fool can make history; it takes a genius to write it. —Oscar Wilde
That those who profess to advance learning sometimes obstruct it, cannot be denied; the continual multiplication of books not only distracts choice but disappoints inquiry. —Samuel Johnson
History does not repeat itself. Historians just repeat one another. —Max Beerbohm
History repeats itself, but not exactly. —Wilson
Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis. —Schopenhauer
A country without a memory is a country of madmen. —Santayana
If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development. —Aristotle
History is critical thinking about the past. —?
History is something that happens to other people. —unknown
The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith. —Goethe
History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that. —Robert Penn Warren
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. —Gibbon
History is a bag of tricks the living play on the dead. —Voltaire
Voltaire to the contrary, history is a bag of tricks which the dead have played upon historians. —Lynn White
The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom. —Hegel
We learn from history that we never learn anything from history. —Hegel (Huh?)
While the mediocre European is obsessed with history, the mediocre American is ignorant of it. —Mencken
History will absolve me. —Fidel Castro
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Contributed by Prof. W.K. Wood:
There's nothing new in the world, only the history you don't know. —Harry Truman
History is just one damned thing after another. —G.R. Elton
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Contributed by Prof. S.R. Busick:
The study of history . . . not only provides knowledge indispensable to preparing political decisions. It opens the mind toward an understanding of human nature and destiny. —Ludwig von Mises
In history there are no control groups. —Cormac McCarthy
Historical knowledge is not a variety of knowledge, but it is knowledge itself; it is the form which completely fills and exhausts the field of knowing . . . —Croce
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written. —Samuel Johnson
The historian can learn much from the novelist. —Samuel Eliot Morison
It is the professional curse of historians that they shall grope through many dark paths and read many worthless books. —Lord Acton
History demands sympathy for those we do not love, and detachment from those we do. —Acton
Entries(RSS)
A friend, a historian, once told me “We professional historians have no nostalgia for any past era. We know too much. We’re also pessimists. Things don’t last” “Very Augustinian” I told him. He agreed.
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
-- Paul Johnson
...history isn't written by the victors anymore. History is written by
the historians. By the people who write masters' theses with titles
like "Janet Jackson and Abu Ghraib: The Inappropriate Breast and
Postmodern Paradigms of Oligarchical Media Meta-themes." Such bright minds are more likely to bury Reagan than to praise him, and drape the headstone with garlic just in case.
-- James Lileks
History does not unfold, it piles up.
-- Robert M. Adams, _Bad Mouth_, 1977
History is baroque.
-- Will Durant, quoted _Time_, Oct. 6, 1967
Historians of literature like to regard a century as a series
of ten faces, each grimacing in a different way.
-- Richard Ellman, _New York Times_, Feb. 5, 1967
God cannot alter the past; that is why he is obligated to connive at the existence of historians.
-- Samuel Butler (II)
Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style, it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice.
-- Jacques Barzun, _From Dawn to Decadence_, 2000
I once read that the chief of the Gestapo once said that history should be written by cops. Why? Because, as he said (though not in so many words), from their experience in investigating crime, they know how to smell a rat. They know how to investigate and find the guilty parties, and detect cover ups. They know when something just doesn't look right. Historians are not so good at that.
He apparently didn't think much of most historians. Of course, a really good historian doesn't think much of most historians either, and often winds up investigating the evidence much like a cop would do.
History? What a word and better yet, what a novel idea indeed!
Socrates said there is only the idea. How can history be written when there is only the idea, err, or thought?
In other words, once an idea has been thought or born, then the new idea/s come into being as the old idea/s are composted into the fertilizer for the creative genius to use as a growing of idea/s not yet thought.
This means HISTORY does not exist, in reality.
Hmmm, does this mean we continue to rewrite the terms of an idea/s - to do what? The idea/s can never be actually written about other than by those who thought the ORIGINAL ...
Original what? Idea?
Doesn't look like too many original thoughts are being created by those who would have brains that can be considered thinking in levels of brilliance, or "creative genius."
Until the people who do nothing more than megaphone mouth word pollution - for those who actually believe they are smart enough to have idea/s in the first place -
STOP THE BRANDING of IGNORANT IDEAS into the mass consumers heads, about how valueless human life is ....
Well, well, well,
What a novel concept ... "history."
I love Biloxi, [Mississippi] - where else can you lose a wallet and have someone mail it to you... 'thanks again.'
Albeit (those were the days) it happened 15 years ago.
Nonetheless, thanks again.
not to say it couldn't or wouldn't happen again... i don't 'know'. i am always humbled before my God -
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"... history isn’t written by the victors anymore. History is written by
the historians."
History is indeed written by the victors these days. Doesn't this simply mean the postmodernists have won?
rest assured as sure as you are disgusted [pehaps] by maggots ... it's under mother Nature's & God's control... (at least the former if you don't also 'believe' ) I hear you ... it's a slow evolution... GOOD.
... but Nick there's no 'winners' ... it's in a context. If you want something else than THIS just depart... it's OK.
me and sid we'll say, playing cards - oh gosh, there goes nick. i always for the most part beat sid. he's weak in the knees... and cluttered in his head... too many 'tells'. me & e.t. always beat sid.
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Golo Mann, the German historian and philosopher and also the son of the German author, Thomas Mann, writes this about history:
„Immer hat Geschichte zwei Komponenten: das, was geschehen ist, und den, der das Geschehene von seinem Orte in der Zeit sieht und zu verstehen sucht. Nicht nur korrigieren neue sachliche Erkenntnisse die alten; der Erkennende selber wandelt sich. Die Vergangenheit lebt; sie schwankt im Lichte neuer Erfahrungen und Fragestellungen.“
(History always has two components: that which (actually) happens and the one who from his own locale and time sees that which happens and searches to under stand it. Not only do new facts correct the old ones, but the observer (one who is cognizant) himself changes. The past lives; it fluctuates in light of new experiences and questions (problems).)
Somewhere Dr. Fleming wrote that each nation, each people, has its own history.
That's not to say there is no truth but rather that there's no objectivity.
And the same would apply of course to families and villages with unique versions, etc.
12878 - good site. PeterPan
Love it ... "The past lives; it fluctuates in light of new experiences and questions (problems).)"
I was born in Biloxi, Mississippi and due to the fear of a saddlebloc medical technique my dear mother brought me into this world before the delivery room was even a consideration.
It was during a hurricane.
One of my favorite studies was/is about problem solving. A certain ordinary man who was into self growth (personal evolution), absolutely loved problems. He said it gave him the glorious opportunity to celebrate the brain/mind and all its wonder - goal seeking and problem solving.
I found the owner of a wallet, once, and turned it in. That was at a university and it was a long time ago. The fellow's tuition money was in it, hundreds of dollars of US $$$.
But of course return a wallet to its rightful owner, it belongs to them and the do unto others "idea" is most certainly a good enough one - past, present and future - forever and ever ... whatever that means.
"Professional Human Being." A great American genius coined this phraseology. Simply, it means someone who keeps their word.
Now this could be dangerous: It appears certain humans have chosen to take their vision/s of how the world should be, and they're clearly keeping their word to those ("elitists") who believe gods on Earth exist and they're them ... or, at the very least it's the destiny of certain families to own the Earth and all its "commodities" (livestock is a commodity regardless of what species of mammals/animals).
We have, yet another problem to solve.
And so our poor little gray matter - named brain - shivers and quivers into blubbering piles of protoplasm because it can't seem to think beyond 7 to 10 percent.
We have, yet another problem to solve.
Are we evolving or devolving? We don't know, yet. It does appear that history isn't much of a guide dog for the blind who choose not to see.
Does the brain connect to the brain and to the brains and how do we get inside those brains that are distorted and corrupted, delusional illusions of grandeur when simplicity is the key ...
Is this a historical or rhetorical question ...
electromagnetic waves of ideas/thoughts?
Lest this nation forgets its profound roots:
"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition."
Henry Ford, 1916, Chicago Tribune
17657 - good site. PeterPan
31686 - good site. PeterPan
History is a living corpse. For there is nothing deader than the shades of yesterday, but nothing more alive than human memory.
To modern man, history is simply the record of what stupid people thought (and did).
What is history? History is the annual walk through the Madden Cemtery located in on the Louisisna Wold not too far from Driskill Mountain (all 534 feet of it), highest point in Louisiana, on the occasion of the fall graveyard working, an event which we - Mama, Daddy (now deceased) and sundry other kinsmen have attended during that season which our Celtic ancestors called "the thin time" - fall into winter, with my ninety-year-old mother as she attempts to weave yet again into a story all of her direct exploits and memories of the place and the region as well as the tales of those, now buried here, whom she knew and loved as her child; thus her memory goes well back before her birth, to the coming of the Madden clan into these climes from the Carolinas, with some of the lore reaching as far back as the "Madden Castle" somewhere in Ireland.
There - on a hill which to the southwest slopes down into a now-cleared dale and which is on three sides circled by Madden Mill Creek which eventually finds its way to the Gulf of Mexico some two-hundred-fifty miles to the south by way of Black Lake Bayou, Black Lake, Saline Bayou, the Red River and the Achafalaya River - lie in repose, surrounded by a grove of at least three varieties of hickory trees and a guard of their distant cousins, the red oaks - lie ancestors, forbear and those who have pilgrimmed before, facing eastward toward Jerusalem, having apprehended the Faith in their time and awaiting with anticipation the Second Advent.
There, too, do we living gather, counting it as a blessing to have known, to have known of and to have been known by this host who bequeathed to us life itself as well as the Faith and the Hope which srpings from that Faith. Each year, as we return, some of the afore-living who had gathered with us at the last working have themselves been gathered in. It is therefore not with sadness but with anticipation that we look into the faces of the oldest each year and take note which ones will likely pass through the separating veil which at this time, when the first of fall is in the air, seems ever so thin. Sometimes, we are supprised. My second cousin, once removed, a mere twenty-two, died of an stroke just this past summer, a stroke the origins of which remain unknown. As Mama and I pause to consider his yourth gone, Mama shifts to the story of "Little Max" to whose grave she points with her cane. It seems that he, a twin, at the age of four in 1922, went to the post office at Fryeburg, where my great aunt was post mistress and store clerk, and took an innocent swig of his delight - Coca Cola - from a bottle so labeled at the counter; except that it was creosote which my great uncle had placed there for dipping cattle and dogs. Max died, having never known his father who had died in the Great Flu of 1918. (Thats how different stories get threaded together into a history.)
Seeking brevity, I'll simply walk Mama and myself back to the old pavilion where dinner (We're in the South now!), to which Mama and I have contributed, pineapple-upsidedown cake, slaw with homemade dressing and deviled eggs. As the years go by, we note that peas, collards and fried chicken have been replaced by casseroles. (Post-modernity encroaches all along the cultural battleline!) On our way back, we pass near the slave graves, where my great-great grandfather, Reed Madden had buried the slaves under his stewardship. All of his offspring are buried here as well, including his daughters - Alabama, Tennesse, Georgia, Virginia and Caroline (two for one). Alabama was Mama's grandmother. Some called her Aunt Bam and others called her Aunt Al. The slaves had the common family name of Shepherd. Ol' Reed gave them all land and some common land on which they built a little settlement called Shepherdtown. I am currently struggling to write a stroy entitled "My Master's Shepherd" which is anchored in the fact that one of my cousins - one of the Patriarch's great-great grand's was shot by two teenages -Bonnie and Clyde style - and was paralyzed from the waist down. (Bonnie and Cyde were themselves shot a mere two miles from the Mzdden Cemetery near Sails, Louisiana, in which my mother was born. (Ain't history connected.) One of the Shepheds, a slave descendant, who had maintained relations with the family, came to live with and care for my cousin, on of the master's descendants, hence the title.
Our history, has been from time to time interrupted by floods, the flu or somebody's war; but we have gone on and changed but little. Now, change is taking down our ranks. Culture, whatever it is, is no longer made locally. It is made by Madison Avenue and Hollywood. The old have been estranged from the young; and the coming of alien people out of the southwest is scattering and diluting us. In my formative years, the graveyard working was awash with kids - infants, adolescents, teenagers and young adults. This year, I was among the very youngest; and I am fifty-eight. Perhaps with this entry, a tiny piece of "our" history will be archived in "Chronicles" and therein chronicled.
"I love Biloxi, [Mississippi] - where else can you lose a wallet and have someone mail it to you"
Actually, New York City - I kid you not. I once left my pocketbook on the subway and a few days later someone mailed it to me with a note "I found your pocketbook. There was no phone number, so I mail it to you." Fortunately, I had no credit cards and only about $3 in money in the bag. The money was gone, but I doubt that the person who mailed me the bag was the one who stole it.
My comments above are in no way intended to be an insult to the people of Mississippi. I have never visited the Deep South, but my father did in the 1950's. He once told me that the people in Mississippi were the most polite, friendly people he'd ever met. And he is not someone who gives compliments often.
It seems that History in the world is in fact the story of inevitable oppression (since perfect balance is not possible but approximate balance is requisite); and automatically the corresponding reaction to oppression for better and for worse.
For example some cultures in reaction polish the lie and call it truth; while other cultures in reaction polish the fantasy and call it truth. But the truth underlying the reaction is that in being (or having become) conceptual creatures we all literally need to believe truth can be known.
Although the truth is it cannot per se be known, as if observed, since it is in effect a living dynamic, or process, which includes in human or conceptual creatures the literal (biological) need for belief.
So we are paradoxical creatures by nature or by mother Nature in that regard NEEDING biologically for our development to believe in the possibilities preculuded by nature. How well that dynamic itself is considered by those who write history probably reflects both on how wise as well as on how accurate is the story or history they tell.
Probably the most fascinating aspect of nature herself is that she is paradoxical too in having apparently permitted the possibility for one of her creatures to literally pause in the process of unconscious thought - in the limbo of the conceptual (i.e. at first the imaginary) - and thus squeezing the thought process up into the newer area of consciousness or awareness of it. That results in the double or paradoxical reality in human beings of not only being aware like the other creatures but in being aware of being aware.
That literal pause and ensuing paradoxical reality is the platform so to speak (language) for the telling of history. Which includes the varying degrees of wisdom and accuracy the different authors include depending on their own lights, as it were.
This has been a [brief] description of the history of history; as opposed to [boxerShorts.] ... Thus began humor.
Soon we had to get fully dressed and go to work. UGH.
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