Civil War historian Gary
Gallagher offered his incisive thoughts about the difference between “history”
and “memory” in a recent lecture.
I want to add some of my
comments about “history that didn’t happen.” Nick Sacco also offers some
comments on his blog, “Exploring The Past.” Sacco says “Too often . . . our memories can lead us to think of
historical events as inevitable.” I think this is a vital point that too many
historians, professionals and laymen, don’t give enough attention.
It's important to emphasize
that people and groups in the past continually faced decision options and
critical choices and conflicting imperatives to act, as we do now. People and
groups in the past continually made unique decisions in the face of
uncertainties and competing exigencies, as we do now.
The "history" of an individual or a group or a nation is a
distinct track, forward in time, of decisions and choices and events, some
discretionary, some imperative, some unavoidably random. This process continues
through a welter of known and unknown alternatives. This ever-changing process
of life is unique in retrospect, but it is increasingly, incomprehensibly
variable and complex as we consider the prospects for the future at any point
in time.
The folks who lived and made history in the past literally didn’t know
how everything was going to turn out. Only we know that. Inevitably, that tends
to color our judgment and understanding of what actually happened in the past.
Sacco paraphrases Gallagher: “. . . history students oftentimes confuse
history and memory as being one in the same, and these confusions can lead to
questionable interpretations of primary source documents. . . in any historical
event there’s a certain sequence of complexities and contingencies that shape
the outcome of that event (history). But how we remember that event (memory)
can be at odds with what actually happened at the time.”
I disagree with one of Gallagher’s observations: “it doesn’t matter
what happened, it’s what we think happened.” My own view is that what
actually happened does matter. Quite often it’s not easy to know this in
satisfactory detail, even with the investment of honest effort. There are far
too many examples of mistaken or self-serving “memories” of a preferred version
of history, with far too much political/social/economic damage done in the name
of such perverted historical “truths”, and far too many bodies strewn on false,
treacherous and perfidious memory lanes.
I think there is no preventive cure for this debasement of history.
I think there is only the honorable pursuit of understanding our past
in its full, historical context, with willingness to welcome insight into what
the actors thought they were doing, and how they justified their actions at the
time.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2014
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