Lucile ToK Unit: History

          The minute I entered my class today, my history teacher asked me to talk about ToK in relation to history. I immediately began ranting about Carl Becker’s article “What are historical facts?”. The author asks the reader three questions: “What is the historical fact?, “Where is the historical fact?” and finally “When is the historical fact?”. According to him, and justifiably so, the historical fact is an abstract account of a past event, it only exists in the human mind and it is past, present and future. In other words, the historical fact is quite ambiguous. Let me just say, those answers absolutely ruined my perception of history. I found myself agreeing with him and questioning all the historical knowledge I have amassed over the years. Thanks Carl.

       On a more serious note, I really do agree with him. Having studied in both a French and American educational system, I was taught history from two different perspectives. However, in either system I have always absorbed the information I was given as true. Yet, the more I thought of it and the more I saw how society can often, mistakenly, view history as true and objective because it presents “cold hard facts”. The reality of it is, history is open to interpretation by each and everyone of us. Which makes me think, is objectivity attainable in history? 

        I just began studying the practices of the Second World War, recently focusing on the Holocaust. Based on various accounts and representations of the events (pictures, stories, diaries, etc.) we know it happened. Yet, the way it happened and the meaning given to the Holocaust varies greatly from person to person. This event was a horrific mass murder, however the gravity of it can be taken up a level in certain Jewish communities while it might be toned down in other parts of the world.  This brings up the concept of perception as a way of knowing and cultural frames. I want to take this one step further and introduce the idea of a historical frame. Can your history determine your perception of events? Is the historical fact itself affected by your past? Surely it is. Any information presented about the Holocaust can be taken with more gravity by a Jewish person compared to someone whose past is less affected by it. ***** In the end, several accounts of the Holocaust can be made. There actually is a term in history that can seem similar to what I just mentioned: historiography or the history of history. Historiography keeps track of the multiple records that have been made about past events and the methodology through which those records have been made. Thus, it is a more professional and measured manner of acknowledging that history varies between individuals, compared to my proposal of having historical frames shape knowledge and perception. In both cases, several interpretations can be collected. 

           Now, going back to Carl Becker. He can say all he wants about the historical fact existing only in the mind or being an abstract account, I can only partially agree with him because his assertion implies that history is significantly biased. Yes, it is true, in my opinion, that humans give meaning to a fact and that a fact by itself has limited meaning. If I were to rant about the French revolution to my dog, surely she'd wag her tail and walk away, never giving any thought to it. However, Paulina and I were discussing this earlier today, it is not correct to say that a picture of a Jewish mass grave during the Holocaust (for example) holds no information by itself. Literally, the fact is there. You can touch it, you can see it. And I find it safe to say that more than one person will deduce the same type of information from it. Thus, I want to re-explore Carl Becker’s idea and emphasize that although the historical fact can exist in the physical world, it only attains a certain meaning through the human mind. The Star Trek episode supports this claim. The memorial that the Voyager crew finds is a physical account of a past event, something happened and that is why the memorial is there. In itself, it holds a limited meaning. However, it is only when the crew experience the full extent of the memorial’s existence that history takes shape and a deep meaning is attained. Thus, historical accounts point the way towards particular types of conclusions instead of arbitrary interpretation. 

            I realize I have made very strong assertions, and worked little with different perspectives. Instead I chose to discuss how a historical fact is, and how meaning and objectivity are attained in history. Throughout this process, I came to the conclusion that the historical fact is not entirely abstract, but only attains deeper meaning if processed by the human mind. Although the array of interpretation in history makes it seems like there is too much room for bias, having several accounts and perspective about just one event can aid to construct a more objective and complete picture of said events. In this way, the closest I can get to objectivity is through historiography and acknowledging everybody lives and interprets history differently based on historical frames and, indeed, the facts that they have access to. 

Word Count: 892

***** Really (really) important: knowing the Holocaust is a delicate subject to touch on, I want to clarify that in this paragraph I am in no way undermining the gravity and awfulness of the Holocaust.