TOK History Unit

The last time I studied history in school was in 10th grade and learning history from a Korean public school made it seem as if history was a list, a series of events that students memorized to learn. Perhaps this was due to how classes were taught and how I received the information. There was no questioning the veracity of statements nor the reliability of evidence. If the textbook said it was, it was, and that shaped my perception of history: an inflexible subject with list of unquestionable facts. However, this history unit in ToK shattered my perception and suggested not simply an opposite of my previous conception of history but an extreme view of history. I came out of this unit now with the idea that history is not a collection of facts, but a subjective, manipulative narrative of events. However, more importantly, I feel like that history could never be history for me.

In “What are Historical Facts,” Carl Becker suggests that historical “facts” become facts because of the value they have to us. History does not shape us; we shape history. Becker acknowledges the inability of the historian to present any actual event in its entirety. Among the wide selections of affirmations, the historian chooses what to include and what not to. He writes, “The event itself, the facts, do not say anything, do not impose any meaning. It is the historian who speaks, who imposes a meaning.” There is a great power humans have over shaping history, but he implies something even perhaps more detrimental to the subjectivity of history. Our manipulation of the selection of these “affirmation” “...become historical facts, capable of doing work, ..only when someone, you or I, brings them alive in our mind by means of pictures, images or ideas of the actual occurrence.” He implies that imagination, a way of knowing that has a high potential to be subjective, is the controlling factor that makes history valuable to us.

This fundamental aspect of how history becomes history leads to the ToK concept of perception and the discussion of frames. In the perception unit, students learn how all senses are limited with a frame that can shaped by a variety of factors. A prime example of this is the different hues of colors aborigines can physically detect. Raised in a natural environment where blue and green hues are critical for survival, aborigines categorize to what seems the same color as two distinct colors. All observations we make will have a bias that can be innate or fostered through our environment.

The Star Trek episode shines light on how history can be “selected” and passed on. The Voyagers decision to recharge the power cells reflect an universal human morality. The Voyagers felt it was moral to let the genocide that occurred on the planet be known because they valued in the protection of human life and the prevention of genocide; they shared mutual disgust towards mass murder. Had they been the leaders in the genocide, would the genocide of the inhabitants on the planets be forever erased? Subjective values often become the basis of our selection consciously and subconsciously.

As discussed in class, primary documents are nothing but frames and selection, another example being Anne Frank’s diary. How are historians to elicit the “correct” and “true” sections of the document from personal documents that can be so shaky in its foundation? Of course there are ways to solidify the validity of an event, but there are times where our sentiments and simply us get in the way of examining a historical document with critical eyes. Aren’t we perhaps a bit too reliant on the events recorded in Anne Frank’s diaries? Are we so compelled and mesmerized by it because of the rare material of document of this kind or the hardships that her people faced?

However, I may be confused and feeling uncertain about history because I’m caught in my own definition of history. If some people believe that history should constitute of events of what people thought were important, then the selection process does not become a hindrance but a guide that indicates what people valued.

Despite this, history should still have its purpose to narrate the lives of the people in a less biased and selecting way that does not force an opinion or value to the learners of history. It should remain, if it ever were, to be fair in its representation of events that can perhaps be attained with the efforts of various historians with various beliefs.

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