HISTORY IS A LIE COMMONLY

AGREED UPON
Research Paper
Author: Ibaad Kalim (07001)

History is a narration of the events which have happened among mankind,

including an account of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great
changes which have affected the political and social condition of the human
race (J.Anderson, 1876).

The above statement merely defines the history, but it is important to

identify the difference between History and Past in order to analyse any
one of them. What is past? In simple words, past is all that has happened, all
that has occurred, all that has been faced, all that has been established, all
that has been lived. As John J. says, history is the narration of past, that is
the recorded past, it is the study of historiography. Historiography is defined
as the writings of historians, their findings and their narrations of those
findings. Through these writings, historians bring past back into the present
in order for readers and people to understand it. In addition to, history is
someones view of point while it interprets and presents it to the people, it
included his or her perceptions and assumptions which differentiates it from
the past. Moreover, the historians have always focused more on power and
men, the narrations of armies, battles and defeats explicitly proves this
point, while past involved everything of which, some was neglected.
Therefore, historians perspectives are different compared to normal people
which is a key point in differentiating the history and past.

It is important that we must not believe historians to be writers of fictions,

there are certain limits to writes, and they have to prove rationally according
to the time and place which involves continuous research and methods.

There are three main problematic areas in writing history, epistemology,

methodology and ideology for historians. Epistemology is the term used by
Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier, which is also known as the
theory of knowledge. What did you know, really? How did you arrive at it?
These are the two main questions that epistemology raises about knowledge
and therefore is fundamental to how we think. It argues that knowledge is
fragile, firstly, the past is in bulk. All of the past cannot be recorded and
therefore it questions the fragility of our knowledge from history. Secondly,
there is no proper and authentic verification of the history, it cannot be
checked or compared with anything, and therefore it is fracturable.
Moreover, history, which is a narration, relies upon someones eyes, there is
an interpreter between us and the history. Therefore, the history can be
polluted with his or her own viewpoints and beliefs, and if we are able to
know the true past, it is highly probable that our viewpoint will differ from
the historians viewpoints. Lastly, the epistemology states that history is less
than past, that is only fragments were recorded. It stresses the concept of
hindsight in this situation, as we know more about the people in past than
they knew themselves, and the coming generation will know more about us
than we know about ourselves at the present moment.
Historical methodology is the process of collecting evidence and
formulating ideas about the past by historians. It is the framework through
which an account of past is constructed. The question is why do we need
methodology? It is to find the truth, to discover how true and accurate the
evidences and traditions of our past. Historical evidence have several
forms, most importantly the primary sources. These sources consist of the
original documents, artifacts and informational pieces at the time of the
event. For instance, if we are working on World War II, the primary sources
can be the letters of soldiers to their girlfriends and wives. Secondary
sources are the analysis of the primary ones that is through books and
writings of different people. Another source is the oral tradition that is
never recorded, but passed on verbally from time to time. Historians
debate whether it can be considered as the primary sources or not,
however the authenticity of oral traditions is difficult to determine, which
can eventually affect the authenticity of our history. But the crux of the
methodology relies upon the historians themselves, they need some
concepts to apply to find whether their methodology is right. This includes
time, evidences, empathy, cause and effect, continuity and change and
many others which indirectly improves their work on our past. A famous
war history writer, Samuel E. Morrison says, Historical methodology, as I
see it, is a product of common sense applied to circumstances which
shows that historians own thinking and concepts plays a vital role in
writing the history.

Epistemology says, the bridge between past and history is very difficult to
overcome, therefore historians develop ways to reduce their influence
while writing the history. While working, historians take some values,
positions, ideological perspective and epistemological presuppositions
with themselves. They generate hypothesis, formulate extraction and
organize data. They have technical language that is they use jargons and
have predefined routines and procedures in order to work in proper way.
They need to account for everything, they trace each and every sources
and piece of data which also includes traces that have already been
discovered. Lastly, they reproduce these traces through writings on which
they face social, cultural, political and economical pressures.

Every social group, it holds-the liberal bourgeoisie, for example develops

its own conceptual apparatus, certain peculiar methods and a specific
style of thinking adapted to its social position. Every pattern of thought,
every philosophical or other cultural product belongs to the specific social
group with which it originated and with whose existence it is bound up.
These patterns of thought are ideologies. It designates a theory of social
life which approaches the facts from the point of view of an ideal, and
interprets them, consciously or unconsciously, to prove the correctness of
its analysis and to justify that ideal. Thus every ideological construction
involves the projection of a certain ideal into the future, into the
evaluation of the present, and into the past. (S.Roucek, 1944))
Great ideology creates great times (Kim Jong II). Ideology refers to the way
in which people think about the surroundings and their ideal concept of
how things should work in the world. As a result, ideology holds a
significant value among humans, and so the historians needs to present
the right and useful ideology in their writings. Certain history which is
dominant has no ideology at all which means historians have to develop
an ideology for those pieces of history. The main reason for ideology is
because history is not for oneself, it is for someone, and thus it needs to
impact someone in order to make a difference. Imagine, if stories of Hitler
were presented as an amazing and just leader, which shows how powerful
the ideology of history can be for nations and races in our world. Through
ideology, the way of thinking and perceptions are influenced. The stories
of Hitler have influenced our thoughts about him perceiving him as a
cruel, ruthless and a murderer. Now the question is can historians
deliberately emphasize an ideology which is unethical or based on
falsehood. The answer without any second thought, is a YES.

History has been manipulated and presented to the world in the different
way many times in the past. Lets take an example from Hollywood, 2006
movie named 300 directed by one of the country highest paid and senior
director, Zack Snyder. This is the story of 300 Spartans blocking the
invading army of Persians in 480 B.C. For the record, there were 7000
Spartans rather 300 as shown in the movie because the Greek City States
had formed an alliance sending all the warriors they had to stop the
Persians. Since, the Western World do not approve of Persia (modern Iran),
they had to present the history in a way that showed Spartans as the real
heroes despite the fact they lost the battle. This perception was created
through by showing how 300 men almost defeated the hundreds of
thousands of Persians. Lastly, Zack Snyder should have known that the
Persians are known for fair colour which he showed the opposite in the
movie.

Conclusively, to answer the topic, History is a lie commonly agreed upon,

we need to consider some facts. It would be false to say that all of the
history is interpretation which means it holds no truth. Historians do take
into account all the facts about an event and continuously research to
gain better and accurate results. Therefore, if a battle was fought on a
specific time, the historians have to write and present according to that
specific time and place. However, the other side of this argument is that
the fact is winners make the history. With that said, winners are the one
who write the history or creates evidences. Also, the word lie conveys
something intentional, a deliberate attempt to mislead and distort for
some nefarious purpose. I would like to wrap up on a thought that both
raises the questions in our minds, and answers some of them, which is
those who control the present, controls the past, and those who controls
the past eventually controls the future.

References
Borghini, A. (n.d.). Philosophy Expert. Retrieved from
http://philosophy.about.com/od/Philosophical-Branches/a/Epistemology.htm
J.Anderson, J. (1876). A Manual of General History.
S.Roucek, J. (1944). Journal of history of ideas Vol. 5. University of Pennesylvania
Press.
Sullivan, N. (n.d.). historical Methodology: Evidence and Interpretation. Retrieved
from http://study.com/academy/lesson/historical-methodology-evidence-
and-interpretation.html