History is not simply a record of the past, it is the foundation upon which societies build their collective identity, morality, and vision of the future.
I appreciate your commitment to ensuring the purpose and continued (perpetual) relevance of studying our past. Like ourselves, as individuals, we should be bold in our probing discovery of our social history. Keep it up!
We've seen Confederate statuary and other monuments to people the left in America dislike, like Christopher Columbus, destroyed and removed, and that too is a form of erasure that we shouldn't tolerate.
I agree that is also a form of erasure and if they have not got a place anymore in modern society because they represent something that is now considered obsolete or out of step with the values we hold today, then there is still a place for them in museums, archives or private collections.
Eloquently written! RE: "Perhaps the most profound form of historical erasure in modern times is linked to colonialism.", over the past few decades in the USA there has been a lot of erasure of the usa's own past some of the erasures are replaced with false tellings that proactively are used for colonialism narratives (like "this how we did it, so it works"), in fact I first learned abut this from a woman from Africa;
California was supposed to have the same development economics the Congo had for the past fifty years.
I was told this by an Indy journalist from the Congo over ten years ago in a coffee shop in Cambridge, Mass., after they gave a presentation. I looked it up, found solid sources, and then was sure she was pretty much wrong and that any similarities that could have occurred but didn’t would have been slight. Years later, during the pandemic, an off-the-cuff comment from an ECB official about how Nicholas Biddle and development economics led me to reopen the case; she is correct. California was meant to have the development economics of the Congo, complete with legal and regulatory harmonization, nationally coordinated direction over private credit allocation, implicit but still effective state fiscal policy override mechanisms, and other things that were to assign it a fairly rigidly defined role in a continental division of labor.
There are so many lines in this essay that are enduringly quotable and have such personal resonance to me. I can't summarise it all, and you probably wouldn't find it all that interesting for me to regurgitate your essay back to you. Safe to say, though, I found this such a well-written piece. If you'll indulge me, I'd done some research and argued that the contemporary impulse is to curate - and that theory is pushing us to challenge what we think of as distinctly "human" in conventional liberal frameworks. So I write with the view of a curator who is actively trying to make sense of the past and the future as they entangled concepts. Our relation to history is bound up in our understanding of ourselves, and all that we are capable of knowing about ourselves.
The bit that resonated? "The challenge for our time is not simply to preserve history but to preserve it inclusively, critically, and honestly."
With my view of a curator, I couldn't agree more! That the act of preservation of the past, as well as the articulation & imagining of the future is as dangerous as it is creative - and enlivening.
Personal bias inevitably shapes how we view history, since our cultural background, education, and lived experiences influence which stories we emphasize and which we overlook. What one person sees as a heroic act, another may view as an injustice, and the way we interpret events often says as much about us as it does about the past.
Excitement can be found in the fact that history is not a closed book, new discoveries, whether in archives, archeological digs, or oral traditions, continually challenge established narratives and broaden our understanding. That possibility of finding something that shifts the way we see ourselves and our world is what keeps history alive and endlessly compelling.
Preserving history, I personally feel, is a collective responsibility. But even the small steps like a simple photograph, preserving of records or a recording of a first hand account are all valuable contributions.
Thank you so much for taking time to read my post, commenting and sharing. Much appreciated!
I have so many thoughts on this, but to condense them somewhat - I agree with you entirely. On your point around preserving history as a collective responsibility, I think, ethically, you and I share much in common. I'm really interested in the ethics of what we think and how we behave in the world - and what that means for the kind of worlds we're responsible for making and imagining.
More than happy to read your work - I really enjoy it. I'm trying to find a community of people I'd like to share my work with and learn from, and you're absolutely one of those people. I'll be seeing you!
I appreciate your commitment to ensuring the purpose and continued (perpetual) relevance of studying our past. Like ourselves, as individuals, we should be bold in our probing discovery of our social history. Keep it up!
Thank you, much appreciated!
We've seen Confederate statuary and other monuments to people the left in America dislike, like Christopher Columbus, destroyed and removed, and that too is a form of erasure that we shouldn't tolerate.
I agree that is also a form of erasure and if they have not got a place anymore in modern society because they represent something that is now considered obsolete or out of step with the values we hold today, then there is still a place for them in museums, archives or private collections.
Eloquently written! RE: "Perhaps the most profound form of historical erasure in modern times is linked to colonialism.", over the past few decades in the USA there has been a lot of erasure of the usa's own past some of the erasures are replaced with false tellings that proactively are used for colonialism narratives (like "this how we did it, so it works"), in fact I first learned abut this from a woman from Africa;
California was supposed to have the same development economics the Congo had for the past fifty years.
I was told this by an Indy journalist from the Congo over ten years ago in a coffee shop in Cambridge, Mass., after they gave a presentation. I looked it up, found solid sources, and then was sure she was pretty much wrong and that any similarities that could have occurred but didn’t would have been slight. Years later, during the pandemic, an off-the-cuff comment from an ECB official about how Nicholas Biddle and development economics led me to reopen the case; she is correct. California was meant to have the development economics of the Congo, complete with legal and regulatory harmonization, nationally coordinated direction over private credit allocation, implicit but still effective state fiscal policy override mechanisms, and other things that were to assign it a fairly rigidly defined role in a continental division of labor.
There are so many lines in this essay that are enduringly quotable and have such personal resonance to me. I can't summarise it all, and you probably wouldn't find it all that interesting for me to regurgitate your essay back to you. Safe to say, though, I found this such a well-written piece. If you'll indulge me, I'd done some research and argued that the contemporary impulse is to curate - and that theory is pushing us to challenge what we think of as distinctly "human" in conventional liberal frameworks. So I write with the view of a curator who is actively trying to make sense of the past and the future as they entangled concepts. Our relation to history is bound up in our understanding of ourselves, and all that we are capable of knowing about ourselves.
The bit that resonated? "The challenge for our time is not simply to preserve history but to preserve it inclusively, critically, and honestly."
With my view of a curator, I couldn't agree more! That the act of preservation of the past, as well as the articulation & imagining of the future is as dangerous as it is creative - and enlivening.
Personal bias inevitably shapes how we view history, since our cultural background, education, and lived experiences influence which stories we emphasize and which we overlook. What one person sees as a heroic act, another may view as an injustice, and the way we interpret events often says as much about us as it does about the past.
Excitement can be found in the fact that history is not a closed book, new discoveries, whether in archives, archeological digs, or oral traditions, continually challenge established narratives and broaden our understanding. That possibility of finding something that shifts the way we see ourselves and our world is what keeps history alive and endlessly compelling.
Preserving history, I personally feel, is a collective responsibility. But even the small steps like a simple photograph, preserving of records or a recording of a first hand account are all valuable contributions.
Thank you so much for taking time to read my post, commenting and sharing. Much appreciated!
I have so many thoughts on this, but to condense them somewhat - I agree with you entirely. On your point around preserving history as a collective responsibility, I think, ethically, you and I share much in common. I'm really interested in the ethics of what we think and how we behave in the world - and what that means for the kind of worlds we're responsible for making and imagining.
More than happy to read your work - I really enjoy it. I'm trying to find a community of people I'd like to share my work with and learn from, and you're absolutely one of those people. I'll be seeing you!
Thank you so much, I will take a look at your work Tom :)