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Mindanaotoday.com | The past is absolute, but never history By RAI Bollozos Sanchez
Mindanaotoday.com | The past is absolute, but never history
RAI Bollozos Sanchez | Historyahe!
HI there!
Today is the 83rd Commencement Exercises of Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan.
While I was attending as one of the ushers of the event, seeing those graduating students made me look back, asking myself, where will I be in my historical commentaries?
Eight years ago, during my graduation, I had this conviction that history changes and its interpretation have never been absolute.
Because it persistently revolves over “time and space.” Though the past has been consistent, history has evolved through time. Still relying upon the fundamental questions of “what” and “why.”
Moving forward, in one of my reaction papers from required readings for my master of arts, Beverly Southgate’s History: What and Why? The author stated, “history knows it can wait for more evidence and review its older verdicts; it offers an endless series of courts of appeal and is ready to reopen closed cases.”
Historical arguments may never end. Therefore, historical discourses are absolute.
There are the oppressors, and there are the faultless victims.
There are primary actors; there are the peripheral fatalities.
Moreover, understanding the nuances it exposes progresses as time moves forward.
For example, the history of Martial Law is an endless pursuit of an ever-changing quest to protect not the truth but what is right and just.
Thus, every historian’s challenge is sustaining “honest history.”
I am a follower of Postmodern history, which never distorts the truth but re-evaluates the evidential facts based on historical movements but varying reflections from diverse experiences.
Thus, history as a movement includes perceptions, imaginative or pictorial representations, acts of conceptual thought, conjectures or doubts, joys and pains, hopes and fears, and wishes of the human consciousness.
For me, history is a science, art, and philosophy whose pedagogies are the most essential schema to follow.
There are methods before one should claim a portion of the past is historically viable.
Historical facts are based on the data gathered through deep historical research.
Based on the reading, history may be retold or perhaps recontextualized. Many are confused “what are these processes?”
However, in reality, there is. There are processes to be implied and sources to be considered to make a singular narrative historically feasible.
The historical approach is an intricate art of deducing and inducing corroborative sources. Which, in turn, is a continuous process of education of historical studies.
The lack of these methods makes the historian susceptible to “historical distortion.”
History connects the past, the present, and the future. Making the past, the interpretation of history does not predict the future but subsequent.
The challenge, however, is that we view history as infinitely dominated by the parochial understanding of the past, which is lopsided for me.
In historical studies, there is a spectrum of truths. Or should I say, “what may be true to others will be lies to many – vice versa?” That itself makes history very human.
Our society should understand that history and the past are different. The past is what happened, so it cannot be changed. Because history is evolving all the time. History is an intellectual discipline, and every generation rewrites its history.
As humanity and society develop, the pursuit of understanding history becomes endless.
History should not be insular. Thus, the challenge of every historian to sustain.
To avoid such, historical sources should be re-studied intellectually to open various historical perspectives and reopen what has been under the dearth.
Because spectrums are endless loops of what is honest, sometimes, falses become honest opinions.
Therefore, historians are critical of presenting what is deemed suitable for humanity. (MT)
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