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Re: revisionism
In a message dated 6/21/01 9:43:36 AM Central Daylight Time,
dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu writes:
<< The only time I hear the term is when it seems that
people feel their sacred cows (whatever they are) to be threatened. It looks
to me like what happens is this: since humans are storytelling animals, we
construct our identity in terms of stories. >>
In my limited sphere (never went to college, not a lot of contact with
intellectuals, - at least in quite a few years.) my understanding of the
phrase *revisionist history* is that it is an attempt to retell a story in a
less than honest way. Leaving out certain parts that may contradict the
particular story you wish to tell and adding other parts that have no foot in
reality - of couse the writer may think it does - but I mean no foot in
reality as most people would see it. There may be a small handful of books to
be found that agree but the vast majority would say hogwash. One big example
of what I mean would be those who try to tell us that the holocost never
happened.
History may be the telling of stories but it is supposed to be an attempt
of telling peoples stories as honestly and truthfully as possible.
The history books I've felt I learned from most are the ones that tell the
story of a people, not just facts, their motives, passions, and fears, and
how those influenced their actions. Morison's *Oxford History of the American
People* comes to mind.
well, going to have ta leave the vast majority of letters unread until
tomorrow because trizzle trazzle trozzle trum, it's time for this one to - go
to bed.
kevin
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