History - A Matter of Perspective

I have come to the conclusion that History, World History, U.S. History, Ancient History, Biblical History, and even our own Personal Histories, are all a matter of perspective and only a few details are tied to actual evidence and documented irrefutable proof. 

I think telling the history of events happening today, 100 years from now, will be more accurate than the history we teach our children about events that have occurred 100 years ago now. This will be primarily due to video, audio, and technological evidence.  As a matter of record, being able to transcribe word for word a conversation or speech or comment, from a recorded  clip, makes it more reliable and accurate.  The how and why and where history occurred will become a matter of evidenciary research and teaching.

We have always relied on history books, the writings and translations and stories retold through the generations.  Accuracy of historical details can be easily skewed and twisted depending on who the story teller is and the vantage point they represent.

I see this in my own personal life as my siblings and I recall details and events of our childhood.  The history is different depending upon what vantage point is being represented.

If something as simple as family history can be vastly different in a the span of only one generation, imagine the difference in decades and centuries.  Though a grain of truth may remain somewhere in the telling of the story, much of what we are taught in school, in church, by books, and professors, is conjecture.  The evidence does not exist to prove the history undeniably.  We as humans are always seeking answers, justification, validation, and we accept facts sometimes which are not truly factual simply to provide ourselves with the comfort and peace of knowing.

Did you ever play telephone as a kid? Its a game where one person whispers something in the ear of someone else and that person passes the message on to the next person and so on and so forth until they reach the end of the line.  The last person is to say out loud what they heard and 99.9% of the time, the story has nothing to do with the initial whisper.  This is the way history has worked for us.  Someone tells the story, and someone else translates it, and 20 translations later, it simply does not resemble the story as first told.  But here is the catch, even if the story never changed, it was still told according to vantage point and memory.  History was not recorded as it happened visually or through auditory methods.

We have some history we can rely on since the mid 20th century, recordings of speeches by JFK, Roosevelt, MLK.  We have bits and pieces of truth we can count on, from recent history, but for accuracy of record as we move forward, future generations will have to rely more and more on the video and sound recordings of today's events.

History will always remain flawed in the retelling of it, but maybe if they are lucky our children's children and their children will have a more honest structure.  The time before technology will always be a genuine mystery and left to the imaginations of the story tellers of  its people, but as technology advances truth will begin to win out over fiction.

I think we have no choice but to learn the history as it is being taught, but keep an open mind and remember there are many versions of the truth, every vantage point and personality sees things differently,  the only facts you can rely on are documented in some acceptable and reliable method.  Everything else is a story. Entertaining and thought provoking, but a story none the less.  Some stories are a metaphor, some are meant to be genuine portrayals, and some are simply personal interpretation and imagination.