What’s wrong with revisionist history
Aside from the obvious moral dilemma that happens from out right distortion of established truth, there are other reasons to oppose revisionist history.
Let’s define what we mean
First let’s define what we are talking about. History as we usually define it means the linear passing of time established by a record of facts by persons or their contemporaries usually through witnessed observations often written or otherwise recorded along the line of the lifetime of those participants.
Can actual history be distorted? Yes. People lie, or simply ignore certain truth in their oral, written, audio, video or otherwise recorded timeline.
But I would argue, is it a lie, if EVERYONE in the time line acknowledges the events of that timeline regardless if facts are hidden or otherwise ever brought to light in any lifetime? Kind of like the old expression: if a tree fell in the woods and nobody heard it, did it make a noise? Most people might say it did (because in a world of natural science past observance says it does occur). However, we don’t know how it fell, or why. Or if it fell at all. Maybe it was pushed over by a great gust of wind, or pushed by a bear, or by too many raccoons hanging off one side. I would argue all of that is irrelevant. But revisionist historians try to “re-invent” history from known facts, by speculating on ‘irrelevant’ questions by interjecting speculative answers into the timeline based on their own thoughts, opinions or experiences.
Thus they will answer when the tree fell or was pushed and all the noises in the forest at the time. More, they will speculate on how it was first planted there and all the unseemly things that perhaps transpired upon it during its growth.
And while the story may seem natural, possible and maybe even probable; there are no facts. Except that MAYBE something similar happened to another tree somewhere else that was observed and seems like it COULD have happened to that tree too.
The problem with revisionist history is that often it is contrary to observed factual history. But, unfortunately it makes it into recent history and primary school books anyway. Some times by “adding” unverified facts. More often by just deleting known facts (or by “re-interpreting” them to fit revisionist beliefs).
Now that we have our definition of both history and revisionist history let’s look at the BIG problems behind revisionist history.
The BIG picture gets repainted.
The biggest problem I see is that the BIG picture changes. It’s not like painting in a new tree in the foreground of a previously painted nature scene (although that would be bad enough). It’s more like painting over a nature scene and turning it into a moon or other planetary landscape. By that I mean, if you ‘re-paint’ the life of one person, a domino effect occurred where other people in that lifeline are now cast in new roles and new motives are applied to everything in their surroundings. While speculation is fine, it should never alter the original big picture without absolute concrete facts to back it up. When one picture is totally repainted it changes the rest of the story in that book.
It’s not about you
Generally, this is behind revisionist history. Our current disillusionment, disappointments, bad experiences and attitude and temperament colors our world. We have a tendency to paint the past as we see the present. Even if our view of the present is distorted. It’s how we make sense of the world. Suddenly we see bravery as just selfish opportunity, self-sacrifice as a corruptive need of priorities. It couldn’t actually be bravery or self-sacrifice, that’s not the world we live in. We make the past about us. We make it ALL about us.
Change the past, change the future.
Smarter writers than I have theorized this. Verne. Wells. Asimov. Clarke. Spielberg. In their stories the protagonist tried to alter the past to prevent a horrible future. We don’t have any real world experience to test that theory. But if it were true, then could this corollary be true? If we ‘revision’ history does it explain a horrible present? But there is another principal at work here: those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. If we revise history to the place where it is no longer real, we can’t learn necessary lessons. When we don’t know the difference between truth or conjecture how do we know what mistakes to avoid?
An all clean or an all dirty America
Our need to rationalize our beliefs sometimes make us want to scrub our version, sanitized to our perception of reality. More often than not, we fall into two opposing camps: a completely utopian America or a completely corrupt one. Thus our revisions of history must fit both our narrative and our perception. The real problem is: neither version is real.
Even atheists and agnostics could learn a good lesson from the Bible here. The Bible declares that all have sinned, none are good. Then the Bible ‘proves’ this by showing that every good man in the Bible made horrible mistakes, terrible crimes and failures. Every man. (Jesus was not a good man. He was a good God.) Then these ‘bad’ men, did impossibly good things when they turned to a good God who empowered them.
Now if this is true, then each of us have the power to great harm or great good depending upon how we are empowered. That means American history is filled with great good and great bad. If we scrub away the bad, we are doomed to repeat it, as we won’t learn the lessons those consequences teach us. If we ignore the good we lose the hope that those bright spots inspire. Instead of conjecture we should read, absorb and teach history the way it simply comes down to us: the good, the bad, the ugly. An acquaintance of mine used to say it this way: “Warts and all.” Then, neither us, nor your children or grandchildren will fall prey to ignorance. And, maybe, just maybe can be empowered for good.
If we are going to error, error for tradition
As I said when I first began this essay. People can lie. Maybe some of the history that has come down to us has some truth hidden away from our sight. It is still not right that we speculate on that nor look for other motives. We teach what we KNOW. If we do error, let us error on the side of hope. Not that we accept error, or untruth. But that we trust what has come down to us is what was meant to come down to us, purposefully, justly, maybe even divinely. Until, or unless more clarifying truth comes down to us in the natural course of our own history, let’s error on the side of what is, rather than what might be.
Do unto others
You’re no villain. Yet. I mean my grandfather was full of humor, loved a good practical joke. But he was no clown. He was deputy sheriff and coordinated a rescue in one of Ohio’s deadliest train wrecks. He was a serious, sober hard working man. But of what little was written of him during his lifetime, (some of the best funny moments) some of his great grandchildren thought he must have been a clown. You are no villain (although I’m reasonably sure you and I have made mistakes like the ‘good’ men previously noted in the bible). You might leave a great legacy and pass down noble works. But in only a handful of generations an inspired revisionist could turn all your good intentions on their ear with his explanation of the psychology of your motives. Your name could be passed down in the company of great villains. This is why we should not allow this in our lifetime. Let established fact be our witness in our lifetime, and let us hold that regard for those in our past. Hopefully a future generation will do so as well. Again, you are no villain. Yet.
Fiction or non-fiction
Seems like these days, the entertainment consumer doesn’t know a difference. NBC aired the series “The Bible” and continues a new series called “The Bible A.D”. With the Bible translated into more than a thousand versions and languages, you would think that the writers would only have to interject some occasional dialogue to present the greatest story ever told. But anyone who has watched theses shows and has even a simple ‘Sunday school’ understanding of the material has scratched their heads and said “What!!?!?” At any of the episodes. Going way beyond speculation and interjecting whole new narratives, most completely contrary to God’s written word. The defense is always, “it was added for its entertainment value. We were trying to add some drama.” (Or realism, or conflict, or add any other creative word that comes to mind) They will usually end with: “it’s basically the same story we just added to it.” Real Christians know the real story, and wince, or laugh, or turn the tv off. The problem is, the Biblically ignorant think they have been fed real scripture. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to correct professing believers who got their whole doctrine not from the Bible, but from a movie, TV series or TV commercial ad (remember the Orville Reddenbacher popcorn commercials of the woman at Heaven’s gate. “And what did you do in your lifetime to deserve getting into Heaven?” I’ll bet a few readers here don’t know the answer to that question is ‘nothing we have done deserves getting into Heaven’. Hint: it is a gift of God, and that not of ourselves lest any man should boast.) and this is what revisionist history does to our country: feed confusion, muddle motives, speculate ‘facts’, and distort the big picture. Worse. In three generations you can have three genuinely held yet oddly contradicting versions of the same historical ‘facts”, further widening the generation gap. I genuinely believe this is partially responsible for the widening disparities in this country presently in its views on politics, race, gender, and social history. Many, many ‘experts’ presenting widely diverse revisionist histories on the same events. Maybe in this case histories might be the wrong word; ‘opinions’ might be the better word. Opinions these days seem to carry as much weight as fact. As I said, much of our current generation can’t separate fiction from non-fiction nor history from ‘interpretation’ (opinion).
It’s just bad form
If no other argument stands, then let this one. We don’t let bullies run rough shod. We don’t let the loudest shout down the meek. We don’t base equality on race or wealth. If we let anyone, without provable facts, change the noble history of those before us, who cannot stand and defend themselves in the present we have allowed the bad guy his win. This is bad form. As a nation we are better than this.
