The Problem of History

History is doomed to repeat itself. Or so we're told.

But is recently in a discussion of film realism involving post-WWII combat films, my professor used the term "History with a capital H." Now I've read Wicked where there is a difference between Animals and animals, where Animals had elevated to a heightened state of being (think the Cowardly Lion). I've also had discussions on the difference between art and Art and how perception forces things into different categories with the same name.

So history and History should be no different, right? But here's the problem. History with a capital H speaks to the higher concept. What really happened and when. History with a lowercase h is defined individually, by society, teachers, and our own interpretation of ideas and events as we experience them. So because we are human, History is never perceptible to anyone. Because no matter how we experience or hear about an event, there is a filter on it. This filter is either our personal experience of said event, how we discuss the event with someone who saw it, or how we're exposed to the event through secondary, tertiary, or further diluted sources and how we react to these sources. The power behind this extension of the theory that "Perception is Reality" means that History is impossible.

So think about it. This BP oil spill, the 9/11 disaster, the War on Terror, Bush v Gore, The Vietnam War, The Civil War, The Revolutionary War, The French Revolution, The Fall of Rome, Adam and Eve. Did any of that really happen the way we think it did? How do we react to this kind of realization that your interpretation of this blog changes your history, when the actual History of it is unknown to any of us? No matter what, I think the bottom line is that we should respect History with the utmost care, because it is the one thing on this earth, that no matter what you believe, you will never understand.