The Search For True History

 Posted by Thomas Scarborough

We are all familiar, on a personal level, with the problems of history.  In fact we continually revise the small histories which we ourselves create, with words such as ‘I misjudged him,’ ‘If only I had known,’ or ‘I can't remember it for the life of me.’ Our own practice of history, therefore, is contin-ually subject to review and correction.  

Much the same is true of history on a grander scale: revisionist history in the United States, postcolonial history in former colonies, the paradigm shift in Islamic Studies, and so on.  Everywhere, history is being reinterpreted and overturned.  Where then do we find true history?  A brief exploration of the problems of history promises to help us further.

There are various problems in the field of history which are fairly unique to itself.  History is unrepeatable.  We cannot retrieve the facts if we missed them the first time.  History, too, will always represent a loss of information—a reduction of the events themselves.  No written or oral history can truly encompass all that happened in the past.  Even if we should select a small and (seemingly) manageable part of history—say, regional history, period history, or military history—this is not isolated from the whole.  Any history, no matter how big or small, is ultimately an open system, and will always run up against the limits of completeness.

Worse, we find such limits to completeness within our very selves.  As we step back to survey the world as a whole, we observe that the facts in this world are infinite—yet we ourselves are finite.  And not only are the facts infinite, but they criss-cross each other in infinite ways. There is a mismatch, therefore—between the number of facts we find in this world, and the number of facts we can combine in our minds.  It is certainly impossible to combine an infinity of facts in the mind.  Our combination of facts is always incomplete and partial—and full of holes which need to be patched with hopeful, and believing, guesses.

An infinity of facts, then, leads us to another realisation.  While we cannot obtain a complete combination of facts, we do have a kind of completeness—a finite completeness—in every one of us.  We call it our world-view—and it is within such world-views that histories exist as a kind of sub-set, being knitted into their fabric. In short, history is as subjective as we are.  We may not recognise this in our present, but we see it in our past:

Historical perspectives which in the past were highly rated may now be so unfashionable as to raise eyebrows if one merely mentions them: that history serves the purposes of the state, for instance, that it is about great men, or that it has a goal. We also see the past reflect on the present.  In our common life, we have been plagued by massive oversight.  Among other things, we have championed ideologies without foreseeing their ruin, and announced progress without recognising its devastation. In the same way, history may be written with or without crucial considerations, and no one may notice at all.

This should not be misunderstood.  The historical record deals with crucial events: the discovery of new continents, for instance, crimes against humanity, or international treaties.  All are able to teach us.  Facts do exist—and facts should not be fabricated where they do not exist.  Yet wherever we combine facts, we are selective, and in the process de-selective.  The facts, wrote the historian Charles Beard, ‘do not select themselves, or force themselves automatically into any fixed scheme of arrangement in the mind of the historian.’  We need to combine the facts in our minds, by acts of choice, conviction, and interpretation regarding values. 

For all of its problems, history will be written, and history will be read.  The question then remains: on what basis may the truth of our histories be assessed?  Did Caesar cross the Rubicon?  Was Jesus Christ crucified?  Did Marie-Antoinette really tell them to eat cake?  What shall we write about colonialism?  Has racism been on the rise?  That is, when we have done our best to appreciate the ‘facts’, how shall we judge their adequacy as history?

We know it from the movies—and from books.  We say, ‘That didn't ring true,’ or ‘That was far-fetched’—or, on the other hand, ‘That was true to life.’  Similarly we may judge history on its truth claims—namely, whether we think it represents a credible and faithful interpretation of our world, or whether it does not.  That is, history needs to be credible not merely from the point of view of its factual content, but from the point of view of what is credible in itself.  In fact there is no other basis on which we may judge history, unless the facts should definitely show us otherwise.

At first glance, this might seem to be a negative finding—a defeat in our quest for a valid or objective history.  But far rather, it suggests to us positively that every history must be a questioning, a discerning, a reading between the lines, which at its best sets us free from presuppositions.  History cannot properly be taught.  History is intelligent judgement, and truth requires independent, impartial, robust thinking to discern those arrangements of facts which are sound and those which are less than satisfactory, which press in on us every day.