After reading the quote discuss with your peers your reflections, questions, statements about your reaction to the quote. Encourage others to respond to your thinking.
"One of the most admirable things about history is, that almost as a rule we get as much information out of what it does not say as we get out of what it does say. And so, one may truly and axiomatically (fundamentaly) aver this, to-wit: that history consists of two equal parts; one of these halves is statements of fact, the other half is inference, drawn from the facts. To the experienced student of history there are no difficulties about this; to him the half which is unwritten is as clearly and surely visible, by the help of scientific inference, as if it flashed and flamed in letters of fire before his eyes. When the practised eye of the simple peasant sees the half of a frog projecting above the water, he unerringly infers the half of the frog which he does not see. To the expert student in our great science, history is a frog; half of it is submerged, but he knows it is there, and he knows the shape of it." - (The Secret History of Eddypus)
4 comments:
History is indeed a statement and fact. Throughout history facts and statements have been challenged, which then becomes inference drawn from the facts. Whether you are an experienced student of history or not, there will always be difficulties and different views coming from an opposing side.
This is an interesting quote indeed. I like the comparison of the submerged frog to the unwritten part of history to illustrate how it can be known even if unseen. Even so, I believe that much of the history of the world is truly lost to us beyond inference, such as by a lack of keeping of records or the destruction of such records through time. This can be seen by the lack of knowledge regarding many ancient and native civilizations. Through various means such as archeology, we can often know the general “shape” of that history, but we cannot know the specifics and even this generalized history is often mistaken. In addition, much of the information of history has been purposely buried and destroyed by powerful groups, such as governments, kings and religious groups. This is evident even in recent times. There is much of our own American history that many of us cannot know, because the accounts of the information has been kept secret. Project MKULTRA is a prime example of this. It was a CIA-led investigation into various forms of mind control, interrogation techniques, behavior modification and coercion that included tests of such methods on American and Canadian citizens without their knowledge or consent. The truth of the highly-questionable project was kept secret for many years. In fact, many of the records of the project were intentionally destroyed to bury the project's existence. A few mis-filed pages survived and gives us a very small picture of what actually happened. This event then demonstrates how history can be lost beyond inference and how if some small portion of the truth survives, recovered from the ruins of history, we can indeed infer the shape of that history.
This is true, using common sense, we are able to assume simple details that are not written in the history books. We can see the out line of the "frog" under the water. One can put together some facts of a historical event, seeing the end result as well, one could determine the details that fill in the body of the "frog'.
History can be seen as a half-submerged frog from what we see it as today. We can imagine what the bottom half looks like from what we know about frogs (the past) and based on what we can see above the surface (present). But what if we’re only assuming what’s under the murky water? What if there’s some missing detail to what we’re imagining to be the bottom half of the frog?
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