Fiction vs History?

[Ghetta Life]

>From: "Otto" <ottosell at yahoo.de>
>
> > >
> > >At 5:45 PM -0700 10/22/04, aleach67 at mac.com wrote:
> > >Just because the line between black and white is blurred by a whole lot 
>of grey does not mean there is no black or white.  Eliminating defined 
>distinctions is regressing to pre-cognition not moving toward 
>metacognition.
> >
>
>A nice example of logocentrism. Nice binary oppositions.
>
>history vs fiction
>black vs white
>pre-cognition vs metacognition

You are so intent on seeing binary opposition that you ignore what is being 
said.  She recognized the greys, but wanted to point out that black & white 
still exist:  History does not equal fiction.

> > This really is the whole point of this discussion.  This is why calling 
>history nothing more than fiction is pernicious.
> > Ghetta
>
>
>Is it really? Isn't it more just challenging the claim that History makes, 
>that it is able to state a defining "Truth" -- as if there couldn't be 
>contexts/times in which a stated and widely accepted truth turns into a 
>lie?
>I don't think that "history [is] nothing more than fiction," but to forget 
>the implications that it inevitably includes a certain amount of 
>fictionality* too is in every case pernicious. Because having the power to 
>define the last truth is a way to inquisition. That's pernicious.
>
>*Rob has called it correctly "select, arrange and interpret textual data."
>
>History is the propaganda of the winners. But things can change. Moreover, 
>they *will* change.

"Truth" is in the realm of God.  And it is the strawman that you constantly 
prop up.

One could say that "History" is static, but that accounts of it are not.  
That's pretty obvious.  And calling these accounts fiction is a disservice 
to what are the goals of history.  Some might want conciously to skew 
history to their ends, but there are historians who have a higher goal than 
that.  Of course the same is true for journalism, as I pointed out earlier.  
In fact I'd say history is much closer to journalism than it is to fiction.

Ghetta

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