Today's history

“....our answer, consciously or unconsciously, reflects our own position in time, and forms part of our answer to the broader question what we take of the society in which we live.”

History is each person’s personal response to the past. My history is different from someone else’s. If history remained the same.... if we were to read the same view of the past through the centuries it stops being of any relevance to us. History becomes our reflection of the present. Facts are always present, but what historians make of them is based on how they see it in relation to who they are or who we are right now. This seems to be the reason why with the change it the government there is a change in the syllabus (history text in particular).This might have been done purposefully or unconsciously we don’t know... but the question is how many of us are aware of it. History in that sense is like the media today... you see what the reporters think you should see. The facts are the same in every news channel, but it is coloured with an individual or a group of individuals view of the matter. It is like what C.P. Scott’s motto says, ” every journalist knows today that the most effective way to influence opinion is by the selection and arrangement of the appropriate facts.”(pg.5,What is a History) .
History is about the historian’s interpretation. And Carr also reminds us that this is an ongoing process. Individuals are not free of the society that envelopes them. Is it possible for us as humans to rise above preconceived notions of the world around us to write history objectively?... is it possible for us to look beyond what the immediate boundaries of the society we live in to broaden the possibilities of the past. Do we then lose its relevance to the present? The important thing about historical facts is context. Historians themselves may see their interpretations change over time.

Also another thought that occurred to me while reading the article ,about how the auxiliary sciences of history - archeology, epigraphy, numismatics, chronology, etc. enable a historian to write history with, then wherein lies oral traditions? As most of us know in India the tradition of learning was through oral or word of mouth between student and guru/teacher. Where then does that come in our history. Are those not facts of our past? If only archeology and documents are facts since they can be verified and interpreted upon over and over again, what of the history that could not be recorded? Carr says "that history cannot be written unless the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those about whom he writes." It then seems that we are then continuously distancing ourselves from the past that is beyond a certain time. The more in the past something occurs the more difficult it seems to understands its relation to us. Forgetting history also seems to be a big part of who we are today.

Coming back to society and its relation to history we begin to reinterpret all things as a necessity. So i guess ultimately our goal in history is to understand the past and the way the past has shaped the present.