History Being Written and Rewritten

History is both written and rewritten every day, the former fueled by the [major] events that occur, and the latter as part of an update to a narrative given more/new information. On its own, the rewriting of history is not an issue, mostly because the passing of time has a tendency to reveal more and more about something that we once thought we knew---that is the epitome of progress.

But what I do not agree with is the rewriting of history in a way that serves to conceal and obfuscate the context of the past just to fit a narrative of the present.

What I mean about this is the acts of deliberately throwing away bits of history because they no longer fit the current narrative trends in a bid to be ``politically correct''. Examples of these (mostly American, unfortunately) include the destruction of Confederate general statues, the thrashing of Christopher Columbus, and the outright calls for bans of novels that were written using the language of those times (like calling Black Americans ``negroes'').

Awareness is the start of progress towards a better behaviour/psyche, and these acts of destruction against values and thoughts that we no longer identify with because of how wrong they are may seem to be of good intentions (``let us ensure that our young will only know of the `correct' and `good' stuff!''), but they will end up becoming our albatrosses in the long run. The reason is simple: by destroying all these negative examples, we are robbing the future generations of precious knowledge on why these were bad and why the newer ways are right. For instance, it is hard to point out how slavery is bad when no traces of slavery's history are allowed to remain as reference---that removal of a reminder of a bad past that had occurred makes all such future discussions theoretical as opposed to being anchored solidly as a verifiable cause-and-effect sequence of events.

Instead of complete removal of confederate-era memorablia, an additional contextual plaque describing why we no longer venerate them due to the inhuman moral values that they held could be used as a teaching moment for people to learn about their people's past, why it was bad, and how it morphed into the modern day's teachings.

We should not have to atone for our forebears' sins, not because we are sinless, but because the sins of our forebears were borne of their times, and we had no part to play in the cause and subsequent effect of what our forebears have done. But we should always be aware of the sins of our forebears so that we do not commit the likes of those in turn ourselves.

Everyone likes to be remembered as being flawless, but only God can truly claim that. The best the rest of us can do is to never forget the flaws that were made before, and not repeat the same things again now. The purpose of not trashing bad history isn't so much as to assign perpetual blame the way some activists are demanding in the cases of restitution of white people now to black people in the USA for slavery, but to remind all of us that we can be better people.

The ability to forget is not a bad one (the wonders of a new discovery is one of the few things that can truly delight), but if the thing we forget is what caused a lot of pain and harm in the first place, it is probably best that we never forget it so that we never repeat it or the likes of it in the future.

But this type of ``matured'' thinking does not draw as much attention as the physical destruction of statues, or the vocal shouting of a mass of people in protest. I believe that true impactful change is often done over time, quietly, by a large number of people, an evolutionary type of progress as opposed to a revolutionary one. However, I am not saying that having such visible reactions is wrong; I'm saying that some of the applications of these reactions can lead to an over-simplification of the true issue, and it is that over-simplification that can lead to unintended consequences.

Though in the end, it is the most visible, most visceral, and most violent that will be remembered, not those who have been quietly moving behind the scenes. And sadly, I'm not sure what to feel about that.

Till the next update then.