Elissa and Kate on Fasolt

Elissa and I spent a lot of time talking about the line between the past and present. Where do you draw it? Is only this last millisecond the ‘present’ with twenty seconds ago, when I pulled out my computer, the past? Is it even useful to draw this distinction? As we saw in the reading, the past is alive in the present, and they are in a dialectic relationship. I couldn’t be typing this right now if I hadn’t gotten out my computer two minutes ago—but then at the same time, I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t decided to take Ben’s class, or to go to Minnesota, and so on and so on, and I don’t think that my decisions three years ago necessarily constitute the present, even if those decisions are still alive and affecting me. So where do you draw the line, and does drawing an imaginary line actually achieve anything? “If the present could really be divided from the pas at all, it would have to be divided by as many lines as there are present moments: not one line between one present and past, but an infinity of lines between an infinity of present and an infinity of pasts” (10). The past is both alive and dead: you can’t change what happened ten minutes ago, but your perceptions of those events are changing. How the past is understood (the discipline of history) changes, which is what makes it fluid. Similarly, “wie es eigenlich gewwsen” can never really be understood, because it’s constantly changing with people’s changing perceptions. But like Fasolt reminds us: “no one that I have heard of has ever found a line between the present and the past” (10).
We thought that the idea of history moving from bound to unbound was interesting, with history moving away from the bindings of religion (and towards freedom?). This is clearly related to much of what we’ve read and talked about in class. We noted, by the way, that it’s clear that Ben and Fasolt know each other (was he your teacher at U of C, Ben?)- we noted a lot of the concepts that Ben’s been talking about in this reading.
We agree that Fasolt’s reminder to not only use written sources was very useful and important. “But one thing is worth underscoring: sources need not be written” (5). We talked about the fact that we often blindly listen to written material (be it textbooks, articles, etc.), assuming that it just must be true because it was written down. We forget that people can be wrong, and you’re allowed to disagree- no, not even allowed to disagree, but allowed to think that your textbook is simply wrong about something; it just might be, and that’s okay. Sources don’t need to be written: visual and oral sources, for example, can be very useful. We also played with the idea that, perhaps, oral and visual sources are even more useful than written sources in many ways. When something is written down, it is done so with a certain purpose. There’s a reason that something is written down, and that’s often to persuade people of its truth. Visual sources aren’t created with exactly that same purpose: something is made to be used or to be seen, but not necessarily to be taken as true. Many people consider oral sources (such as stories, or epics passed down orally) to be unreliable; unlike written sources, they’re not preserved in their original form. But in the context of this reading, maybe that does make them more useful, as they can show us how history has changed, and emphasize its fluidity. We don’t have any definitive thoughts on this, though- these are just ideas that we bounced around.
The preface of the book impacted both of us, specifically where he stated the three principles by which our attitude towards the past is governed (ix). Honestly, I don’t think I’d ever spent much time thinking about how I understand the past. I’ve thought about the past, and whether or not what I’m taught should be taken as an absolute truth, but I’ve never thought to question the entire framework in which we understand the past. “What could history by, if not the study of evidence?” (36). Elissa noted the quote, “history is not as innocent as it pretends to be” (6). I still don’t completely know what to think about this. Like Gina said in class yesterday, this text did rock my world (at least, I think that’s what you said). I didn’t necessarily trust the historical events that I’ve been taught about, but I did (blindly, I’ll admit) trust the framework of history; I’ve been thinking about this since I left Elissa five hours ago. History, like everything else, has a motive- but instead of just affecting the way we think about particular events, it’s affecting the entire way that we think, period.