Fasolt Discussion

Today I met with Rachel and Mariana to talk about Fasolt. We discovered after talking for just a few minutes that we all basically got the same messages from the text and compared the same topics and points. The point that we mainly talked about and stuck out to us was the distinction between past and present and where the line is drawn. Fasolt seems to have his own opinions on where this line resides throughout the timeline of our world and he notes that different people have different ideas of what that means for them. Our group discussed how depending on your background knowledge on history and politics or what we have learned through the years in school and other places, can help shape where you may see the distinction. . "The past, if it is anything at all, is a dimension of the present and changes along with it" (16). Fasolt also brings up how the past is something that "exists" but is not concrete or universal in its definition and at one point it was the "present" it just changes and adapts, so at what point do these changes cause it to become the past? “I was already well aware that history only scrapes the surface of the past.” (18). When something is set in the past it loses its sense of present. Present is a whole entity, a being, an attainable place that one may be engrossed by and survive. The past, especailly in history, are stories that are told about certain instances that are surrounded around politics.

Another thing that we discussed was the idea that to understand the present that was, or history, we have to observe and take into count many different perspectives. In my opinion, when one views something they automatically have their own way of interperting it and understanding based on their prior knowledge and possibly politics. In turn this causes a personal opinion or added perspective on every situation and when something is reported it is not safe from these subconscious opinions. This is also one of the reasons that we have two protocols and they are never exactly the same. Even something as innocent as a record or report of what happened in a hour and a half period are not subject to being safe from bias or a persons way of viewing any situation.

Also, we noted that Hegel could be found in this text. Once again Hegel can be anywhere and everywhere! "No state could be sovereign if its inhabitants lacked the ability to change a course of action adopted by their forefathers in the past" (7). Rachel noted this quote in her book because it stuck out to her as Hegel and I can see her point. To me it all ties back to the idea that there is always a thesis and then for that thesis there is an antithesis and together these two will team up to lead to another antithesis until the end of history!

Since our meeting I have had time to think about what we talked about and I also met with Gina and Emily about Fasolt. They had another perspective about the same ideas (point made from above I'd say) What stuck out to them most was the idea of the Historian as a self and The Shadow of an Emperor. Also which we did not discuss earlier was the question Why history is dangerous form of knowledge. We will talk WAY more about this in our difficultation but I just thought it was very interesting how this is a clear example of different people's different ways of understanding the same situation based off of several different things.