In my historical peregrinations since age seven (that's 46 years, for those without sufficient information to do the math), i spent about the first 20 years amassing the facts, dates, names, etc.; and simply revelling in that aspect of history which is still the dearest to my heart, the ripping good story. I've always been delighted by the knowledge that both history and story derive from
histoire, which means either or both in the French language, depending upon the context.
Our Pet Hobbit wrote:The work of history is synthesis. Drawing conclusions from available evidence.
This is not possible, of course, without the facts, dates, names, actions, etc. Actually writing out my thoughts on-line, first at AFUZZ, and now here, has contributed marvelously to my ability to synthesize what i've learned. My original purpose (at about age eight) was to get a sufficiently good grasp on American history that i could judge for myself whether or not what i was being fed in school was accurate. (Largely, although not inaccurate, it lacked more than a naive synthesis, and tended, as intended, to inculcate patriotric pride.) My grandfather has steered me toward Goldsmith's Greek mythology, and Hamilton's mythology and her
The Greek Way, from which i progressed to condensed versions of Mommsen, and Livy, Tacitus, Polybius, Seutonius . . . starting with a solid foundation in "western history," and having decided to investigate the origins of the culture and society of which i was a part, i found myself being drawn back through history to my starting point, and then being drawn outward in all directions. It is impossible to study western history thoroughly without knowing the history of Asia and Africa, and eventually of "the new world." This is why a narrow focus on "western culture," which is vaguely referred to in the resolutions HB has linked, and never defined, is immediately suspect. Consider simply the European collision with the Muslim world. Andalus (Spain) was a colony of Muslim, Berber Africa. There was no unitary state, which made it eventually possible for the unified kingdoms of Aragon and Castile to mount the military effort necessary to expel the Muslims (and, shortly thereafter, the Jews as well). I cannot begin to speculate what sort of lunacy lead successive Popes and other religious charlatans to decide that Europeans needed to conquer "the Holy Lands," but the crusades in the east had much the same effect as the
Reconquista in Andalus/Spain. From these dual, long-lasting events, we got the astrolabe, which made it possible for the Portuguese captains of Prince John the Navigator to circumnavigate Africa and reach the Persian Gulf, eventually going on to India and China. We got many words, and the ideas they implied: alcohol, admiral, magazine, bazaar, bizarre (yes, same word twice), algebra, algorithm, zero, talisman, nadir, hazard. So in the end, i came, many years ago, to the conclusion that there is not in fact any discrete western culture. Rather, "western culture" is a synthesis, like good history, and an eclectic one, in the original meaning of the word, chosen from many sources. The very fact that this joker calls for an emphasis on "western culture," as though students were being taught something else, makes the suspicion of a hidden agenda very strong. What i've just done with Arabic and Berber contributions to language and culture can be repeated with Turkic, Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese; with the cultures of Egypt, of Abyssinia, of old Zimbabwe, of the Indus valley, of the plains of the Oxus river, of the Central Asian highlands, of the Toltecs of central Mexico, of the Mayans, of Inca--western culture has been a great sponge, soaking up whatever appeared useful, and a good deal of the simply frivolously entertaining. To truly teach "western culture," it is necessary to teach world history. This joker has a plan, and it don't mean the honest teaching of real history.
) I take umbrage to ANY historical distortions in either direction. History should be about facts, dates and actions, not about pushing a political agenda from either side.
