Does Our Lifespan Limit Of View Of History?

When we read history, sometimes we only get one point of view on that specific time in history, unlike today where we have views coming from everywhere cause we are alive and can research them. Thoughts?

 

I'd say the opposite.

When we read History we can have a perspective different to that of people from the time. We can approach a topic from several different perspectives, compare and evaluate them, consider them in the context of their outcomes, we can freeze a moment in time and dissect it, taking as much time to research as possible.

In the cut-and-thrust of the here and now, events move quickly, facts are obscured and it is impossible to have that kind of oversight. We are shackled to a single perspective and have to work hard to see outside of that.

 

for a majority of humans it certainly appears to.

 

There is a reason that the phrase "History is written by the victors" is such a popular truism. I would say that the scope of access we have of history may be, in part, which makes it difficult for us to relate to or even understand a lot of aspects of history. I'm not quite sure how you are trying to frame the question with respect to our lifespans. Aside from historians, most of us have to bottle snippets of events from history without much capability to investigate the events thoroughly.

The TV and Internet has provided a voice for people, which throughout history, generally was relegated to those with the most power and wealth. There does seem to be this kind of odd phenomena happening now though, where it's become so easy for anyone to report on events, that there is this collage of information coming from those held to no standards of journalistic integrity, to those held to rigorous standards of reporting events, and with the quick pace of life outside being able to weigh this information, it may be difficult for the average person to disseminate what's actually happening with many events, or moreover some may tend to not attempt to view events objectively, but follow those sources which confirm personal biases.

 

The Pale Buddha said, "The past is only a memory, the future is but a dream" however, without memories and dreams, life as we know it would be impossible. The past is as much our dream as it is a reality we all must live with. Stay awake long enough and you will hallucinate because our dreams and nightmares catch up to our reality in much the same way reality always catches up to us in our dreams. Thus, history can be considered a subject with a life and spirit of its own that includes, for example, being able to view such things as the mindless masses as expressing infantile or childish behavior because everything can be considered organic including the passage of time itself. What organic time suggests is that our impressions of the past are emergent effects and, in some sense, the past and future are always with us in the present moment. One implication is that venues such as virtual reality that incorporates AI should be able to provide better perspectives on historical events and, already, historians are busily turning historical sites into virtual realities you can visit today. Ancient Rome, Athens, and Egypt are coming back to life along with countless others as the technology grows dramatically cheaper and easier to implement. Soon enough we might have the equivalent of a Star Trek holodeck where anyone can talk to historical figures at any time providing the most intimate views of past ages humanly possible.

Not only our lifespan, but our attention span and mortal fallibility limit everything we can appreciate. You could say both Murphy's Law and a Goldilocks Principle rule the paradox of our existence where the only limit is that there are no limits, yet, nothing can ever be too hot or too cold, too fast or too slow, too big or too small, and everything tends to work out just right in the end for the universe as a whole, if not for ourselves despite anything that can go wrong going wrong.

 

I get (and also roughly agree with) what you're saying but it all depends on how many sources there are. Sometimes there are more sources but there's only one commonly known. So in such cases it takes time (lol) to get into different historic perspectives. Of course society as a whole's gained insight and seeing the actual use of getting into different perspectives on itself can get us a little further in understanding the past and the people in it as well (I guess that's what you're saying too)

 

Aye, I think we aren't entirely in disagreement. When one source (or kind of source) is the most prevalent or well-known, then it can take time to get into different historic perspectives. But when considering historical events, you have that time, whereas the facts of the here-and-now almost always tend to be dominated by a very small group of sources, and we don't have time to properly research due to the pace of change.

 

to much generalization here, give a real world example and then you can back up your claims with facts.

 

A wellknown example is the amount of soldiers that fought in battles in the 100 years war. It was at first (and for centuries) commonly accepted that the number in the chronicles was roughly right. Then at the end of last century historians bothered to dive into the medieval administration notes of certain french castles (amazing that they were preserved ). What turns out after verification is that it was certain the number of soldiers in the historic chronicles was greatly exaggerated. I think it was considered before, but not proven until the end of the 20th century.

 

Very well put and totally on point.

 

Also it's probably easier to maintain objectivity when looking a the past, whilst we're all involved in the present.

An example of this might be the brexit business. We won't know until the future how it went. But from the historical perspective of now it either looks good or bad depending on your point of view.

 

The general public is being played as usual, that is nothing new. The difference is indeed that it used to be mainly the mainstream media and those in power. Now any turd with communication skills that knows how to spread a message can do so.