by Gina Lawton

Created on: August 05, 2007   Last Updated: November 03, 2009

One thing that makes us uniquely "human" is our ability to add personal perspective to all things. This fact became amazingly clear to me as I watched the "I-videos" sent to CNN concerning the recent bridge tragedy in Minneapolis. Each person's recollection of the event was illustrated, depending on their physical position, their emotional composure, and a variety of other things that gave a subtle slant to the actual event.

I believe history - whether recent or ancient - is also influenced by such perspective. Sometimes we accuse "those in control" of manipulating history for their own good (and rightly so!). But even events that seem mundane must pass through the lenses of not only those who were there and "report" it, but also through the perspective of those of us who read it, interpret it, and relay it to the next generations.

Case in point: When my parents were taught of the "Battle of Little Big Horn," they were given the perspective of the bravery of General Custard, to take on such a gathering of "Indians" and battle for the expansion of the "manifest destiny" of the United States. By the time I was in school, I learned of the "Indians" and their desire to fight for the right to simply exist in the land as they had for centuries. My children know of the same battle as a reaction of Native Americans (or, more recently, the First People) to the repeated broken promises of the European settlers as they attempted to maintain their way of life. All the same battle. But history "shifted" as we gain understanding and perspective - and we allow our world view to become less esoteric and more inclusive.

History, by wordplay definition, is "His" "Story." The person giving the account is technically the first "author" of the event. Did it happen? Sure. But without the subjective telling of an event, how can it be related and passed on to future generations?

So many cultures throughout the world value and perfect the art of story telling as a way to relate history to the next generations. Unfortunately, we in "civilized Western culture" think that somehow the only history to be valued is what we attribute as "objective" and "pure." We resign the art of oral story as sub-par to our "accurate" view of historical events.

But I firmly believe that history can never truly achieve the expectations we somehow have for it. Sure, there are things that "most" people come to consensus on - Abraham Lincoln was our sixteenth president. To think, however, that we can distill a truly pure recollection of historical events is, in an of itself, an unreachable and "unreliable" account of our past.

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