Hopefully I can talk about how we know things, I mean really know things, without getting all, “What does it mean to really know something.” There are very few things that we can without a doubt 100% know. We have to take what evidence we are given and use that to figure out things, or there are beliefs that don’t require knowing, but believing.
People who work with numbers have it a bit easier, for instance a banker knows the terms they can offer for a home mortgage, and that is based off of interest rates and so forth, that are relatively knowable. As for historians, they have to rely on sources, primary and secondary sources. If you don’t know what those are then, click here. Even with first hand accounts of an event or subject, you can’t ever 100% be sure. What is the author’s motive, when was it recorded, very few accounts can occur without bias. Historians have to piece together information from sources and their years of expertise to come up with possibilities. Some things are fact, such as who were the kings and queens of England, although an actual king Arthur is debatable. It’s also usually the case that the history of the victors, and the wealthy/rulers, gets recorded more often. We usually miss a large chunk of what everyday life was like for the poor folk, or the losers of a war, entire peoples have been wiped out of existence that we will never learn about
Even with our modern technologies and ability to record, in video no less, events happening there can still be doubt. Can you always believe what your eyes see? Was it doctored? Context is very important for understanding events and why they happened, and that isn’t always available, in modern times and for the whole of history.
Thankfully, there are people who excel, or have excelled, in researching and collecting data to give us a pretty accurate picture of historical events, yay historians!
With such inventions as the internet, the non expert has access to vast amounts of historical data, and the history noob can peruse Wikipedia and come up with their own ideas about what happened during certain events. Is this a bad thing, to allow the uneducated, or somewhat educated, researcher to piece together internet findings to form a theory? I think it brings up new challenges for the world of history, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.
I can’t seem to ever decide if something is ever just “good” or “bad”. Good can come of bad, good things can be used for evil. Is it people that make things good or bad? I think so. I don’t think human beings make good or bad, or else nothing would be morally standard.
Run away brain. Choo Choo…