The Past vs. History vs. Memory

What is the Past? What is History? What is Memory? These are not synonymous words. Rather, they encapsulate concepts that often contradict one another due to their scope, methodology, and purpose. By understanding these terms, citizens can obtain a more complete comprehension of historical events while also applying these critical thinking skills to modern civil discourse, thereby avoiding misinformation. Let us now turn to each concept and the intrinsic problems therein. 

Let us start with the past. The past encompasses the entirety of events that happened before the present moment. Every past occurrence, person, animal, weather pattern, natural disaster, etc. is part of this collective past. This next part may sound radical and can be hard to wrap your head around. The past is irrevocably gone, inaccessible to you in its entirety. Only through purely theoretical abilities, such as time travel or faster-than-light speed, would this be possible. Thus, no single work by a human can ever recover the past.

Let us use the example of the Civil War to make the point. The War of the Rebellion took four years to fight. In order to recover the entirety of the conflict we would need to reproduce every breath of spoken word, every line of each letter written, every second of the battles fought, every soldier’s action, every bullet fired, and every ant that crawled over a corpse. Obviously, this is impossible. If the past is inaccessible, how do we approach the events that happened before our own?

This brings us to our second point. History is an account of the past written by historians using the professional tools of the trade to provide a narrative of the era in question. History can never be total and it is always subjective. It is based on the historian’s perspective, molded by the era from which they write, and dependent on their background. In other words, the questions we ask, the topics we choose, and the interpretations we make are all informed by the totality of our lived experiences. This, in turn, shapes our conscious and subconscious world views. History, while incomplete and imperfect, is derived from the evidence available, buttressed by the research questions asked, and focused toward a particular topic or event.

Finally, let us discuss memory. Memory is the purposeful forgetting and remembering of history, usually for contemporary partisan purposes. Historians, while biased, use meticulous research to provide the most accurate, truthful narrative possible. By comparison, memory is privately and publicly marshaled to reinforce or challenge the traditions of contemporary society. The interventions of the past (as tradition) may occur as a means of resisting change or of achieving innovation. Often, the media, the public, and politicians marshal the memory of an individual or event for various partisan motivations. For example, human beings are deified and made into marble models that bare little resemblance to their historical reality.

Let us look at the historical George Washington versus the fabled man of Americana tradition to help make this point. According to legend, Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac to showcase his athletic skill. Of course, if you’ve seen his residence at Mount Vernon and its place on the river, it cannot be true. It is simply impossible for a human to throw something that far. The point of the story was to highlight the man who was “first in war, first in peace,” was also first in sports. Likewise, the Washington who chopped down the Cherry Tree and told his father he could not tell a lie, is also a fable. We know this because in the antebellum era the preacher who first used the infamous anecdote admitted he created it to make a point in a sermon about honesty and honoring thy father.

A few quotes may also help exemplify this point. According to historian David Blight, “historical memory, was not merely an entity altered by the passage of time; it was the prize in a struggle between rival versions of the past, a question of will, of power, of persuasion. The historical memory of any transforming or controversial event emerges from cultural and political competition, from the choice to confront the past and to debate and manipulate its meaning.” David Thelen further added, “memory, private and individual, as much as collective and cultural, is constructed, not reproduced….This construction is not made in isolation but in conversations with others that occur in the context of the community, broader politics, and social dynamics.”

The point is that popular traditions and memories serve certain purposes. They both reinforce existing institutions, societal norms, and political expediency. By contrast, historical accounts have the purpose of disseminating a narrative that is as substantiated and understandable as possible. Obviously, histories too cannot escape the biases of when they were written, nor how the research questions were posed. However, the difference between the two is the amount of time, effort, and research that go into providing the most accurate account possible despite the very human issue of imperfections. That is a lot of theory to throw at all of you, but the purpose is to showcase that this blog is a historical account of global military history. It is not an entire account of the past, but rather, it is a broad ranging narrative, designed to expose you to the complex processes and problems that exist in the myriad of human experiences that have occurred since the dawn of time.

This blog cannot cover everything, some topics may get short changed, and others may be entirely omitted. Despite this, the information presented here will not only give you a broader appreciation of human history, but will also provide you with the critical thinking skills necessary to perform your duties as citizens and residents of this great nation. This is not a partisan blog and we will keep ourselves focused on the past. Our role is not to sit in judgement of the past, but to take it in its own context, so that we can trace the long continuities and changes that bring us to contemporary society.

-Dr. Totten