peer review classmates answer about Sarah Maza, Thinking About History & Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and Production of History

Q:Why do non-historians want to use history, and why do you care, if at all, if history is used well?

First peer review: 135 words

History specifically refers to the past events and activities of human society known to appear in written records, to systematically record some events and behaviors, conduct research, and explain the truth to the crowd. History exists objectively and is recorded by people. Therefore, some people like to use historical events to conduct political propaganda and achieve their goals. Some non-historians will still twist history, extract part of the historical content from it, and give examples to confuse the masses, so that the masses think about who plays what role in such historical events, and make the masses think that this is how history is determined. For example, the recent wars between Ukraine and Russia World War I and World War II in the last century, and so on.Those non-historians use history, distort the truth to gain politics, gain power, and abuse it.Hasan Kwami Jeffries in his TEDx Talks "Why We Must Confront The Painful Parts of US History," " and in the article "Michel Rodolf-Trouillout, Silencing the Past: Power and Production of History, Chapter 3 "The Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event” 70-107” provides the current state of life, it is peaceful and serene. In this huge superpower, how many people still know slavery existed in this country before? Not a few hundred years have passed, and the history that exists is only in history books. For people who don't like history, they may not know this history. Some parties still will use this history, twist its meaning to cause disputes, wars, racial antagonism, sexism, etc., to gain power and abuse history and classify. They are not telling the origin of history, what is the truth, who and things participated in this kind of event, and how do different races look at where they exist. This is why non-historians like to use their advantageous parts and make use of them. This is not the true meaning of history but divides and blurs history and dilutes its history. History tells the truth, as the article says, civil liberty fighters like Thomas also owned slaves. Politicians and non-historians did not tell this point very well, so they used the other side to tell and reform and explained from a more objective perspective that there were still a series of problems and contradictions left over from the emancipation of slaves. The theme of this week is that whoever controls the past will control the future. This sentence is perfectly reflected in society. Whoever created this system in the past, who proposed and wrote the history is still mastered and written by the same kind of people. The people of history are the present and the future of this world is still in the hands of this class.In my opinion, no matter how writers write history, the meaning of history exists in the way of its own real events, which cannot be changed or distorted. History is a discipline that records and interprets the time points of historical events in the process of human beings, discovers the malpractices of its history and the origin of events, and uses the facts and truths of the past to carry out reforms. Instead of blinding people's eyes and gaining power for their own benefit. These are all I care about.

 Second peer review: 135 words

The work of historians over the last several hundred years has focused variously on causes, events, meanings, contexts, and frames of reference. As Maza points out, the practice of history changes, and the “vigorous debates over methods and approaches are vital to history,” to continue refining the practice, and to “clarify what we are doing and why we are doing it.” [1]What Maza’s description demonstrates is the aliveness of history as a discipline—it is an academic practice that seeks to make sense of the past through continuous inquiry, questioning, and storytelling. Yet, non-historians use history every day to justify actions and ideologies, sell products, entertain, or galvanize people behind an idea or cause. We should care about this abuse of history because it undermines the authority of a discipline that strives to offer a comprehensive, unbiased, and rational understanding of our shared past. And even as that understanding is imperfect and evolving, it offers to guide the present and future, but only if the integrity and public trust of the discipline is upheld.“For many historians and their readers,” Maza states, “the ethical purpose of the discipline is the construction [of] a narrative that, causally linking the past to the present, invites us to act upon that story to further or change it.” [2] Maza plays off of Santayana’s famous quote by saying that “those who actively seek to forget the past are condemned not to repeat it but to create brand new forms of mayhem and terror.” [3] Jeffries, in contrast, but along a similar vein, says that “if we don’t remember the past, we will continue it.” [4]As discussed in our lectures this week, non-historians use history for this very reason: to propel action. These bad actors rely on the understanding that because history claims to tell the truth, it can be trusted—regardless of who tells it. And good actors rely on the same assumption, sometimes wreaking havoc even with better intent.The bad actors misuse history and propel their beliefs and actions through obfuscation of facts and context, omission, or outright distortion and lying, cherry picking the details of history that suit their needs and ignoring complexities and contradictions that would muddle their message.As Dr. Ridler’s lecture says, history is power: it helps us understand what’s real and what’s not. Those who misuse history trick their listeners into believing in certainty and in a solidity of past and present, giving these non-historians undeserved power. In doing so, power is also taken away from historians, who receive little credit for their depth of research and consideration of complexities and contexts. The discipline itself also receives little credit in popular literature or the media, contributing to a lack of understanding of the importance of historians and the work they do.Non-historians also trick us into thinking that history is something that it is not, undermining why history matters at all. Jeffries’s “hard history” [5] doesn’t exist for these storytellers, which is why their stories can entertain and engage more easily. The narratives they tell are easy to teach and learn; we don’t have to pretend they didn’t happen. As a result, history seems pleasant and uncomplicated—at least when it fits and reinforces our own frame of reference.This should be upsetting to anyone who experiences the misuse of history: being sold a narrative in the tone of truth, but which is not truth or perhaps even attempting to appear so.Sometimes this ease may be appealing, or it may be due to a lack of framework, as in the case of the French colonists who couldn’t believe that a slave uprising was occurring in 18th century Haiti, even as it was occurring. “When reality does not coincide with deeply held beliefs,” writes Trouillot, “human beings tend to phrase interpretations that force reality within the scope of these beliefs. They devise formulas to repress the unthinkable and to bring it back within the realm of accepted discourse.” [6] In the case of the French, the event was also recast into narratives that made sense to the European frame of reference and then later silenced by historians themselves.Those who misuse history would be well served by Maza’s closing statement: “History is always someone’s story, layered over and likely at odds with someone else’s; to recognize this does not make our chronicles of the past less reliable, but more varied, deeper, and more truthful.” [7] And this is what the study and application of history is: dynamic and difficult, multi-faceted and genealogically deep, worth our constant attention and investigation and care if it is to retain its power and the level of trust we wish to place in it.

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