The Truth and Untruth of History

Before that time historians ne'er took seriously enough the role which personal and cultural persuadees contend in the recording of bill and in research.

Tompkins' essay whitethorn not arrive at startling conclusions, but it does entrust the reader with a fascinating journey to those conclusions. Most significantly, Tompkins points pop out that the biases of an historian---whether writing at the time of the event or later--- atomic number 18 an inherent part of his or her way of seeing the world:

What they precept was not an illusion, was not determined by selfish motives in every narrow sense, but was there by virtuousness of a way of seeing which they could no more consciously manipulate than they could choose not to hold in been born. . . . The ethnocentric bias of the firsthand observers invited an investigation of the cultural situation they spoke from (596).

This is a fascinating insight, not only because it changes the entire focus of any study of research bias from the individual to the shade, but because it besides seems to absolve historians of their biases. The latter conclusion is simply not back up by the facts, however. After all, there must be nigh individuals who become aware of biases and are able to alter the perceptions of an era, because other no cultural biases would ever be revealed and changed or discarded. And if angiotensin converting enzyme individual can discard a bias, why is not every other individual in a culture or in a scientific field just as responsible for self-examination and c

Tompkins sets out to overcome some of the biases of her younger years, and in the operation she discovers little but the biases of others, including historians who are considered leading figures in their palm of study. She finds that it is up to her to decide what to believe. Where, then, does that leave the rest of us who suck up been brought up to believe in "experts" in various field? Where it leaves us is with the responsibility to think for ourselves as well, to make our avow decisions about what to believe or not to believe, and to, above all, not trust the so-called "experts" simply because they have college degrees or because they have published a number of books.

In fact, it might be the best idea to save our strongest doubts for those "experts" who are the most acclaimed. These "experts" are precisely the ones who have the most to lose by changing their historical views and the theories on which they are based, even if they discover certainty which suggests the wisdom of such change. Such experts have entire careers and reputations invested in particular conclusions and theories, and to change those views would put those careers and reputations in jeopardy. It would not be shocking, in fact, to discover that many experts in the field of history and every other field continue to support conclusions and theories in which they simply no longer believe. Their biases are instrumental in the formation of their original views, but when they discover flaws in their views, their aid of losing all they have prevents them from being honest.

Tompkins simply goes too farther in stating that "The historian can never escape the limitations of his or her own position in history and so inescapably gives an account that is an extension of the circumstances from which it springs" (597). If this is true for historians, then why is it not true for any individual so hopelessly stuck in the biases of his or her era? And if this were true, we would still have slaveholding because people
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