Distorted history tempts some to reject history altogether
Evidence
With all these dangers one might indeed ask “Why bother?” Aren’t we better off without history, since it is so subject to perversion, distortion, misrepresen tation, and the rest? Let the Serbs forget about Kosovo. Let the rest of us forget about our past grievances. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1852
Categorization
- XREF: Echo of Foucault/Frankfurt arguments that knowledge is always power-laden — invites the question of whether total abandonment or critique is the right response. — connects to: A sophisticated people can actively reject history as worthless; History’s potential misuse raises questions of who controls its telling — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1824; History is distorted chiefly through invention backed by fabricated evidence — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1834 (+3 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: A sophisticated people can actively reject history as worthless; History’s potential misuse raises questions of who controls its telling — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1824; History is distorted chiefly through invention backed by fabricated evidence — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1834 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Silence and scholarly neglect can cause historical truth to vanish entirely
#complicates(0.85) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 68