R: History is Meant to be Rewritten

Is history open to interpretation? This question is perhaps more loaded today than ever before. One cannot ask it without getting a plethora of answers, all of which claim to be self-evident. “Of course history isn’t open to interpretation; the past is the past and cannot be changed.” “We have to interpret history because the class struggle and racism have distorted every historical narrative up until the 2008 U.S. presidential election!” Certainly there are some narratives which we now know to be false and some which are dubious at best. Does this mean, however, that by default history is meant to be rewritten?

For those in the affirmative, there are a few reasons to favor rewriting history. One of the most commonly cited reasons is the exclusion of minority voices and narratives which are important to the cultural history of much of our present society. One could argue that too much of history is told from the perspective of “old, white men” and should be rewritten. Our Founding Fathers were not as pure or heroic as we were led to believe. The “real” facts of the past must be incorporated into new, more accurate narratives of history. 

Those in the negative are not without good reasoning, though. For millennia, history has functioned not only as fact but also as myth and inspiration for cultural identity and structure. Historians have been commissioned to create origin stories and inspirational legends for the people to ground their values and identity in. So what if some or most of the facts of some of these histories are false? Surely letting postmodern historians “revise” the Aeneid would be criminal. The broader argument against so-called “revisionist” history is that this downplays figures central to certain groups’ cultural identities and inspiration.

Many of the questions at the heart of this debate revolve around the value of revising history to be more accurate. What right do historians have to challenge American identity and cultural myth by vilifying the Founders? To what extent should we be interpreting history as we teach it? Isn’t it good enough to present the facts and then let people interpret them as they will?