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Comment by jack_h

3 days ago

As I’ve grown older and witnessed history in action I’ve begun to understand that reality is much, much more complicated than the simple narratives of history we lean on as a society.

Just think of how many different competing narratives are currently in existence surrounding this tumultuous point in history and realize that at some point some of these narratives will become dominant. Over time as the events leave social memory the key conclusions will likely be remembered but a lot of the reasoning behind them will not. As it exits living memory most of the nuance and context is lost. Over time we may change the narrative by reconsidering aspects that were forgotten, recontextualizing events based on modern concepts and concerns, misunderstanding what happened, or even surreptitiously “modifying” what happened for political ends. Or to put it more plainly, history is written by the victors and can be rewritten as time goes on and the victors change.