Reconstructing History

The other day in American Studies, we discussed memory. First we made metaphors about memory: memory is a filing cabinet, a bulletin board, a dirty carpet, or a messy storage unit. Most agreed on that memories tend to pop up due to the experiences you are having at the moment and when they do they are completely intact. After the discussion, Mr. Bolos let us in on a little secret. When you look back and recall a memory, you are actually reconstructing the moment with your current emotions mixing in with the ones in the memory. Every time you look back you are changing that memory. A more detailed description of this can be found in the Radiolab episode, "Memory and Forgetting". So that made me think, if we change our own memories with our personal interpretation because of our feelings, what about history? Can we trust primary sources? Are our "unbiased" text books to be trusted wholely?

I also found another activity connected when thinking of how history might be misrepresented. Awhile earlier we discussed telling stories and how textbook editors can differ which subjects get put in a better light. Perhaps people "remember" things differently than another eye witness simply because of bias and mood. I believe that this often occurs in American society and history. We pose our actions to make them look like the right or only way possible. By simply changing a couple adjectives and leaving a few details out we can make murder of American Indians seem righteous, like in Bacon's Rebellion. Americans, it seems, are always looking for little ways to make themselves look better.