Grim Truth 92/17/10
Oct. 17th, 2009 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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alternityGreetings, British Wizarding World!
Like many of you, I’ve been reading with interest the discussions among Hogwarts students (and parents) who bemoan the state of their education and have determined to take their future into their own hands.
I think any of us who have passed through Hogwarts’ halls in the past several generations can attest that there have always been unpopular subjects and professors. It’s the prerogative of all students to grumble about their schoolwork.
I am forced to agree that there are significant problems with the current slate of faculty, as well as the quality of certain subjects as they are being taught. In all fairness to the Headmistress, some of the deficiencies have been inherited, and some doubtless forced upon the school — and whether that can end anything other than badly is yet to be seen. Were I a parent with children at Hogwarts, I should be alarmed and worried not only for their educations, but their safety — as the events of this week show with painful clarity.
But the less said about Amycus Coward the better. It’s on something a little less drastic that I write currently. I’m pleased to see that Hogwarts’ students remain as resourceful as ever, providing their own solutions to the limitations of their tutelage. But where those solutions touch on our history, our social order or our race relations, the new lessons bear particularly careful examination.
A wise man once said, ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ It seems to me that the problem facing all British wizardom right now is its willingness to ignore history. Perhaps even more disturbing are the revisions to history taking place with governmental encouragement, and our children’s willingness to absorb as much of this alternative history as they can amass.
We all remember our past experiences differently. Recent conversations I’ve had have made that fact abundantly clear. But when we deliberately revise history, we actively alter our perceptions of the past, our role in the present and our options for the future.
Take History of Magic, for example. While it may be difficult to focus on the lessons of a teacher who, let’s face it, wasn’t that engaging while alive, and is even less inclined to be dynamic or exciting now that he is vapourous, it is nonetheless important to remember that there is another reason the so-called ‘Council’ object to his teaching. That reason is that his version of history predates the lies and propaganda that the Ministry wishes to force upon the whole population. They would have your young people classify his teaching as merely an annoyance to be endured, learned by rote, spit back for the purpose of exams, and set aside in favour of the ‘definitive’ new timelines. But these are in themselves nothing more than alterations of the facts. And Professor Binns, if nothing else, has always prided himself on his reverence for facts.
Now, let’s not take that argument too far. History itself is a flawed and evolving picture, too often written only by the winners. Benjamin Disraeli said, ‘Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is history without theory.’ What he meant was that every historian brings his own perspective to the story he tells. How does one evaluate the stories one hears, separate the appeal of the poetic from indifference to the mundane, read between the lines to guess at what is not being told?
Statistics and facts can be manipulated. Theories can be spun from nearly any angle to support nearly any hypothesis. Even photographs and interviews may be staged so that they become as much theatrical exercise as a Christmas concert. The single best method to distill the past is, simply, to examine it from more than a single point of view. No one person is the sole arbiter of the Grim Truth: only collectively, taking all perspectives into account, can we fully understand and decide what is best to believe.
In conclusion, parents of Hogwarts: Think twice before you tell your children to discount their History of Magic lessons – or the older ‘arcane’ texts available in the library. Remember how it was before you each became an agent, willing or unwilling, of oppression and subjugation. (Here’s an exercise for you: This holiday, drag out your old books from your attics and cupboards and compare them to your children’s. Just how different are they?) And students: Think twice about what your textbooks tell you, especially in History, Muggle Studies and even Defence Against the Dark Arts. Anything written within your lifetimes is subject to revisionism on the scale of the most infamous governments in, well, in history. Consider not only the point of view of the winners, but the losers. And never, never accept what you are told just because you are told it is so.
Like many of you, I’ve been reading with interest the discussions among Hogwarts students (and parents) who bemoan the state of their education and have determined to take their future into their own hands.
I think any of us who have passed through Hogwarts’ halls in the past several generations can attest that there have always been unpopular subjects and professors. It’s the prerogative of all students to grumble about their schoolwork.
I am forced to agree that there are significant problems with the current slate of faculty, as well as the quality of certain subjects as they are being taught. In all fairness to the Headmistress, some of the deficiencies have been inherited, and some doubtless forced upon the school — and whether that can end anything other than badly is yet to be seen. Were I a parent with children at Hogwarts, I should be alarmed and worried not only for their educations, but their safety — as the events of this week show with painful clarity.
But the less said about Amycus Coward the better. It’s on something a little less drastic that I write currently. I’m pleased to see that Hogwarts’ students remain as resourceful as ever, providing their own solutions to the limitations of their tutelage. But where those solutions touch on our history, our social order or our race relations, the new lessons bear particularly careful examination.
A wise man once said, ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ It seems to me that the problem facing all British wizardom right now is its willingness to ignore history. Perhaps even more disturbing are the revisions to history taking place with governmental encouragement, and our children’s willingness to absorb as much of this alternative history as they can amass.
We all remember our past experiences differently. Recent conversations I’ve had have made that fact abundantly clear. But when we deliberately revise history, we actively alter our perceptions of the past, our role in the present and our options for the future.
Take History of Magic, for example. While it may be difficult to focus on the lessons of a teacher who, let’s face it, wasn’t that engaging while alive, and is even less inclined to be dynamic or exciting now that he is vapourous, it is nonetheless important to remember that there is another reason the so-called ‘Council’ object to his teaching. That reason is that his version of history predates the lies and propaganda that the Ministry wishes to force upon the whole population. They would have your young people classify his teaching as merely an annoyance to be endured, learned by rote, spit back for the purpose of exams, and set aside in favour of the ‘definitive’ new timelines. But these are in themselves nothing more than alterations of the facts. And Professor Binns, if nothing else, has always prided himself on his reverence for facts.
Now, let’s not take that argument too far. History itself is a flawed and evolving picture, too often written only by the winners. Benjamin Disraeli said, ‘Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is history without theory.’ What he meant was that every historian brings his own perspective to the story he tells. How does one evaluate the stories one hears, separate the appeal of the poetic from indifference to the mundane, read between the lines to guess at what is not being told?
Statistics and facts can be manipulated. Theories can be spun from nearly any angle to support nearly any hypothesis. Even photographs and interviews may be staged so that they become as much theatrical exercise as a Christmas concert. The single best method to distill the past is, simply, to examine it from more than a single point of view. No one person is the sole arbiter of the Grim Truth: only collectively, taking all perspectives into account, can we fully understand and decide what is best to believe.
In conclusion, parents of Hogwarts: Think twice before you tell your children to discount their History of Magic lessons – or the older ‘arcane’ texts available in the library. Remember how it was before you each became an agent, willing or unwilling, of oppression and subjugation. (Here’s an exercise for you: This holiday, drag out your old books from your attics and cupboards and compare them to your children’s. Just how different are they?) And students: Think twice about what your textbooks tell you, especially in History, Muggle Studies and even Defence Against the Dark Arts. Anything written within your lifetimes is subject to revisionism on the scale of the most infamous governments in, well, in history. Consider not only the point of view of the winners, but the losers. And never, never accept what you are told just because you are told it is so.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-17 07:29 pm (UTC)Don't listen to the scold, Justine. Break its quill, cut off its hands, silence its tongue. Sharpen the blade and reap the harvest of blood.
I wonder, will your blood still run pure, after so many years of taint? Rivulets of tarnished blood, still red, still red my lovely
I'll certainly relish finding out
Order Only
Date: 2009-10-17 08:06 pm (UTC)Could it be something I said?
(I only hope he doesn't lash out at Terry while he's so brassed off with me.)
Re: Order Only
Date: 2009-10-17 09:32 pm (UTC)Re: Order Only
Date: 2009-10-17 09:54 pm (UTC)