Final Essay

Maya J. Dworsky

History Is Written By the Whiners

Question at Issue: What is lost when historical accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of comprehensive cultural and ethnic narratives?

Argument Sentence: Compromising history for the sake of comprehensive cultural and ethnic narratives is dangerous because it alienates cultural and ethnic groups from the rest of the world.

Assumption: Anything that alienates communities from the rest of the world is dangerous.

It is an age-old adage that ‘History is written by the winners’; but in our modern-day media-saturated society that statement is easily contested. As the international narrative (as it is presented by world news organizations and the endless blogosphere) draws ever nearer to the asymptote of objectivity, we continue to face the question motivating historians since the dawn of the very first yesterday: ‘What really happened?’

Today, however, we are faced with another question: ‘Does it matter what really happened?’ Does it matter that ‘Remember the Alamo’ invites people to remember the U.S.’s shameful participation in an unrighteous war? Does it matter that Richard the Lion-Hearted, passive hero and patron of Robin Hood was a mass-murderer who bankrupted his own country? Does it matter that there were, in fact, no Weapons of Mass Destruction?

The answers to such questions may seem self evident; everyone agrees that reality trumps advertisement when asked. But the issue is not usually presented in such terms; instead, it is masked. When, for example, the 1997 Twentieth Century Fox movie Anastasia depicted the Tsar as a loving and carefree family man, outrage was notably absent. In fact, the movie was nominated for two Oscars. While not remotely as destructive as Bush’s blunder in Iraq, the movie’s narrative shared a few disturbing resemblances to the President’s reasoning; much like the concept of ‘A Crusade on Terror’, the warped history of the Tsar and his family made a wonderful story: the lost princess, the rebels incensed by phosphorescent little demons as opposed to despair, poverty and a dawning political awareness. History, transformed into a cartoon, was sacrificed in the name of entertainment.

This apparent hypocrisy slips under our radars for several reasons; in this case there is the American aversion to Communism, but more importantly, the story of the Romanovs fits into a simple world-view. Children and adults retain information better when it is presented in story-form, and the essence of all good stories lies in coherent roles for the players: The brave knight and evil dragon, Davy Crockett and General Santa Anna, Anastasia and the Bolsheviks; Jungian archetypes which all of humanity can relate to. Good Guys and Bad Guys; a distinction that never had a place in history. Children are taught that their right to knowledge and the freedom of information are the building blocks of Liberty and Peace, that denying the past leads to future misfortune; to remember the brave and the fallen so that, supposedly, there will be less of them next time.

The act of remembering seems paramount to the content being remembered. What sticks in the mind of children and adults alike are the triumphs and the trespasses – the South’s centuries long indignation over the loss of the Civil War, Israel’s enduring mantra of ‘a small land surrounded by enemies,’ - ignoring the relevancy of the issue and focusing instead on the self-congratulating or self-pitying narratives peddled by such concepts as Confederate History Month or Jerusalem Day.

Some claim that fabricating the past is harmless; this is not true. A nation, a community at the scale of millions, depends on its future generations; the act of romantically misremembering complicates future relations. When all that is remembered is how They wronged Us, or how We beat Them, younger generations are inspired to emulate and avenge based on the narratives of their forebears. The world is shrinking, while the paths of communication grow ever wider and farther spread, but the history accepted as one’s own very often originates at home as told by members of one’s community. Bias is passed down the generations like a hereditary disease.

Needless to say, it is not only family and friends who shape a person’s world view, or try to bend it for their purposes. For over two decades now the People’s Republic of China has managed to keep the facts and horrors of the Tiananmen Square protests out of their country’s mainstream.

Governments, much like people, shape the past and at times the present to fit their own needs. Lies were told to the American people about Vietnam and Iraq; the concept that we as a nation went to war based on romanticism should at the very least spur us into making one of those emotional oaths: ‘Never Again!’ or ‘Fool me once…’ Instead we fly our flags and sing our songs and make ridiculous statements like: ‘they hate us because we’re free.’ In other words: ‘they hate us because of what we are rather than what we’ve done.’ It is impossible for us to change who or what we are, therefore the enemy is unreasonable and subsequently alien.

Patriotism is just another word for unity, the evolutionarily indispensible form of society most common among human beings; unity is achieved by a superficial communal consciousness, the illusion that all of our individual parts add up to a whole. Being a part of something greater than ourselves lends us importance, and eventually superiority over others who are not part of the same union. We tell ourselves stories to explain this.

There is a small artists’ town near my village called Ein Hod, which despite having been established a mere 60 years ago, is resplendent with ancient dwellings. During the Israeli War of Independence, the original villagers were driven out by the Israeli army and now live in Ein Houd, a neighboring Arab village. Amazingly, Ein Hod is not a controversial place; the story goes that the Arabs of Ein Hod were bandits, and therefore deserved to be evicted from their homes. This is not true. British records of the period prove that. Yet the story and the artists’ town abide.

Such stories bring people closer together, but they do so by alienating others. Through our suffering and hardship, our perseverance in the face of real or fictional threats, we as minorities or superpowers are unified under the flag of Us and Them. This cannot be a simple flaw; the act of uniting people is a just and perhaps even holy work. The greatest powers on earth were first built and then honed upon the concepts of a common enemy. What is lost is the ability to relate to anyone outside that exclusive group – diminishing, if not abolishing the humanity of all outsiders.

As a child in Israel, I experienced that sense of safety and belonging that only communal hate and fear can produce; one of my favorite books was the story of a little girl in Jerusalem who played the violin. She played the violin so beautifully she was invited to perform for the British dignitaries at the King David Hotel, and because she was a brave and patriotic little girl she packed explosives into her violin case and was martyred in the name of Zionism. The rest of the book justified this act of violence in a child’s mind: it painstakingly explained how the arrogant British were in league with the evil Arabs and that their only goal was the eradication of the Jewish people. History was simplified, and therefore the act of terrorism that resulted seemed reasonable and necessary. The isolation that results: ‘Everyone is mad but us’ goes hand in hand with the conceit: ‘everyone is wrong but us.’ It ignores the possibility of reasoning with the enemy and makes peace or compromise unattainable and foolish.

The narrative of a culture is often simplified to its barest and most biased bones because, as centuries of poets have warned us, the romantic stories are the ones people remember, whether or not they actually happened. However, anything that alienates a people will often lead to actions of violence and hate; clear examples of this are the estrangement of the Jewish people, the Roma, and other religious and ethnic groups around the world.

Humanity by its definition is limited by its need to form into sects; therefore natural enmity will occur. However, accurate representation of history must do all it can to prevent such enmity when possible and avoid the pitfalls of championship and victimhood. We must not brag, and we must not whine, just as we have all been told as children.

I have many a time heard it said that it is not how tall we stand that defines us, but how often we stand up. I propose that we better examine the reasons we were knocked down in the first place.


In other news... Maayan and I are taking a 6pm bus to Portland where she's getting on a plane. This week has been ridiculously awesome.

Slow and... Interesting Realization....

It has come to my attention that while I enjoy the company of nearly all my WR121 classmates, there is one in particular who I seem to have found an especially amiable mutual affinity. She is 57 years young and is the person I have the most in common with:

Our topics of conversations range from NPR [Garrison Keillor, Car Talk], to Randy Newman and Pete Seeger, Tom Lehrer, Star Trek, Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Robert M. Pirsig and Richard Feynman.

This just goes to prove what I've suspected for years: That my education, friends and family have with great effort successfully prepared me to live in the 1970s.

Been too long I know...

So it's been forever and a bit since I've updated, but you mustn't hold that against me - in my defense I am a lazy butthead.

Further proof of this is the fact that I am logging this entry instead of revising yet another draft of my final essay for my WR121 class. It is titled: History Is Written By the Whiners and will be posted here once the final and 6'th draft has been completed to my somewhat narcissistic instructor's liking. He has the most frustrating comments I, with my admittedly limited imagination, could possibly have thought up. For example, to the paragraph:

"...Today, however, thanks to the modern achievements in archeological and historical interpretation, we are faced with another slightly more anthropological question: 'Does matter it what really happened?' Does it matter that 'Remember the Alamo' technically invites people to remember the U.S.'s shameful participation in an undeniably unrighteous war? Does it matter that Richard the Lion-Hearted, passive hero and patron of beloved Robin Hood, was a mass-murderer in the midst of genocide, while simultaneously bankrupting his own country? Does it matter that there were, in fact, no Weapons of Mass Destruction?"

He insists I add 'in Iraq' to the last sentence. Everyone who has read that paragraph, including those of a somewhat lesser intelligence, have managed to grasp which WMD are implied.

He also fervently disagrees with my representation of the 1917 Russian Revolution; particularly he takes issue with my claim that it was brought on in part by the peoples 'despair and poverty'. God save us from rabid anti-communist humanities instructors. However, thanks to his... I shall use the word 'nitpicking' in order to avoid a burst of vulgarity... I've discovered a few things I did not know about the execution of Nicholas II and his family:

The basement in which the Romanovs were murdered had a handwritten poem scrawled on one of its walls - part of a poem by one Heinrich Heine: "Belsatzar ward in selbiger Nacht / Von seinen Knechten umgebracht," "Belsatzar was, on the same night, killed by his slaves." Referring to the king and the writing on the wall from the Book of Daniel. Heine's original spelling was 'Belsazar', one of the killers creatively added the 'tzar'. Ah, puns in the midst of carnage somehow lose what little humor they had.

In other news, I miraculously managed to cook eggplant Parmesan for the very first time this Thursday, and my roommates and I read the book of Ruth. Iliana and Yui had never read it, so I had the pleasure of presenting it as a Biblical Cinderella story. We had farewell/birthday party last night, for me as well as many other recent/soon to come birthday people, as well as many departing international friends. I spent 50% of my time pouring drinks (you move faster than you ever realized you could when you see someone trying to mix Kahlua and orange juice, or Tequila with cream, not to say Voldka and Dr. Pepper), and another 25% outside shivering and happily arguing Western Philosophy and Middle Eastern Politics with a very nice young man whose name I don't remember, but whose plans to "either go to grad-school or work at Quiznos" might possibly stay with me forever.

Tomorrow a sweet and 31 year old classmate is coming over so I can help her with her Argument Analysis, a requirement for the WR121 class and what appears to be an exercise in cruelty on the part of the instructor - public speaking, yes, it is an important skill, but Dr. Mackay, my dear sweet despotic instructor, feels the need to sound his criticism to the entire class, while the student is still standing at the front clutching their measly sheaf of notes and quaking for all to see. One girl was moved to tears last week. Fucker. [disclaimer: I did very well on my Argument Analysis (A++) but I have roughly 20 years experience being a stage performer so I don't count.]

In other news... there is a batch of CoMecs set to go up once they are scanned, but between the essay and... to be honest, the copy of Good Omens I just received from Powells this morning(THANKYOUHOULTS), it might be a while before I do anything that requires... well, getting out of bed.

Not a bad existence overall.

Haaaaaaaaa....!

Spring Break! Whoo! I slept past noon today. Woke up, went to the gym, came home and gave Yui a driving lesson, went grocery shopping, came home again and realized I had absolutely nothing to do.

I keep getting this 'Okay, now I need to--' feeling, and then remembering finals are over. It's quite vertigo inducing. I can't express how strange it is not to have to study like a maniac. Haven't got my final grade yet, but I can tell by the instructor's page that it's in the low nineties. An A, please god I hope. He likes me, and giggled outloud while reading my extra credit essay on overpopulation and zombies. so I think it's all good.

Yet another unworthy soul asked me out the other day, this time in the person of Alex, a guy from my math class who is very good looking but thinks Kant and Math are stupid. So yeah, that was a no. I've decided to swear off anything remotely male at least until the end of next term. So I've been finding my romantic joy in other places:

Men I'm In Love With This Month:

Dick Van Dyke

Jon Stewart AND Fareed Zakaria

Naveen Andrews

David Boreanaz

Colin Firth

Salman Rushdie

Is it any surprise that I don't have time for real men? And that when I make that time, they inevitably fall short? Oh well. This is why God made chocolate and Youtube.

Leaving for Minnesota on the 25'th, and I will spend this week doing NOTHING. ...Well, relatively nothing, anyway. No asymptotes or reciprocal functions will be involved, to my great dismay. Going to bed now, need to wake up tomorrow and get an early start on watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and tentatively rewriting The Passover Knight, in other words, doing nothing. Good night!

Buzzed.

If there were a door,
Abyss of endless comfort in my mind,
My mind,
It -- would be as unfound by me, as you,
as me unfound by you.
Halve the distance, reciprocate,
Reciprocal in motion, function,
Tell me,
Can you feel the friction?
Can you feel the nearness, proximity to nothing?
You know there's only one thing,
I
Could never do,
The variable below the line prevents me,
I'm sorry,
Achilles, let the tortoise go.
I know.
In infinity's never ending swallow never hope
to touch,
I, Asymptote.


ASYMPTOTES ARE AWESOME!!!!!! I haven't been this excited about something since I discovered Heinrich Heine. I just can't get over the concept...! It has caused me to literally wax poetic. It has even made me want to learn Polynomial Long Division - which I'm getting better at, by the way. Variable in the Divisor? Pah! I can deal.

Next term will be the first in which I finally take some sort of English/Writing/Lit class, and will very likely prevent me from taking anymore math this year. AND I'M PISSED. I want to take Math 121, or Intro to Physics...! Last term I was upset because Math prevented me from taking English, and now I dread the lack of asymptotes come Spring. What hath taken place? Have I been stung by the maximum vertex of f(x)=|x|? The deadly yet addictive nectar of the origin flowing through my veins, screaming, yes, YES! n IS a positive integer! There ARE real zeroes! I shall dance, dance to the beat of the degree and leading term... all I need is my constant, my leading coefficient and I will know the end! ...Or at least the End Behavior.


And now some stupidity to balance out the Young with my Adult. This makes me laugh really hard. The context is entirely irrelevant. Feel free to stop it after minute 5.


Class now.

My Life...

Is like dancing barefoot on a Persian rug while wearing a swishy skirt. With changly danglies, even.

Danika's boyfriend Nathan came to stay for the weekend; he's an Korean Navy Seal who now works in his parents' Korean Restaurant. Adorable. We approve. On Saturday we set out for the International Students' Formal Dinner which was held in a church in the middle of nowhere... technically downtown.
There was line dancing and other such silly notions, but we had a wonderful time. Afterwards, six young adults and a balloon, we drove to an ice cream parlor and, I'm sure, got on the nerves of everyone who wasn't us.

Talked to Chris Hoult this morning, and I'll be meeting up with him in London this summer - getting tickets to the Globe, Henry VIII!!! It's such a shame I'll be missing him in Going Postal...

I would like to mention that I haven't had a single drop of alcohol in over two weeks now, and while I've lost roughly 7lb and I really don't know if it's worth it... I have a hula-hoop instead -- Iliana[the lovely lady in magenta] and I have been steadily regressing, acquiring a hula-hoop, a jump rope, large chalk, and a little plastic parachutist we can toss off the balcony. TOYS. Apparently an acceptable replacement for beer.

Jon Stewart went on the O'Reily Factor, advocating for sanity. You can see the edited version here, but I would strongly suggest you watch the full unedited version, it's 42 minutes long, but wonderful. And Stephen Colbert expresses my exact attitude about social networking.

I've finished my homework, cleaned the kitchen, and now I'm listening to Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and trying to upload this weekend's pictures onto Facebook. ...Oh, and trying for god's sake to think what I can get Ari for his birthday...!!!

Love to all! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALL YOU FEBRUARY PEOPLE!

p.s. I just realized that for the first time in my life I know who won the Superbowl. ...I don't CARE, but I KNOW...

Maayan Got Engaged!!!!!!

The wedding is tentatively scheduled for next July and SHE'S GETTING MARRIED MAAYAN IS GETTING MARRIED AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH this is so awesome.