Identity
Libra exists on the edge of many realities. Was Lee brilliant, or an idiot? Was Lee a crack shot, or extremely lucky? Did Lee hang at the center of a web of conspiracy, buzzing like a stuck fly, or was he the spider itself?
All these dualities emerge as a function of the inescapable problems with digging in the past to reconstruct a person's life. Even with all the possible evidence that is left behind, what conclusions can we draw from them? If we had Lee's army shooting records, or testimony that he beat his wife, or his pubic hair, we haven't learned much about the man himself. What were Lee's motives? What type of person was he to be around? We can't tell those things from the information that we have.
I don't think that the lack of ability to reconstruct identities is limited to Lee. We face similar problems when trying to reconstruct the identities of any other person in history. Who was Rosalind Franklin? Many books can, and have, been written on Franklin's character, writing plainly contradictory things. For that matter, who was George Washington? Albert Einstein? We have some vague ideas about what they have done, but who were they, really? The extent to which Lee's identity can be known may be less or greater than the other figures mentioned, but of all only little is known.
If someone were looking into the past in 50 years time, who would they see of me? Of you? It is true, in the digital age, information is different. Everyone through all of history has left a trail by simply walking on the earth, but with the advent of the internet that trail has become more and more prominent. Though it is stored in places we cannot see or touch, there are heaps of information on all of us that will last for long times. But that person living 50 years in the future will face the same problems. What does one, or even a thousand pictures tell you about someone's identity?
And forget looking in the past, we know little even by looking around. What you see of me is only one small piece of who I am. How are we supposed to figure out who someone was 50 years ago when we can't tell who the people around us are?
All these dualities emerge as a function of the inescapable problems with digging in the past to reconstruct a person's life. Even with all the possible evidence that is left behind, what conclusions can we draw from them? If we had Lee's army shooting records, or testimony that he beat his wife, or his pubic hair, we haven't learned much about the man himself. What were Lee's motives? What type of person was he to be around? We can't tell those things from the information that we have.
I don't think that the lack of ability to reconstruct identities is limited to Lee. We face similar problems when trying to reconstruct the identities of any other person in history. Who was Rosalind Franklin? Many books can, and have, been written on Franklin's character, writing plainly contradictory things. For that matter, who was George Washington? Albert Einstein? We have some vague ideas about what they have done, but who were they, really? The extent to which Lee's identity can be known may be less or greater than the other figures mentioned, but of all only little is known.
If someone were looking into the past in 50 years time, who would they see of me? Of you? It is true, in the digital age, information is different. Everyone through all of history has left a trail by simply walking on the earth, but with the advent of the internet that trail has become more and more prominent. Though it is stored in places we cannot see or touch, there are heaps of information on all of us that will last for long times. But that person living 50 years in the future will face the same problems. What does one, or even a thousand pictures tell you about someone's identity?
And forget looking in the past, we know little even by looking around. What you see of me is only one small piece of who I am. How are we supposed to figure out who someone was 50 years ago when we can't tell who the people around us are?
It's interesting to think about how little we know about people. Their secrets, their daily lives, their relationships, their actions, and I think you brought up a great point. But I think its better in some cases to not know so much about people. No matter how much someone claims that they're an "open book", there will always be something you don't know about them, because we each have to take care of our own brains and thoughts and actions. How much do we need to know about people?
ReplyDeleteI definitely see your point on how history kind of loses itself moments after it's made. Its so susceptible to bias and people's opinions, it's almost as if everything you read and learn you need to take with a grain of salt. It's hard to understand what's real or what's fake, even today with all the recording technology. Things taken out of context I feel like is the major conspirer of this generation because you never know why someones says/act/does what they do.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a court case that my mom often talks about. In the case, an undercover police officer is chasing a suspect, but another group of police officers mistake him for the suspect and brutally beat him. Meanwhile, the defendant, another police officer named Conley ran right by, continued chasing the suspect, and apprehended him sometime later. Jurors assumed that he must have seen the fight and ignored it to continue chasing the suspect, but he did not. I think this case shows us very well how much we can miss if we are focused on something else, and even before it becomes history we are already losing massive amounts of information every moment.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! The discussions we've had about this subject are always interesting to think about for me. I've never scrutinized the actual meaning of history this much, even throughout the semester in this class. History really is a hard thing to think about because we have so many preconceived notions of what it means, but Libra puts out a lot of contradictory messages about history and its significance to humans in general.
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