Processing the train, and keeping everyone on board
There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. …. To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.
(Edward Hyams, Chapter 7, The Gifts of Interpretation)
Our readings in the textbook this week heavily emphasized the importance of getting something on the page, little by little as ideas flow, and the process of continually editing the piece. In the spirit of this lesson, I thought I would post each step of edits as I form my blog post for this week (the large edits at least).
First draft: First impressions and thoughts
I see this quote as 2 separate ideas:
There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. ….
Peculiar meaning distinct (not strange)
Integrity meaning honesty and wholeness
People are required to couple integrity with history
The past without people = lack of connection to today
The past + people = a lesson for today
To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.
The effects of an event continue to radiate even after the event has finished
Someone somewhere is affected, someone somewhere remembers
Who is on the train and where is the train going?
Does everyone on the train have the same point of view?
History is less meaningful without interpretation and the addition of human voices and experience.
There is always something to be learned from the past and taken with us into the future
Second draft: Forming some points to branch off of and connect
Knowledge about the past is less informative on its own
History needs context provided by humans
Connect to textbook reading-actors, real people who lived through event
Information presented in multiple media forms is better received and might be more likely to encompass the full picture
Stories, people, artifacts, natural history, photos
Gives us a better informed future
Train analogy is an example of interpretation (helps us understand better)
Connects to textbook readings- accessibility
Accessibility means making sure information is available and digestible for all, but also that the voices of all historical parties are included in the story
What might the train represent?
Incomplete historical representations lack integrity
Third draft: Piece together my interpretation and relate quote to course content
The first part of the quote argues that when on their own, historical artifacts or knowledge are not as useful or enlightening as they could be. Do people learn better from reading a passage or textbook, or by seeing historical artifacts along with a passage? Would it help even more to have someone with great knowledge on the topic available to present and walk through the information? Better yet, having someone there who’s lived through the event, to transfer this information even more seamlessly and genuinely. As we read in our textbook this week, people benefit when multiple mediums are used, because different learning styles and abilities need to be considered. The information is most accessible when it is presented in a variety of forms. Our readings mentioned the use of war veterans, and how we must take advantage of their one-of-a-kind knowledge. No amount of studying on a topic can replace actual lived experience and the anecdotes someone who’s lived the event would be able to provide. This is because people notice ingenuity and it is important to accurately represent the piece of history so as to not spread misinformation, as also learned from our textbook reading. I think this lesson from the textbook relates to the quote because the quote talks about how integrity relates to keeping all of history’s many parts together and accurate. Therefore, when interpreters use all possible resources in order to provide the public with the best representation of what actually happened (as recommended by the textbook), they are acting with integrity. This loops back to the involvement of real humans, (either those who’ve lived the experience like veterans, or those who are committed interpreters), because this (the involvement of real humans) is how we make sure that we are offering an unbiased and fair presentation (as recommended by the textbook).
This leads us to the second part of the quote. It argues that it would be naïve of us to believe that the past is truly in the past, just because it is over. This relates the first part (our goal of representing all sides of the story accurately), because certain voices no longer exist, yet we still aim to remember them and what they had to say. If we allow memories to die with the people that held them, then we are missing pieces of history and can no longer say that our understanding of the past is of high integrity. With the loss of pieces of the historical puzzle, comes the risk that we might not learn from the past. I think one of the main purposes of historical interpretation is to decipher what lessons are relevant to us today, and we miss more potential warnings with each memory that is lost. The train station analogy is helpful to interpret the rest of the quote because it provides a visualization of the text. This visualization helps me to picture relationships between historical interpretation, and the present. For example, the train might represent the journey through historical information. Who is on the train? Is the train available to everybody? If not, does this mean certain people cannot access information that they might need or want? Or, the train might represent society as we move through time. Does everyone look out the train window and see the same view? Is there room for everybody on the train? Who gets to talk on the train? Many groups of people today are affected by past events, even if they took place multiple decades ago. This is why the survival of stories from the distant past is crucial, and people need the opportunity to share them.
Ensuring that we are informed about all aspects of the past allows us to be better prepared for the future. Interpretation is one crucial way to inform the public and transfer relevant lessons and knowledge.
Did you interpret the quote in a similar way, or do you have different thoughts?