Where Does The Past Go, The Betrayal Of The Images

Where does the past go, the betrayal of the images

"The famous pipe? They didn’t get tired of reproaches. But can you. Fill it?

No, of course, it is a mere representation.

If I had put under my picture – this is a pipe-,

I would have said a lie."

René Magritte

As of 2010, the History Program for the Third Year of the First Cycle will be adapted to the contents proposed by the 2006 reformulation, moving the temporary limit of facts to be taught until the first years of the present century. The past is frequently observed as a "conflict zone", and it is more when events are daily immersed in reality. By virtue of the above, and in order to explore unavoidable aspects that make the construction of historical knowledge that will later be taught in our classrooms, I create the brief presentation of some intrinsic epistemological elements of the discipline that enable reflection and they are necessary to consider.

In the first place, I can affirm that the biggest problem that history has is directly related to the high level of complexity and abstraction of historical knowledge

that, however, it is frequently perceived equivocally as "easy to learn". This generates an obstacle to the understanding of the past because it loses its main dimension: its radical otherness. Then the anachronisms and subjective turns abound in unjustified interpretations, with static and decontextualized realities that in no way take into account the temporality and limits of the story.

The intelligibility of the facts of the past is established in relation to the "other" – whether a certain tradition establishes as such – and for its understanding it is necessary to achieve empathy with what is totally different from what currently surrounds us. What a first small difficulty.

Where does the past go? Consider the following;The past is administered and ordered from the present creating manner images that influence or make up reality. However, those modal images of the past, far from being stable, constantly change at the same speed as the present. If we take into account the ephemeral nature of the latter, we will understand how the interpretations change permanently with the transformations of the significant network restructuring the notion of the past.

It makes it different in another way. Thus, elements not considered or forgotten at a given time suddenly acquire visibility, but "in a very different terrain"

The conception of a "changing past" is generally perceived as dangerous and generates distrust. It is usual, human beings find in certainty a safe place and, occasionally, complicating. However, the "social reality" built and instituted is permeated by the uncertainties of knowledge and time. Not to alarm. It is not about questioning the statute of existence of all historical data, nor that any interpretation has the same value or status. There are verifiable facts that do not leave the "invention", but it is easy. In itself, there is no intelligibility of the past detached from the perception of the future project of a community itself. The way in which the past is organized, more than making meaning to the present, points out a "path" in an deontological sense. Is in relation to the expectations and desires of a society. What we could perceive as fragility of the past refers to as “speech of history and speech of action are referred to each other, (…), in short, both speeches constitute inseparable faces of the same currency." 

In the work of the true historian, what counts is not only what is remembered and commemorated, but what is forgotten in the reconstruction of the past (Giddens: 15). When making history, it promotes an identity construction of the community as such, varied, not of political, religious or some kind of particular fractions. The historian conceives of history as a claim to analysis of reality, not as the "truth" or the only possible explanation. He knows that memories betray and must rely on other instruments to make his trade. The historical story is, at the same time, more and less than the past. Pursues a reconstruction agreed by a dynamic social body. A Greek fable speaks of two sources or springs located near the tropiary oracle. One was that of oblivion, another of memory. The Greeks used to drink alternately in one and the other. But when after having forgotten they drank at the source of memory, what they remember was altered, modified and remembered it based on what they had around. Rebuilding the past exactly is impossible, the important thing is to always keep it in mind and not believe that it is to whom the source of memory offers us the only real image of what it was.

History, in permanent construction, manages to impose visions of reality and contributes to configure identities. Therefore, in the elaboration of the historical story, everyone’s participation is necessary. Because we are all involved in the social construction of reality. And this does not admit exclusions of any kind. The past is something essential and inescapable. To assume the challenge of a knowledge that we can no longer observe as constituted and not problematic, we need to speak in a historical key and take into account the specificity of the discipline.

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