Historiography

Historiography is probably the most important tool for sense-making in a constantly evolving world.

Understanding who is an actor in history, who is the narrator and which intentions the narrator might have to tell the story in a certain way always gives you clues onto who you should trust, and under which circumstances. This especially counts for names, titles and words that capture meaning.

Celebrations and silences

History is written non-linearly too, there are celebrations of certain events and deliberate silencing of other events. How a narrator chooses to tell a story influences its trajectory into the future. The narrative of an event does not necessarily mean that it's important.

Collective memory

Memory is not a "storage", especially in a collective sense. It is always created at each event by recalling the reference of a previous event. Over time, these relationships build a semi-lattice of references that keep on building the next step. "Past" is always a position in relation to the present.

How to see what actually happened

As society changes over time, some cultural developments emerge and impact what society pays attention to. Following closely the sociohistorical process while reviewing different narratives (with different authors, events and silences) will provide you with a combination of insights to which of these narratives are useful and more relevant than others.

"We imagine lives under the mortar, but how do we recognize the end of a bottomless silence?"

Michel-Rolp Trouillot, Silencing the Past