Medium post #3

History is spawned from a blend of conversations from the past and present. It is just as Napoleon once said: “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?” To Napoleon, history, as opposed to recording the past, is closer in relation to a tale, written by the ones who composed “history.” In theory and more specifically in the past, history is a privilege given only to the victors, the ones in power, and the nobility. During the era where women and the minorities received little to no rights, their history is often overlooked and sometimes even tarnished due to the influence and pressure of the ones in power. Consequently, the minorities’ history reduced from a tale of their past lives into a mockery illustrated by the majority. This eventually resulted in a discrepancy over the river of history as they were seemingly “lost.”

One important shift in my experiences/life is the switch from going physically to classes into taking classes remotely through zoom/other media. Even though the event had taken its toll on not only mine, but many other students’ lives worldwide, I doubt the event is going to be recorded in the official archives. Events like this, though impactful, do not hold a special value in the scope of human history. If the future historians were to look into this event, however, they could speculate on what happened as a result. First and foremost is the rise in stocks of the games/technology industry, resulting in the rise of many young millionaires. Maybe they could also realize a trend of grades rising partly due to a easier way for students/teachers to reach out to one another and partly due to online cheating.

To be honest, though learning has become much easier for me due to the online lectures, I felt as though relationship with my peers have grown distant from the little chance to meet during the pandemic. In a sense, I am not opposed to the historians digging up and writing about anything related to me as long as it is a fact backed up by evidence, however, I felt like is is unacceptable for anyone to slander me and create false realities and “fake history.” As a result, I figured that a foundation in the ethics of history is the evidences and authenticity of History. Sure, history is often biased and would change based on perspective, but that further emphasized the importance of sourcing and giving evidence for people in the future to analyze one’s work base on one’s social standing, status, and situation.

Chieh-Hsiu Hung