What does "the purpose of history is ideological" mean?
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Max Weber has a great quote on culture:
'Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.
Well, the same goes for the history. There are an infinity of possible facts that a historian could study, a teacher teach, or a politician or activist mention in a speech. Ideology helps us decide which segment of that meaningless infinity of the world process we will confer significance upon and call "history."
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The word history is used to describe both past events themselves, and the study and recording of past events. Those who study history inevitably put it into a contemporary, ideological context.
Say you are writing a history of the second world war. When did it start? When Japan invaded China? When Germany invaded Poland? When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor? You have to make a choice, and that is ideological.
Regarding Columbus, consider these questions:
- What reason is given for the voyage?
- What did he find?
- Why is his voyage prominent in the history books, and not the earlier Viking voyages?
Edit/Postscriptum: Did Columbus discover America? Or did he recontact it? What do the history books say, and what does the choice of words say about the viewpoint of the speaker?
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