{"id":7368,"date":"2009-03-12T17:47:28","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T22:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=7368"},"modified":"2009-03-12T17:47:28","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T22:47:28","slug":"forgetting-and-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/forgetting-and-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgetting, and History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Ernest Renan, a French 19th-century philosopher:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Forgetting, and I would say even historical error, is an essential element in the creation of a nation, and that is why the progress of historical studies is often a danger for the nation itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Of course, the observation extends to other communities, not just states and nations. Kwame Anthony Appiah, in whose recent book (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0674026098\/davesmormonin-20\">Experiments in Ethics<\/a>) the Renan quote appears, added this as a commentary.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Offering an account of the past &#8230; is in part a way of justifying a contemporary practice. And once we have a stake in a practice, we shall be tempted to invent a past that supports it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think this gets at why historians have tried so hard to insulate historical writing from politics and bias &#8230; and why they so regularly fail. If I had more time I&#8217;d attempt a discussion of how this plays out in the writing of Mormon history. Perhaps some obliging reader can take a stab at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Ernest Renan, a French 19th-century philosopher: Forgetting, and I would say even historical error, is an essential element in the creation of a nation, and that is why the progress of historical studies is often a danger for the nation itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-history"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}