voila!!
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post your stp ch 3 here
By americanculturesvoila!!
November 5, 2006 at 2:25 am
Now i am not sure i am doing the assignment right, but this is the Commentary of the book, not the actual paper even though it is in paper form. So I would love any constructive critism or just anything to start a conversation about things i missed or you yourself observed. thanks
Jade Dant
Commentary on STP
11/03/06
italianbooty143@yahoo.com
Online 1395
First I would like to say a word or two about some of the confusing language Foucault and Michel Trouillot uses. They want to write in order to educate others, but their writing is most definitely not for all. For instance, a student who’s 2nd language is English might have trouble with their upper class dictionary vocabulary. A real author writes to the audience of which they want to reach, and boy if they want to educate everyone they better drop their “I am on a high pedestal attitude” and educate the ones who really need it. Anyways that is how I feel about these so called eye openers.
Pg 84. Trouillot writes: built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy.
What this is that to look into the problems of the system is to think that there is something wrong with the system. People want to believe that what they are doing is alright and by ignoring the existence of issues they don’t have to act upon them. For example the slave owners didn’t want to accept the mass phenomenon of slave revolution, they wanted to believe each case of resistance was an isolated incident that doesn’t concern them. It is a way of brain washing yourself into believing everything is okay, that everything within the system is just perfect because it is working for you, but not necessarily everyone. This is important because it is a use of power not necessarily on the body, but of actions. Where words spoken by leaders proclaiming that all is good will cause others to argue that all is well with no problems. With everyone proclaiming a normalcy with the system, there is no resistance of the actors within the narrative. It is important because to use domination on others you have convince them what you are doing is for their own good, and that is was their place in life to be dominated over. Foucault makes reference of domination in is example of Non-Coercive power, where “whenever you hear Foucault say, ‘It’ for your own good!’ look for strategies of domination” Hegemony, the Non-Coercive power talks about cultural force plus consent, where one goes along with the norm to not be singled out. I think that is where Foucault talks about similar things, but does anyone know of others?
Pg 99. archival power- what is it and how does it work? give me some examples-
Archival power in the words of Trouillot is. “The power to define what is and what is not a serious object of research and, therefore, of mention.” The past is defined by those with power, and the past is whatever the records and memories agree upon. Archives are basically documents of history held in an organized area, this area is restricted by those with power who can regulate who sees the documents and where they can be read. So if someone doesn’t want you to read something they can just destroy it or restrict the viewing of it. Basically archival power is the power to say whether history gets recorded and viewed based on its content and archival sorter. How does it work? From archives of history come textbooks, this is where people can learn about selected
Jade Dant
Commentary on STP
events. Archival power can be used to silence certain points of view or facts from a narrative. This works for example, say an indigenous group is bombarded by some colonists who desire to live in the area, this indigenous group records history with pictures and story telling. The colonists decide to kill many of the indigenous people, now to not look bad a historian might skip over the killing part of the story and just talk about the settling in. The historian reports to archives which then in turn say if the story is worth the time or not. If the story is, it is recorded under the colonist view silencing the indigenous and if it isn’t good the whole story could be lost and with it and trace of the event. I don’t know about you, but I think through archival power it is double silenced. First the observers of an event perceive it differently, they tell the historian different stories, the historian takes notes to only write down what he/she finds interesting, then the archives person sorts this information by importance and individual biases. That all leaves so much room for silencing the past. Now examples of archival power are:
1. The Haitian Revolution, this big event is noted rarely in history books and if it is it is called a “revolt” a “rebellion”. Even the Napoleon lost many men, even his own brother-in-law, but French writings show many silences of the event. England silences this also even though they lost upward of 60 thousand men in the 8 years of fighting.
2. Today the information about 9/11 is all archived to a point, but some of it is very top secret. What the government wants you to know is all in archival power.
3. Columbus’s story was for a very long time not recorded as the story it is now, Colombus was the brave explorer who found the America’s.
4. More recent stories about Kent State University and the shootings of innocent students by the National Guard was not highly reported on.
5. Area 51, the biggest secret of the government, and no documentation in the archive of this important place, but we all know it exists.
This always makes one wonder what other stories are out there? What haven’t we heard? The technology of today can hide anything; any traces of an event can disappear? People disappear everyday, where do they go?
November 5, 2006 at 4:41 am
Jade – well now I am confused.. are we supposed to write a paper or discuss online or both? I agree with your comment about Foucault and Trouillot and their writing. Under the “why foucault” article it states that genuinely clever people do not need to hide behind big words.. although the language is impressive, it is difficult to read. If it makes you feel any better, I read a review of silencing the past and the critic said his dictionary was next to him the whole time and that comment is coming from a academic peer!
November 5, 2006 at 4:57 am
Ben Basque
Human 6 1395
11/2/06
Trouillot Chap 3
Pg 1
I interpret the passage” Can we confidently exclude from ones history
all events not experienced or not yet revealed including for instance an
adoption at the time of birth…….the past or more accurately pastness is
a position. Thus in no way can we identify the past as past.”(15) to mean
that our frame of reference for what we each see as truth comes from not
only our own experiences, but from the stories or events told to us from
birth on. We do not necessarily have honest memories of these events,
but most of us would be at a loss to retell what is our actual memory or
events that we experienced or what memories are from someone telling
us it happened. This is actually is also an example of archival power.
Achieves are to preserve, protect, legitimize and sanctify certain documents. (www.archieves.org) Achieves are not as neutral as we might assume.
Achieves can tell what ever story the curator of the institution wants it to tell.
Surveys and “studies” seem to have the same ability. In my opinion you can
support almost any point of view and even a historical event by carefully
omitting information or events, or delegating insignificance to those events.
Archival power does the same thing. If the archive or the “historian” only
shares or keeps pieces of the event to show the event as he/she sees it then
we get at best a distorted view of what happened.
Examples of when silences occur/exist in narrative history are at the moment
of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the
making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of the narrative)
and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the
final instance)…….as such they are not meant to provide a realistic description
of the making of any individual narrative. (26-27) Trouillot is telling us that when history is told and then written it has already been influenced by
opinion. An example of this could be that if I were out some where and I witnessed a fight between people, it all happened so fast that some of the fight I did not notice, there are other witness’s, the fight ends and the combatants take off. We the witnesses start talking to each other and each
Ben Basque
Human 6 1395
11/2/06
Trouillot Chap 3
Pg. 2
of us has missing details. As we talk we fill in the blanks for each other. When it is time to retell the event we retell it with all the blanks filled in, and never even really realize that we are not giving a true objective history. We have each silenced the history of the event by not mentioning the missing pieces and explaining that there were things we did not see or know.
Actually this example also shows Trouillots statement that “In history, power begins at the source. The powering the production of alternatives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. First, facts are never meaningless: indeed, they become facts only because they matter in some sense, however minimal. Second, facts are not created equal; production of traces is always also the creation of silence.” (29) My example of the fight witness shows the above statement to be true. All facts have a bearing on an event and when we either intentionally omit them or just do not understand there significance to the event, we have altered part of the event. The last part of his Trouillots statement about “facts are not created equal” is clear when we retell the event adding our opinions as to why the event happened we are changing the facts. When we do not give an objective retelling of any event we have altered the history
Trouillots “impossible history” is that the people in power or the “man” does not want to give credence to what he perceives as the powerless. To give credence to the complaints of the powerless would mean that those in power might need to look at the events from a different perspective and in doing so he/she might have something to lose. The avoid the need to look at what they are doing in any kind of negative light he/she comes up with reasons why the events are taking place without really seeing from any objective stand point. Goulds article does have an example of an impossible history. “Scientists tend to be unaware of their own mental impositions upon the worlds messy and ambiguous factuality. Such mental
Ben Basque
Human 6 1395
11/3/06
Trouillot Chap 3
Pg.3
impositions arise from a variety of sources including psychological predisposition and social context.” (Gould pg. 4) Kincaid also has an example of impossible history when the father tells the boy about his grandparents leaving him behind while they went to build the Panama Canal. The father tells the story in a nicer way than it actually happened.
Trouillot writes “built in to any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy.” To Me Foucaults statement “The relationship between rationalization and excess of power is always evident. Whenever I hear about meaning, value, virtue or goodness, I look for strategies of domination.”is saying essentially the same thing. What both of them seem to mean is that if the powerful looked at the facts that the rebellion or revolts happened because the revolters neede change the powerful would need to admit that what they were doing was wrong. The powerless are human beings just like them. They have wants and needs, dreams, they feel pain and sorrow. To acknowlege that the power would have to admit that they might be wrong and they would lose the power thath they had over the less powerful. So to stay in the safty zone of power they justify their actions by making the domination into the “norm” and making the less powerful in to the oddity.
November 5, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Dave Bynum
Human 6 online
American Cultures 1395
11/04/06
medic811@sbcglobal.net
Commentary STP
History is about discourse, accepted and altered. Over time the world has communicated in different forms of discourse: pictures, language, symbols, however “history is so infinitely malleable in some societies that it loses its differential claim to truth” (7). History is also dynamic and is influenced by power and “power does not enter the story once and for all, but at different times and from different angles” (29). Sometime during the narrative another purpose or power may present itself and the narrative is rewritten to serve the current social purpose. For example Trouillot believes the Holocaust narrative has been altered to serve US and Israel policies and it may change again depending on another need (12).
Along with the intended power comes the facts and “facts are never meaningless: indeed, they become facts only beause they matter in some sense, however minimal” (29). Some facts can become silenced depending on who is telling the narrative, for example our schools. Our education system selectively choses material to put in our history books; what we can and cannot teach our children.
Silences occur in four different forms: the moment of fact creation, the moment of fact assembly, the moment of fact retrieval, the moment of retrospective significance (26). Silences are not equal and “these silences crisscross or accumulate over time to produce a unique mixture” (27). 9/11 is a good example of silences. It happened, the facts were gathered and assembled, then retrieved. Next the narrative of events is created; the story to be told. The significance or purpose lies with the interpreter. You can place yourself all over the world and view this event differently depending on the silences; the uneven powers entering at different angles. The muslim community viewed this event as one of victory and the US as a tragedy. What silences are both countries leaving out?
Another combination of silences are “erasures and trivialization. Erasure is eliminating the “facts or relevance” (96) completely and trivilialization means to lessen the severity of the situation. Synergistically these silences become very powerful and are used to make sense out of the narrative. Erasure is ignoring the fact that the indians were here before Europeans and justifying the takeover by stating the indians were savage anyway.
David Bynum
STP II
Flowers of Evil by Jamaica Kincaid is also a story of erasures. Her native flowers were ‘discovered’ by a european. One particular flower was taken back to europe and hybridized by Andreas Dahl. Dahl gave the the flower a new name and history; a new meaning. Kincaid felt this was a form of rape because her native flower and their meanings were completely disregarded and erased. It did not have the same meaning and was basically rewritten. Like many races this flower was ” of the “conquered class and living in a conquered place” (Kincaid).
These silences create a form of archival power defined as “what is and what is not a serious object of research and, therefore, of mention” (99). The Haitian Revolution was not important to the rest of the world therefore it was mostly erased in certain textbooks. It wasn’t a story of those who won unless you were a slave in Haiti. England and France felt superior to the slaves and maybe part of the silence was embarrassment of losing to an supposed inferior race or loss of political power.
The Haitian Revolution did not seem possible; “the unthinkable is that which one cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives” (82). The Europeans were not able to visualize this event because “it challenged the very framework within which proponents and opponents had examined race, colonialism, and slavery in the Americas” (83). The unthinkable went against all that they established and believed. In my understanding of Foucault, the problem is that society does not look at possible alternatives. Most of us cannot fathom a society without prison systems; it is unthinkable, however, have we looked at other possibilities?
At some point we need to acknowledge faults in our systems “because built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy” (84). Foucault’s quote of “whenever I hear about the meaning of value, virtue or goodness, look for strategies of domination.” Slavery of any race is not acceptable. To acknowledge the Haitian Revolution would be to admit fault with their accepted reality therefore, the discourse is altered and shaped into the interpretators beliefs of what is normal.
History is about what happened and what is said to have happened, but “if some events cannot be accepted even as they occur, how can they be assessed later?” (73). History goes through a sociohistorical process: the event, facts, evaluation of the facts and conclusion (narrative). If the actual event cannot be acknowledge, the history is impossible. During the Haitian Revolution, most of the world could not accept or acknowledge this event albeit it happened.
David Bynum
STP II
The impossible history is also revealed in Gould’s article. If the truth cannot be accepted, the history is impossible. Blumenbach created a hierarchy of power between the races. He divided them according to the “most comely” of races, caucasian being the most beautiful to him. Blumenback recorded “the social view of his time.” (Gould). At this time it was unthinkable to not have rank between the races therefore making the history impossible. To admit equality would be to admit the flaws in Blumenbach’s teachings. Unfortunately at the time he did not realize that his actions/ideas “have consequences, whatever the motives or intentions of their promoters.” Blumenbach probably did not realize implications of his theories; his theories led to scientific racism. Foucault’s quote of “people know what they do but don’t know what they do does” correlates with this. Blumenbach did what he could at the time but had no idea of the consequences.
The Haitian Revolution happened. It is in the past or is it a creation of the past? The past and present work together; “the past is only past because there is a present” (15). From birth we have memories, but how does our mind sort the memories of what is important and what is not? Even our own minds silence some of our past by a collective past. I can’t remember being at Disneyland when I was three, but I have been told about the experience time and time again because I got lost. I don’t remember being lost, the feeling of being lost or if I was really lost. History works the same way. We can be told about slavery but none of us have experienced it so we cannot identify the “past as the past” (15), however, the two work together.
Words and language,discourse, are more powerful than we give credit. The erasure of words can lead to an entire history forgotten. What do we really know of Indians before the colonization? Was it erased? Blumenbach enhanced racism by his choice of words and their connotations. What if he saw beauty in all the races? In addition, words can be extremely powerful. Exluding Haiti’s narrative is about a dominate, Western civilization. The West doesn’t care about the narrative; it is only interested in exercising the dominant power. History is a story about power; a story about those who win. A dominant power never wants to lose and “the history of America is being written in the same world where few little boys want to be Indians.
Dave Bynum
STPII
November 5, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Did anyone watch America’s Most Wanted last night? One of the men wanted was a parole from Angola State Prison in Louisiana. Just thought I would share this. :}
November 5, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Jade-
I completely agree with you. It took me several reads to come to, what I thought to be, the most accurate interpretations I could come up with. It is really not an easy read, which contributes to why I am now so frusterated that I deleted my entire paper (I have no idea how) and now have to start all over again! But that aside, I really dont think all the “wordy” language is neccessary when trying to make a point. It does a better job of confusing people than educating people, I think.
November 5, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
November 4, 2006
moxiedonna@gmail.com
Human 6, Section 1395
Trouillot speaks of the difference between history as told to the masses and history as it really happened. By altering the perception of history, we are effectively hiding important parts of the past from ourselves and future generations. In Chapter 3 of Silencing the Past, Trouillot speaks of the unthinkable as related to history, such as the unthinkable act of revolution in Haiti or the unthinkable act of the Holocaust. Both of these important parts of history were unthinkable in their times because philosophers or historians could not fathom that something of that magnitude could happen within a group of people. Five years ago, it was unthinkable to imagine terrorists killing thousands of people by flying jets into buildings but now it is a realistic part of our history and something that could happen again. The horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 blew the lid off our concept of unthinkable acts and unthinkable history.
In silencing or “covering up” an important part of a culture’s past, we are denying ourselves crucial information about our ancestors. It took society and historians nearly 150 years to accept the facts of the Haitian Revolution. By glossing over such an important part of history, not just for Haiti but for the entire world, or trivializing it by calling it “an insurgency” or “revolt” historians effectively denied the Revolution its rightful place in the history of slavery. The Haitian Revolution was the start of slavery reversal and “challenged slavery and racism” (87). But the world refused to acknowledge what was happening in Haiti and it wasn’t fully accepted into historical and public opinion until after World War II. And because there was no real record of the Revolution, the world could bury its head in the sand and choose to believe that that Revolution didn’t happen. If it’s not written or taken into public record, it never occurred.
The skewed view on the Haitian Revolution can be compared to the modern day media’s take on the War on Terrorism. The government will add whatever spin necessary to the events in Iraq and Afghanistan to make the United States appear as if it has the upper hand and the media will add its own spin to gain public sympathy. Because the government and the media may have different views on the war in Iraq, we as the public are fed two different versions of the same story. Which part of history are we supposed to accept as fact? Which story is the true story – is there even a clear “side” or does the real truth of history lie somewhere in between?
In regard to Trouillot’s quote on page 84, “built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy. To acknowledge resistance as a mass phenomenon is to acknowledge the possibility that something is wrong with the system”, Trouillot is speaking of society’s refusal to believe that there is anything wrong with status quo. To admit that there could be a problem with the normal functioning of society is to admit that society is doing something wrong, that somewhere along the way the normal actions of society morphed into abnormality. No society wants to truly admit its
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
mistakes and its own shortcomings because in doing so it will have to admit that there may be a better plan out there.
On page 15, Trouillot asks “can we confidently exclude from one’s history all events not experienced or not yet revealed, including, for instance, an adoption at the time of birth”. I believe Trouillot is speaking of events that shape our lives and our own personal histories that we may not actively remember or events in which we were not an active participant. Just because we do not remember a part of our past does not mean that it didn’t happen; it’s just a fault of memory. Child development experts have proven that we do not have the cognitive ability to remember events that occurred during our earliest years. An event that happened when I was a small child shapes the person I am today, whether or not I remember it. For instance, when I was three I was attacked and mauled by a large dog. However, the facts are fuzzy and unclear to me but that means the attack did not happen. There are written accounts, such as medical records, and personal family photographs that prove the dog attack did in fact occur. There is usually historical documentation to verify the facts of our personal or ancestral history.
Also on page 15, Trouillot states that “the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only the past because there is a present…nothing is inherently over there or here..the past has no content…pastness is a position”. I believe Trouillot is saying that the past and the present are the same. The past shapes the present and how we react to present events. The past does not get left behind the moment we step into the present; instead, it changes and becomes the present. In this manner, the past and the present are different parts of one being. The past and the present blend with the future to make the whole of history, the whole of our lives and beings. Even if we do not remember the past and we do not know the future, both of these still exist in the present. Our past, be it personal or societal, affects the people we are in the present, which in turns affects the way we will be in the future. We are always thinking of future events and use our past and present to shape how we hope the future will be.
Trouillot writes on page 29 “in history power begins at the source. The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. First, facts are never meaningless…second, facts are not created equal”. The power of history starts with the historical fact itself. For example, the power of the Haitian Revolution starts with the facts of the Revolution itself. Hiding the true facts of the Revolution does not negate its validity nor the fact that it happened. The statement of facts not being created equally, I believe, talks about the difference between the two types of history: the history that we are fed and the true history of what happened. The facts of each type of history may in fact be different but each has its own meaning. Each set of facts has its own validity, its own truth. Which truth we choose to believe is up to us. Finding the real truth in the myriad of facts we are given is our obligation to the past and to the future. We are obligated to our ancestors to find the true story and believe it, just as we are obligated to our descendents to do the same.
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
In reading page 29 where Trouillot talks about the four crucial moments of historical production, I immediately think of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. This portion of
history is both important to American society and inherently flawed in its truth, because we do not know the whole truth about the assassination. The first of the crucial moments of Kennedy’s assassination, the fact creation, is the assassination itself. When President Kennedy’s caravan was fired upon and both President Kennedy and Governor Connolly (sp) were shot, history was created. The making of the archives of the incident occurred as the crowd was taking pictures and as Steve Zamuda (?) filmed the procession, thereby creating numerous records of the same event and entering it into factual history. The moment of fact retrieval happened when people talked about the assassination and as the media reported on the event. The fact retrieval continued with the Warren Commission, which proves that fact retrieval and the making of narratives can be incorrect. The Warren Commission contrived the “magic bullet theory” and asked society to blindly accept it as fact because it came from the government. Thus, the Warren Commission asked society to discount all other forms of facts, the pictures, the video, the witness accounts. This is a classic example of using power to skew history. The Warren Commission used the cause of power to attempt to make the American public believe the magic bullet theory and to accept the theory of one assassin. The last crucial moment of history, the making of retrospective significance, occurs to this day. There have been articles, books, documentaries, movies, and countless other pieces of history created about Kennedy’s assassination. Each piece of history is of significance to our society because they shape our present and our future and each piece has been documented since November 22, 1963.
Jamaica Kincaid’s quote “the naming of things is so crucial to possession that it is a murder, an erasing, and it is not surprising that people have felt themselves prey to it, among their first acts of liberation is to change their names” struck me as something so familiar within myself. The quote itself is so simple yet immensely deep at the same time. In my own act of liberation, my divorce, the first thing I requested was the changing of my last name. This simple act of transformation will forever separate me from the person I married and hopefully return me to a semblance of the person I used to be. By marrying someone and changing names, I believe that I lost part of myself. The fundamental possession of taking a spouse’s last name erases part of my own history and that flower of my personality withered over the years. Therefore, it was my own small act of rebellion against my ex-husband that I demanded the return of my own name, my first identity. It was an act of defiance as retaliation for years in which I could not be defiant. I believe this is a part of Trouillot’s “impossible history” – something that didn’t happen because there is no proof. By returning to my maiden name, I can pretend (at least on the surface) that six and a half years of marriage did not happen, effectively erasing that part of my personal history.
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
Trouillot’s perception of impossible history is also present in Stephen Jay Gould’s article about the 18th Century’s classification of races and the man who fought to change it. Johann Blumenbach’s works eventually embraced five classifications of race instead of four. Blumenbach chose to change historical perceptions of race. At the time, Blumenbach’s theory was probably seen as something that people thought would never happen (thus, impossible history). Although Blumenbach’s theory changed the perception of historical fact, it was still done for the superficial reasons of beauty. Blumenbach placed Caucasians in front of all other racial classifications because Caucasians are more aesthetically pleasing. So while Blumenbach challenged historical perceptions of the races, he was still racist against anyone other than Caucasians to the point of believing that the human skull is the color of the person’s skin but it turns white after death. Is this because he believed everyone wants to be white or “Caucasian”?
The impossible history is quite simply the history that no one wants to believe can happen: whether it is the Haitian Revolution, the Holocaust, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Until each of these events occurred, no one thought anything like that could ever happen. But as history has proven to us, something that was once impossible becomes more possible and probably over time. Because of atrocities we have seen throughout the annals of history, we have come to believe and accept that certain things can and will happen. Things that few people have ever thought of as happening are now embedded in the history books as fact. If history has taught us one thing, it is that anything is possible. There is no such thing as “impossible history”, only history that hasn’t happened yet.
November 5, 2006 at 10:34 pm
****i’m sorry – can you delete my first posting and use this one please? i forgot to check spelling on the first one and had to correct it….thanks****
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
November 4, 2006
moxiedonna@gmail.com
Human 6, Section 1395
Trouillot speaks of the difference between history as told to the masses and history as it really happened. By altering the perception of history, we are effectively hiding important parts of the past from ourselves and future generations. In Chapter 3 of Silencing the Past, Trouillot speaks of the unthinkable as related to history, such as the unthinkable act of revolution in Haiti or the unthinkable act of the Holocaust. Both of these important parts of history were unthinkable in their times because philosophers or historians could not fathom that something of that magnitude could happen within a group of people. Five years ago, it was unthinkable to imagine terrorists killing thousands of people by flying jets into buildings but now it is a realistic part of our history and something that could happen again. The horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 blew the lid off our concept of unthinkable acts and unthinkable history.
In silencing or “covering up” an important part of a culture’s past, we are denying ourselves crucial information about our ancestors. It took society and historians nearly 150 years to accept the facts of the Haitian Revolution. By glossing over such an important part of history, not just for Haiti but for the entire world, or trivializing it by calling it “an insurgency” or “revolt” historians effectively denied the Revolution its rightful place in the history of slavery. The Haitian Revolution was the start of slavery reversal and “challenged slavery and racism” (87). But the world refused to acknowledge what was happening in Haiti and it wasn’t fully accepted into historical and public opinion until after World War II. And because there was no real record of the Revolution, the world could bury its head in the sand and choose to believe that that Revolution didn’t happen. If it’s not written or taken into public record, it never occurred.
The skewed view on the Haitian Revolution can be compared to the modern day media’s take on the War on Terrorism. The government will add whatever spin necessary to the events in Iraq and Afghanistan to make the United States appear as if it has the upper hand and the media will add its own spin to gain public sympathy. Because the government and the media may have different views on the war in Iraq, we as the public are fed two different versions of the same story. Which part of history are we supposed to accept as fact? Which story is the true story – is there even a clear “side” or does the real truth of history lie somewhere in between?
In regard to Trouillot’s quote on page 84, “built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy. To acknowledge resistance as a mass phenomenon is to acknowledge the possibility that something is wrong with the system”, Trouillot is speaking of society’s refusal to believe that there is anything wrong with status quo. To admit that there could be a problem with the normal functioning of society is to admit that society is doing something wrong, that somewhere along the way the normal actions of society morphed into abnormality. No society wants to truly admit its
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
mistakes and its own shortcomings because in doing so it will have to admit that there may be a better plan out there.
On page 15, Trouillot asks “can we confidently exclude from one’s history all events not experienced or not yet revealed, including, for instance, an adoption at the time of birth”. I believe Trouillot is speaking of events that shape our lives and our own personal histories that we may not actively remember or events in which we were not an active participant. Just because we do not remember a part of our past does not mean that it didn’t happen; it’s just a fault of memory. Child development experts have proven that we do not have the cognitive ability to remember events that occurred during our earliest years. An event that happened when I was a small child shapes the person I am today, whether or not I remember it. For instance, when I was three I was attacked and mauled by a large dog. However, the facts are fuzzy and unclear to me but that means the attack did not happen. There are written accounts, such as medical records, and personal family photographs that prove the dog attack did in fact occur. There is usually historical documentation to verify the facts of our personal or ancestral history.
Also on page 15, Trouillot states that “the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only the past because there is a present…nothing is inherently over there or here..the past has no content…pastness is a position”. I believe Trouillot is saying that the past and the present are the same. The past shapes the present and how we react to present events. The past does not get left behind the moment we step into the present; instead, it changes and becomes the present. In this manner, the past and the present are different parts of one being. The past and the present blend with the future to make the whole of history, the whole of our lives and beings. Even if we do not remember the past and we do not know the future, both of these still exist in the present. Our past, be it personal or societal, affects the people we are in the present, which in turns affects the way we will be in the future. We are always thinking of future events and use our past and present to shape how we hope the future will be.
Trouillot writes on page 29 “in history power begins at the source. The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. First, facts are never meaningless…second, facts are not created equal”. The power of history starts with the historical fact itself. For example, the power of the Haitian Revolution starts with the facts of the Revolution itself. Hiding the true facts of the Revolution does not negate its validity nor the fact that it happened. The statement of facts not being created equally, I believe, talks about the difference between the two types of history: the history that we are fed and the true history of what happened. The facts of each type of history may in fact be different but each has its own meaning. Each set of facts has its own validity, its own truth. Which truth we choose to believe is up to us. Finding the real truth in the myriad of facts we are given is our obligation to the past and to the future. We are obligated to our ancestors to find the true story and believe it, just as we are obligated to our descendents to do the same.
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
In reading page 29 where Trouillot talks about the four crucial moments of historical production, I immediately think of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. This portion of
history is both important to American society and inherently flawed in its truth, because we do not know the whole truth about the assassination. The first of the crucial moments of Kennedy’s assassination, the fact creation, is the assassination itself. When President Kennedy’s caravan was fired upon and both President Kennedy and Governor Connolly (sp) were shot, history was created. The making of the archives of the incident occurred as the crowd was taking pictures and as Abraham Zapruder filmed the procession, thereby creating numerous records of the same event and entering it into factual history. The moment of fact retrieval happened when people talked about the assassination and as the media reported on the event. The fact retrieval continued with the Warren Commission, which proves that fact retrieval and the making of narratives can be incorrect. The Warren Commission contrived the “magic bullet theory” and asked society to blindly accept it as fact because it came from the government. Thus, the Warren Commission asked society to discount all other forms of facts, the pictures, the video, the witness accounts. This is a classic example of using power to skew history. The Warren Commission used the cause of power to attempt to make the American public believe the magic bullet theory and to accept the theory of one assassin. The last crucial moment of history, the making of retrospective significance, occurs to this day. There have been articles, books, documentaries, movies, and countless other pieces of history created about Kennedy’s assassination. Each piece of history is of significance to our society because they shape our present and our future and each piece has been documented since November 22, 1963.
Jamaica Kincaid’s quote “the naming of things is so crucial to possession that it is a murder, an erasing, and it is not surprising that people have felt themselves prey to it, among their first acts of liberation is to change their names” struck me as something so familiar within myself. The quote itself is so simple yet immensely deep at the same time. In my own act of liberation, my divorce, the first thing I requested was the changing of my last name. This simple act of transformation will forever separate me from the person I married and hopefully return me to a semblance of the person I used to be. By marrying someone and changing names, I believe that I lost part of myself. The fundamental possession of taking a spouse’s last name erases part of my own history and that flower of my personality withered over the years. Therefore, it was my own small act of rebellion against my ex-husband that I demanded the return of my own name, my first identity. It was an act of defiance as retaliation for years in which I could not be defiant. I believe this is a part of Trouillot’s “impossible history” – something that didn’t happen because there is no proof. By returning to my maiden name, I can pretend (at least on the surface) that six and a half years of marriage did not happen, effectively erasing that part of my personal history.
Donna Blanchard
Silencing the Past, Part 2
Trouillot’s perception of impossible history is also present in Stephen Jay Gould’s article about the 18th Century’s classification of races and the man who fought to change it. Johann Blumenbach’s works eventually embraced five classifications of race instead of four. Blumenbach chose to change historical perceptions of race. At the time, Blumenbach’s theory was probably seen as something that people thought would never happen (thus, impossible history). Although Blumenbach’s theory changed the perception of historical fact, it was still done for the superficial reasons of beauty. Blumenbach placed Caucasians in front of all other racial classifications because Caucasians are more aesthetically pleasing. So while Blumenbach challenged historical perceptions of the races, he was still racist against anyone other than Caucasians to the point of believing that the human skull is the color of the person’s skin but it turns white after death. Is this because he believed everyone wants to be white or “Caucasian”?
The impossible history is quite simply the history that no one wants to believe can happen: whether it is the Haitian Revolution, the Holocaust, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Until each of these events occurred, no one thought anything like that could ever happen. But as history has proven to us, something that was once impossible becomes more possible and probably over time. Because of atrocities we have seen throughout the annals of history, we have come to believe and accept that certain things can and will happen. Things that few people have ever thought of as happening are now embedded in the history books as fact. If history has taught us one thing, it is that anything is possible. There is no such thing as “impossible history”, only history that hasn’t happened yet.
November 5, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II
November 5, 2006
yourmomismad@yahoo.com
Humanities 6: Section 1395
In the novel Silencing the Past, Michael Trouillot attempts to illustrate his philosophy of history and how it is told. As he puts it, there are actors and narrators who tell the story. The manner in which the story told performed depends greatly on the whether the story is based on the facts of history as accurate as possible, or whether it is an interpretation of what an event meant to a person. In relating a story of history, Trouillot is focused on how history is silenced through four specific ways. 1) Silencing occurs when the story is created. Just as when I explain to my mother what my son did at school, parts of the story inevitably get left out. 2) During the process of recording, and storing information from the past – pieces of information get deemed unimportant, ruined or in other ways become dismissed. 3) Many times, the amount of information is too large, and choices are made as to what is relevant. When pieces of the puzzle are left out, then the history is silenced.
4) Not all pieces of a story become part of history. What is not accepted as narratives of the past becomes silenced. Trouillot raised the awareness of silencing the past, and demonstrates the dangers our silencing the past through various stories.
In Chapter 2, Trouillot narrates the story of Sans Souci. In his story he describes and tells the story of the palace of Henry Christophe, the story of the palace of Frederick in Germany, and finally the story of Sans Souci – the person. The last story of Sans Souci is the story that has been silenced, because it is difficult to determine who he really was. Sans Souci was a slave who emerged as a leader using brutal tactics against his people. At the conclusion of the stories, Trouillot tells us, “concrete reminders that the uneven power of historical production is expressed also through the power of touch, to see, and to feel, they span a material continuum that goes from the solidity of the Potsdam to the missing body of the Colonel.” After going back to re-read, I can see that this is Trouillot’s definition of the silence within this story.
Power has a place in history, as the part of the silenced history is influential. As Trouillot points out, “The distribution of historical power does not necessarily replicate the inequalities (victories and setbacks, gains and losses) lived by the actors. Historical power is not a direct reflection of past occurrence, or a simple sum of past inequalities measured from an actors perspective or from the standpoint of any ‘objective’ standard, even at the first moment.” At this point in the chapter, I reflected on a speech I attended by Edward James Olmos. During his speech, Olmos referred to the History that is taught in our schools. His pointed out to the audience that no leaders are studied in the United States History school system, no other than those who were Caucasian. At the time of the speech, I realized what he was saying but missed the correlation. Now I see it. The history that our schools teach silence the history of those people that is not Caucasian. While there are some figures of history that are not Caucasian, they are inferior to the amount of teachings of Caucasians. This “power” is influential in the way that we view our history, and the history of others. People with different ethnicities are not taught of
Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II Page 2
their ancestors who made contributions to history and the way of our past, present and future. They are only taught of those contributions of Caucasians. Therefore, people learn to feel inferior to the “white” race.
Chapter Three opens with a journal type of entry from Trouillot. It discusses how Trouillot felt inferior to his students who wanted a history that “no book could tell.” It was after this that I realized that this is also related to what I was gaining through reading his book. I would never have the answers to history after reading it. His book is a philosophy, and is only attempting to encourage further thought and realization – not give answers. It is not a matter of knowing, but rather an understanding.
Following, Trouillot launches into slavery and the history of slavery. Early on in the 1700’s, slavery began its roots when in the late 1700’s when justification began. “When reality does not coincide with deeply held beliefs, human beings tend to phrase interpretations that force reality within the scope of these beliefs. They devise formulas to repress the unthinkable and to bring it back within the realm of accepted discourse.” It was at this time the at the newly formed independent Haiti, that a french colonist described to his wife the peacefulness of the tropics, and that “The negroes are very obedient and always will be.” Trouillot focuses on people’s justifications of “negroes” hoping to prevent a riot. Throughout the justifications, it was believed that Africans were incapable of envisioning freedom and therefore they could never have it.
As the definition of “man” developed, people were grouped into racial categories. Early within the middle ages, negative connotations about skin colors (especially black) began to spread. These negative connotations later made it justifiable to treat people that were not of European decent badly. Trouillot reinforces this idea, “Blacks were inferior and therefore enslaved; black slaves behaved badly and were therefore inferior. The practice of slavery in the America secured the blacks’ position at the bottom of the human world.” [77] Steven Jay’s Goulds article, The Geometry of Race explains “Blaumenbath chose to regard his own European variety as closest to the created ideal and then searched for the subset of Europeans with the greatest profection – the highest of the high, so to speak.”
Trouillot argues that people from the eighteenth century did not have the thought of the equality of humankind, as we do today. I believe in his argument. The place that Africans took had been developed over time. It was not something that just happened one day. Therefore, I do agree that people of the eighteenth century were not able to think of human equality. These people were taught that African’s were a different species, and throughout time justified their “lot in life.”
“The events that shook up Saint-Dominique from 1791 to 1804 constituted a sequence for which not even the extreme political left in France or in England had conceptual frame of reference.” [82] Society denied the concept of Africans protesting and rioting, and treated Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II Page 3
the claims as fictional. However, deep down people were fearful of it happening. Once the fear developed, slight signs of it were punished severely. However by acknowledging the resistance by Africans, the humanity of slavery then had to be acknowledged. “Planters and managers could not fully deny resistance, but they tried to provide reassuring certitudes by trivializing all its manifestations.” In other words, excuses were made for rivalry to continue its justification. Although it was not accepted, people held onto it to avoid dealing with the bigger issues. Jamaica and in the Guianas that became large colonies of runaways, threatened the excuses made of the slaves who ran away.
Stephen Gould’s article, The Geometer of Race echoes much of what Trouillot is attempting to convey. In his article he also argues that history becomes distorted by what people misconstrue as the truth.
In his discussions of the history of slavery, Trouillot speaks of the silences that are otherwise silenced throughout history. One is “the chain of events that constitute the Haitian Revolution was unthinkable before these events happened.” Second, “as they happened, the successive events within that chain were systematically recast by many participants and observers to fit a world of possibilities.” In other words the history and narratives were developed in a way that made sense to people. History was silenced. It was silenced in order to be justifiable to the people of society. It was also justified from the beginning, and the justifications turned into excuses. Trouillot attempts to uncover and identify the silences.
Trouillot also identifies a silence in generalizing history in narratives, and refers to statements such as “it wasn’t so bad, or did not really happen,” as examples of generalizing history. The comparison of the Haitian Revolution and the Holocaust is incredibly interesting, as both occurrences in history are drawn on many similarities. For instance, the segregation of Jews was justified early on – as was slavery. Trouillot identifies the silence of generalization. “The Germans did not really build gas chambers; slavery also happened to non-blacks.” I believe that generalization and justification are all methods of making torture “feel” okay. It makes it okay to kill another person, it makes it okay to turn a blind eye, and it forces society to play along.
Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events no experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption. . .The past does not exist independently from the present . .. Indeed the past is past because there is a present.. . . . Pastness is a postion.
After reading Silencing the Past, I can see the dangers of silencing history. As we can see in the example of the Haitan Revolution, power forms itself in the way of silencing history. It is the silence of justifications, reasonings, and excuses that make torture okay. According to Edward James Olmos, the term “race” was created in order to make it easier for one person to kill another. Justifications to one another form the normalities of
Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II Page 4
everyday life. It is okay to segregate our population, because “that is just what you do.” It is the pattern of life that we create, and ways that we follow. When people induce harm on others it may not be because they know that it is wrong, but rather they know no other way. With Trouillot’s statement above, he is attempting to explain to us that we would not be where we are today without the past. It is the past that explains how we live in the present. It is how we live in the present, that becomes the future. Out pastness sets the stage for our position today. The statement, “Can we trust an American history in which the men who write it never wanted to be Indians” also relates. No we cannot, because the author will always silence the truth in justifications. There are always two sides to every story. If you only ask one side, you will only get one answer.
Archival power is defined by Trouillot as, “The power to define what is and what is not a serious object of research and, therefore, of mention.” I look to the recent election debates as an example. The supporters of a proposed tax meaure throws pieces of information at us that has no substance, and does not elaborate more than one or two lines. Proposition 87 is on our ballet, and opposition members have said “Prop 87 means higher gas prices, greater dependence on foreign oil and a new bureaucracy of 50 political appointees with no accountability to taxpayers. 87also reduces available revenues for schools & public safety.” However, where does this information come from? How is it obtained? What is its basis? It is said to persuade voters, but a voter really has no place to turn to get all of the facts. Only the politicians are able to see the depths of the measure and the truths behind it.
The events of September 11, 2001 are also a very good example of archival power. Five years following, many of us are still left wondering what actually happened. We know that the government has information that they are not willing to share, but why? Immediately following, investigations were launched, and accusations to Osama Bin Laden were cast. However, all of the “facts” were not relayed to society but “interpretations” were most definitely made. Those interpretations have led many to believe things that may or may not have been true.
The American people have been led to believe that we are in War at Iraq because of the threat of Nuclear weapons; today the threat now lays in Korea. Why aren’t we at war with them? The facts of our war have become so discombobulated that it has become incredibly difficult to determine truth from fiction, and fact from interpretation. Yet if I were to search for the truth, I would not no how much farther to go then from my gut.
Archival power is a form of power in which information is withheld. We know it exists; yet it is not released and one does not know how to obtain it. Foucault describes, “a level at which the formation of knowledge and the increase of power regularly reinforce one another in a circular process.”
November 5, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Kimberly Murphy
Silencing the Past- Chapter 3
November 5, 2006
Page 1
After reading through chapter three of Silencing the Past by Michel-Rolph Trouillot I realized I am not as educate as I once thought I was. This chapter was very hard to read, having to stop and look up the meanings of many of the words I was reading. I believe the point of Trouillot writing this novel was so that he could educate people about history and the things we might not know about history, but I believe he did the opposite because when people, or at least in my case, are reading this novel are not feeling like they are learning anything because they have to read over the paragraphs several times and look up words just to comprehend one page. I finally got through the chapter, but I believe that there could have been an easier way of him writing the novel instead of trying to be fancy and use language that most normal educated people cannot understand. I will now try my best to give my opinions of the selected quotes for this assignment. The material was very hard for me to grasp, but I will give it my best shot.
“The unthinkable is that which once cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives, that which perverts all answers because it denies the terms under which the questions were phrased,” (82). I believe that with this quote Trouillot is trying to tell us that people believe one thing, and then they aren’t really willing to believe another. I believe he means the unthinkable is when someone cannot open up their minds to believe that there are other alternatives out there. For example, most people believe that Earth has the only living beings in the whole solar system. People are so scared of what might really be out there, beyond Earth that they refuse to believe that it is true. They feel safe in the feeling that they know that we are the only living people in the solar system and there are no aliens out there coming to kill us all. This was just one example, but I believe there are so many examples out there that can help show what Trouillot believes as the unthinkable. Another example would be people who don’t believe in God or any other higher power. They believe that whatever life hands them is there own problem and that they must deal with it themselves. They cannot even being to fathom believing that there may be a higher power out there that can help them through the hard and difficult times. Perhaps what Trouillot believes as the unthinkable really means unthinkable, as in people who are unable to think about other alternatives to there own beliefs.
“Built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy,” (84). I believe that what Trouillot is trying to say here is that in any source of power, whether it is Adolf Hitler, President Bush or the CEO of a company there is a certain ways that things are done and that is what they call normal. For example, Hitler and his German Nazi’s were the main source of power during World War II, and killing Jews and gays and people who were not of the Arian race was there way of being normal. Even though there idea of genocide was not what we would call normal and the right thing to do, it was normal to them. President Bush does the same thing, coming from a family that is known as war mongrels it was only normal for him to engage in war at the start of his presidency. Even though most of the nation was against the war, President Bush did it anyways because he was the head of the militia and he believed it to be the normal and right thing to do.
Kimberly Murphy
Silencing the Past- Chapter 3
November 5, 2006
Page 2
I believe that this statement goes along with Michel Foucault’s view of hegemony, a non-coercive power, meaning cultural force plus consent. Like in the examples above, the German people followed Hitler because they believed that he was powerful and would help them live a better life without the other races interfering. They were being forced to believe in Hitler, therefore consenting to go along with his plans for the genocide of the non-Arian races. The same is true with my example about President Bush; most people in the nation were forced to believe President Bush because he used scare tactics to get them to believe we were in danger from weapons of mass destruction. Therefore we went along with the fact that we were going to war, because we believed we were in danger, but when we found out we weren’t, most of the nation started to doubt President Bush.
Archival power, according to Trouillot is “the power to define what is and what is not a serious object of research and, therefore, of mention,” (99). The past has been preserved by historians and researchers so that people in the future have an idea of what the world was like before and how it came to be what it is now. However, whose decision is it to decide who and what go into history archives, who grants that power? How are we to know that the history we have been taught and are teaching our children is accurate? Are we supposed to believe that because that is what the history archives tell us? Well what about all of the stuff that they are trying to cover up from us, stuff that they don’t want us to know about? If the government had made a huge mistake and it risked lives or even killed people, do you think they would want us to know about it? No way, they would try to cover that up the best way they know how. I believe I have a few examples of what I believe to be Archival power, here they are:
1. September 11, 2001- the government did not want us to know everything that had happened on that horrible day. They tried to keep it under wraps because the government and the FAA did such a horrible job of handling the situation that they were to embarrassed to let all of the information out. Until the 9/11 commission report was published the nation did not know half of the stuff that had happened because it was all kept very hush hush.
2. Suicides- Suicides are not highly publicized when people commit them. You never hear about suicides on the news or read about them in obituaries, because people don’t want other people knowing that they are happening. If a suicide occurs the obituaries will gloss it over and not state the cause of death or say it was unknown. It is very rare to read or hear about a suicide. Suicide attempts are talked about but never if the suicide is a success.
3. Christopher Columbus- From the time you enter kindergarten until the time you leave high school you are taught to believe that Christopher Columbus was the hero who discovered America. We were never taught, until college, that Columbus was actually a murderer, who led genocide on the Native Americans who resided in America. We were not taught that because it would deface the name of the great explorer who discovered our nation.
Kimberly Murphy
Silencing the Past- Chapter 3
November 5, 2006
Page 3
“In history Power begins at the source…The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. 1. Facts are never meaningless and second facts are not created equal,” (29). I think that this means that no matter how minute or minimal the fact is it is still important because otherwise it wouldn’t be a fact, it would be fiction. The littlest fact can make the biggest deal. For example, in my town of Napa, two years ago on Halloween there was a double murder. The police had no leads in the case, until they found a rare cigarette butt outside. They questioned lots of people and found out who smoked this rare kind of cigarette, and they caught there killer. I believe that is what Trouillot means when he says that facts are never meaningless, no matter what facts are always important. I believe when he says that facts are not created equal it means that not all facts are given the same criteria. Let’s use Christopher Columbus as an example again; it is a fact that he discovered America. However it is also a fact that he did not mean to discover America that indeed he was traveling to India. Another fact is that he helped lead a massive genocide to the Native Americans in America. The latter who facts were both always facts but they were not facts that were supplied to the people who were learning about Columbus in their early education. I believe that is what is meant when saying facts are not always created equal.
“Can we confidentially exclude from one’s history all events no experience or not yet revealed, including, for instance, an adoption at the time of birth? An adoption might provide a crucial perspective on episodes that actually occurred before its revelation. The revelation itself may affect the narrators future memory of events that happened before…The past does not exist independently from the present…Indeed the past is past because there is a present…Pastness is a position,” (15). I think that this is a really great passage. I believe that everything that happens to you is for a reason, therefore everything that has happened in your past has created who you are and what you believe in. I believe this to be true in history, I believe that one of the reasons history is recorded is so that we can learn from our mistakes and not repeat them again. Also it is recorded so that we can learn from the good things that have happened as well. People are only here in the present because of things that have happened in the past, it is what makes us who we are. I believe that is what Trouillot was trying to get across.
What I believe the most after reading Trouillot is that he wants us to open our minds to all of the possibilities out there and to not always believe what we are told. I believe he wants us all to be free and independent thinkers.
I could not write about the two articles because my computer would not download the links. So I decided to write more about Trouillot. I am about to go to work right now but if someone can e-mail me the links that would be great, if not then I will have to be docked the points. Thanks!
November 6, 2006 at 12:22 am
Missy Cook 1
Silencing the Past Ch3
Nov 5, 2006
eskimomissy@comcast.net
Human 6, Section 1385
Judith asked us to go back to chapter one and discuss some of the issues brought up. The first one is on pg 15, “Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events not experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption…The past does not exist independently form the present…Indeed the past is past because there is a present…Pastness is a position.” The first part of this statement means to me that history is usually one sided. The history being told from one person is just that, history from that one person’s prospective and experience. How can the person telling the history tell or include other parts of another’s history unless they experienced it first hand? Even if that other person tells the first person their history they are remembering what they want to remember and telling what they want to tell. The second part of the statement means to me that without history we could not have the present. Everyone has a history; it is their life story and experience. Even if we do not remember our early history we are told it by our parents. I also learned about my Mothers history through her stories and memory. We learn from our own past and parents past and it affects how we behave or act in the present and future. The third and fourth part means to me that there will always be a past and it is there for us to learn and live by.
The second part of our assignment is to discuss the examples of times when silences occur and exist in the narrative of history on pg 26. They are as listed below:
1. The moment of fact creation (the making of sources)
2. The moment of fact assembly (the making of archives)
3. The moment of retrieval (the making of narratives)
Missy Cook 2
Silencing the Past Ch3
Nov 5, 2006
eskimomissy@comcast.net
Human 6, Section 1385
4. The moment of retrospective significance ( the making of history in the final instance)
The first one the moment of fact creation is seen when not everything is remembered or recorded when retelling a story. An example of this could be a person retelling their side of a story; for instance a mother telling her little one about their birth. The mother may not want to remember or tell about the pain and hardships of birth but will openly talk about the happy moments and the beauty of birth. The moment of fact assembly or the making of archives is seen when some of the facts are left out by choice, or accidents occur, like a diary lost in a fire, or judgments are made to leave out certain parts of a story, so therefore some of the recorded past is left out. The moment or retrieval or making of narratives is seen when valuing is done. An example of this could be when an
Author only puts in the book what they see as valuable information. They may leave out large pieces of information in the middle as long as they get their point across. The moment of retrospective significance or the making of history in the final instance is seen when some recorded stories are told but others are left out. An example of this can be seen in the history of where my Inuit ancestors grew up on King Island, a small island off the coast of Nome, Alaska. The island is a small island and shaped like a large plateau. My ancestors built their homes on one of these steep sides and had to use stilts to make the structures safe. My natural Mother grew up on this island and was “kicked off” when
she was thirteen. The Alaska government declared the Island unsafe due to a large boulder poised above the schoolhouse and asked all the Natives to leave. I have read two
Missy Cook 3
Silencing the Past Ch3
Nov 5, 2006
eskimomissy@comcast.net
Human 6, Section 1385
books about this Island. One form the perspective of a young girl (not my Mom) growing up there. The book was set around the time when most families were leaving the island, due to a better life on the main island and hers was one of the last families to leave. The other was a non-fiction book about the history which included a lot of pictures. This book talked about the government kicking the Natives off the island due to this boulder, and stated that this boulder is still in the same place as it once stood while they all lived on the island. Which narrative is true? Both? Which one is written in the Alaska history of King Island?
Chapter three, I have to be honest I have not purchased the book and I thought that an outline would be available on the schedule. However there was not one. So I plan
on checking out this book and reading chapter three next week. I did read the articles, “Flowers of Evil” written by Jamaica Kincaid and “The Geometer of Race” written by Stephen Jay Gould. The first article “Flowers of Evil” had some important messages in it. I had to read it twice because the first time through it seemed as if she was simply talking about flowers. Where is the evil there? The second reading seemed to me that she was relating the flowers to people, and the dominance over the flowers relating to the dominance of the Europeans over everyone else. “These countries in Europe shared the same botany, more or less, but each place called the same thing by a different name; and these people who make up Europe were so contentious anyway, they would not have
agreed to one system for all plants they found in common, but these new plants from far away, like the people far away, had no history, no names, and so could be given names.
Missy Cook 4
Silencing the Past Ch3
Nov 5, 2006
eskimomissy@comcast.net
Human 6, Section 1385
And who was there to dispute Linnacus, even if there was someone who would listen?” She then talks about the importance of naming things and this renaming in turn giving
power or possession over. In the article “The Geometer of Race” also talks about important theoretical constructions. He started out with political radicals called, “left” and their conservative counterparts “right”. I have never given this much thought. He explains. “In many European legislatures, the most distinguished members sat at the chairman’s right, following a custom of courtesy as old as our prejudices for favoring the dominant hand of most people. (These biases run deep … where dexterous stems form the Latin for “right,” and sinister for the word “left.”)” So unless you are conservative and distinguished you are in the wrong, and sinister. Gould continues to talk about how the word Caucasian came about and was given to the Western world. It seems as if the word originated form the mountain range Mount Caucasus and the people that lived there. A German anatomist, Blumenbach, believed that “the maximal beauty of people form this small region and the probability that humans were first created in this area.” ,and he gave the name to the Western world. “Blumenbach chose physical beauty as his guide to ranking. He simply affirmed that Europeans were most beautiful, with Caucasians as the most comely of all.” This is just absurd! Talk about one sided history. Beautiful to whom? I’m sure the people of King Island believed in a whole other beauty. This just shows the importance of naming and the importance of telling a history and being careful to see all sides to history than the one that you are being told.
November 6, 2006 at 1:03 am
Jade Dant
STP II
11/05/06
italianbooty143@yahoo.com
Online 1395
The power to write history is a very dangerous power indeed. There are many types of power that come at different angles in a narrative, like the historian himself or maybe the archives sorter. Each actor containing power and contaminates a story with opinions. Troillot says, “In history Power begins at the source. . . The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. 1. Facts are never meaningless and second facts are not created equal”(29). What Trouillot means by power begins at the source is that even though we can regulate historians and look at every story scienfically the power in history is the main actor of the time who had the power. For example, the King of England at a time was the source and controlled minds with fear, even before a histrian gets to write a narrative that narrative is tainted with the King’s power “the sources power” to influence. Facts are never meaningless because facts mean something to someone however small. Facts are not created equal because not everyone sees something the same way. Some facts are concrete like dead bodies or broken buildings ‘physical facts’, and sometimes even those can be silenced like the alledged “gas chambers” in Poland. Then there are facts like observations of groups some seeing the story from the beginning and others from the end. What about the facts inbetween?
Trouillot asks, “Can we trust an American history in which the men who write it never wanted to be Indians?” In lament terms how does one trust the investigator of a crime if he is the perpatrator, or how does one trust an all white racist jury in a case trial
Jade Dant
STP II
about a black man alledgedly killing a white women? The historians of the time were white individuals who thought white people were the superior race, they will write like a European,with the eyes of a European, about a race of individuals they call savages whom they know nothing about. Every story will have a biast included and if one well knows the history of conflict between colonists and indians ended with the death of many indians, so why would you want to be a dead race? Would you trust an indian to write the story of a cowboy? No one can’t, not because I think Indians are liars, but because their views of what is normal is different from what a cowboy thinks is normal. It is all a spiral of when things become facts and things become fiction.
Trouillot writes, “Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events not experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption. . .The past does not exist independently from the present . .. Indeed the past is past because there is a present.. . . . Pastness is a postion”(15). The first part about excluding from ones history events not experienced is one of those slipperary slopes. I believe Trouillot is talking about events that we don’t remember the experiene of, but are told the event happened. For example there has been experiments with a psychologist and adults about deep memories and the psychologist would test this part of the brain by telling the adult a false story that was said to have happened to the adult. Now since the adult would have been hypnotized at the time they awake having the faint memory of what the psychologist told them. How does one trust a brain, where memories are not concrete nor easily accesible and that more that half the brain in still such a mystery. The rest of quote has to do with a questionable definition of what the past is. The past is not independent of the present
Jade Dant
STP II
because the past exists only if there is a present. The past is influenced by what people are told in the present and those with power in the present hold power over the past. If one can’t fully remember something how is one to know what to include in the past and what is pastness. The past to a faulty memory is just a postion of being there, not really experiecing the event just being there.
Silences occur in the past in many varieties, but the main ones presented by Trouillot are: “the moment of fact creation (the making of sources), the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives), the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives), and the moment of restrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).” A good example of silenced filled narratives can be found in the Hatian Revolution. A perfect examle of uneven power distributed in collected the narrative, sorting what is imports, and retrieving in later. The sources used to tell the story of the revoltion was a one sided view, the historians collecting that information were payed by their foreign governent to spread a good work, and the retrieval of that information was pittiful with a couple of sentences about the event. While talking about the Haitian Revoltution Troillot calls this the impossible history. This means that even before the revoltution took place there was a denial of the problems at hand as if it was impossible for slaves to revolt. While the revolution took place many would blaim eachother for helping plan it out for the “not so bright” savages again saying it was impossible for there to be leadership. Even after the Revolution took place and many died, it became silenced with no one reporting or writing about the event. To the colonists the history of the revolution was impossible therefore the histroy never happened.
Jade Dant
STP II
In Gould’s The Geometer of Race, the example of impossible history is that of the lower races. Blumenbach created a hiearchy of races, where beauty was a desiding factor. It was considered unthinkable for a non-arian race to be at the top so the history of evolution was an impossible history because no matter what science says people wouldn’t believe an worse of their race. In Kincaid’s article the impossible history is in the flowers. Linnaeus wanted to name and classify everything, and before he came along the flowers had a history of medicine long before used by the indiginous culture. Linnaeus disreguarded that history because who would have thought these savages could have a history of their own so he renamed them classified them. What Kincaid is talkiing about when she says, “It is rape and an erasure, a spiritual padlock to which the key has been thrown irretrievably away.” She is talking about possesion and that the naming of things is very crucial to who owns history. Once something is named it has if whatever was of the past in locked up and thrown away. The flowers were named and stolen to be hybrids and sold as beauty and no one knows the medical significance of their past. A good parallel example is in the slave trade and how they were given white names, as if what their names were before didn’t matter and the history before didn’t exsist. The ability to rename something and alter its past is murder and erasure.
November 6, 2006 at 1:15 am
Melissa Duffield
Silencing the Past
Chapter 3
Meld731@yahoo.com
11/05/06
1395 1
I find that Trouillot and F use the same type of language in the materials that they write. Although my interpretation of their quotes may be wrong, I find that by stopping to analyze their sentences and paragraphs help me to understand the message that the author is trying to convey. The quote “Built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy.” was taken out of context on page eighty-four while talking about slavery. To try and analyze this quote to discuss the meaning and what importance it has I broke the quote down into three parts. The first part “Built into any system of domination” I thought about the “system” and the “domination” that was being discussed during this quote. I feel that this part of the quote is talking about the system of slavery and domination is referring to the control that the whites had over the African Americans during the slavery era in the United States of America. The second part of the quote that I tried to understand was “is the tendency to proclaim.” Although I knew what the word proclaim meant I wanted a clean cut definition so when looking the word proclaim up in the dictionary “to announce or declare in an official or formal manner” I could finally link the third part of the quote together, “its own normalcy.” By combining the second and third part of the quote “is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy” I understood that the “system” wanted to proclaim “announce” there normalcy. So in the system which is slavery the whites dominate the African American and they need to announce that what they are doing is normal. I think that this is what the
Melissa Duffield
Silencing the Past
Chapter 3 2
quote “Built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy” means. It is important because the whites needed to comfort themselves by saying what they are doing, which is controlling other people is normal. And because they are calling their system normal it is okay to treat and continue to treat these people with such hate and anger.
Archival power is an important topic that I think is worth being discussed. Archives are valuable records while an archival is a record that is contained, kept in, or used in a certain way. Archival power I feel is the power to produce, use, contain, or publish certain documents and records that may relate to a certain topic. By keeping certain documents or materials secret or maybe even twisting the information, it can change the meaning or events of a certain time in history. Depending on the way one publishes certain facts and information, people can view events and important parts of history different then how they actually played out. In the last part of chapter three, An Unthinkable History, Trouillot discusses how archival power is even in issue with some historians, textbooks, and anything the public uses to connect us to the past. When referring to the Haitian Revolution, many textbooks did not even mention it and if they did it was referred to as a “revolt” or a “rebellion.”
November 6, 2006 at 1:36 am
Kimberly – in reference to your discussion about the unthinkable, it isn’t that they are afraid to look at other possibilities, it is about washing away all their current beliefs and history leading up to that point. They would have to admit fault with their current beliefs.
I would like to hear what everyone says and thinks about the “pastness” I am having a hard time grasping it.
November 6, 2006 at 2:25 am
Jana Churich
Humanities sec 1395
On page six, Trouilllot says, “history becomes one among many types of narratives with no particular distinction except for its pretense of truth.” This is an important idea to consider because as we are taught history out of text books, through a politically correct set of guidelines and concerns we accept the knowledge our teachers superimpose on us because they are the reigning power of education. It is often times difficult to interpret what really happened in history because we believe that once the stories or facts are published that they are real and true. However, in most cases there are many obstacles of truth to overcome and if someone really tries to dissect certain areas of history it is possible they could realize the flaws within it. For years, centuries in a worldly aspect, history has evolved from story telling, teaching, recitation of who, what where when why and how. It is a series of facts and truths that are left to be memorized and real. In my opinion, although I agree with most facts and figures upon what I have learned of history classes, the ideas of history should be taught somewhat objectively. We should not merely accept the word of the winners but evaluate the events with skepticism and allow ourselves and others to figure it out based on different resources. It is possible, actually like that those who do the research will come up with the same conclusions as written already but that does not deny the fact that they are open to looking at all the facts, not just taking it for face value.
The quote on page fifteen offers a complex theory of the accuracy of history because of the effects of our memory, or our subconscious mind. Trouillot’s quote was, “Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events no experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption.. The past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed the past is past because there is a present. Pastness is a position.” I really liked how he used the concept of tying your shoes to illustrate his point. When I was younger, I mean really young, I had a dream I was sitting on a swing set after it had rained and I tied my shoes. I was too young to tie my shoes but when I woke up in the morning it was so real to me that I pulled every tennis shoe out of the close and tackled the laces. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know how to tie shoes but everything within me could see how to do it. Step by step. At the time this was difficult to grasp because to a little kid there is no difference between dreaming and reality, hence the idea of monsters in the closet. When a child believes something is there, it is there. This relates to history because as we experience things we have two types of reactions. One type of reaction is the specific account of what happened, the other is the interpretive part of the event that expresses emotions, concerns, understanding of why it happened rather than how it happened. Trouillot suggest that for most people these two types of reactions influence the validity of one person’s truth or history. So many different things can affect one’s account of what happened, how can you be sure what they are saying is really factual. I could swear up and down that I tied my shoes that day in the park. I could even go as far as to omit the fact that I was dreaming because to me it was real. Only now, in the present as an adult, do I admit that it was dream. Therefore in my personal history, that dream, or interpretation of that dream could be fact based or fake. To my understanding of the past being “pastness” Trouillot wants his audience to understand that to us, the past is only applicable because it has been told to us, rather than having the first person experience of it. We can only consider the position of the past because we are in the present and things are different. We can lock into our current feelings, emotions and experiences and try to understand why things happened in the past but to our reality we will never really know because it happened before our time, or before our conscious mind could separate fact from feeling.
“In history, power begins at the source. The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. First, facts are never meaningless and second facts are not created equal.” (29) The reason this quote is important to Trouillot’s book is that it helps the audience understand the difference between power has a result of history and power as a cause of history. It’s like the game telephone we all used to play when we were in school. A bunch of kids sit around and one person, we will call them the leader, starts the telephone by saying a sentence, or funny phrase. As the phrase is echoed secretly throughout the circle, it become distorted and unlike the original. At the end of the circle the last person says it out loud. The source of power, the leader, is the only person who knows if the phrase at the end was accurate or not. In short, this is an example of power as a cause of history. One who has power, has the ability to influence, change, cause reactions, and build upon their cause because they understand the process of it all.
“ Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation; the moment of fact assembly; the moment of fact retrieval; and the moment of retrospective significance.” (26). As Trouillot points out these four processes that create silences are all intertwined, as if one cannot exist without the other. The ability to understand that in any narrative, or in any story that regards history as fact, there is undoubtedly a silence present in that the entire story cannot be accurately created, archived, retrieved, and taught without omiting or somehow changing the evidence around.
My best example to support Trouillot’s point is from a book I am reading for my history class called, The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass. It is a history of a black slave in the south that overcame adversity; he escaped for his freedom and ended up writing several novels about his experiences that help readers like us understand a slave’s life more accurately. Although the book is a very compelling narrative about his life, based on Trouillot’s assumptions and theories, The Narrative, potentially is a foundation for silencing. The reason for this can be explained by Douglass’ lack of education and understanding as a child. Obviously he can recount his feelings and experiences but when facts and evidence are concerned his assumptions of his master’s contingencies creates a “fake” history. As an audience we cannot accept Douglass’ word as the ultimate truth because his emotions should be irrelevant to a fact based history. In the original text of this document there are several historical errors. In the second edition David Blight, a Yale professor, added in footnotes and a timeline so as to inform the audience more accurately of what happened. This is evidence of Trouillot’s second step of fact retrieval. When you look back at something that happened in your life, similar to how Douglass did when he went to write his novel, the facts sometimes become distorted or assumed. The significance of his narrative is powerful. Douglass is recognized world wide as one of the leading resources for first-person slave accounts. This is a dangerous recognition because as an audience that is only priviledged to so many accounts we are forced (as an example of power as well) to use his narrative to understand all of slave history. Whereas there were tens of thousands of slave histories that were untold, thereby making Douglass’ history a minority experience. We have to examine all of his evidence, as well as the understanding that his life was individual and unique, not necessarily representative of the whole of black slaves. This is a difficult task when his history is the only one that is a “credible” resource.
The most powerful thought that I saw between the reading of pages eighty- two to ninety-six was the following: “ The joint effect of these two types of formulas is a powerful silencing: whatever has not been cancelled out in the generalities dies in the cumulative irrelevance of a heap of details.” Basically to Trouillot is saying that as history is conceived it is tormented and changed so that it fits into what the believers of the time felt was normal. If, according to Trouillot, the unthinkable is defined as something we can’t think of because it is outside our range of beliefs and understanding based within what we know should be a normal reaction then it can be assumed that as history is created it is created without predictability. When humans cannot predict something because it is outside their means of what should happen we feel emotions like fear, neglect, confusion, anger, and hope. These feelings of insecurity, parallel the creation of power. Because of our uncertainty we foreclose our understanding and allow someone else to tell us what happened, when and why. In this process those who volunteer the information do so for the greater good of their beliefs; for example “ slavery also happened to non-blacks.” (97). By saying this the “generalists” can justify slavery as an evolution of freedom and discount the injustices that happened to slaves in the early history of the United States. Again, this is why Trouillot calls it Silence. We know if we look harder into historical facts, dates, people, events, wars, religion, whatever the case may be we can find evidence of power that changes our understanding of history thereby silencing the historical truths that are outside our means of understanding because they are not normal, or should not happen.
November 6, 2006 at 3:02 am
Dave- The “pastness” is a hard subject to grasp it could have so many alternative meanings.
November 6, 2006 at 3:06 am
Maybe what is some else’s past is someones present, just like a position. You can look at something as the past only because you are in your current condition. One could say racisim is in the past, but those living it are in the present. It all depends on where you are standing and what you rememeber.
November 6, 2006 at 3:10 am
Page 1 of 2
Crystal Pardo
November 5, 2006
Silencing the Past Ch. 3
American Cultures 1395
Pardofam4@sbcglobal.net
Sorry, not feeling well at all (I have been down with the flu for a few days and not motivated to use my brain) so this will be short and simple….
Reading more into this book, I can see now why you have said it is a complicated process to teach Silencing the Past. For me it is complicated to understand everything that Trouillot is talking about. Trouillot speaks a lot about history, most of which I do not remember ever learning in school or just forgot. It is hard to relate to his readings and follow his words when he speaks of things that I am not familiar with and also because history was my worst subject in school.
In chapter three Trouillot begins to speak about the Haitian Revolution and the silences in history from historians which he calls the failures of narration. Trouillot also begins to speak about a certain idea of man. As this was discussed by philosophers they were discovering that men were conquering, killing, dominating and enslaving other human beings that were thought to be equally human to the other men in question.
On page 84 when Trouillot writes, “Built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy.” To me I think this means that in any system or way of being that a person is controlled or ordered to act that the person still has the ability to proclaim their own normalcy or way of being. People as individuals still have the ability to be themselves or to not allow other people to control them. This statement is important because too often people do not speak out or try to be an individual. People are more concerned with the rest of the world and what everybody else is doing. It seems easier to follow someone else who is leading them than to be a leader yourself. But when I look at this definition for a person who is incarcerated I have to remember that they are controlled and do not have a chance to be themselves. Although some are controlled more than they need to be and unaware of their rights so they still do not speak up for themselves.
On page 99 when Trouillot speaks about archival power he is trying to point out how history consists of events and things that are important and some that are not important and how not everything is worth mentioning, but what is important to mention is what is seriously related to the subject. Archival power is the power to define what is important and what is not. I am curious though, who is the person or people with this power to make the decisions on what is important and what is not? How is it certain that the people with this power are making the right decision?
Page 2 of 2
Silencing the Past Ch. 3
I wonder if history was written differently and I was to go back to school and learn it all over again if I would learn anything more or anything less. Maybe it has been written in a way that does not interest some people therefore they do not care to learn it or understand it. I am one of those people which is hard because my grandmother was an English and History teacher at a high school (not mine though). So I always had to hear about history, but often ignored it.
In reading Silencing the Past, although I am having a hard time following everything and understanding Trouillot’s words and meanings I can honestly say that I value his writing because I can tell he is very educated man. He is someone who went beyond what he knew about history or what he had been taught about history and discovered even more so that he could try to educate others on his findings. Most people just believe what they have been taught or learned so they are uneducated on the truth which could make their beliefs wrong to the people who know the truth.
Just like when we watch the news on television, they only tell us what they want us to know sometimes which is kind of like how history is. History tells a tale that is supposed to be believed when indeed there is more to it and we would never know unless we research it.
November 6, 2006 at 3:59 am
I am having trouble posting this!
Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II
November 5, 2006
yourmomismad@yahoo.com
Humanities 6: Section 1395
In the novel Silencing the Past, Michael Trouillot attempts to illustrate his philosophy of history and how it is told. As he puts it, there are actors and narrators who tell the story. The manner in which the story told performed depends greatly on the whether the story is based on the facts of history as accurate as possible, or whether it is an interpretation of what an event meant to a person. In relating a story of history, Trouillot is focused on how history is silenced through four specific ways. 1) Silencing occurs when the story is created. Just as when I explain to my mother what my son did at school, parts of the story inevitably get left out. 2) During the process of recording, and storing information from the past – pieces of information get deemed unimportant, ruined or in other ways become dismissed. 3) Many times, the amount of information is too large, and choices are made as to what is relevant. When pieces of the puzzle are left out, then the history is silenced.
4) Not all pieces of a story become part of history. What is not accepted as narratives of the past becomes silenced. Trouillot raised the awareness of silencing the past, and demonstrates the dangers our silencing the past through various stories.
In Chapter 2, Trouillot narrates the story of Sans Souci. In his story he describes and tells the story of the palace of Henry Christophe, the story of the palace of Frederick in Germany, and finally the story of Sans Souci – the person. The last story of Sans Souci is the story that has been silenced, because it is difficult to determine who he really was. Sans Souci was a slave who emerged as a leader using brutal tactics against his people. At the conclusion of the stories, Trouillot tells us, “concrete reminders that the uneven power of historical production is expressed also through the power of touch, to see, and to feel, they span a material continuum that goes from the solidity of the Potsdam to the missing body of the Colonel.” After going back to re-read, I can see that this is Trouillot’s definition of the silence within this story.
Power has a place in history, as the part of the silenced history is influential. As Trouillot points out, “The distribution of historical power does not necessarily replicate the inequalities (victories and setbacks, gains and losses) lived by the actors. Historical power is not a direct reflection of past occurrence, or a simple sum of past inequalities measured from an actors perspective or from the standpoint of any ‘objective’ standard, even at the first moment.” At this point in the chapter, I reflected on a speech I attended by Edward James Olmos. During his speech, Olmos referred to the History that is taught in our schools. His pointed out to the audience that no leaders are studied in the United States History school system, no other than those who were Caucasian. At the time of the speech, I realized what he was saying but missed the correlation. Now I see it. The history that our schools teach silence the history of those people that is not Caucasian. While there are some figures of history that are not Caucasian, they are inferior to the amount of teachings of Caucasians. This “power” is influential in the way that we view our history, and the history of others. People with different ethnicities are not taught of
Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II Page 2
their ancestors who made contributions to history and the way of our past, present and future. They are only taught of those contributions of Caucasians. Therefore, people learn to feel inferior to the “white” race.
Chapter Three opens with a journal type of entry from Trouillot. It discusses how Trouillot felt inferior to his students who wanted a history that “no book could tell.” It was after this that I realized that this is also related to what I was gaining through reading his book. I would never have the answers to history after reading it. His book is a philosophy, and is only attempting to encourage further thought and realization – not give answers. It is not a matter of knowing, but rather an understanding.
Following, Trouillot launches into slavery and the history of slavery. Early on in the 1700’s, slavery began its roots when in the late 1700’s when justification began. “When reality does not coincide with deeply held beliefs, human beings tend to phrase interpretations that force reality within the scope of these beliefs. They devise formulas to repress the unthinkable and to bring it back within the realm of accepted discourse.” It was at this time the at the newly formed independent Haiti, that a french colonist described to his wife the peacefulness of the tropics, and that “The negroes are very obedient and always will be.” Trouillot focuses on people’s justifications of “negroes” hoping to prevent a riot. Throughout the justifications, it was believed that Africans were incapable of envisioning freedom and therefore they could never have it.
As the definition of “man” developed, people were grouped into racial categories. Early within the middle ages, negative connotations about skin colors (especially black) began to spread. These negative connotations later made it justifiable to treat people that were not of European decent badly. Trouillot reinforces this idea, “Blacks were inferior and therefore enslaved; black slaves behaved badly and were therefore inferior. The practice of slavery in the America secured the blacks’ position at the bottom of the human world.” [77] Steven Jay’s Goulds article, The Geometry of Race explains “Blaumenbath chose to regard his own European variety as closest to the created ideal and then searched for the subset of Europeans with the greatest profection – the highest of the high, so to speak.”
Trouillot argues that people from the eighteenth century did not have the thought of the equality of humankind, as we do today. I believe in his argument. The place that Africans took had been developed over time. It was not something that just happened one day. Therefore, I do agree that people of the eighteenth century were not able to think of human equality. These people were taught that African’s were a different species, and throughout time justified their “lot in life.”
“The events that shook up Saint-Dominique from 1791 to 1804 constituted a sequence for which not even the extreme political left in France or in England had conceptual frame of reference.” [82] Society denied the concept of Africans protesting and rioting, and treated Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II Page 3
the claims as fictional. However, deep down people were fearful of it happening. Once the fear developed, slight signs of it were punished severely. However by acknowledging the resistance by Africans, the humanity of slavery then had to be acknowledged. “Planters and managers could not fully deny resistance, but they tried to provide reassuring certitudes by trivializing all its manifestations.” In other words, excuses were made for rivalry to continue its justification. Although it was not accepted, people held onto it to avoid dealing with the bigger issues. Jamaica and in the Guianas that became large colonies of runaways, threatened the excuses made of the slaves who ran away.
Stephen Gould’s article, The Geometer of Race echoes much of what Trouillot is attempting to convey. In his article he also argues that history becomes distorted by what people misconstrue as the truth.
In his discussions of the history of slavery, Trouillot speaks of the silences that are otherwise silenced throughout history. One is “the chain of events that constitute the Haitian Revolution was unthinkable before these events happened.” Second, “as they happened, the successive events within that chain were systematically recast by many participants and observers to fit a world of possibilities.” In other words the history and narratives were developed in a way that made sense to people. History was silenced. It was silenced in order to be justifiable to the people of society. It was also justified from the beginning, and the justifications turned into excuses. Trouillot attempts to uncover and identify the silences.
Trouillot also identifies a silence in generalizing history in narratives, and refers to statements such as “it wasn’t so bad, or did not really happen,” as examples of generalizing history. The comparison of the Haitian Revolution and the Holocaust is incredibly interesting, as both occurrences in history are drawn on many similarities. For instance, the segregation of Jews was justified early on – as was slavery. Trouillot identifies the silence of generalization. “The Germans did not really build gas chambers; slavery also happened to non-blacks.” I believe that generalization and justification are all methods of making torture “feel” okay. It makes it okay to kill another person, it makes it okay to turn a blind eye, and it forces society to play along.
Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events no experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption. . .The past does not exist independently from the present . .. Indeed the past is past because there is a present.. . . . Pastness is a postion.
After reading Silencing the Past, I can see the dangers of silencing history. As we can see in the example of the Haitan Revolution, power forms itself in the way of silencing history. It is the silence of justifications, reasonings, and excuses that make torture okay. According to Edward James Olmos, the term “race” was created in order to make it easier for one person to kill another. Justifications to one another form the normalities of
Corinne Neuman
Silencing the Past, Part II Page 4
everyday life. It is okay to segregate our population, because “that is just what you do.” It is the pattern of life that we create, and ways that we follow. When people induce harm on others it may not be because they know that it is wrong, but rather they know no other way. With Trouillot’s statement above, he is attempting to explain to us that we would not be where we are today without the past. It is the past that explains how we live in the present. It is how we live in the present, that becomes the future. Out pastness sets the stage for our position today. The statement, “Can we trust an American history in which the men who write it never wanted to be Indians” also relates. No we cannot, because the author will always silence the truth in justifications. There are always two sides to every story. If you only ask one side, you will only get one answer.
Archival power is defined by Trouillot as, “The power to define what is and what is not a serious object of research and, therefore, of mention.” I look to the recent election debates as an example. The supporters of a proposed tax meaure throws pieces of information at us that has no substance, and does not elaborate more than one or two lines. Proposition 87 is on our ballet, and opposition members have said “Prop 87 means higher gas prices, greater dependence on foreign oil and a new bureaucracy of 50 political appointees with no accountability to taxpayers. 87also reduces available revenues for schools & public safety.” However, where does this information come from? How is it obtained? What is its basis? It is said to persuade voters, but a voter really has no place to turn to get all of the facts. Only the politicians are able to see the depths of the measure and the truths behind it.
The events of September 11, 2001 are also a very good example of archival power. Five years following, many of us are still left wondering what actually happened. We know that the government has information that they are not willing to share, but why? Immediately following, investigations were launched, and accusations to Osama Bin Laden were cast. However, all of the “facts” were not relayed to society but “interpretations” were most definitely made. Those interpretations have led many to believe things that may or may not have been true.
The American people have been led to believe that we are in War at Iraq because of the threat of Nuclear weapons; today the threat now lays in Korea. Why aren’t we at war with them? The facts of our war have become so discombobulated that it has become incredibly difficult to determine truth from fiction, and fact from interpretation. Yet if I were to search for the truth, I would not no how much farther to go then from my gut.
Archival power is a form of power in which information is withheld. We know it exists; yet it is not released and one does not know how to obtain it. Foucault describes, “a level at which the formation of knowledge and the increase of power regularly reinforce one another in a circular process.”
November 6, 2006 at 5:55 am
Page 1 of 3
Todd Eastman
STP Part 2
11/05/06
todd.eastman@comcast.net
HUMAN 6 American Cultures, Section 1395
In Chapter 1 of “Silencing the Past”, Trouillot shared his views regarding how history is created, witnessed, narrated, and finally used. The “power” arises from how history is used, and what the results of that use means to us as a society. As Foucault describes the various types of power and how they are used, I believe Trouillot may be trying to tell us less about the “how” and more about the “why”.
Trouillot tells us on page 28 & 29 that “Power does not enter the story once and for all, but at different times and from different angles.” I think he refers to the “silences” he described earlier. He is telling us about how the creative, archival, narrative and retrospective elements all have their role to play. These “roles” are both dependent and independent of each other. Each can affect the other, but don’t necessarily always do so.
When Trouillot says, “First, facts are never meaningless: indeed, they become facts only because they matter in some sense.” In other words, something may be a fact, but not necessarily a pertinent fact. It is a fact that people usually carry money in their purse or wallet. The fact that a particular person has a huge roll of $100 bills in his pocket makes this fact much more pertinent if he is suspected of criminal activities.
When he says, “Second, facts are not created equal: the production of traces is always also the creation of silences”, I think he is saying that each element of a history creates a silence, and those silences can then influence the elements. This interdependence explains how the facts of a history are often changed or corrected.
Trouillot asks, “Can we trust an American history in which the men who write it never wanted to be Indians?” I think History always has at least two sides, or points of view. American history is suspect because our history had never considered the possibility that the Native Americans were content in being who they were. The power to establish and narrate American history in a slanted form was never provided to the Indians. Their opinion, or outlook, was considered inconsequential. Using their power to do so, American History failed to tell an authentic history. They were able to modify the narrative and archival aspects of history to suggest everything done to the Indians was for their own
Page 2 of 3
Todd Eastman
STP Part 2
11/05/06
good. But they also exercised their narrative power to avoid details of slavery, rape, and murder endured by the Indians.
Trouillot asks, “…whether one can confidently exclude from one’s history all events not experienced or not yet revealed…” The simple answer is that it is impossible for anyone to remember with absolute recall, every thing that a person has so far experienced in their life. It is too common for the “meaningful facts” of our lives to be forgotten, invented, deemed unimportant, or even psychologically blocked from our minds.
Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments. The moment of fact creation would be the prelude to something like Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in the first Iraqi War. The gathering of military intelligence, the broadcast of news “as it happens” by the media, political and economic impact estimates would contribute to the moment of fact assembly. Gathering the answers to who, what, where, when and why is the moment of fact retrieval. The retrospective significance is the history of how these moments and silences all contribute to the end result, or history of the war.
I believe Trouillot uses the term “impossible history” to describe an event that occurs so far beyond the collective realm of possibilities that it is figuratively referred to as being “impossible”. The Haitian Revolution was used as an example for an event that occured despite the disbelief or consideration that such an event could even occur. This belief system can become so ingrained that even when they must face reality, those clinging to their belief system continue to seek the means to down play and deny the very events that are occurring around them. If such unbelievable events can occur, how can an accurate narrative of these events be created?
In “Flowers of Evil” I think Jamaica Kincade’s “impossible history” was the revelation of just how rapidly and overwhelmingly Cortez was able to not only conquer, but to completely subjugate an entire population. When she says, “…It is a rape and an erasure, a spiritual padlock to which the key has been thrown irretrievably away,” I think she is referring to the utter destruction of the Aztec people.
Page 3 of 3
Todd Eastman
STP Part 2
11/05/06
I had a harder time trying to find an example of “impossible history” in Gould’s Geometer of Race.” I think Gould’s experience was due to the very nature of scientific study. Once a scientific hypothesis is accepted, any future modification or change of hypothesis prevents Scientists from easily accepting or even considering, that change. This can occur even while the corroborating evidence is all around them.
Trouillot quotes Pierre Bourdieu as defining the unthinkable as that for which one has no adequate instruments to conceptualize. Trouillot then goes on to offer his version – “The unthinkable is that which one cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives, that which perverts all answers because it defies the terms under which the questions were phrased. “ This definition can be applied and demonstrated throughout history. At one time the concepts of the earth being flat, and later that the sun revolves around the earth were both completely unthinkable ideas. Foucault might have used the term “hegemony” to describe the power that convinced so many people that the earth was flat, even when that belief was questioned.
Erasure and Trivialization are two points that Trouillot brings together. The first point being that events such as the Haitian Revolution were so unthinkable that they were forced out of the collective mind-set even before the event took place. In effect, “erasing” the event as even being plausible. His second point is that even while an event may be occurring, future events will entail an altered or “recast” version of the events that did occur.
On page 99, Trouillot refers to archival power as “the power to define what is and what is not a serious object of research, and therefore, of mention.” This form of power can be very dangerous, as it leads down a path towards censorship. This type of power allows the government to censor or “spin” the information and “spoon feed” only the information that they want us to accept.
November 6, 2006 at 6:25 am
Jereme Robinson
Silencing the Past Chapter 3 Page 1
November 5th, 2006
Preludekid212@aol.com
Human 6 – Section 1395
Well Lets just say I think everyone decided to call 911 today so we have be really busy at the firehouse. I will give it a shot and try to finish but I’m sure I will get interrupted before I finish. Sorry I’m trying!
As I read more into Silencing the Past I can see what you are talking about with how hard it is to understand. I think I had to read everything twice to really get an understanding of it. I like how Trouillot has comparing the narratives that are within a story to see the difference that people write about. Mr. Trouillot has found that each person or group of persons have taken the knowledge in which they have learned and manipulated it to benefit the specific persons view points.
“The unthinkable is that which once cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives, that which perverts all answers because it denies the terms under which the questions were phrased”. (82) What I think he means here is that one believes what they hear and when the unthinkable comes along, people will not want to understand and believe that alternative of the story that they heard. Then the quote I believe means, when that was alternative answer is give the one will think that answer is not correct because it isn’t that way the question and answer was originally written. I think a good example that most mothers or fathers out there will agree with me on here is when you have a pictures or what your son or daughter are like, Straight A student and drug free, but when you hear the alternative to what you believe and learn that your son or daughter does drugs and skips school at first as a parent you don’t want to accept that alternative answer.
Jereme Robinson Page 2
Silencing the Past Chapter 3
Another interesting quote by Trouillot on page 84 is, “Built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy”. Wow I mean there are so many things that I could make of this. I believe the main purpose of this quote is to say that in any domination whether it’s Hitler and the Nazi’s or you mother having rules people get into the mind frame that it is normal for those action to occur. A great example that I see a lot in my field of work is domestic abuse. When one spouse dominates another by abuse or fear the spouse that is getting abused learns to make it a normal thing and accepts it. After getting beat up every time your husband gets drunk, the wife learns that it is just a normal event for him to hit her when he is drunk. This is some thing that is not ok and needs to change.
On page 99 when Trouillot talks about archive power to bring a lot of examples to my head and makes me say yeah I know what he means. I think what he is try to point out is that sometimes in history things a purposely not revealed for reason that are unknown. Archival power is the power to define what is important and what is not. I think in these modern days where the government has most of the control of our media and what is said regarding sensitive subject, archive power is use a lot. One major example of this is September 11 and the attacks of the World Trade Center. Really up till now we really never knew the truth about what went on that day and still till this day we don’t really know the exact number or if our government was behind those attacks. I would say out of all the Historical events in my time this event displayed a lot of archive power. Another Example after 9-11 is the War in Iraq. The Government only tells us the
Jereme Robinson Page 3
Silencing the Past Chapter 3
information that they want to tell us and leaves out information which it very important to our history. This type of archive power really makes a one sided story that does give the true facts.
Going back to Chapter one on page 26 Trouillot explains the four ways that silences enter the process of historical production, the moments of fact creation, which is the making of sources; the moment of fact assembly, which he explains as the making of the archives; the moment of fact retrieval, which is the making of the narratives; and finally the moment of retrospective significance, the making of history in the final instance. On page 29 Trouillot Says, “in history Power begins at the source. . . The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. 1. Facts are never meaningless and second facts are not created equal”. Trouillot means in the creation of the narrative that beginnings at the source will take a joint effort or different side and information to create it. He mean in his two reason that facts that are presented and always useful and never meaningless to the creation of the narrative and that facts are not created equal which mean no one will have exactly the same facts.
Trouillot writes, “Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events not experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption. . .The past does not exist independently from the present . .. Indeed the past is past because there is a present.. . . . Pastness is a position” (15). I believe Trouillot is talking about events that we don’t remember the experience of, but are told the event happened. Then we take what we
Jereme Robinson Page 4
Silencing the Past Chapter 3
were told and pass it down as if we remember what happened. I think a good example is when people get drunk. Some people get drunk do something funny or dumb but don’t remember what they did. Someone the next day tells you what you did and you pass on to other people what you did like as if you remember the story when it was occurring.
November 6, 2006 at 6:39 am
Facts are never created equal because they are the building blocks of a solid narrative of a significant event. For example you can never take hard breaking marks in the concrete and tie them to the reason for an accident, you have to find a significant circumstance of power that underlies the concept at hand. You need to dig deeper then what is truly in your face, per say. A fact in the context of what Trouillot is saying, is just one meaningless part of a vast puzzle that is called history. He conceptualizes with that fact that history is only the way it is from a series of power interventions. I think the key to remember in this quote is that power does begin at the source, but alternative narratives can be distinguished differently. His concepts for facts are only based on the original creation of power from true events. If power didn’t exist, would history exist? “It does not imply that facts are meaningless objects waiting to be discovered under some timeless seal but rather, more modestly, that history begins with bodies and artifacts: living brains, fossils, texts, buildings.” That being said, the warning from Foucault says “I don’t believe that the question of ‘who exercise power?’ can be resolved unless that other question of ‘how does it happen?’ is resolved at the same time. This concept relates to the parts of history that consist of power, because they are taken hand and hand. To me it says, where there is power there always has to be history. This almost seams redundant because Trouillot also state, “what happens leaves traces”, yet I feel the importance is not in traces, but in the first of all reason power exists. Never mind the fact that your camp councilor told you to “leave it as you found it”, because that would completely change the course of history, which has basically already been written by nature, but you are just there observing it. Thus if you take something away from it does history not change, because the power has changed hands from nature, to yours? So you are changing history, but not taking away from the essence of presence. This I truly think ties into the fact that throughout our lives we have always been told to be the cowboys, not the Indians. No one wants to be a historical figure that was murdered for something as basic as land, which we take for granted today. I would not want to be an Indian, when history has shown us that progression is the only thing that has kept Americans alive. I think I am jumping around, let me go back a second and explain how Indians and power relate. Its easy for me, being a youth that grew up in a generation where cowboys shot and killed Indians on TV. As Trouillot states, history consists with the three distinct capacities: agents, actors and subjects. We relate Indians to actors, being that “their existence and understanding rest fundamentally on historical particulars”, as stated by Trouillot. Stating that they were killed for their land would not simple be enough, there is much more facts that create the power of the Indian side. It is only our perception that the cowboy is more powerful and has the “truth” to the history of the west, when really the separation of power between them should not be much different at all. “One-sidedness is possible because theories of history rarely examine in detail concrete production of specific narratives.” (Trouillot) So historically Indians were pushed aside and cast away, to let more prevalent information, more powerful information come out ahead on “its white gallant steed.”
On page 15, it seems to me like Trouillot is trying to make the point that history is truths happening around us at all times. The pure fact of your life, the point of view, or even the one telling history, has no respect for telling history if you are not to further understand where your history started or came from. He speaks about having history changed because of his birth, or adoption. This to me seems like history would have a different out look because of the place of power being moved at the time a truth was made. This is like using most of your senses to enjoy a glass of wine. Touch, smell, taste, and sight come together to create a brighter and clearer picture of what is really happening in the present. It gets you to a more real and believable conclusion, just what he is saying. When events and emotions and things are left out of the past one often does not get a clear picture of the present. So in this example we could say that because in the past wine made me sick, you would then conclude that the person making the observation for the future of the next wine or future, in this example, would have a different perspective, because one or more of there senses are indifferent because of the past. Trouillot states, “The only reason the past is the past, is because there is a present.” The quote that best describes this concept for me was when Trouillot states “Remembering is not always a process of summoning representations of what happened.” When I was younger I think that I drowned in the ocean and I had to be brought back to life. I remember coughing up sand and salt water for hours. I can still remember the sand in my lungs and the way it grinds on your teeth when you eat it. This memory has proved to be the power that has constructed my history, and made me to not be able to go in oceans for most of my life. This memory of the sand in my lungs and my teeth proves to be a huge part of my life and explains many things that I am scared for and run from, but in actuality I do not even remember if the event actually happened this way, or I am using my narration or subject point of view to construct a past or history?
Narrative history has always been hard to follow because it’s on one persons account and not with the rest of the facts. Take for example the collapse of Enron. That company had been going under for years and knew it, but decided not to tell anyone about it. Historically to date, the only other mass loss of money that was close was black Friday when the stock market crashed. It seems that there will be no true narrative because a lot of the men responsible committed suicide, which also is an example of silencing the past. Its like two in one, because their will never be a reason for knowing what the true concept was before millions of dollars was lost in one instant. There have been 102 people that have come out of a company of more than 10,000 employees and talked about what has happened. These sources create archives of information that narratives use to draw conclusions about historical events. My question for this would be if we have narratives to these circumstances what makes us listen to narratives over others? What is the purpose for us hearing small children talk about their past but not hearing old people scream about past?
I find it interesting that in order to show silence you have to show all the pieces of information that were brought into account and see if there are pieces missing. I feel as though there is still something missing with Trouillot because personal account is something that makes up historical accounts and without them there is nothing to claim as history. Just as though if I didn’t write this essay, the essay would not exist. YET it would exist because it was assigned, but just because I didn’t write it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a part of history. Its as if there is nothing there but the means for it to appear is made clear by the surroundings that almost shine the light right on the answer. Its interesting to think that by not showing the answer, and showing all the questions we find it will be easier to find the real answer because of what is missing. You assess what is not there by making sure there was nothing that was supposed to be there; that is my interpretation of silencing the past.
Jamaica Kincaid explains one of the biggest problems I had when I was growing up and that is conquering a place. While reading this article I completely felt the same as she did, because the places I have come to fear the most are the places I have already seen and already had experiences with. My childhood consisted of many hours of lonesome time thinking in my vast jungle of a yard, considering what if all the time. I found it odd that Jamaica relates her experiences to a flower, the same I would relate a lot of my experience to a weed I remember growing up with. Its this plant that actually makes me think about growth and living and progression, but brings me back to my place of loneliness and aggression and pain. Not to mention when I was 3 I planted a rubber tree and watched it grow taller and faster then I did, and I always wondered why it was beating me. Its amazing how one thing, one sense, one part of the past can change the whole timeline of the future? One thing I truly learned from the reading is that it’s all right to be wrong with the past; the past doesn’t judge you or show you the way. You are left to find what is true presence first, only then can you find the past…
November 6, 2006 at 7:12 am
Dawn Rash
STP 3
dawnkrash@hotmail.com
Nov. 4, 2006
Humanities 6 online
“In history Power begins at the source…The play of power in the production of alternative narratives begins with the joint creation of facts and sources for at least two reasons. 1.facts are never meaningless and second facts are not created equal,” (29) addresses the point that one source of an event may not share the same narrative or have the same means to create facts that create equal representation of the same event. Facts represented by buildings, dead bodies, and artifacts, and diaries speak for themselves and hold a certain amount of credibility in recounting an historical event. One of the greatest inequality of source is demonstrated in written documentation. The slaves of Haiti were illiterate. (STP,88) This would indicate that there would be little if any documentation of fact on their behalf. Their facts or lack of written facts would make their narratives less credible in the telling of an event even though their facts are just as meaningful as narrative of power. The inability to produce written documentation that can be shared with others minimizes the chance of equality in being heard and recognized.
When Trioullot asks, “Can we trust an American History in which the men who write it never wanted to be Indians?” he poses a thought provoking question. The men who never wanted to be Indians are the men who took over their territory and tried to erase Indian culture as if they were nothing. There are many silences in the history of the treatment of Native Americans as the hands of European Americans. American culture paints a beautiful picture of the pilgrims and Native Americans through the Thanksgiving holidays. Two peoples sharing resources and bonding over dinner with much to be thankful for. The fact that the Native Americans were Dawn Rash STP #3
slaughtered shortly after providing the new settlers with a foundation of means of survival and saving their sorry selves from starvation in the first place doesn’t show up on the holiday agenda. Although Trioullot uses “Indians” as his example, the same silences in history will be seen in slavery or any other major issue where American behavior through power is reflected in a negative light.
“Can we confidently exclude from ones history all events not experienced or not yet revealed including for instance and adoption…The past does not exist independently from the present…Indeed the past is past because there is a present…Pastness is a position,” (15) is passage from Trouillot that is somewhat of a tongue twister to my brain. Pastness may be a position, but it is connected to the here and now by its affect on our thought process and how we live in the present. Everything that we believe in and act on today is because of what we know based on past experience.
The first critical moment of a time when silences occur/exist in the narrative of history is the moment of creation. This is the point when the event actually occurs, creating a source. The second moment is the moment of fact assembly. The collectivities assembling the facts choose which facts are worth presenting and that would depend on what is important to the collectors.
The moment of fact retrievals in making the narratives is another critical moment when silence in the narrative of history exists because those creating the narratives may be coming from a perspective that does not include all of the participants of that event. Lastly, the moment of retrospective significance, the making of history in the final instance will determine whose voice is heard and how we will respond in the future. Archival power, the power to define what is and Dawn Rash STP 3
isn’t a serious object of research and mention comes into play at this point.
While I did not find x and y on page 6, I assume that the reference is being made to fiction and history. The rules that govern claims to historical truth are not the same in all times and all places has led many scholars to suggest that some societies do not differentiate between fiction and history according to Trioullot. Just because one cannot share the same method of documentation, be it written or spoken, does not mean that rules do not exist. He goes on to raise the question is history so infinitely malleable in some societies that it loses its differential claim to truth?
At the end of the century Man was primarily thought of as European and male were at the top to the humanity chain. Females of European origin as well as European Jews were next on the list, and natives of Africa or the Americas were at the bottom of the chain of humanity. Trioullot points out that colonization provided the most potent impetus for the transformation of European ethnocentrism into scientific racism. (77) The ideological rationalization of Afro-American slavery relied increasingly on clearly defined formulations of the ontological order, dealing with nature of being, inherited from the renaissance. In doing so it also transformed the renaissance world view by bringing its imported inequalities much closer to the very practices that confirmed them. Blacks were inferior and therefore enslaved. The practice of slavery in the Americas secured the black’s position at the bottom of the human world. This formed set of standards and practices of the planters in the Caribbean.
The unthinkable is that which one cannot conceive within the range of possible alternatives, that which perverts all answers because it defies the terms under which the questions were phrased. The Haitian Revolution was unthinkable to the planters because they were
Dawn Rash STP 3
complacent in the belief that slaves did not have the desire or the means to change their circumstance.(82) French colonist LeBarre assures his wife that there would be no movement because “the Negroes are very tranquil and obedient and always will be.” (72)
In stating, “built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy,”(84) I feel that Trouillot is saying that in order to maintain domination, everyone involved must feel that they are living under normal circumstances. The dominant group would not maintain control if the subordinate group questioned or changed the status quo.
Erasure is a formula that tend to erase directly the facts. Erasure characterizes mainly the generalists and the popularizes who recalls the general silences of a historical event in the form of textbooks. Banalization tends to empty a number of singular events of their revolutionary content so that the entire string of facts become trivialized. It recalls the explanations of the specialists of the times, overseers and administrators, or politicians. Trouillot points out that both tropes are formulas of silence.
In the Flowers of Evil the author talk about the fact that she was of the conquered class and living in a conquered place. She said that a principle of this condition is that nothing about you is of any interest unless the conqueror deems it so. She also points out that naming of things is so crucial to possession. She compares this possession to a spiritual padlock with the key thrown irretrievably away. It is murder and an erasing similar to the erasure of history discussed by Trouillot. “That the great misery and much smaller joy of existence remain unchanged no matter what anything is called never checks the impulse to reach back and reclaim a loss, to try and make what happened look as if it had not happened at all.”
November 6, 2006 at 7:50 pm
On the subject of Foucault and Trouillot being difficult reads, I have to say that I have a different prospective.
The material itself is difficult to read and follow, and so I don’t think it would have mattered how it was written – it would still be difficult. Likewise, I am sure it was difficult to write.
I really feel that it is the events and philosophies that are hard to understand, not the reading itself. Once I read over, and let the material boil a bit I seem to be able to make interpretations.
November 6, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Crystal: I think you ask a very thought provoking question – “I am curious though, who is the person or people with this power to make the decisions on what is important and what is not?”
I don’t think that “choices” are intentially made as to what is important, rather pieces of information is silenced in various ways. It happens over time when stories are first told, to records in an storage room that are deemed unimportant. However, power takes its place.
November 7, 2006 at 4:37 am
Jereme,
When I was reading the outline of chapter one of Silencing the Past, I also had the thought of how the governement controls the media; espically when it realtes to wars, I heard it before as referred to as propaganda. I think that this was a good point that you brought upwhen talking about archive power.
November 7, 2006 at 11:51 am
Missy- The history put into the history books is definitely one-sided; it’s told by the victor. Whoever won the battle gets to tell the tale. After all, who wants to read a history book written by the people who lost the battle or the war? History is like everything else – it is skewed to a certain point of view or to make a specific statement. And the older the history, the harder it is to prove that history incorrect.
November 7, 2006 at 11:55 am
Corrine – You brought up some excellent points regarding the events surrounding September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq. I’m sure we could all come up with reasons as to why we are in Iraq: oil, “weapons of mass destruction”, terrorism, finishing the job started by the first President Bush. The sad fact is that the facts have been twisted by the government and the media and the general public is fed just enough information to make us agree to whatever the government wants. It’s just another classic example of incorrect history and archival power.
November 9, 2006 at 12:33 am
donna- perhaps the intent of the media and government is to detail only what they want you to know, but that is the point of everything we are reading. you have to analyze, read between the lines, and know that boundaries are created by people with power, it does not mean they cannot be permeated. i believe that education, especially college educations support the “questioning of authority” because they want you to make connections that people might otherwise take at face value.
November 10, 2006 at 2:33 am
Corrine – I agree with the comments donna left for you. September 11th is the best example we can use for archive power. i don’t think we will ever really know the true facts about septemeber 11th but i guess that it has been that way for a long time. Go point to use in your papaer!
November 12, 2006 at 3:09 am
Donna,
I would love to read a history book written by the “loser” of the battles. We could get some great perspective on what went wrong.
November 13, 2006 at 6:31 am
Jade,
Good point about for those people living with racism today, its not the past. You are right, it depends on where you are standing.
Corrine,
I agree with you on the silencing of culture in our school system. My daughters are not bringing home any studies regarding leaders from any culture of ethnicity. Quite a loss to all.
December 10, 2006 at 12:11 am
Ben I absolutely agree with the book created by the loosers…. They say it takes two to tango and as we all know there are always atleast two sides to a story and even more perspectives.
The richer the ritual, the easier it is for subsequent performers to change parts of the script to impose new interpretations.
p. 133 All hyphens are not equal in the pot that does not melt.
okay now this one ; ) Please do not take this the wrong way
It’s amazing how the semicolon changes everything. The colon means the comment is truthful and should be taken at face value. It has a happy feeling associated with it. However, the semicolon opens the door of doubt and deception. Yes, I said it..the door of doubt and deception – my alliteration for week. I get a weird feeling when I see the semicolon and start trying to decrypt the message for it’s true meaning.
EXAMPLE – below is a hypothetical comment
“Hey! Sorry I didn’t call you this weekend. I was busy
”
Actual translation: “Hey, I’m really sorry I didn’t call you this weekend. I was busy because my cousin Sandra was in town and we were out seeing stuff. You know I still love you SILLY. I will call you later tonight.”
Same comment but with the semicolon
“Hey! Sorry I didn’t call you this weekend. I was busy
”
Actual translation: “Hey! I know I was suppose to call you this weekend but I was busy. My “cousin Sandra” was in town and we were doing stuff…if you know what I mean. Let’s hope that ‘you know who’ doesn’t find out. I will call you later tonight to give you all the…ummm…details”
I never realized the powerful difference between the colon and semi colon. Colon vs. semicolon is like good vs. evil or Holyfield vs. Tyson.
MORE EXAMPLES
“I am so tired from last night
”
”
or
“I am so tired from last night
“Looks like I swallowed my pride
”
”
or
“Looks like I swallowed my pride
“It was a lot better than I thought
”
”
or
“It was a lot better than I thought
“20 minutes
”
”
or
“20 minutes
“8.5
”
”
or
“8.5
Post Script – anyone who Googled ‘alliteration’ or wondered what ‘Post Script’ means shouldn’t feel like an idiot
So you can see how some things that in general can mean the same things but represent something totally different. That is why when business people use vague and ambiguous language in contracts so that they might get away with something in the future concerning their obligations or for that matter make sure they don’t use such language in order secure contractual agreements.
I think the same thing rings true with the writers and interpreters of history as we know it or should I say as we as individuals interpret it? Conception for instance has two meanings as do many words all you have to do is use your thasaurus and bam! there it is. I bet I if we looked at some of the underlying meanings of every descriptive word we could come up whith a million different versions of one story. It is all how you conceptualize it, interpret it and tell it to someone else. Need I bring up the example of the story that starts at one side of the room and ends totally different at the other side?
What’s your frame of reference on the idea of semi colons? I bet you will think twice the next time you use it. Who sings that song “Smiling faces” ? “Smiling faces,.. smiling faces.. sometimes…. they don’t tell the truth!”
Corrine – I am not a mom however a kid well at least at age 26 I’d like to think so…anyway I can tell you that it seems as though all of my friends from other countries seem to know more about my own country than I do. and I hardly know anything about theirs. The system is clearly lacking in quality and educational global perspectives. It was not until I took classes hear at the JC that I began to study other cultures and immigration in more detail.
December 10, 2006 at 1:09 am
Pg 84. Trouillot writes: built into any system of domination is the tendency to proclaim its own normalcy.
Hahahaha! Sorry not funny , but hilarious. Duh gosh I hate to do it but politics is such a victim, no ..not a victim more of an expert in building arguments with the intention to give the reader the impression that the argument proclaims it’s own normalcy.
For instance take global warming for example:
People want to say that global warming was not caused by humans and others argue that it is caused by humans (note I am not associating party names bc I I don’t want to cause drama). These people base their arguments on scientific evidence and or lack there of documentation. Or is it the lack of their interpretation?
Philosophers build arguments, phenomenons, and theories for a living. There are good arguments and there are bad arguments. Some are direct and some are indirect depending on the the type of news or argument that is being written about. There are also linear and non linear arguments, many times people use the non linear style in-order to confuse and side track the reader or distract them so that they do not criticize the missing of the main point of the actual argument. I like to call this side stepping.
I don’t think that it is a fact of a system of domination that uses this normalcy or natural concluding argument style I think it is anyone who tries make an argument or prove something in any standing being dominate or not. The dominate systems are just better at forming the argument to say what they want people to hear in order make it sound as if their argument has lead them and their readers to a believable conclusion that sounds truthful and natural. It in my mind is a form of persuasion and must be looked at objectively as any story, history, theory , argument there to or statements made especially by theorists and even more so political ones should. A good writer can write something that they don’t believe in and make it believable. Or at least make it so that it sounds as the the person writing it truly believes in what he or she is writing about.
I recently sat in on a philosophy class at Long Beach State. The instructor was video taping the class discussion on racism, and name calling which stemmed from the “N” word and whether or not it is socially acceptable to use it in various settings. The argument from several different students went back an forth about the tone used, the relationship with the person it is being communicated to, their personal feelings about the word and it’s historical meanings. My response ecompased all those things and then extended to realize that the main fact of acception was that it depends not only on all those factors but also on the environment and the people surrounding that hear you say the word or call it as a name and how you use it, in addition to your own frame of reference. For instance a guy with the last name “Pinky” may have been teased as a kid in elementary school because of his name. His close friends may still call him that no matter their race it it may or may not bother him. “Pinky” may not like to be called “Pinky in a club or at a bar in front of people he does not know however when it is just te group of close friends it is totally socially acceptable. There’s these things called ediquette and tact. Everyone should practice it and know his or her bounderies within a specific audience and if it is questionable or boarder line then it is at your discretion to take that risk. Sometimes risk is admired and other times it ends in a bloody nose.
Bottom line it’s up to you since we do have the right to freedom of speech, however interpretations dealing with race and sex have very fine lines and there are very large gray areas within those subjects. My advice …use your instinct and ask yourself these questions: Does the audience have a sense of humor? Have they said something worse that has opened the playing field? What is your frame of reference and how do you think your audience will perceive the meaning? and last but not least how many of your friends are present so that in case it is taken the wrong way you don’t the a bloody nose or loose the debate. When in doubt and number of friends are equal stay in tact and try to put yourself in their shoes as the interpreter.