Karina+Week+12

This post probably strays the most from the readings, but it is intended to address history and the limitaions of historians.

It seems to me sometimes that history is an endless debate between historians over what //really// happened at some point in time. For example, there is ongoing discussion over if Heisenberg was deliberately sabotaging the Nazi atomic weapon project or was working his hardest to further it, as suggested by his correspondence with Niels Bohr. New evidence arose that supports the idea that Heisenberg really was working hard on nuclear fission in the form of letters and papers by Bohr and Heisenberg, and suspicions were also contemplated in a play called “//Copenhagen”//, but others like Dr. Hans Bethe insist that, “Bohr's letter does not clarify anything about the visit,”. (The visit refers to Heisenberg's visit to Copenhagen in 1941)

Unless some time machine is invented so that one can see and hear what was said in the past (other than a microphone or recording device for more modern history when such technologies are available), or what really was meant, there is no real //knowing//, only a good assumption of what happened or what was said. Sure, letters are good indicators of a conversation but it is well known that someone can not tell the whole truth and even outright lie in letters. Letters are good indicators of the general idea of what occurred, but as far as knowing, definitively, what Heisenberg’s intentions were, that is not really possible.

Now, I’m not saying that one can’t really know history, but that so much that happens in the world that is not possible to examine because, to us now, it did not exist. What cannot be read from documents, heard from stories or songs, seen drawn on walls, or known from any other sources will not be put in the history textbooks that are given to schools for children to learn from – to know their history. The obscure peasant’s descriptions of farming techniques in the <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">11th century, what happened at a battlefield in Rome that was not recorded…there is so much that cannot be kn   own now.

Historians can debate for a long time about Heisenberg’s intentions during WWII and the <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">German atomic bomb project, and even might come to a conclusion according to the evidence <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">(which follows the same processes as science coincidentally), but would they really know his <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">personal intentions? And referring back to the letters and Bethe’s comment that Bohr’s letters do <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">not clarify anything…what should be taken for historical fact and what should be considered just <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">a story? (Or, what is useful and what is not?) How is this line determined? Does it apply to religious history as well?