How can we know the truth about historical facts?

I answered a question about this on Quora in Portuguese and decided to bring the reflection here to the blog, as it is very much in line with the Repertoire Expansion project and people from all over the world may be interested in reflecting on the subject. As what we are living through today is also part of history, this reflection will include contemporary realities. Yes, plural. There are multiple realities beyond the one you live in.

The most important point about studying history is developing critical thinking to the point of recognising the consequences of what happened in the past and observing what can be changed in the present to avoid repeating certain things in the future. This applies to life in society and to individual life, observing the mistakes of our families and our own individual mistakes and what we can do to have a healthier and more respectful life in relation to others from now on.

What truth are we talking about?

On a TV programme, Letterman asked Christoph Waltz how he managed to portray such an evil character (Hans Landa) so well. Waltz seemed not to understand the premise and replied, in essence, that Landa was not “evil”. This did not mean that Waltz ignored what the character did; it meant that, as an actor, he did not approach him from the moral category of “villain”. He needed to enter that man’s logic, not portray him as someone who knew he was the villain of the story.

Nowadays, it is common to portray black people in Brazil as victims of evil colonisers, but at the time, as far as I know, African tribes themselves captured people from enemy tribes and enslaved them, so the Europeans only used a system that was already common among Africans themselves in that context. And nowadays we find it absurd because we have some awareness that this means treating human beings as objects. Quite a few people do not have this awareness, continuing to treat women and children/sons and daughters as objects and portraying black people as victims for convenience, but for some there is a genuine understanding of the problem.

Following on with more recent examples, there are men who grow up in families where it is normal for the father to treat his wife and daughters as objects, as beings whose obligation is to obey him, and the son may grow up thinking that this is normal. That does not mean that it is acceptable to other people.

A person may grow up in a vegetarian family and never even be curious about eating meat, just as people from Muslim families may go their whole lives without eating pork. For many people this is NOT normal, but for those people, it is.

And here it is important to emphasise that this post as a whole is not making a moral judgement; my point is to show that there is not a single moral interpretation when it comes to history.

It is necessary to distinguish facts from moral interpretations.

It is a fact that the Holocaust happened. And for many Germans at the time, this was considered right. For many other people, it was wrong.

It is a fact that black Africans were enslaved during the colonial period throughout the American continent. And for many people at the time and in that context, this was considered right. For many other people and in other contexts, the interpretation is different.

It is a fact that there are men who are abusive towards women and beat them because they do not obey them, among other forms of abuse. And there have been men like this at different points in history. If they thought this was wrong, they would not do it. The problem nowadays is that many women no longer accept this kind of treatment. And in several countries this kind of behaviour is criminalised. Society is showing these men that their right ends where another person’s right begins, where their partner’s right begins. Respect is a two-way street.

I made a point of giving the examples of vegetarians and Muslims in relation to what they eat because not every fact requires a moral judgement.

Possessive and controlling parents, who are ignorant and have never questioned their own parents’ methods, tend to want to rob their children of the right to learn to make their own choices from childhood onwards. They want to decide everything for their children, and then, when their children are adults, these parents do not understand why their children distance themselves. They distance themselves because they recognise the harm caused by not having lived through certain experiences or made their own choices much earlier. They realise how much of their lives was taken away from them by the very parents who should have guided them, loved them and supported their development.

If what a child wants to wear, how they want to wear their hair (cuts, colours, hairstyles), the type of toy they prefer or the colour they want the walls of their own bedroom to be bothers you, you do not know how to respect a child.

If you need to label a child as a boy, girl, gay or trans, you are unable to respect that child or adolescent as a human being with their own peculiarities. What someone has between their legs does not define how that person should behave, what they should wear, how they should act or whom they feel sexual interest in.

Where a person was born, their skin colour, religion, gender - none of these things defines who they are. Each individual is unique, and the way to understand each person is through dialogue.

When an employee accepts a job at a company where the salary offered is X, they should not go around saying that the employer exploits them because other companies pay more to people doing the same job. Each company has its own reality and the employee, who is generally an adult human being, accepted because they wanted to. At least in most Western countries.

Respect is always an obligation. Anyone who wants to be respected must also respect others.

We understand this when we realise, with the eyes of today, that slavery, in the present context, is unacceptable.

We understand this when we realise, with the eyes of today, that the Holocaust during the war was unacceptable.

We understand this when we look within ourselves and understand that another person making choices different from ours, which do not affect our lives or the lives of third parties, is within their right to live THEIR life. But when there is disrespect, disrespectful behaviour should be challenged.

The principle of respect is authentic dialogue: expressing one’s own point of view and listening to the other person’s point of view. But not everyone has a point of view they can explain. Quite a few people simply follow “truths” that were imposed upon them, having never questioned such “truths”. They are generally the same people who seek to understand “the truth” of a historical fact as though facts and moral judgements were synonymous.

One of society’s major problems is adults who, instead of seeking personal development, seek validation from their peers, like children seeking their mother’s approval. Thus, they may spend their lives believing that things which are disrespectful towards others are right.

Nycka Nunes