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电梯直达

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发表于 2005-2-13 13:33:03 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

When we concern ourselves with the study of history, we become storytellers. Because we can never know the past directly but must construct it by interpreting evidence, exploring history is more of a creative enterprise than it is an objective pursuit. All historians are storytellers."

当我们研究历史时，我们变成了讲故事的人。因为我们永远不可能直接地了解过去，而必须通过解释史料来勾画出过去，所以探究历史更多地是一项创造性的事业，而并非一个客观的追寻。所有的历史学家都是讲故事的人。

The speaker raises a serious question to us on how should we evaluate historians. To him, he thinks that on the basis that historians can never know the past directly but have to construct it by interpreting evidence, exploring history is more of a creative enterprise than an objective pursuit. In other words, he holds the assertion that all historians are storytellers. I strongly disagree with the speaker’s claim for the following discussion.

I concede that the facts historians represented to us are far away from now, thus we can never know the authenticity of them, and I also admit that when the historians have added some imaginary, hypotheses and creativity to the history affairs. However, historians are totally different from the storytellers. The former should not mix their personal emotion and incline to the history facts. When they research the history, they firstly collect a large number of books, testimonies and other important materials passed down from long, long ago. Then after a careful study and investigation, they finally draw out conclusions and continually rectify them until they think such conclusions are enough close to the real fact. During the process, they try to be disinterested, hold a scientific attitude and method. Obviously, such a spirit of pursuing authenticity and truth doesn’t belong to the storytellers. On the contrary, the latter doesn’t need to do such onerous and difficult job.

Moreover, anyone can become a storyteller if only he has read some books, but not every one can become a historian. In fact, very few people have the ability to research the history, which is not a game and amusement like telling stories, but in fact a very hard and scientific work. Most of the historians have received a high education, read lots of books and are acquainted with some other related disciplines such as archeology, astrology, geology, chemistry, etc., because such knowledge is helpful and necessary for their research on the history.

Last but not least, we should distinguish the different job of storytellers and historians. The purpose of studying the history is very significant, it can help us know something about the past, instruct the present and predict the future. There is an old proverb in China, “History is a mirror”, which means that history can help us avoid repeating some foolish mistakes such as the splits and wars which have taken place in the history by reflecting the past. If we ignore or even look down on the history, think it is just a story for amusement hypothesized by historians, our country and nation would go to an end for certain. Therefore, in a broader perspective, the contribution of the historians far outweighs that of the storytellers. We can’t simply equate the key role of historians with that of storytellers. That is an irresponsible and disrespectful attitude.

In the final analysis, the speaker’s assertion is groundless at all. Historians have made a great contribution in the history of human society. How can we image the world would be if we simply take historians as storytellers? Although they share some similarities with storytellers, they are completely different in the essence.

523 words.