Three Words

The three words - history, myth, and lies - are often used interchangeably.

That shouldn’t be the case. These words refer to three very different kinds of human endeavours.

A historian attempts to work like a scientist. He or she makes strong assertions only when he or she has a preponderance of supportive evidence. (S)he looks at ALL (or as close to all as possible) of the data, and attempts to show how his or her assertion is more reasonable than rival or contrary ones. Since sufficient proof is important, from a lot of data, the historian distills a few sharply defined and limited conclusions. It also means that the historian must live or die by the quality of his/her data sources.

A mythmaker works differently. The data have little instrinsic value to him or her. But they possess a great extrinsic value. They are used not to understand but to persuade.

So the mythmaker diligently combs enormous amounts of the disparate sources to find any data that, with an appropriate twist, can be used to support the preferred myth. And simply by fiat, drops whole reams of contradictory (generally, better understood) data. Good and bad sources are finely combined to present a look of authenticity and scholarship - verisimilitude.

For mythmaking to be efficient, small amounts of data must be made extremely productive. So from tiny slivers of data, the mythmaker confidently reaches vast conclusions and constructs major theories.

The lier is a mythmaker who is ready to use manufactured data, along with the good and the bad. In this endeavor, (S)he thinks little of cooking up convenient quotations, or of using and promoting books, ghost-written-to-order by obscure names by night, and presented as solid and scientific evidence by day.

The mythmaker is careless with the truth. The lier carefully distorts and destroys it.

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As expected, historians, mythmakers, and liers react very differently to relevant, fact-based criticism.

The first acknowledges and engages, the second defies and bullies, and the third escapes and temporaily hides.
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All of us devote a great deal of time to mythmaking. Ideally, and this we all know, we should move in the direction of appreciating real history. But who among us is not tempted by the easier route when it also promises apparent glory and self-validation?