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Historical Distortions

The document discusses historical revisionism versus historical distortion. Historical revisionism involves reinterpreting history based on facts and evidence, while historical distortion changes accounts to suit an agenda and promotes lies. When analyzing history, it is important to use primary sources closely and consider the author's context rather than imposing modern frameworks. The article examines how Renato Constantino incorrectly interpreted Jose Rizal's views through a Marxist lens rather than considering original sources from Rizal's time. Historians must be aware not to impose opinions and instead allow evidence to guide theories about the past.

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Allen Grace Mendez
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599 views2 pages

Historical Distortions

The document discusses historical revisionism versus historical distortion. Historical revisionism involves reinterpreting history based on facts and evidence, while historical distortion changes accounts to suit an agenda and promotes lies. When analyzing history, it is important to use primary sources closely and consider the author's context rather than imposing modern frameworks. The article examines how Renato Constantino incorrectly interpreted Jose Rizal's views through a Marxist lens rather than considering original sources from Rizal's time. Historians must be aware not to impose opinions and instead allow evidence to guide theories about the past.

Uploaded by

Allen Grace Mendez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HISTORICAL DISTORTIONS

It is necessary to define the terms historical revisionism and historical distortion to


differentiate the two.  According to Krasner (2019), historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a
historical account or narrative based on actual facts and evidence. On the other hand, as stated
by Cristobal (2019),  historical distortion is the changing of historical accounts or narratives to suit a
personal agenda. And to alter history, disinformation and lies are used which promotes misinformation
to most of us Filipinos.

Assessment, Review, and Analysis are the words that I can correlate to criticism. Sources are
important in a variety of writings that we come across on a daily basis, and we can classify sources into
two categories which are primary and secondary. Primary sources are the original documents, or it can
be described as those sources that are closest to the origin of the information. Some examples of
primary sources are interviews, audio/video recordings, and literary/theoretical works. On the other
hand, secondary sources are the ones that interpret primary sources. They can be articles, television
documentaries, conferences, biographies, essays, or art critiques, for example. When conducting
historical criticism, we must prioritize the external and internal types of the document/article under
consideration. First, for the external criticism, we need to check if the document is authentic or not. In
this, we need to consider the environment of the author where they wrote the document, their
handwriting, and the medium and language they used on producing the document. Once a document
has been determined to be genuine (external criticism), we can now proceed determining if the content
is accurate (internal criticism), and this mostly focuses on the content of the document. The primary
goal of historical criticism is to discover the primitive or original meaning of the text in its original
historical context, as well as its literal sense or sensus literalis historicus. Furthermore, it seeks to
reconstruct the author's and the text's recipients' historical situation. It is important to reflect on history
and criticize it because it allows us to learn from our predecessors' mistakes and acknowledge
responsibility for the consequences of that history that are still present today.

In examining the Historical Distortions and Misconceptions: Exploring Problems and Issues in the
Use of the Marxist Framework in ‘Veneration Without Understanding’ (1970) by Renato Constantino,
the article begins with an overview of Marxist historiography to provide context for Constantino's
methodology, then deconstructs the framework through the lens of structuralism to show how the
historian created a historically anachronistic account of the national hero. It is crucial to take note of the
numerous historical accounts that exist when studying Philippine history in order to clarify and
elaborate on the complexity of the past. Historians construct their narratives by surveying and analyzing
primary sources found in archives, libraries, and the antique collections of document collectors. The
output can be a variety of accounts that explain a country's history, but because there are so many
different historical frameworks and ideological viewpoints, each historian can adopt and use techniques
to reconstruct the past without restriction.

In such cases, the historian's employment of theoretical frameworks and social ideas could
accidentally result in conceptions that are out of date. In the end, this might result in incorrectly
interpreting original sources. By interpreting Rizal and his position on the Revolution of 1896 through a
Marxist lens, Constantino created an archaic portrait of the national hero. Constantino neglected the
significance of precise original sources that were genuinely important in developing various perspectives
about Rizal and the revolution. A particular document cannot be comprehended without knowing the
author's full background, and most especially, the date and time of writing. I believe that historians must
have the awareness that opinions or frameworks should not be imposed to interpret evidence
incorrectly. Instead, the evidence at hand should aid the historian in developing original theories about
the past through close study of effective historical techniques. Just as it was mentioned from the article,
frameworks and social theories should only serve as a guide for creating narratives and supporting
historical assertions. Basically, data from a variety of sources should be able to support historical claims
and support historical research.

Understanding the historical influences on a text is crucial since they may lead words, concepts,
or even the language itself to differ or vary. Depending on the context in which a given text is used, a
word may have a distinct meaning or concept. We have the so-called historical anachronism, which is
when a historian utilizes a word or a historical concept that is taken out of context and uses it to
describe or interpret a historical event. To avoid misinterpreting a text, we should take into account the
influences that it may have.

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