Historical Fiction

Historical Fiction as a term of art is something I suspect will be familiar to most of us. But a chance mention the other day struck me in a way it had not previously; as an unintentional riff on the capriciousness of what we call history. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that history is the one thing we

openly acknowledge is fiction. Some examples come to mind. History is written by the victor; that certainly acknowledges a lack of permanence. Bill Watterson offers a sentiment that I find particularly apt: "History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events can be controlled." Or consider this from Oscar Wilde: "The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it."

One has only to pick up any purported history book or historical biography to find revelations that upend our preconceived notions about what actually happened in the past. As shocking as it seems to acknowledge the ephemeral nature of these accounts regarding actual events--even those that may have occurred in our own past, the further the distance the greater the chance that what we may have accepted as the truth, or the facts, are anything but.

On occasion the discrepancies revealed by a biographer can be forgiven--makeup applied to an ugly vanity, or foggy recollections that made their way into the received wisdom of the day. And we can see how competing views --almost always ideological or political in nature color the characterization of fraught moments in time even in the present. So, it is not that hard to accept that no amount of triangulation, research or scholarly insight can ever be certain of discerning the facts with absolute precision.

There was a time when, however briefly, journalism offered a window into history that could be considered reliable. First hand accounts, a bit of sleuthing and such integrity as reporters attained provided through a collective lens a glimpse of the truth. But accurate, unbiased, nothing but the facts reporting has been under systemic attack for some time. In the present, it is hard for anyone to cipher what remains, sifting through fake news, real news labelled as fake, and outright lies.

This state of affairs is not by happenstance but a coordinated effort to discredit one of the few institutions the common man might turn to for fact finding. What's more, we are daily witnessing a new phenomenon, what I call pre-historical fiction. Not fiction about Dinosaurs but the shaping of events that have not yet unfolded to control public perception. The pivotal players creating pre-history are the pundits of our day, TikTok Influencers, Podcast Celebrities and Notable Tweeters. The means are as old as time, float a theme, a characterization, or a question that these agents of disinformation find tantalizing and watch as absurdity becomes reality in the minds of devoted followers. No magician has ever practiced more cynical sleight of hand.

The power of such manipulation can be readily observed on any given day but the destruction it daily wreaks is both apparent and unseen. By that I mean , we have been so battered by falsehoods that when we are presented with the semblance of fact we are left without the emotional or intellectual energy to dispute fabrications. Was there an insurrection? Was the election stolen? Did the President really do that?

Repeat the fabricated version of the facts long enough and they become part of our history. Far worse, the lies will persist long after this generation is gone and no one alive can say what really happened. George Orwell understood this state of affairs better than most, he wrote: "The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history" That is the reality of the present, one in which we are unwilling participants and in which our future is fast becoming fiction.