Claim: Though often considered an objective pursuit, learning about the historical past requires creativity.
Reason: Because we can never know the past directly, we must reconstruct it by imaginatively interpreting historical accounts, documents, and artifacts.
The author claims that learning history is more of a creative pursuit, not objective as many people believe. He reasons that past cannot be known directly and requires reconstruction through imaginative interpretation of historical accounts, documents and artifacts. While creativity is a key for generating knowledge about the past, objectivity is also essential to verify that knowledge. Therefore, prioritization of one over the other is unjustified.
Undoubtedly past cannot be known directly. The more distant one goes in the past, the more difficult it gets to ascertain the information. Past is then construed through imaginative interpretation of historical accounts, documents and artifacts as the author suggests. Historians differ from archivists in the sense that their task is not to preserve documents and records but to interpret and extrapolate the available resources and information to make a story. The whole process is like putting different pieces of a puzzle together to form a picture. Therefore, generating knowledge about the past indeed requires creativity and imagination.
Consider, for example, an archaeological excavation project requiring expertise from different professions. Archaeologists through analyzing the age and source of material used for making utensils, weapons, etc. can provide information about the economy, trades and lifestyle of the population. Biochemist can study fossil remains to predict life expectancy, physical traits and common causes of mortality; whereas linguists can decipher the inscription and pictorial representation on the walls to give an idea about the culture, literature and intellectual maturity of the ancient civilization. Finally, it is the job of a historian to use his creativity and imagination to put this information in a context and chronology with respect to other events to give a complete picture.
However, when creativity takes precedence over objectivity, the whole history could be distorted in the garb of creative, rather artistic liberty. This is aptly illustrated by the myriad examples of dramatist and filmmakers who, in the attempt to portray a colourful history, ended up distorting it. For example, very little is known about the father of Sultan Osman I, Ertugrul who laid the foundation of Ottoman Empire. Yet the makers of the Turkish super-hit drama Dirillis: Ertugrul used wild imagination and creativity to produce a 5 season long action packed series inventing a new history. Moreover, there is a difference between interpreting evidence to know about the past and inventing evidence to prove one’s staunchly held belief. Unfettered creativity devoid of objectivity paves way for the latter. For instance, Adam’s bridge has long been believed to be created by a deity in Indian Mythology. In 2007, NASA’s remote sensing image was used to prove the same point to the extent that the organization itself had to come forward to clarify that such images cannot reveal about the origin and age of the structure.
One of the main benefits of history is to take lessons from past mistakes. This is not possible without objectivity in the approach. Due to national pride or personal biases, people tend to suppress historical evidences which are contrary to their interest and overemphasize those supporting their viewpoint. For example, a Mongolian learning history from the native books and sources is more likely to learn about glories of Mongolian conquest than the carnage it brought. Hence, without objective perusal of history, he can barely learn the lessons about destruction resulting from the imperialist appetite. Lastly, objectivity is also needed to discern between historical fictions embodied in historical facts. For instance, the story of Trojan War and Horse was either completely accepted as a fact or discarded altogether. It was only through objective analysis of historical records and artefacts, that the historians concluded that while the War did take and the city of Troy was burnt, the story of Trojan horse was an innovation.
In conclusion, the relative importance of creativity and objectivity in learning history is similar to that between the quantity of information and its quality. It is as important to fill the gaps in historical knowledge as it is to rectify falsely held historical beliefs. Therefore, learning about historical past requires both creativity and objectivity for historians must address both the lack of information about the past using the former and false historical information employing the latter.
- Governments should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development. 83
- We learn our most valuable lessons in life from struggling with our limitations rather than from enjoying our successes 66
- Governments should focus on solving the immediate problems of today rather than on trying to solve the anticipated problems of the future 75
- Some people believe that society should try to save every plant and animal species despite the expense to humans in effort time and financial well being Others believe that society need not make extraordinary efforts especially at a great cost in money an 92
- Formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free 80
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, hence, however, if, lastly, moreover, so, then, therefore, whereas, while, for example, for instance, in conclusion, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.5258426966 149% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.4196629213 72% => OK
Conjunction : 31.0 14.8657303371 209% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 13.0 11.3162921348 115% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 33.0505617978 88% => OK
Preposition: 114.0 58.6224719101 194% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 12.9106741573 232% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3872.0 2235.4752809 173% => OK
No of words: 701.0 442.535393258 158% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.52353780314 5.05705443957 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.14552277128 4.55969084622 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.06962635798 2.79657885939 110% => OK
Unique words: 358.0 215.323595506 166% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.510699001427 0.4932671777 104% => OK
syllable_count: 1250.1 704.065955056 178% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59117977528 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 6.24550561798 128% => OK
Article: 10.0 4.99550561798 200% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 3.10617977528 64% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.77640449438 56% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.38483146067 114% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 34.0 20.2370786517 168% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 23.0359550562 87% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.9237360529 60.3974514979 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.882352941 118.986275619 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6176470588 23.4991977007 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.47058823529 5.21951772744 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 10.2758426966 156% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 5.13820224719 117% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.83258426966 248% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.331464667812 0.243740707755 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0768732242125 0.0831039109588 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0761336109595 0.0758088955206 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.189903507466 0.150359130593 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0885493290838 0.0667264976115 133% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.1392134831 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.26 48.8420337079 70% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.92365168539 141% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.5 12.1743820225 111% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.74 12.1639044944 121% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.43 8.38706741573 112% => OK
difficult_words: 213.0 100.480337079 212% => Less difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 11.8971910112 67% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.2143820225 89% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.7820224719 127% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.