Hi Pitch,

 

>>Well, in some intellectually meaningful ways, history and creative fiction are not independent of one another. And neither is independent of larger contexts.<<

 

However, particular events did occur in the past, and others did not, and some histories are more likely to be accurate than others.

 

~Caroline.

 

 

Aloha,

On 11/8/2011 2:35 PM, Caroline Tully wrote:

>These psuedohistorians are deliberately vague about the difference between history and fiction –
>and the readers do believe that it is history much of the time.

Well, in some intellectually meaningful ways, history and creative fiction
are not independent of one another. And neither is independent of
larger contexts.

One more thing that I have--with some difficulty--learned to use as
a buffer against my own little bunch of zeals is that: Stuff We Know
Changes. So a little reservation and wiggle room, intellectually speaking,
usually offers a more fruitful approach to overall understanding than
fervent commitments and factional contention.

Now I bumbled into this world view as a cultural anthropology student
forced to adapt to the ring of battling archaeologists and physical
anthropologists slugging out every little fossil and site. Sometimes
with big careers, juicy appointments, spendable grants, and too-willing
grad students at stake. I saw a couple students of early humanity
racked up because they jumped into these kinds of bouts.

Plus, of course, I was teaching myself fifty ways to get clever
about human culture.

Going over to the notions from fiction side for a bit.

Back in those days, phys and arch academics gleefully mocked
author Jean Auel, who in her first novel about early Homo sapiens spp.
held that, yes, neanderthalis and sapiens did have sex and produce
mixed nean/sap offspring.

Bah! said the academics.

But, a couple decades later, what did the geneticists turn up?

Populations of Europeans who carry 2%, 3%, 4% neanderthalis
genes. (I guess that I, genetically untested, on the basis of
where my ancestors came from, do, too! And it kinda tickles me!
And I do wonder just what a percentage of neander genes does
to human awareness and abilities. Could some "magical" perceptions
or aptitudes derive from a little pinch of neander genes? Or
Denisovian ones?)

[What's more, more recent genetic studies toss in the matter
of the Denisovians (sound like a sci-fi alien race to me ;-p)
and their part in humanity as we now are it.]

So, here's an case in which the fiction writer--a passionate
freelance student of early humanity--turned out to be correct
in her sense of that history. The interpretation that academics
of that day were sure was correct was, as later discoveries revealed,
wrong.

And, I think, wrong because they did not pay attention to the
meta-observation that what we know on any given day 1 is not
equivalent to all that we may know on any given day + or -
day 1.

Maybe the sorta intellectual/academic thing I'm trying to get at
has to do with the boundary zone in which some meta-observations,
meta-theories, meta-wisdoms gradually turn into something
that we consider a trans-human realm, a magical realm.

Something about the body of early humanity evidence--and I
have no idea what!--guided Auel to conclude that events in
early human history did occur, even though prevailing academic
understanding of that day said "No, they did not." She did get
held up as a non-academic bozo for suggesting it. But she
turned out to have the good line on those events.

OK, everything is getting nebulous now. Too close to Cloud
Cuckoo Land for my own good. Must get feet back on ground...

Musing Some Quality Of The Meta Keeps Our Minds
Open,  Enchanted & Enchant-able! Rose,

Pitch