I may be a masochist but looking at my failures seems to be fuel for more drive. I have posted my F paper in HI16. This is supposed to be a reflection paper on The Lost City of Shang juxtaposed with our first lesson. I doubt this will be subject to plagiarism and I do not post this in vain but in sheer enlightenment. Grabe, ang odd ko. But that's how I roll.
In searching for the past of anything, we try to find the roots of the present. That is the reason history is relevant. We gain this consciousness of the past while viewing the present. Such a perspective allows a sense of meaning and connectedness with that which contributed to what we are. I try to think of history that way so that I would find it interesting. With that in mind, I take note of the Shang dynasty the culture which shaped the cultures that follow it—the wholeness of the Chinese culture and possibly the global culture. Given how the Philippine culture has Chinese influences, the Shang is relevant to us as well. This is, of course, an extreme over-scaling of how cultures emerge from other cultures but because we are so heavily influenced by the Chinese and the Shang culture definitely had its own impact on the overall Chinese culture, the relevance still remains.
“Today, finding the lost world of Shang is a race against time,” says the narrator of the documentary “The Lost City of Shang”. In my opinion, this one statement summarizes the grueling process in discovering the lost city of Shang. The kind of culture of a society is shown through its everyday utensils, tools etc.—the things we find ordinary today that were once essential in the functioning of their society. These evidences of a culture could not last forever and will eventually crumble. Archaeologists and other experts have to find these evidences before they disintegrate into the earth. The ruins of the lost city may ruin and be nothing but dust or hardened soil.
The search is further lengthened because of the possible tampering of evidence (such as that of the tortoise shells being tampered by locals who wish for some income) and also natural phenomena. Physical and chemical weathering could affect the quality of the rocks that once bore messages which the people of that time thought were prophetic. These messages reflect the society which created it. Weathering could also make ancient architecture fall apart. The quality of relics could never match their physical condition thousands of years ago. All of the splendor that was once Shang could never be authentically captured.
The search for Shang stretches to centuries of digging up dirt and burning eyebrows interpreting historical records. This I find almost intimidating; however, I am relieved by the progress of science and technology. Science and technology gives mankind the ability to reveal a part of reality. It also means having a better picture of the reality of Shang despite all of these conditions from the past that affect the present. I find this fascinating. Because of which, the artifacts could be dated and the reliance on written accounts which are—by nature—subjective and susceptible to error would not be as necessary. These written accounts are presupposed to be biased and another disadvantage of relying on these records would be how they give us a one-sided view. This limited perspective does not allow us to see the whole picture of the past and could also cloud us even more with that one-sided subjectivity. In addition, the written accounts are all by memory and human memory is not that reliable and could easily be unintentionally manipulated. All these terms prove that reliable objective primary sources are hard to find and because of that, history could never be “perfect” or “complete”. Even objectivity is questionable because by nature, human beings subscribe to their individualism.
History has several gaps and it is impossible to record everything that has ever happened. We have never experienced the Shang dynasty and several factors have blurred our sources of information regarding it. An example of these factors is the great flood that once engulfed the Shang and this eventually becomes land which the city of Song stands on. In addendum to physical weathering which could affect evidence, natural phenomena such as earthquakes could leave potential evidences further ensconced.
The whole notion of excavating artifacts and digging into the past is a difficult one because it means having to transcend space and time. We have not experienced the culture of that area of the world nor have we experienced the era. We will never be certain of the actuality of the past because we could never relive that era. The only way for us to connect with the past is through the intermediaries. These intermediaries could be acquired through the unraveling of new evidences. Our capability to find better intermediaries to the past has improved over time. Instead of reading a journal entry describing the grandeur of the lost city, the ability to have more objective descriptions and facts on the “world of Shang” is finally possible because of advancement.
My intermediary to the Shang and the unraveling of the lost city is the documentary “The Lost City of Shang”. The documentary is presented to inform English-speaking people (very obvious in its use of language). All of the information present in the documentary was picked from pools of data. The process of picking itself is a sense of interpretation. However, it tries to be as objective as possible. The documentary was obviously created by Westerners because of how detached the approach is towards the culture it is presenting. For instance, it highlights details which it believes its viewers would be interested in such as how the tortoise shells were considered as dragon bones (because the Chinese subscribed magical powers to dragons and they found these shells magical) or how elite inhabitants of the city of Shang would drink out of a human skull. However odd these practices and beliefs may seem to be, they are respected and even considered as sacred practices and beliefs by the Shang. The dragons are sacred beings which represent good fortune for the Chinese people. The drinking from the human skull is a way of respecting the dead. Of course, in the Westernized view, this would be regarded as morbid and strange. If we try to think the way the people of the Shang would (which is a requirement in studying any historical document), we would be able to examine these practices otherwise.
Historical evidences would include records and artifacts which were once useful tools. Historians of the future would also take into account the new mediums of record and the new technologies. An example of new mediums of record is the documentary itself. What I find interesting is how the documentary does not only present the history of Shang but also the recent history of the finding of Shang. This entails how legends of emperors were deemed fictitious by scholars, how a Chinese scholar found possible evidence in the tortoise shell and how present-day scientists excavate and find proof that date to thousands of years ago. Educated people from Harvard and MIT collaborate in the search. This progress in unraveling the remnants of the past so easily reflects the innovation of mankind. The process of “finding” history by means of excavating artifacts, digging up ruins and interpreting historical texts is shown in the documentary. We see how the scattered evidences are being pieced together.
History allows us to connect with the shapers of our present. In order to have a picture of our history, we need to have intermediaries which are available according to how much we can find. In the end, all these accounts and artifacts which serve as our intermediaries would never be able to give us absolute clarity on what the past was like. Because of that, history seems to me as a collection of evidences which were merely pieced together to make the simplest sense.
I guess that is why History is a social science. Our evidences are sometimes limited to personal accounts of people who have been long dead and gone and the only choice for society, us, to have a history is to accept one. It seems more to me that nothing is absolutely true and that everything is permitted. I will not dwell on nihilism. Though this is the case, it does not make history any less relevant. In fact, this expands our consciousness of the past—that sense of disintegration, loss and progress. Consciousness of the past is very relevant to how the present functions. Although this paper will be an account of the past to the present reader, I am aware and I have aligned my writing to that consciousness.
