Words are not just words

Pigments are not just pigments on paintings; they are the love and pain, beauty and irony that the painters want us to see. Music notes are not just music notes in symphonies; they are the harmonies or counterpoints that the composers want us to hear. Words are not just words in stories; they are the world the writers conceive and retell. Writers salt it down and spice it up—that is how many great poems and novels were created.

The story of Trojan War probably was told and re-told many times for hundreds of years before Homer wrote it down in an epic poem. Many historians believe it is a true historical event. There may be real heroes like Achilles and Hector, or there may even be a real Helen whose face launched a thousand ships. By and large, we can safely reason most parts are myths.

When Sima Qian (司馬遷) wrote the first official Chinese history, Records of the Grand Historian (史記), he inevitably injected many of his own ideas (and had the final saying about his unfortunate castration after all). Nonetheless, one can trust most the historical accounts he wrote are accurate because of the intrinsic consistency and they are consistent with other historical records. Some of them have been verified by modern archaeological findings.

As absurd as it sounds, the morality of slavery is not a clear cut in the American society only a hundred some years ago. The classic Uncle Tom’s Cabin was considered a propaganda publication in an abolitionists’ periodical. Every story that a historian or newsman tells reflects his or her own idea or self-interest. Remember how Connie Chung and Dan Rather lost their jobs? We are overwhelmed with news and information from Internet these days. How do we know what is true or false, mistake or malice, fact or propaganda? The absolute truth may never be known, but the approximation of it could merge if many enough different views are read; logic and reason are allowed to prevail.