It is a firm rock, an immovable mountain, that grows over time, that has a face that is visible to any who might wish to turn their heads and look, and it is marked with crevices and caves and shadowy areas that will never be seen or known, despite the amount of gazing one might do. Historians actually climb the mountain, and they see some shadowy things, and might shout down to the rest of us the discovery of a cave or two, or even three, but they will never see all of them, nor completely explore even one. But they point certain nooks out to the gazers or other historians, mark the location of particular caves, and have favorite places where they visit again and again. I am a gazer. I scavenge occasionally near the bottom of the mountain, and some day I might even begin to climb. The Russian History cave has been pointed out to me, and I would like to visit it someday.
But moralities and isms don’t apply to the mountain. They are on it, to be sure. There is a moralities cave: it is very winding and dark and damp and twists around many corners and has more paths inside than one can count. It looks much like the isms cave. But the morality is restricted to its cave, it does not come out at night to torture or tempt other caves or crannies. It does not lay itself down on top of ancient Greek History and declare that it is wrong that mostly it is only the men that are visible to the gazers, and not the women. The women are still there, they are just in shadow. Everything that has ever been is there, somewhere, on the mountain. Whether or not these things are visible to those who watch from below or who climb and explore does not change the fact of their existence.
I really enjoyed this. I’ve never given history this kind of thought, though I do enjoy the subject. You wrote this very well. Was it just for kicks, or homework?
Thanks! Uh…it was part of a homework paper. I sorta kinda liked this part though.
I took an ancient Greek history class this term, and the Professor made a lot of disclaimers throughout about how he’s really really sorry he’s not talking about women, there just isn’t info, it’s not his fault, aren’t ancient men evil for not thinking well enough of women to have written accounts of them etc etc. This always bothered me, because I understand how things were, I know the role women had in most cultures for most of history, and I don’t feel the need to view it through a moral lens. I hate it when professors view history through a moral lens. I don’t look at math and think “how dare 5-3=2! Did anyone ask 3 if this was okay? AND WHERE DOES FOUR COME INTO IT?! Why didn’t anyone talk about four?!” Good lord, I’m ranting. In a comment box. THANKS A LOT INSOMNIA!