One noticeable inflection in our public conversations is how poorly we seem to interpret history based on our relationship with certain parts of it.

Most of our beliefs about the world are a collection of selected periods in time, as if we were only capable of seeing some silhouette of ourselves in what we're reading.

The impression becomes a type of filter for our historical interpretations, where many religious, political, and ethnic, commentators share the impediment. This silhouette reading of our past slices off pieces of history into discrete eras from which we'll later attempt to better explain the contexts in which they exist.

Such an interpreter has become popular in some academic circles, even more than the historians articulating how the totality of world events has unfolded.

The interpreter ignores how when disparate instances are published together they sometimes tell a different story.

While seeing ourselves in history is an obvious consequence of researching the human condition, it’s a dangerous precedent for reflecting in ourselves what is merely a silhouette. Ironically, it may even constrain the reader who's narrowed their interpretation in search of a broader recognition.

This spare approach to historical criticism is more than pointing out a category error or some rogue bitterness in the reader. I believe it's now about our ability to retain the very annals of history itself.

What is exactly true or false about history is debatable, and not the point, here.

The virtues and beliefs of most people seem to emerge from how they choose to read and interpret specific periods in time.

I also think this is a choice, epistemically.

I think most people wish to design the future from a distorted interpretation of the present, based on a moot reading of a much more intricate past.