One of such areas is History. It is commonly said, “History is written by the winners,” but this is not true; the losers write their own history as well. What we call, “the general historical knowledge” is what people select from the many different versions of history, written from many different perspectives. The problem is that we “select” the version of history that the winners write, and disguise it as “the history.” For instance, the Japanese version of its invasion of Manchuria and Korea differs from the Chinese or Korean version. In this case, objectivity is best achieved by determining the middle-ground of the opposite versions, such as examining the version of the same historical occasion from an impartial point of view. However, even the most neutral perspective is often tainted by bias, as growing international interdependence makes an incident in one area affect multiple other areas. Thus, a completely objective view in History cannot be achieved. This is the main problem of History that haunts its truthfulness.
But despite this problem, History is still believed to be a valid area of knowledge. This is not because it is largely objective; historians agree that History is full of national, regional and even individual bias. It is the role of the inquirers of historical knowledge to determine what had actually happened in the past, based on the different versions of historical records from different contexts. This makes attaining knowledge in History relatively difficult. If a person wants to gain knowledge of the Fourth Crusade, for example, he/she has to read records from the English, French and German perspective of the event, as well as the Seljuk Turk’s. Different points of view at the national level must be considered such as the political aims of each nation, the extent of Catholic influence, gain and loss of manpower, etc. Also, individual aspects, such as whether the writer of the record is a man or a woman, a Christian or a Jew, a rich person or a poor one, a scholar or a priest, and so on. There are myriads of information that the inquirer has to perceive and examine. This makes acquiring knowledge in History an extremely arduous process. However, this does not mean that we, as inquirers, have to undertake the same process in order to get knowledge. With the records of written history, one can gain knowledge at a relatively fast rate, and accumulate the amount of knowledge that had been acquired by past inquirers.
Literature is another subject in which knowledge is gained despite the issue of bias and selection. In fact, in literature, bias and selection, which can also be called “opinion and perspective,” are actually important factors in attaining literary knowledge. When analyzing literature to deduce knowledge, a person perceives content from the work of literature, runs them through literary processes, and derives knowledge. This process actually requires the person to think and analyze in a subjective manner. For instance, when reading “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, a person relates the imperialistic and racist contexts of the novel in accordance to his/her own society. In this process, one thinks about how he/she feels about it, and how it connects to his/her own society. This opens a way for bias to penetrate process of the learning of knowledge, but it is a necessary means for one to gain knowledge about Literature.
In fact, the audience’s point of view in analyzing literature is heavily emphasized. Out of the four points of view in literature analysis, the audience’s perspective allows the readers the most diverse interpretation and interaction with the literary work. When authors write a work of literature, what the target audience would think, how they would react and what interpretations they would come up with are all considered heavily. Thus, it is valid to say that what the audience feels from their subjective—or “biased”—views are all part of the literary knowledge. Thus bias and selection actually adds to the value of literature. However, it is important to note that this is only one of the methods of analyzing literature, and not all. Analyzing a piece of literature from the audience’s point of view is more or less limited, and a “complete” knowledge can only be gained from thoroughly examining the work from all points of view. Only then the value of bias and selection can truly shine its value.
Knowledge is not absolute; it is not free of bias and selection. Nevertheless, knowledge is valuable in that they encompass even the products of bias and selection. History and literature, altogether, prove that knowledge can be attained despite the problems of bias. As mentioned, basing a process of gaining knowledge entirely on bias and selection should be avoided. But used properly, they even show that in some cases they can enhance the acquirement of knowledge, adding much to the value of knowledge as a whole.
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