Monday, August 17, 2009

History can't be ignored - originally written on November 3,2006

I just watched a documentary called "The Falling Man" in my Editing class as part of the Ethics unit. There was, and probably still is, controversy about a photo, which was taken by Richard Drew, of someone(supposedly identifed as Jonathan Briley) falling to their death from somewhere on the highest part of the North Tower during the terror and chaos of 9/11.

In the documentary, when a member of the media wanted to identify the people who jumped or fell from the towers, depending on how you look at it, went to the coroners and asked, the coroner told him that "nobody jumped. They were blown out."

I think that it's rather sad that America and the rest of the world choose to ignore the bad parts of history and censored those images after their original publication. Look at wars and the Holocaust, they are still discussed, even today and information of any kind is not withheld, as it is a part of history.

Even if it does make people uncomfortable, everything about the World Wars, the Holocaust, 9/11 and any other event is a part of history.

If people are so interested in learning about different events in history, they should look at everything, even if it's bad, so that they can really understand it. If people just look at the heroic aftermath and how people bounced back from events, they don't get a clear picture of things.

Without full knowledge of an event, you can't accurately see and even begin to understand it or why it happened. People should want to understand historical events, even if some parts are not desirable to read about or look at.

You can't really understand something, such as 9/11, without looking at the full picture, not just the parts that make people comfortable. History includes both good and bad events and that is what made the world learn, grow and change since the beginning.

No comments:

About Me

I have had so many different experiences in my life and many were so meaningful that I decided to keep a record of them.