Blog Assignment #5

What is a history? More specifically, what is the purpose of a history? It is what people know about themselves, which means knowing about self’s true nature not about individual particularity. The way to know about self’s true nature is to see how people have done and lived since the past. According to this fact, a history has significance. A history must convey facts themselves objectively for the history to achieve the purpose of it. However, this has not been the case until now. This is because the purpose of the history has to be accomplished objectively but people who write the history is subjective.

In Korean history, Hongkyungrae’s disturbance happened. In Joseon Dynasty, many intellectuals were mass-produced as chances of education improved. The government hired more capable men through the state examination but it was not sufficient. Under this circumstance, Hong, kyungrae was aggrieved at not being hired and rose in revolt. He wanted to change the irrational social system and the farming population who agreed with him supported the revolt. They were put down finally, which meant he, Hongkyungrae, lost. Hongkyungrae’s disturbance can be an example that the history was written by the viewpoint of a winner.

If he finished the revolt successfully, it had not been recorded as the “disturbance”. If so, history textbooks would describe this “movement” more specifically and also call the event “movement” not “disturbance”