Question the Burden of History

Public discourse should treat 'history' not as a neutral ledger but as an active social technology: routinized historical narratives shape identity, authorize policy, and can produce pathologies (resentment, paralysis, moral absolutism). Before using history to settle disputes, institutions should interrogate who benefits from a given historical framing and what social effects it produces. — This reframes memory‑politics debates: instead of assuming historical claims are self‑validating, policymakers, educators, and journalists should audit the social function and distributional effects of the histories they invoke.