In this “historic time” (as people enjoy saying), it’s interesting (though admittedly not necessarily that worthwhile) to consider how we’ll be viewed through the lenses of history—what true facts will remain and what misinformation will have crept in. Misinformation—from the entirely unbelievable to urban legends to “old wive’s tales” to little white lies/fallacies—used to be spread by word of mouth. Now we have the internet.

This is a very roundabout way of not talking about the “historical” things in progress (is that an oxymoron?), but instead talking about what things and how things become “historical facts” (or just facts). Take Bannerman’s Castle:

There is what I would describe as a “castle” on an island on the Hudson River that you will pass while riding the Metro Rail North south from Beacon to Manhattan. I finally remembered that I wanted to find out more about this castle, so I looked it up online. It’s on Pollepel Island, aka Bannerman’s Island, and was set up as a residence and advertisement for Bannerman’s army surplus business, post Spanish-American War. (The business’ storage facilities were also on the island.)

HOWEVER, I get this information from Wikipedia, and this is where it gets sticky. The Pollepel Island page says “[Bannerman's Castle] remains one of a very small number of structures in the United States which can properly be called a castle.” At this point I wonder: “Is ‘castle’ one of those things that is very specific, but we use the term all-inclusively, like ‘Champagne’ or ‘Kleenex,’ or is it just a general architectural term?”

So I do some internet research. In a footnote, Wikipedia’s page on castles says (with no reference point): “Although it should be noted that there are no true castles in the United States.” So which is true? There are or there aren’t castles in America? Is “no true castles in the U.S.” just one of those quirky (and actually untrue) “facts” that gets spread around?

FURTHERMORE, in the end does it matter? When it enters general consciousness as a fact, does it become a fact? If enough people say the phrase “he did a complete 360″ instead of “a complete 180″ and enough people post it online and enough people read it and enough people repeat it, doesn’t it become fact? (After all, that is to some extent the way words enter the language.) And the people who argue for the true truth become “sticklers” or just plain annoying.

What of today, what of yesterday will end up as true legend, exagerated legend, false legend? Does it matter?

This entry was posted on January 21, 2009 and is filed under art/architecture, history/memory, language, topics, travel.