4. What is the function of structure?
Day the Universe Changed: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality
According to dictionary.com (1), a structure is something built or constructed. However, structure takes on a completely different meaning in terms of historiography. In historiography, a structure is a person’s frame of reference on how the world should be. Structures determine your beliefs, morals, ethics, etc. The function of a structure is to enable people to interpret their experiences. Structures also apply to multiple historiographic theories. Cultural relativism means that different cultures have different structures and in order to understand the other culture’s beliefs, morals, ethics, etc. one must first understand their structure. Radicals, the theory that winners write history, also applies to structures because if your structure, as a culture, gives you morals that justify your actions, then that is what you, as a culture, will write in your history books as the right thing to do. The manual gives the example of the Revolutionary War to explain this theory. The colonists’ structure said that they had won the war and defeated the British. However, the British’ structure said that they were wasting resources in America, so they pulled out of that war to conserve resources and focus on war with France. Thus, structures are vital to history because if you do not understand them, you do not understand the reasoning behind the events that occurred.
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Thomas Grannen and Cameron Howley
