Main reading room of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which according to one online site is “the national repository of all that is published in France.” National archives often stand as imposing edifices of all that might known about a nation’s past, while claiming a great completeness of knowledge informing the standard narratives of the nation. In truth, we might judge what these archives omit or silence to be as revealing about the character of a state and its people, as the sources they contain and the figures they celebrate.
Our History
AI needs copper. Yes. Sure. Okay. But what happens next? We live in a world of banal narrative – news media, politics, advertising – wherein our lives are curated with messages and stories of progress and performative empathy (think “thoughts and prayers” or “appreciate your patience and understanding”). Much of this gospel of progress and toxic positivity contradicts our own lived experiences – we know things don’t work, and the system sets up to screw us. History narratives often work that way too, with big national stories of shiny continuity and advancement, where the occasional “road bumps” — say, environmental destruction and labor impoverishment due to the strip mining of, oh, copper — get written off as collateral damage. Just aberrations in the narrative, with stories of people and places lost in the folds of a map, and unremembered lives hidden in the shadows of the archives. And the beat of progress goes on. Want the truth? Demand better stories about the past. Forget about “objectivity,” “both sides,” and go d knows, “fair and balanced,” and make your inquiries avowedly truthful and ethical. Look into the shadows, examine the folds, investigate the cracks in the storytelling, because like Leonard Cohen said, cracks are where the light comes in.
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Sources Referenced and Items of Interest
Max Bearak, “A.I. Needs Copper,” The New York Times, July 11, 2024.
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“In those archival silences the past appears determined to conceal its secrets from us, the living, to keep them quiet in the storytelling shadows, shadows cast by the shiny continuities of the SVH. In those shadowy storytelling recesses we may find precious clues to the untold stories that haunt us.”
Chris Padgett, Episode 69, ‘AI Needs Copper’
History Against the Grain 