By Roselyn Fauth
I had a fantastic conversation with a friend today who taught me a new word: presentism.
I’ve always known the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but I’d never thought about what it means to be careful about judging a person by their time.
It made me think about how we see the past, how every generation looks back through its own lens, deciding what to keep, what to question, and what to learn from.
Sometimes, when I’m walking through the Timaru Districs Cemeteries or read about people who helped shape our city, I catch myself wondering... were they good, or just good for their time? Would they recognise our values today, or find us strange for holding them?
Those kinds of questions don’t have easy answers, but I do think they are worth asking. Because when we look back, we are learning about ourselves as well as studying history....
Learning About Presentism
My friend explained that presentism is when we look at the past and judge it by the moral standards of the present.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Isn’t it natural to use what we know now to make sense of what came before?
But as we talked, I realised how complicated that is. People are shaped by the world around them: by beliefs, by rules, by what they’re taught is possible. What seems unjust or outdated to us might have felt completely normal then.
Ignoring that context can make it easy to misunderstand history. Yet pretending that context excuses everything doesn’t feel right either.
Maybe it’s not about judging the past, but about listening to it.
When we look back with empathy and honesty, we can hold both truths at once. We can understand people within their time, while still reflecting on what their choices mean for us today. That small shift changes everything.
Finding the Balance
Writing about history often feels like walking a tightrope. On one side there’s empathy, trying to understand the world as it was. On the other, accountability, asking how those choices shaped the world we live in now. When I write about people like James Craigie or Muriel Hilton, two of Timaru’s past mayors, I try to hold both sides gently.
I ask questions like:
What did they know?
What choices did they really have?
What were the expectations of their time?
And then I ask:
How do their decisions sit with what we value today?
What can their stories teach us about courage, humility, and care?
Sometimes the answers comfort me. Other times they unsettle me. But that’s the point. History isn’t meant to make us comfortable, it’s meant to help us understand.
The Trouble With All This
The tricky thing about looking at the past, or even at our own present, is that we only know what we know.
We see through the lens of our lived experience, our upbringing, our culture, and the stories we’ve been told.
What we notice, and what we miss, depends on where we’ve stood, who we’ve listened to, and what we’ve been taught to value.
That’s where we can make mistakes. It’s easy to think our version of truth is the truth, or that the way we see things now is somehow complete. But it never is. It’s only our small slice of understanding, shaped by our moment in time.
When we look at history, we risk reading our own beliefs back into it. And when we look at each other, we can do the same.
The danger isn’t in caring about right and wrong; it’s in forgetting that everyone’s view is partial. Even with the best intentions, we can miss nuance, context, and complexity.
That’s why humility matters. It’s okay to say, “I don’t know everything,” or “I see it differently now.”
When we approach the past, and each other, with curiosity instead of certainty, we leave room to grow.
Why We Need Many Voices
The more I think about it, the more I realise that no one person can tell the whole story of a place, a people, or even a moment in time.
We only ever see part of it. Our perspective is shaped by who we are, what we’ve lived, and what we’ve learned to notice.
That’s why we need many voices sharing and reflecting on history, from different generations, backgrounds, and walks of life.
Each one helps fill in the gaps the others can’t see.
When we listen to a range of stories — from elders, migrants, descendants, mana whenua, scholars, artists, and neighbours — we start to build a fuller picture of who we are.
History becomes less like a single path and more like a woven cloak, strong because of its many threads.
That’s also why community storytelling matters so much.
It’s not about agreeing on everything; it’s about making space for curiosity, correction, and connection.
We all carry a small piece of the story.
When we share what we know, and stay open to what others know too, we create something richer — a history that belongs to everyone.
What This Made Me Realise
The more I think about presentism, the more I see how easy it is to say, “We shouldn’t judge the past by today’s standards.”
But I’ve started to ask: who does that idea protect?
Sometimes it’s said out of fairness, to remind us that people can’t be held to standards they couldn’t have known.
Other times, it’s used to avoid difficult truths or to stay comfortable.
The trick, I think, is to stay open. To be curious enough to understand, and brave enough to reflect.
We can say both:
“I understand why they did it.”
“It still caused harm.”
That isn’t contradiction, it’s growth.
The more I write about local history, the more I realise it’s not just about the past, it’s about who we are.
Every story we inherit becomes part of the reflection we see in the mirror.
We often say, “Know your past to know who you are.”
But the past is rarely tidy. It’s a mix of pride and pain, progress and contradiction.
If we only look back with nostalgia, we miss the lessons.
If we only look back with judgment, we miss the humanity.
Looking again, with both empathy and honesty, helps us see how our communities were built, what we’ve learned, and what we still need to work on. It reminds us that every generation has its blind spots, including ours.
Seeing Through Today’s Eyes
For a long time, I thought reflecting on history through today’s lens was unfair.
Now, I see it as being awake.
Each generation re-examines the stories it inherits. That’s how we grow.
What our grandparents admired, we might question; what we question, our grandchildren will rethink again.
When we bring today’s understanding — of equality, inclusion, sustainability, and kindness — to the past, we don’t rewrite it, we complete it.
We give voice to those who were overlooked, and meaning to what’s been left behind.
We continue the story.
What I’ve Learned Along the Way
All of this, the conversations, the questions, the quiet reflection, has taught me something simple but profound: reflection is a kind of courage.
It’s the willingness to look again, to see differently, and to grow wiser.
Knowing this helps us make better choices.
When we recognise patterns of courage and complacency, fairness and fear, we can choose differently.
Progress doesn’t happen automatically. It happens intentionally.
And every time we reflect, we refine.
History isn’t just about what happened.
It’s about what happens next.
The past gives us roots.
Reflection gives us direction.
Together, they help us grow into something wiser — a community that learns deeply and chooses with care.
By Roselyn Fauth