Suggestions for Cultural Touchstones

[pen37]

I would love some suggestions for a story that I'm plotting. This is a near future setting where the protagonist is a history student. For the setup of the story, I need her to research a historical figure or place that an entire society uses as an identity touchstone. This needs to be a situation where if she can disprove a cultural assumption it

Comments

[tisiphone]

There is a persistent (unproven) rumour that there is a group ("tribe", in the rumour) of women living in the mountains of Ukraine, training to be fighters, who look to Yulia Tymoshenko as a heroine. Given she was recently been accused of bribery, that could shake the foundations of their culture. This is a suggestion only, but perhaps something like that?

[ladyanneboleyn]

This is my favorite rumor in the world.

[tisiphone]

Seriously, it's one of mine too. I tried to write a paper about it once, but couldn't track down enough information on it to do it. Alas.

Easily coped with

[marycatelli]

Slander.

Or a desperate attempt to cope with a horrifically corrupt society -- she wouldn't have to do it in an honest one.

Note that such explanations do not, in fact, need any evidence.

[sethg_prime]

Cultures have a way of protecting their critical myths from this sort of thing.

For example, Mormon mythology makes claims about Native American history that were at least defensible on the it-coulda-happened-who-can-tell level in the nineteenth century, but which are now... ahem... hard to reconcile with contemporary archaeological findings. (Teresa Nielsen Hayden mentions some of this issue in the memoir of her excommunication.) This fact has not, as far as I can tell, really done much to encourage Mormons to defect or discourage prospectives from converting in.

[origamicage]

Definitely this. I grew up Mormon, and I still don't understand how people can reconcile this.

[orange_fell]

I think making up a fictional cultural touchstone would probably suit your story's needs the best, but she could definitely cause a stir in the worlds of history, classics, and literature if she discovered a lost or unknown source, like one of the lost plays of Euripides or works of Aristotle. Make her a Classics major with a specialization in papyrology and have her piece together a dramatic puzzle.

[deepbluemermaid]

So, just to clarify: you want a student from culture A to discover something explosive about the history of culture B?

A few possibilities for European states: conclusive proof that Shakespeare didn't write (all) of the plays, proof that some great military victory (Waterloo, Trafalgar, etc) wasn't due to the brilliance of whatever famous hero, proof that Hitler's family were Jewish, proof that a European nation's royal family or Resistance leaders were complicit in the Holocaust...

I'm doing a PhD in history, so I can give some suggestions as to how it might happen

[indian_skimmer]

My first thought would be proof of a covered up marriage/legitimate children in a hereditary monarchy- especially one that means the current ruler isn't the 'correct' one.

[pen37]

The crux of the story is going to be that her research assistant covertly stymies the work because it would possibly cause the foundations of an entire culture to shift. This would possibly do it.