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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I am starting this thread as a place to discuss things of a theoretical nature arising out Revisionist Historiography (or just generally). It was prompted by this piece in Medium which for convenience (to me) I will analyse here.
Not the most promising of starts. When people start hurling around time sequences consisting of 'modernist', 'postmodernist' and 'more recently' you can be confident they're floundering. If we're dealing with history, why not use dates?
According to results from a nationwide survey, the American Historical Association (AHA) reported that trust in historians, nonfiction books, college professors, high school teachers, and museums had declined significantly from a study just over 20 years prior (Thelen and Rosenzweig, 1998). |
Straight into a bogus list! What connection is there between historians and non-fiction books? Has trust in historians declined more or less than college professors and high school teachers, or pretty much the same? Do we believe that Thelen and Rosenzweig kept separate lists? (How did algebra instructors make out, guys?) I suppose museums are in there somewhere. The question "Do you trust museums?' is kinda hard to answer.
This comes on the heels of a long-standing debate between two different types of historiography: public history and academic history. |
A slight improvement. At least I didn't know there was a difference between public and academic history. Though I do know there hasn't been much of a debate, longstanding or otherwise, about historiography. That's why I decided to aim RevHist at library shelves, there weren't any books about historiography on them. Maybe the discussions were in the pub. More...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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The distinction often comes down to this: a harsh distinction between 'practical history' and 'scholarly history' |
Blimey, 'harsh'. That's not a word you hear bandied around much in the cloistered world of studying-the-past. I like! So what is this 'practical history'. Perhaps it is related to 'public' history.
Historic preservation, especially built environment preservation, has often claimed it is more 'practical' and does real, economic good on the ground. |
Ah. This is America where everyone spends their leisure time visiting Civil War battlefields (with or without re-enactments). Good to hear they're making money.
While preservation has significant potential to do economic good, to claim this in a vacuum is a disservice to its true social impact. |
Well, I suppose this is true though it is an odd byway to be going down so early in proceedings. But do go on.
Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice adds significant depth to the debate over what exactly constitutes preservation. |
Park rangers are a scholarly lot.
Historians should view the historical process in a reflexive manner, turning the lens of historical analysis to themselves. |
Yes, let's get back to history as she is wrote. I must say this is pure Applied Epistemology. We are forever moaning about liberal historians writing liberal history though RevHist is more generalised, concerned with historians writing history in a way that ensures historians have gainful employment. So it's definitely linked. "You believe the Confederate flag should be carried high by a bronze General Lee at the Appomattox Memorial Park, do you, Mr Smith? We'll be in touch. Next!" more...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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A reflexive process of history reflects the available resources and the cadences by which historians convert history to the reconstruction of historical events. Any historical interpretation of the past is an attempt to reverse the inevitable decomposition from historic events to historic entropy. |
Nicely put.
Our analysis must analyze historical practice, the assumptions upon which it is based, and what anything can truly tell us of the past. First, we must turn the lens of history onto history itself. |
This is the one thing historians cannot do. It's a combination of 'being a judge in your own cause' and 'turkeys voting for Christmas'.
Reflexive History
History developed out of the antiquarianism of the later 1800s. |
He is referring to academic history. This is an illustration of the above.
Its historical development aligned with the push to standardize theories of human behavior, culture, and function. |
Standardise methodologies at any rate.
Our first stop must be with Ranke.A prominent German historian of the 19th century, Leopold von Ranke was a staunch empiricist, arguing that historians ought to understand the past “wie es eigentlich gewesen ist.†This translates to “how it was essentially†or “how it was actually,†and Ranke is one of the progenitors of the empirical source-based historical analysis of modern academic history. |
This boils down to the rule that every statement has to be grounded on contemporaneous evidence, either documents written at the time or archaeology from the time. It was a magnificent advance but like all magnificent advances everyone assumed the war was won and went home. Or if it wasn't, all that is required is more of the same.
This outgrowth of enlightenment thought was quickly followed by a Romantic movement in the historical field. |
This is so baffling I look forward to reading all about it. [One of my techniques nowadays is to analyse things as I go along without having read the whole thing. It is a variant of the AE advice: 'Come up with your title after you've written something, not before.']
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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In the interest of brevity, I will not recite a full genealogy of academic history. |
We are not, it seems, to be told about the recrudescence of Romanticism.
Suffice it to say that recent historiographical developments have centered around Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. |
Then we're all in trouble. A right pair of wallies. But notice this dude seems to think that an entire subject falling into the hands of just two people is something to be merely commented upon.
The most (in)famous of postmodern historians, Michel Foucault was a French historian of science and ideas. In the Archaeology of Knowledge, he argued that historical documents cannot actually tell us anything about the past. |
I'm sure he didn't but if he did he's more of a mountebank than I gave him credit for.
For this, Foucault drew sharp criticism from many practising historians, philosophers, and religious figures. Even other well-known postmodern historians accused him of undermining the field of history. In Tropics of Discourse, the prominent American poststructuralist Hayden White argued that “Foucault writes ‘history’ in order to destroy it.†|
It takes a poststructuralist to deconstruct a poststructuralist deconstructing the deconstructing of history. It's like dealing with organised crime: your best bet is to leave them to rub one another out. more/
PS I now see late 1800's is a misprint of late 1700's. Which makes more sense but I'll leave my own arguments as they are.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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History in Practice
Yet even Foucault’s most antagonistic critics fail to hit on the most dangerous aspect of Foucauldian history. |
'But I have.' A man after my own heart.
Historical practice is reduced to the abstract study of the document, which Foucault treats as an artifact; hence the Archaeology of knowledge. Foucault accuses historians of following the document and failing to analyze the structures by which history is created |
Ooh-er, missus, this is an important theme in RevHist. I must get Hatty to read Foucault. He's now double-damned: for getting there before me and for being French.
but in so doing, he fails to realize that history is the province of the entire society, rather than merely academics. |
Blimey, now this Sebacher fellow has got there before me.
In criticizing historians, Foucault fails to account for the historical practices implicit in everyday life. People routinely write journals, diaries, records, and papers, and store them in a place they can access them later. People may keep a card for a doctor’s appointment, medical records, receipts, or a record of work done on a car. |
Sorry. I can see what he means but, honestly, I just don't see what he's driving at. Maybe I'll find out tomorrow when I resume. more/
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Foucault and Derrida are no longer chic, you really must try this bottle of Bourdieu Superior.
Tasting notes attached.
Complex, full bodied, lively, bold, a bit nutty. Nice feel.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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You're not wrong. I dunno how it is for the French but the chief attraction of all French philosophes for English-speakers is that everything is on that glorious borderline between 'gobbledygook' and 'I can understand it but you can't'. Remember all those times we came out of the Paris Pullman with some woman we wanted to sleep with but it all depended on whether we could articulate what the film signified?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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Every person engaging with society is a living record of social history; they know how things happened, what it felt like in the moment, and understand the past often as deeply or more deeply than historians do. |
I think we are approaching 'noble savage' territory. I approve of Mr Sebacher's reservations about historians though not by elevating everyman to being a historian. But here at least we can use one of our tried and tested AE principles: 'Is it true of you?' I don't have any deep understanding of the past from my own, as they say, lived experience. I have to get it all from public sources. I refuse to believe everybody else can do it at a drop of the hat. But anyway let's get back (briefly, I hope) to Foucault.
Foucault’s criticism of history leaves much out of the historical process. He ignores the fact that the very things of history have an agency all their own, perhaps because of his focus on the history of thought. |
I don't really know what this means but I recognise a rabbit hole when I see one. I'd rather hear from Tom...
But historians are also to blame for mischaracterizing time, for misunderstanding the nature of the profession. |
Amen to that.
Historical accuracy is not the purpose of the endeavor to understand the past; it is impossible to depict a totally or even partially accurate sequence of events. Historians have only ever looked to the past, rather than to the future; it is best if we look at our histories in light of how they will change the world in the here and now. |
This is essentially the position adopted in RevHist. If you rely wholly on historical sources you produce only academic history. Well, maybe not 'only' but anyway 'crabby'. If you take academic history as your starting point and then start doing stuff that academic historians are not allowed to do, but seems common sense to do, then you might at least arrive at a place where you have a better idea about what needs changing. more/
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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Tom Sebacher has replied on Medium but I will push on to complete my exegesis before re-posting his comments here. Consciousness of him looking over my shoulder may change what I am going to say but anyway here goes...
History from the Underground
The new historians must get down and dirty in the world around them. Historians must do history from the underground. History is in the everyday. To do history from the underground is to infiltrate the everyday with a deliberate purpose. |
This is excellent stuff apart from that last phrase. AE ordains that 'having a deliberate purpose' is the very thing that AE is designed to obviate. You are supposed to end up with, "Golly-gee, I never knew that!"
Historical graffiti is one means of accomplishing history from the underground. A building with its story painted across the side tells us more than a collapsing house whose walls are falling inward. What good is a collapsing house for telling the story of what it used to be? If an art piece is outside our skills, a QR code will likely suffice. |
I'd much rather that archaeologists acquired the skills to identify what the house was used for. Or, if they can't, say they can't. At the moment they always know exactly what it was used for. Usually 'for ritual purposes', especially if it's an 'Anglo-Saxon church'. As for art, 'it's a fake' often suffices.
When in doubt, start a rumor. Word of mouth is an important means of expressing history |
Absolutely not. We have found over and over again that oral history is the absolute pits. But I don't think that's the quarry Tom is pursuing
— after all, nobody reads our academic papers, anyway. For all its failings, social media is a rumor mill, and historians can use it to spread rumors quite well if they are literate in its applications. |
This is high comedy. Picturing the SCR as a troll factory is more Tom Sharpe than Tom Sebacher. I trust he will elevate his sights from now on. /more
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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This is starting to read like a plea from Tom for a updated, underground, (for now) post Marxist cultural revolution.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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Nothing so exciting. I mean, old hat.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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In the absence of sources, report rumor. In the absence of rumor, report guesses. In the absence of guesses, report legend. In the absence of legend, report nothing. History is nothing but a series of credible rumors circulated among people who believe they are reasonable. If a place is rumored to have been connected to the mob, do some digging. Maybe off the property, though (one should rarely dig where there may be bodies). |
Although this is knockabout stuff, it contains the germ of the RevHist thesis. (a) History is now academic history (b) academic history runs along tramlines (c) the tramlines themselves are never inspected (d) other forces need to be mobilised to get history back on track -- or at least off its over-worn tracks.
Ask bad questions. History rarely makes progress by avoiding unpopular questions. Force the historian to answer silly questions on why they think something until they come to realize the absurdity of their claims. History is always an absurd endeavor, but it remains a necessary one. |
More good stuff. From the context it is doubtful whether Tom is radical enough in his own thinking to be more than a candidate for the awkward squad but the general thrust is encouraging.
Above all, be playful and analytical. Watch what happens with your efforts when the public engages with them. Gauge your success by talking about these efforts as though you weren’t the one who created them. This is especially useful if your historical graffiti was unauthorized (as prosecutors do not typically abide by underground rules). |
He underestimates the playful nature of proceedings should any attack on orthodoxy be launched but overestimates the likelihood of any proceedings ensuing at all when they are. As we here all know, 'careful ignoral' is always the leitmotif.
Controversy generates interest. It is best to appear to support neither side in the controversy, and we should adopt a critical position when asked about it. Creating a controversy is not outside the realm of possibility, though this should be done with caution. |
Now that, if I might say so, is something I should take to heart. /more
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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Time
Time is both friend and enemy to the historian. It allows us to bring the past into the present with an eye to the future, but it also limits the level at which we can understand the past. For this reason, we can never understand history “wie es eigentlich gewesen ist†(how it really/essentially was). Yet time brings new possibilities in representing and incorporating the past into people’s everyday lives. |
OK
If people are creatures that exist within time, it must be within the Heideggerian framework of Dasein, or “being-there.†We are always some place at some time. And our prejudgments are determined by our being in that place and having experiences at different times. Our being-in-time determines how we are where we are. |
OK
We must understand the past as a process of our being-in-the-world. Our day-to-day is brought about by every day before it. Because we are always in the world, we cannot come to an understanding of time or history outside of the way the world is at its time of conception. Materially, we should understand the world is made up of sensuous human activity, as Marx noted. |
This demonstrates why metaphysics is banned in the AEL. This is all grand-sounding stuff but on inspection turns out to be a mixture of truism and unprovable assertion. The acid test is always the same: "Okay, pal, so what should I do?" /more
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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Our being-in-the-world is fundamentally about our engaging in worldly activity. Then historians cannot privilege themselves in the academy without distorting their social place in the world. |
It is true academics cluster heavily in a quite tight band of ABC1's and do not much engage in worldly activity, but the distortion that most affects historians is having been taught history at school and university by academic historians. And for light relief, been subjected to endless books and telly documentaries courtesy of the same source.
If they allow this privilege to isolate the field, then nobody will listen to them |
This is quite untrue. The world laps it up.
it is best if historians enact history rather than teach about it. |
I think we're back at Appomattox. Or in Britain, a real life Iron Age village laid out in wondersome detail.
History from the underground is a temporal-spatial history that is aware of the place of history in the broader society and its historical development. |
Albeit looked at from underneath.
Practical history is history-in-time. If we are to argue for history’s relevance, it cannot be from the academy. It needs to be done from the streets. |
This is totally crazy. When it comes to a sound understanding of history, street people (I assume he means anti-state people generally) are way worse than anything to be found in the ivory tower. No, it needs to be done sitting -- alone -- at a computer armed with Google and Wiki. /ends
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
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In: London
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As promised, this is Tom's response to my initial reply and first few posts. He has not added to it
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With regard to the AHA survey, I thought it apparent that it regarded trust in historical interpretations presented by these sources (teachers, non-fiction books, etc.).
In response to one of your later comments on Foucault, he wrote in the introduction to the Archaeology that discourse and its relation to the author are non-transcendental. In the conclusion (where he answers many of his critics), he later argues that no person's perspective can outlive them. In the first chapters of the book, Foucault eventually acknowledges that the interpretation of the author sometimes does not outlive the very moment within which it is created.
As all written discourses suffer this problem, the issue becomes that we cannot approximate the beliefs the author even held. Additionally, the structures in which the discourse originated are fundamentally different to those in which we today are interpreting them.
Therefore we cannot know what the author intended for us to receive in interpreting their writing, much less understand the message of the past without its ceasing presentness. Epistemically, the problem is that we receive the document from a conscious process of selection (rules of discourse) that inevitably distorts, rather than reveals.
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