History is Wrong, Even When Its Right

Where to begin?

I find it hard to talk about this without becoming irritated, in all honesty. Waters attempts desperately to straddle the line between collegiate, injustice-focused narrative (since he claims this is curriculum common to most colleges, one must wonder how unique the Jesuit tradition really is in this case) and the public school docrtine designed to preserve or encourage the growth of patriotism in young Americans.

Forgive me if I my arguments diverge a bit from the paper, but there is a bit of hypocrisy inherent in what he says. I can hardly blame the government for encouraging a curriculum which will make youth more patriotic to it--without such cultural inoculation, after all, a country can only fall to pieces, and whatever problems I have with the American government I'm actually quite fond of it--but I can certainly blame Waters for trying to make it seem 'correct'. It is not correct: it is elementary learning bordering on propaganda designed to encourage values and ideals in the youth.

And that's fine, frankly. I can accept that. It's what needs to happen: it's what every nation that encourages freedom of speech and freedom of the intellect will do in order to maintain a nationalistic group. But Waters attempt to reconcile them, even through his examples of the evolution of our perception of history, strikes me as fundamentally empty. It is an attempt to be original in a system that is, to a certain degree, stagnant: learning unambiguous, American history in which we are constantly progressing to greater and greater heights from an already illustrious past and then learning the history of a complex and often ethically uncertain nation. The conflict exists, and trying to reconcile it is simply a failed attempt to be original.

Though he does make an insightful point when talking about college classrooms as the 'testing ground' for otherwise subordinate ideas, this point almost contradicts his earlier argument: the ambiguous, ethically treacherous ideas of which history is composed are ignored and the college classroom made the standard. If so, shouldn't classrooms on all levels undergo a constant trend towards complexity? Waters meanders in his own argument: his ideas do not hold together cohesively.

The History of public schools (at least through seventh grade--I don't recall many 'lies' being cast my way once I hit 8th) is designed to maintain national pride. The only evolution they undergo is an evolution towards greater justification--a point Waters makes and one I agree with. What, then, was Waters point? Why write at all? There is a wrong version of history: it's the one which doesn't disclose all the facts.

The greatest sins a historian can commit is plagiarism or intentional failure to disclose relevant information. The history of the young is basically propaganda, and for a good reason: but simply because a good reason is present does not make that history 'right'.

To call the piece Zimmerman writes an article is probably an insult to the concept of article as a news story. An opinion? Perhaps, but I'm willing to bet my last blog entry managed just as many words. Perhaps more. Damn readable stuff, too, if I do say so myself.

Where was I? Ah yes; Zimmerman and Carter.

Despite its relative shortness, however, the opinion Zimmerman writes is still interesting, especially when read alongside Carter (almost as if someone intended us to make the comparison. How sinister). In it, Zimmerman details a law I was unaware of; a resolution on the part of Florida to end this apparently degenerate revisionist trend and to bring back the "good ol' days of fact-based learnin'" (I admit, I find it funny to use a quote in this context, especially when writing about Carter: it feels so rebellious).

Ignoring the fact that those "good ol' days" ended in about 1925 and had their end firmly declared and at least the essence of relativist history laid out in Carl Becker's speech to the AHA in 1931; that historians must, while engaging a lay audience, strive ever to approach the unobtainable objective truth while understanding that all viewpoints are subjective.

Carter makes this same claim in his own piece detailing the ethical standards of journalists (standards which are quite relevant to the historical profession). While he admits that there is no avoiding subjectivity in Journalism, and that the transgressing or near-transgression of some of the standards he has lain out is nearly inevitable, he also comes to the same conclusion; the point is in striving to avoid those ideas which are so intentionally subjective--composite characters, inventing quotes, constructions of situations and thoughts that didn't occur. The point is to strive for the greatest practical purity; to come ever-closer to approach the unobtainable 'Truth'.

From this common truth--this striving for ultimate 'Truth' with the understanding that we can never reach it and the obedience of the strictest limitations of ethics and source-usage in our pursuit--there are two lessons all history students must learn. One is that sloppiness is unpardonable; the field is difficult, our work challenging, but we can reduce our challenges if the work we are doing is too hard or rise to meet them if it is too important. No less important is a lesson Zimmerman plays with in his whole quiet critique of the outlook on relativism; we must not isolate ourselves from the public. Scholarly work is all for the good, but of equal importance is our public acceptance. Too many historians now take refuge in the comfortable, highly-specified system that guarantees them a textbook and a publisher for works that demand a PhD in the field to even understand what the point is; it is in some ways far more challenging--and far more influential--to be able to relate the subjective flow of events to the vast majority who are not Historians.

The irony of which, I think, will not be lost on our professors.

Why History Matters

So, first off, I'm creating this in lieu of being able to actually figure out where the appropriate area is on our Blackboard page. I'll email you the link so its clear I actually got the assignment done (if not in a particularly timely fashion), and then transfer over my existing posts. But since I've combed the Blackboard page, I feel this a fair solution.

Moving on.

Our reading, which I'll term 'History and Policy' based on the title given at the very top of the page, consists of three readings. The first of these is an article by John Tosh regarding his new book, Why History Matters; a book I've never read. According to its author--hopefully a reliable source--its contents deal primarily with the estrangement of history and politics. Tosh's argument is that lack of genuine historical context is responsible for many of our current problems; without the ability to recognize trends in national relationships, we become prey to the same traps over and over again.

His point is quite valid, if somewhat oversimplified, and his use off the Iraq War as an example particularly insightful. As a US citizen, the British perspective on the war is a bit lost on me, but our own history with Iraq and Afghanistan--of enemies made in the last major military action the US committed, and of militant groups funded during the Cold War now coming back to haunt us--remains quite relevant. And Tosh's main explanation for the failure of popular history--its increased specialization and refusal to accommodate itself to public media--seems particularly fitting given Bush's still-so-recent political actions; appealing to the masses in the face of so-called leftist elitism.

Yet it is Tosh's book, so his criticisms are usually mitigated by his own need to self-promote. For genuine criticism we look to different sources; namely, How History Matters Now, by Ludmilla Jordanova, and Why History Matters--and Why Medieval History also Matters, by John Arnold.

Jordanova's criticism is by far the more biting; while she praises the theory behind Tosh's book, she thinks he fails to take seriously the problems of implementation. She thinks that there is already a considerable appetite for history amongst the public but that the appetite is dangerous precisely because it "panders to the very myths about the past that many commentators would like to see dislodged". Further, she believes that Tosh overestimates the importance of historical context in political decisions, and thus narrows the scope of his proposal too much; rather than simply proposing a new, more pervasive and broader sweep of history for the public, such a curriculum should be applied to all the major areas of scholarship, including sociology, psychology, and literary scholarship.

All valid points, if mainly ones working off of Tosh's original point. Jordanova's pointing out of how narrow Tosh's idea is seems petty; if one type of analysis should be better taught and lowered from its highly specialized pedestal, surely the principle applies to all those specialties whose basics would be useful to the public but whose too-technical practice makes relating them to current culture difficult. I have to agree with her completely on Tosh's over-emphasis on historical context. People's personalities and ideas may be determined by their environments and upbringings, and their choices tempered by the information they have at hand, but none of those things are going to be altered by a knowledge of what has come before. If the political reasons for invading Iraq remain intact, historical context will only point to a possible end, and will do little to dissuade the politician from continuing on his way. Making history relatable is certainly important, but the changes it would create are likely less pervasive than Tosh would have us believe.

John Arnold makes much the same point in his article. In the course of the paper he wonders vaguely "...how much of John Tosh's book is really a call for better politicians and a better press?" He expresses admiration for John Tosh's idea of a sweeping reform of general historical education and supports it, but disagrees with what Tosh's plan will accomplish. Arnold accepts the gap between the public and historians--he quotes Thucydides to demonstrate that this gap has almost always existed--and so expresses support for Tosh's proposition. But contemporary history won't change the flow of current events; those are the result of public opinion and political motivations, which aren't subject to change at the hands of historical context. Yet the general ideas that make a nation and a culture--those ideas that have been in the process of forming for hundreds of years--remain important, and can provide a great deal of context as to where current cultural preconceptions have come from.

For me, Arnold's response is the most articulate and most accessible of the three (an important factor, given their subject matter). While I don't quite agree with the idea that contemporary history isn't likely to affect current decisions--after all, information and news have changed the course of history enough times for us to know their importance--but his point is well-taken. Tosh's proposal isn't necessarily as important as he'd like us to believe, but it is still important. The details remain to be decided, but on the essence of it--on a general reform of education and history to make it more accessible to the public and provide proper context for decisions--all three of the historians agree.

Which in itself, given the fact that each of them deals at least briefly with debate between historians, is pretty significant, right?