DISCIPLINE OF HISTORY

NOTE: All the reading here as you scroll down applies to this examination question. It is recommended that you read all of it so as to better ascertain what is the best evidence for you to use to argue your thesis. The title of each specific selection is in bold print.

Historiography is "the study of the way history has been and is written--the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians. --Conal Furay & Michael J. Salevouris

None of the facts is memorable, because they are presented as one damn thing after another. While they include most of the trees and all too many twigs, authors forget to give readers even a glimpse of what they might find memorable: the forests. --James Loewen

He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future. -George Orwell

SUBJECTIVE VS. OBJECTIVE. Objectivity? It is both an ideal and a lie. Humans ... can't really be objective. The best we can do is try to be objective. Aspire to it. But we all have our biases. You can't give an opinion without taking a side. We try to be fair ... but even something as allegedly absolute as truth can be subjective. All [writers] do is tell you their truth. --Dan Le Batard

People sometimes let their own experiences filter the way they interpret the events of the past. For this reason it is important that anyone seeking to study the work of another--whether a history, a diary, or even a personal letter--should devote some effort to the study of that person's life. Only then can a student of history effectively judge the work of the historian in its proper light. Was the author trying to make a point? Was he hoping to convince the reader of something? If there is some deeper meaning to the history that someone creates, the key to unlocking that meaning will be found in his past.

Narratives matter -- stories that make sense of the messy realities of the world, that connect cause with effect, that have a beginning, middle and end. We seek to understand [what is going on in the world] by constructing narratives and fitting events into them. But sometimes a narrative is undercut and rendered inoperative by emerging facts. And sometimes a new narrative emerges when facts previously unknown come to light.--Michael Barone

We all see the destruction following Hurricane Katrina in these images.
What is not quite as clear is who &/or what is to blame? Responsibility?

HISTORIOGRAPHY--What is it?

Historiography defined: is writing about rather than of history. Historiography is meta-analysis of descriptions of the past. The analysis usually focuses on the narrative, interpretations, worldview, use of evidence, or method of presentation of other historians.

Historiography example:
A primary source is an artifact of a particular point in time (something that comes to us first-hand or by someone alive during that time). In the 1850s, for example, many slave owners in the United States kept diaries and journals about their day to day activity. The historian Kenneth Stampp looked at these documents for information about the life of a slave owner in the 1850s, and also derived information from them on the life of the slaves on the plantation; he used the documents as primary sources. The book he created, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, is a secondary source (a work produced through the analysis of primary sources). If another historian argues that Stampp's history ignores the economic history of slavery, or that Stampp's work overly emphasizes one aspect of slave life, then this other historian is using Stampp's book -- originally produced as a secondary source -- as a primary source, an artifact of study. This new work which criticizes a secondary source, is a work of historiography.

Much critical historiography in the 1960s focused, for example, on the exclusion of the roles of women, minorities, and labor from written histories of the USA. Because historians in the 1930s and 1940s were themselves products of their times, their models of who was "important" to history reflected the cultural attitudes of that period (namely, well-connected white males). Many historians from that point onward devoted themselves to what they saw as more accurate representations of the past, casting a light on those who had been previously disregarded as non-noteworthy.

The study of historiography demands a critical approach that goes beyond the mere examination of historical fact. Historiographical studies consider the source, often by researching the author, his or her position in society, and the type of history being written at the time. Historiography that is considered controversial or extreme is often pejoratively labeled as historical revisionism.

Basic questions considered in historiography:

Who wrote the source (primary or secondary)?
For primary sources, we look at the person in his or her society, for secondary sources, we consider the theoretical orientation of the approach (e.g., is it Marxist, political history, etc.).
What is the authenticity, authority, bias/interest, and intelligibility of the source?
What was the view of history when the source was written?
Was history supposed to provide moral lessons?
What or who was the intended audience?
What sources were privileged or ignored in the narrative?
By what methodology was the evidence compiled?
In what historical context was the work of history itself written?

Some recent historiographical controversies:

-- the periodization of European history (i.e., how should it be divided)
-- the rate of exploitation of African-Americansduring and after slavery
-- the role of whiteness in U.S. labor struggles, and
-- the attitude of "good Germans" to the Holocaust.

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Historiography as varied approaches to history (examples):

Paleography: literally old writing, (from the Greek words paleos = old and grapho = write) is the study of script. Its primary aim is to read texts correctly and determine where and when they were written, though it also studies the development of scripts.
Diplomatic or Political history: sometimes referred to as "Rankian History", focuses on politics, politicians and other high rulers and views them as being the driving force of continuity and change in history. This is the most common form of history and is often the classical and popular belief of what history should be.
The Annales School is a school of historical writing named after the French scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale (later called Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations, then renamed in 1994 as Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales) where it was first expounded. Annales school history is best known for incorporating social scientific methods into history.
History from below is a form of historical narrative which was developed as a result of the Annales School and popularized in the 1960s. This form of social history focuses on the perspectives of ordinary individuals within society as well as individuals and regions that were not previously considered historically important. This includes women and the working class as well as regions such as India or Africa.
Social history is an area of historical study considered by some to be a social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends. In this view, it may include areas of economic history, legal history and the analysis of other aspects of civil society that show the evolution of social norms, behaviors and mores. It is distinguished from political history, military history and the so-called history of great white men. While proponents of history from below and the French annales school of historians have considered themselves part of social history, it is seen as a much broader movement among historians in the development of historiography. Unlike other approaches, it tries to see itself as a synthetic form of history not limited to the statement of so-called historical fact but willing to analyse historical data in a more systematic manner.

Oral history is an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. Oral history is considered by some historians to be an unreliable source for the study of history. However, oral history is a valid means for preserving and transmitting history. Experience within literate cultures indicates that each time anyone reconstructs a memory, there are changes in the memory, but the core of the story is usually retained. Over time, however, minor changes can accumulate until the story becomes unrecognizable. A person within a literate culture thus has presuppositions that may falsely affect her judgement of the validity of oral history within preliterate cultures. In these cultures children are usually selected and specially trained for the role of historian, and develop extraordinary memory skills known as eidetic or photographic memory.
Deconstruction. A school of criticism developed in part by the French post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida. Derrida offered what he called deconstructive readings of Western philosophers. Roughly speaking, a deconstructive reading is an analysis of a text that uncovers the difference between the text's structure and its Western metaphysical essence. Deconstructive readings show how texts cannot simply be read as works by individual authors communicating distinct messages, but instead must be read as sites of conflict within a given culture or worldview. A deconstructed text will reveal a multitude of viewpoints simultaneously existing, often in direct conflict with one another. Comparison of a deconstructive reading of a text with a more traditional one will also show how many of these viewpoints are suppressed and ignored.

Marxist or historical materialist historiography is an influential school of historiography. The chief tenets of are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes. Marxist historiography has made contributions to the history of the working class, oppressed nationalities, and the methodology of history from below. The chief problematic aspect of Marxist historiography has been an argument on the nature of history as determined or dialectical; this can also be stated as the relative importance of subjective and objective factors in creating outcomes. Marxist history is generally teleological, in that it posits a direction of history, towards an end state of history as classless human society. Marxist historiography, that is, the writing of Marxist history in line with the given historiographical principles, is generally seen as a tool. Its aim is to bring those oppressed by history to self-consciousness, and to arm them with tactics and strategies from history: it is both a historical and a liberatory project.

Suggested Reading:

Michael Bentley (ed.), Companion to Historiography, Routledge 1997
Ranajit Guha, Dominance Without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India, Harvard UP 1998
Gerda Lerner, THE MAJORITY FINDS ITS PAST: PLACING WOMEN IN HISTORY. New York: Oxford University Press 1979
Roland Oliver, In the Realms of Gold: Pioneering in African History, University of Wisconsin Press 1997
Christopher Saunders, The making of the South African past : major historians on race and class, Totowa, N.J. : Barnes & Noble, 1988
Bonnie G. Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice, Harvard UP 2000

Basically, a worldview is a view of the world — a mental model of reality, a set of theories (believed by a person or a community) about what exists, how and why things happen, and what it means — that is used for living in the world, that serves as a foundation for our thoughts, decisions, and actions. Our "worldview" is our way of thinking about truth and reality--it is what influences our interpretation of history (inductive reasoning is observation + EXPERIENCE = conclusion).

James Sire suggests the following seven questions we can ask ourselves in determining our own particular worldview. In summary, they are as follows:

Values provide the energetic driving force behind all our decisions and actions. They are the rules we have for ourselves. Consciously or unconsciously we rank our values in order of importance to us, and we satisfy our values according to our ranking. For example if power is the most important value to us, we will unconsciously strive to satisfy our need for power before any other value. In the film Gladiator, the principle character expresses his hierarchy of values as strength and honor.

Samples of values: these were some characteristic values during the time of Ancient Rome.

ONE'S WORLDVIEW & THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
DEBATE ISSUE: Why is history perceived so differently?

PERSPECTIVE A: George Lakoff's Nurturant Parent vs. Strict Father

[SOURCE: The Nation as a Family by The Rockridge Institute Web source: http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/strategic/nationasfamily/nationasfamily ]

ISSUE SUMMARY. As a rule, humans understand abstract or complex ideas in terms of more concrete or accessible concepts. Usually this process involves the use of a metaphor. For example, Americans—like many other cultures—understand a complex, hard-to-conceptualize social group, our nation, in terms of something closer to home, our family. Models of idealized family structure lie metaphorically at the heart of our politics. The very notion of the founding fathers uses a metaphor that construes the nation as a family, with familial roles, such as parents and children. We think metaphorically without realizing it—the Nation as a Family, with citizens as family members, is such a natural metaphor that we don't even notice it is there.

But it is there. And it drives how we think about political and social issues.

In American culture there are two opposed and idealized models of the family, the Nurturant Parent model and the Strict Father model. The metaphor of the Nation as a Family maps the values and relationships from those family models onto our politics, creating "liberal" and "conservative" political positions that we understand through our models of family structure.

The progressive worldview represents, metaphorically, the Nurturant Parent family model, and the conservative worldview represents the Strict Father model. The two models come with distinct moral systems that are founded on different assumptions about the world, interpret shared values such as responsibility or fairness differently, and center around different moral priorities.

In other words, our beliefs about what a family should be exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of society we should build. For instance, those with a strong Strict Father model are likely to support a more punitive welfare or foreign policy than someone with a strong Nurturant Parent model, who are likely to favor more cooperative approaches. Those with a strong Nurturant Parent model are more likely to favor social policies that ensure the well-being of people such as health care and education, whereas someone with a strong Strict Father model would object to social programs in favor of promoting self-reliance.

The Progressive/Liberal Worldview: The Nurturant Parent Family Model

In the Nurturant Parent family, it is assumed that the world is basically good. And, however dangerous and difficult the world may be at present, it can be made better, and it is your responsibility to help make it better. Correspondingly, children are born good, and parents can make them better, and it is their responsibility to do so. Both parents (if there are two) are responsible for running the household and raising the children, although they may divide their activities. The parents' job is to be responsive to their children, nurture them, and raise their children to nurture others. Nurturance requires empathy and responsibility.

Nurturant Morality

In the Nurturant Parent family, the highest moral values are Empathy and Responsibility. Effective nurturing requires empathy, which is feeling what someone else feels—parents have to figure out what all their baby's cries mean in order to take care of him or her. Responsibility is critical, since being a good nurturer means being responsible not only for looking after the well-being of others, but also being responsible to ourselves so that we can take care of others. Nurturant parents raise children to be empathetic toward others, responsible to themselves, and responsible to others who are or will be in their care. Empathy connects us to other people in our families, our neighborhoods, and in the larger world. Being responsible to others and oneself requires cooperation. In society, nurturant morality is expressed as social responsibility. This requires cooperation rather than competition, and a recognition of interdependence.

The Progressive Value System: How the values relate to one another

Nurturant morality is based on a fundamental ethic of care that says: Help, Don't Harm. From the central values of Empathy and Responsibility, the ethic of care leads naturally to the following set of values that characterizes the Nurturant Parent family:

The values inherent in the Nurturant Parent model of the family translate directly to political values. Progressive political positions are based on a responsive morality that centers around Empathy and Responsibility—responsibility for oneself and social responsibility. These values are to be promoted in every area of life, both public and private.

For progressives, these values are typically unconscious, but the more we understand them, the more we can articulate and work towards a society that is consistent with and extends our values.

A progressive government expresses progressive values in its goals and policies. For example:

A Progressive View of the Economy

The economy should be a means to these moral ends. Government should promote an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values. The government provides the infrastructure and services needed to enact these values. Taxes are a means to maintain the quality of our infrastructure so that we can continue to live in a safe, well-ordered, and civilized society. Taxes are investments in our future.

A Progressive View of the Environment

Humans and the environment nurture each other. If we want to continue to receive nurturance from the environment, and ensure this nurturance for future generations, we must improve our nurturance of the environment.

A Progressive View of Cultural Support

Art and education are part of self-fulfillment and therefore are moral necessities.

A Progressive View of Foreign Policy

The role of the nation should be to promote cooperation and extend these values to the world. This comes from caring about the well-being of people in our own and in other countries, recognizing that all nations exist interdependently in one global "society," and, therefore, wanting to cooperate with other nations to solve problems like hunger, disease, oppression of women and exploitation of children, and political strife.

Ultimately, the job of a progressive government is to care for and protect the population, especially those who are helpless; to guarantee democracy (the equal sharing of political power); to promote the well-being of all through cooperation; and to ensure fairness for everyone. Empathy and responsibility are required to meet all of these goals. These values are traditional American values, and progressives seek to reinvigorate them in American political life.

The Conservative/Traditional Worldview

In the conservative worldview, it is assumed that the world is, and always will be, a dangerous and difficult place. It is a competitive world and there will always be winners and losers. Children are naturally bad since they want to do what feels good, not what is moral, so they have to be made good by being taught discipline. There is tangible evil in the world and to stand up to evil, one must be morally strong, or "disciplined."

The father's job is to protect and support the family. Children are to respect and obey him. The father's moral duty is to teach his children right from wrong, with punishment that is typically physical and can be painful when they do wrong. It is assumed that parental discipline in childhood is required to develop the internal discipline that adults will need in order to be moral and to succeed. Morality and success are linked through discipline. This focus on discipline is seen as a form of love—"tough love."

The mother is in the background, not strong enough to protect and support the family or fully discipline the children on her own. Her job is to uphold the authority of the father and to care for and comfort the children. As a "mommy," she tends to be overly soft-hearted and might well coddle or spoil the child. The father must make sure this does not happen, lest the children become weak and dependent.

Competition is necessary for discipline. Children are to become self-reliant through discipline and the pursuit of self-interest. Those who succeed as adults are the good (moral) people and parents are not to "meddle" in their lives. Those children who remain dependent—who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant—undergo further discipline or are turned out to face the discipline of the outside world.

When everyone is acting morally and responsibly, seeking their own self-interest in a self-disciplined fashion, everyone benefits. Thus, instilling morality and discipline in your children is also acting for the good of society as a whole.

Strict Morality

In Strict Morality, the Strict Father is the Moral Authority, determining right from wrong, and protecting the family from a world that is chaotic and threatening. Evil is a major force in the world that must be fought using Moral Strength, which has the highest moral priority. Evil is both external and internal. Internal evil is fought with self-discipline and self-denial to achieve "self-control." "Weakness," and the tolerance of it, is immoral since it implies being unable to stand up to evil. Punishment is required to balance the moral books: If you do wrong, you must suffer a negative consequence.

Competition is necessary for a moral world; without it, people would not have to develop discipline and so would not become moral beings. Worldly success is an indicator of sufficient moral strength; lack of success suggests lack of sufficient discipline. Dependency is immoral. The undisciplined will be weak and poor, and deservedly so.

Strict Father Morality demonstrates a natural Moral Order: Those who are moral should be in power. The Moral Order legitimizes traditional power relations as being natural, determining a hierarchy of Moral Authority: God above Man; Man above Nature; Adults above Children; Western Culture above Non-western Culture; America above other nations. (There are other traditional aspects of the Moral Order that are less accepted than they used to be: Straights above Gays; Christians above non-Christians; Men above Women; White above Non-whites.)

Since to participate in the promotion or preservation of immorality is itself immoral, it is a moral requirement to eradicate immorality—through "tough love" if possible but through punishment if necessary—in every aspect of life, both public and private, domestic and foreign.

Conservative Politics

The Role of Government: When translated into politics, the government metaphorically becomes the Strict Father. The citizens are children of two kinds: the mature, successfully disciplined, and self-reliant ones (read: wealthy businesses and individuals), whom the government should not meddle with; and the whining, undisciplined, dependent ones who must never be coddled. Just as in the family, the government must be an instrument of Moral Authority, upholding and extending policies that express Moral Strength.

UNCONSTRAINED VISION	CONSTRAINED VISION
EXTERNAL. Outer, removable institutions as the problem; task is to change these & un-constrain people.	INTERNAL. Inner unchangeable nature of man the problem; accordingly the task is to restrain people.

UNCONSTRAINED VISION	CONSTRAINED VISION
Human nature is neither bad nor good.	Human nature is inherently flawed.
Human nature is malleable and perfectable with the right environment.	Human nature is fixed.
Social responsibility can/should guide action.	Self-interest drives human action.
People have moral responsibility for others.	People have moral responsibility only for themselves.
Intentions do matter.	Intentions do not matter; results do.

UNCONSTRAINED VISION	CONSTRAINED VISION
Social institutions are perfectable.	Social institutions are inherently flawed.
Governments can serve the people well.	Governments inevitably serve themselves.
Big government can provide big help.	Big government should be feared.
Social outcomes are most important.	Social processes are most important.

UNCONSTRAINED VISION	CONSTRAINED VISION
Priority should be given to social progress.	Priority should be given to social stability.
Science should guide society.	Culture should guide society.
The brilliance of the most able individuals is the best guide to the future.	Collective wisdom of the past is the best guide to the future.
Change should come from the top down.	Change should come from the bottom up.
Planned change can achieve great leaps forward in society.	Evolutionary change is best.
The consequences of social change can be can be anticipated and controlled.	The consequences of social change can be cannot be anticipated.
Clearly superior solutions are possible.	Tradeoffs are inevitable.

ONE'S WORLDVIEW & THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY DEBATE ISSUE: Why is history perceived so differently?