Ah historiography! It's the only aspect of historical discourse that I find at all interesting. Without it, I would never have come into contact at all with so many of the greatest (now "superseded") practitioners of the art. I may, quite possibly, have been the only instructor in America who assigned Perry Miller to undergraduates last year--and Richard Hofstadter's rep isn't much healthier. Most of the well-meaning leftist types that I associate with seem convinced that the demise of "Consensus History" is a good thing--but the question I always ask is: "good for whom?"
Of course, we all know that "master narratives" aren't cool anymore--and yet, I would argue that the bland doctrine of "diversity," which now coats just about every product of any humanities department that you could name, is the most coercive rhetorical straightjacket of all. These pieces may "go down easy" with other professional academics--but they also pass right through the ideological digestive systems of readers (undergraduate students that have been forced to take a history/sociology course or two; "lay readers" who might pick up one of these books, by accident, whilst combing his or her local bookstore's history section for the latest gossippy nonsense about Hitler's sex life) outside of this charmed circle. Sure, "consensus historians" got a lot of things "wrong." Their reasonably coherent portrait of America was achieved through the exclusion of many segments of the population (basically, anyone that was not middle-class). However, it was this very "short-sighted" theoretical base which allowed a scholar like Hofstadter to set himself and trade "unamerican" blows with the best of his right wing opponents (see, for instance, The Paranoid Style in American Politics). Having recently lived through my first American Presidential campaign--and heard, from the inside, the kinds of debates which are generated by a discourse that allows one group of partisans to march into battle with an exclusive right to fly the banner of "VALUES"--all I can say is: bring back that lying progressive master narrative--right, the fuck, NOW!
I have just read a swathe through a group of scholarly studies of the New Christian Right, each of which takes at least a moment to lament the indignities that Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, et al heaped upon this movement, in its formative stages, back in the sixties. So tactful... So tenderly respectful of the historically-produced subjects that forced things like "family values" and "law n' order" onto the political docket at the expense of social justice... Mustn't play the patronizing academic elitist... We must take these people--and their worldview--seriously. At the very least, we mustn't label them paranoiac "pseudo-conservatives"...
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Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Good lord, why have you put your article in Courier? Too much time writing academic papers?
I do wonder whatever happened to the study of history as an analysis of events in the context of their own time rather than trying to impose a modern ideological model on the analysis. I think this practice has made the practice of studying history increasingly hollow and meaningless.
Dave
2 - DrPat
Studying history is not as enjoyable as simply reading it, Dave. When you read history with all your mind intent upon it (and agree with yourself to reread as you learn new things), it can be enlightening.
History used as a crowbar to pry up analogies and bludgeon opponents in a debate, however, is what made the practice of studying history increasingly hollow and meaningless.
3 - DrPat
The Courier font was off-putting, David - but where you really lost me was These people are morons.
4 - David Fiore
I'm not sure what period of historical writing you are holding up as a golden age of non-ideological/non-analogical splendor, Doc...
on the morons comment--did you think I was attempting to be conciliatory there?
5 - Dave Nalle
I have to say that my historiography seminar in grad school was torturous. It's one of the few courses where I had to read books which were truly idiotic, trying to cram ill-fitting historical events into the boxes of particular quasi-political philosophies.
Dave
6 - David Fiore
"trying to cram ill-fitting historical events into the boxes of particular quasi-political philosophies"
that must have been a badly-designed historiography course... the whole point of historiography is that it's a history of historical writing (which is the only interesting way to look at history--as a record of the various narratological power-plays made by a succession of scholars... it's the way the story is told that's interesting--not the story itself...of course, there's no such thing as the story-in-itself anyway! adapting from Emerson--"there is properly no history, only historiography"...)
my problem with contemporary historical writing is that the power plays (and they're still power plays) are far too weak, and serve no helpful cultural purpose...
7 - Dave Nalle
I guess I'm a bad historian then - maybe that explains why I stopped teaching - I find the story way more interesting than the study of the way the story was told. Sitting through day after day discussing the somewhat crazed views of history of Wallerstein and Hegel and Marx strikes me as uniquely pointless when compared to studying actual history.
I do like the Annales School, though. I think they were on to something with focusing on how people lived and what they did and telling the story of a place or a movement or a time. An approach I can relate to.
Dave
8 - David Fiore
but what is the story? stories don't tell themselves...
9 - Dave Nalle
Yes, but historiography is more the study of the storytellers and why they tell the story and what they think the story means than the study of the actual story and experiencing the telling of it.
I guess I went into history because I liked history, and I find overanalyzing history takes a lot of the attraction away.
Dave
10 - David Fiore
again though--no one can ever possibly come into contact with the "actual story"... stories are told, not discovered/unearther/etc... the historian always interposes him/herself between the reader and the subject matter...
as for "experiencing the story", well, this sounds a lot like the whole "suspension of disbelief" thing--which might be defensible in the aesthetic realm, but not when you're talking about something as loaded human history... there's always something motivating the historian to put together his/her history in the specific way that s/he does! it's part of your job, as a reader, to keep that in mind (and--even if you agree 100% with the author's point of view--to make judgments about the workings/effectiveness of the strategy)
11 - RJ
History should be about dates, names, and events. The reader can then look for motivations, agendas, etc.
Spoon-feeding the reader with their personal spin on why so-and-so did this or that isn't helpful.
12 - Temple Stark
But after you have the dates, names and such down, it IS what makes history interesting.
13 - David Fiore
History should be about dates, names, and events. The reader can then look for motivations, agendas, etc.
Spoon-feeding the reader with their personal spin on why so-and-so did this or that isn't helpful.
Does this mean that you would like to close down all university history programs? (and high school classes too--I guess?)
after all--the names and dates can be found in any almanac...
14 - RJ
I want less PC spin, is all.
Look. I relatively recently took a US history course. It focused in part on the plight of Native Americans. Fine.
There was much subject matter on the forced relocation of these people to Oklahoma, and other such places.
But there was relatively little about the FACT that SOME Native American tribes attempted (though the failed) to commit GENOCIDE against European settlers.
I mean, European settlers are hardly blameless here. But why minimize the murderous intentions of some tribal leaders? Their goal was to kill ALL pale-skins, whereas the European goal was simply to move them to someplace else.
Let's see...what is worse? Failed genocide or successful ethnic cleansing? Tough call, I know. But why not report it fairly?
15 - David Fiore
but RJ--the no-spin zone is a fantasy...
there's always spin!
I have no investment in making one (artificially constructed) group of human beings look any more pure or noble than any other group, so there we agree--but I have a feeling that we don't agree on much else, politically... the "PC spin" on the conquest of the Americas is rooted in a critique of the persistence of a white supremacist logic in the economic structure of our society...
16 - Dave Nalle
LOL, read that last sentence and see if you can continue standing in the wind as David spins out of control.
Dave
17 - David Fiore
sure it's a spin--but so is "reality"
you don't have to be in the KKK (or a mean/violent/"racist") to buy into a white supremacist logic...all you have to do is refuse to tamper with historical processes that were set in motion by people that were mean, violent, racists...
18 - Brady
I just liked the Voltaire quote: "Crush the vile thing."