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Edit: I was too prolix in my initial enthusiasm to point out the obvious analog. >> Can scholarly work, viewed from the perspective of its author's life story,

Edit: I was too prolix in my initial enthusiasm to point out the obvious analog. >> Can scholarly work, viewed from the perspective of its author's life story, be therefore perceived as a performative act, rather than as primarily objective analysis? And how do we regard Thucydides today? Had some nephew of his written in his stead would we really wring our hands in some different way about the the account of the Peloponnesian war? Do we really discount people that feel that recent events are of relevance to subsequent generations? Is that not historical, at least in terms of a specific complaint?

kjellsbells 4y ago
> That people may have intellectual or cultural commitments hardly seems worthy of denigration as "performative". Indeed, and it seems highly unlikely that Hobsbawm would wait fifty-plus years in order to stage some kind of self-servingly virtuous performance. That kind of dubious honor must surely go to politicians, who recycle the tropes of their adolescence into public policy that affects us all, at a distance of maybe only 30 years from their lived experience. Side note: contra Hobsbawm, I assert that the 20th century didn't end in 1990, but on 9/11/2001.
- ploden 4y ago
  >the 20th century didn't end in 1990, but on 9/11/2001 Considering the dominance of 20th century persons in politics, business, and the arts, I’m pretty sure we’re still in the 20th century.
deleted 4y ago
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