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History doesn't need to justify itself any more than Literature or Dance does. But trying to turn it into something it's not -- a way of discovering new facts

by bcoates 14y ago

History doesn't need to justify itself any more than Literature or Dance does. But trying to turn it into something it's not -- a way of discovering new facts about the world -- is incredibly dangerous. Most educated people are aware that there are limits of reason, such as situations where the facts are so thin that the only honest answer is "I don't know". They are aware of the limits of science, where there is no practical experiment to falsify a claim and you have to fall back on tentative strategies like Popper's. But then these people look at history, and see this giant pile of anecdotes, and all the sudden it's the Middle Ages again and we can hermenutic our way to wisdom by staring at it really hard, or as this website puts it, "having repeated experience in historical inquiry". But I don't get it; if there's a heuristic for knowing when trying to solve problems with history is worse than nothing, I've missed it. Until I figure that out I'm going to have to stick with "always", and this webpage doesn't give me a lot of reason to think otherwise. How can history possibly be harmful? The OP makes the case repeatedly: "History Helps Us Understand People and Societies", but it doesn't give us any basis for knowing if that understanding is based on broad stereotype or outright lies, or worse yet, someone else's interpretation of history: a game of telephone stretching back to the dawn of communication. Merely becoming an experienced historian so that you're less likely to fall into that trap isn't sufficient; you're starting at worse than zero so you have to assume you've just gotten less terrible until you have some solid reason to think otherwise. "History Provides Identity." Identity, of course, being an organized system for dehumanizing other people. That history, true or false, is an incredibly powerful tool for doing this does it no favors as something you should voluntarily poison your mind with. "Studying History Is Essential for Good Citizenship." Here we're getting back around to a better excuse for studying history: If it really is unavoidable, and history is somehow part of us that we cannot destroy, then maybe we need to fill that hunger with a nice pablum like the US civics curriculum. It's a harm minimization strategy, like giving opiate addicts a supply of quality morphine so they don't stick whatever they find on the street into their veins.

lists 14y ago
'Most educated people are aware that there are limits of reason, such as situations where the facts are so thin that the only honest answer is "I don't know".' Some of the value of historical study is that you get to discover just how ideas like "limits of reason" and "I don't know" as a valid answer come about in the first place, out of processes that have nothing to do with progress and advancement. This is the kind of historical relativism people start getting afraid of ("what do you mean there's no objective standards for most anything!"), but it's a result of historical inquiry that actually commends us to actually think about what we say, do, and take to be true. We can have conversations with one another only when we drop assumptions. History is key to all ethical conversation.
bokonist 14y ago
Are you saying that history is in all cases harmful for practical purposes? Or are you saying that it is harmful for most people, who are dilettantes who read a few pop-histories and think they understand the time period? If you are arguing the latter, I agree. True ignorance is preferable to false knowledge. But for the serious student, history can be very informative and useful. True knowledge takes a lot of time. One must find good sources, learn the context of various writers and how their biases might color their writings, learn how to separate the creditable writers from the propagandists, and read both primary sources and the finest secondary sources, And finally you must be willing to recognize the limits of knowledge, at some points you must admit that you do not know what happened and never will. But if that is all done, I think history can be extremely valuable for understanding the present and making good decisions going forward.
- bcoates 14y ago
  I'm saying it's harmful for most people who are dilettantes. I'm also attempting to say that it's somewhat unique in this, at least among the core knowledge subjects that most people are expected to know. The only other subjects with such a high "what you know that isn't true will hurt you" level are things like medicine, law, and chemistry, but in those everyone is made aware of the danger and there are entire industries worth of safety precautions because of it. Convince someone that they have a sufficient level of historical aptitude to apply it and they can obtain and use falsehoods at a stunning rate.
  - agwa 14y ago
    I think this is a much more reasonable argument than what your original comment seems to say, and I agree with you that an insufficient knowledge of history is harmful, and this should really be made clear in high school-level history. But isn't this true somewhat of most subjects? Consider, for example, the deplorable state of software security, or the harm caused by people who misunderstand probability. (One caveat: no subject can be compared in this regard to law and medicine, where other people need to be able to trust practitioners with their lives.) Also, why should this mean the historical society shouldn't encourage more people to study history? When I studied history I felt that I was imbued with the importance of approaching history carefully.
Tichy 14y ago
You can compare lots of historical societies, or lots of historical companies, or whatever. Why shouldn't that provide valid data - more than anecdotes, because you can have a large data sample? Also, even an anecdote can often prove something, namely the possibility of one thing. If you find one society or company that functioned in a certain way, it is a valueable data point.
pm90 14y ago
Its true that getting to the truth is very hard when you're studying historical events. The people who record such events are likely to have certain biases, some of which may seem barbaric in our present time. But that does not mean that you throw out the baby with the bathwater. I would argue that the biggest achievement of the human race has been our ability to archive our past and learn from it, allowing one generation to build upon the achievements of the previous one. This is how scientific progress takes place; unfortunately, it is also how myths and superstitions are propagated, such as religion. Anyways, addressing your specific points: history provides guidance to those facing similar situations. For example, James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, was influenced by the exploits of Robert Clive, of whom he had read in great detail. On the other hand, Hitler failed to learn from Napoleon's mistake and made the same mistake of trying to invade Russia. Be it Military, Science, Economics or even law, history provides a rich database of prior experience from which we can draw lessons from and continue to make progress
chipsy 14y ago
OK. Now go and take this opinion to its logical extreme. Any record, any meta-commentary, any summary, must become suspect, whether it was made 500 years ago or 5 minutes ago. Oops, now you can no longer communicate with people - no "catching up" on events or "living vicariously" through them - all anecdotes. Can't be doing that. You cannot study a timeline or a log of events and believe it. You can't believe a story unless it happened in front of your eyes, but if you try to remember it, now you are recalling a history, so it can't be trusted. Clearly, not a sensible opinion. So then what are you really saying? Are you saying that you don't care about _political_ history? In that case, you have plenty of people agreeing with you. Political histories are popular in school curricula, but are only representative of a tiny, tiny fraction of all history. We also have a history of mathematics and sciences, social and culture histories, histories of the planet, the stars, and all known life forms. All "postmortem" style articles are historical documents. In each of these fields, the specific techniques differ and some are more or less falsifiable than others, but we are ultimately limited by physics, which imposes the final limit on how much of the real world can be "proven."
agwa 14y ago
Your comment is based on a very flawed understanding of what the study of history is. First, while it is true that historical evidence is imperfect, it is extremely uncharitable and frankly unjustifiable to call it a "pile of anecdotes," "based on broad stereotype or outright lies," and "worse than zero." Historical research is centered around primary sources, and while no primary source gives you a complete picture or has a single interpretation, they are not mere anecdotes or outright lies. Second, no serious historian thinks you should use specific events from the past to draw grand conclusions about the present. The past loses potency when taken out of context. But the study of history still has applications to the present. When you have worked with incomplete evidence and conflicting interpretations of the past, you start to realize that your view of the present is similarly imperfect. Any one person only has an incomplete picture of what is happening in the world, but despite this, I encounter many people who think events or trends have only one cause and they know exactly what it is. As another example, people often expect the future to work out a particular way, and fail to appreciate the effects of other, unseen forces. It is easier to realize these fallacies when you have studied history, where information is more obviously imperfect and you have the benefit of being detached. You are right about the limits of reason, but you are wrong to say that history is harmful: to the contrary it is one of the best ways for us to realize those limits.
- bcoates 14y ago
  I'm basing my comment on the implied definition of history being presented in the article. I think it's trying to move history from the category of study for the sake of study, for "people who simply like the information and modes of thought involved", into that category of things that are essential for everyone to study. I think that's unfair to the other liberal arts and an exaggeration of the universal utility of historical study. You're taking "based on broad stereotype or outright lies," and "worse than zero." out of context, but I'll defend "pile of anecdotes", because that's what even good primary sources are: a non-representative data point of something that happened in an uncontrolled environment. I appreciate what you're saying about the study of history being able to open your mind to the complexity of the world, but that's such a different goal for history than the article presents that I think you're defending a different thing entirely, and not the idea I'm attacking.
ctl 14y ago
But then these people look at history, and see this giant pile of anecdotes, and all the sudden it's the Middle Ages again and we can hermenutic our way to wisdom by staring at it really hard My whole life is a pile of anecdotes! And yet I've used my experiences to build a functional mental model of the world. I can use history in the same way. You argue that anecdotal data should be flatly ignored when making decisions. If that were true then newborn children would be the best reasoners on the planet. Your argument cannot hold in general.
sramsay 14y ago
Humanities professors (of which I am one) now take it for granted that their days are numbered -- that subjects like History, Philosophy, English literature, and Classics won't survive another fifty years as major parts of the university curriculum. This post amply explains why that is happening.
arrrg 14y ago
You think we can discover nothing about the past? You think falsifying is not possible? What weird believes. Of course all of that is possible. It’s not easy, it‘s not perfect, obviously. But it‘s possible.
rplacd 14y ago
I disagree with the arguments as well - it doesn't write off history, though, just a narrow brand of prescriptive history: the value has rarely been in the content (like it is for nearly every other sufficiently abstract subject), it's been in the doing: considering sources, reacting to lines of argument made throughout history in their own contexts, knitting overarching themes together to come to a single, tortured conclusion; inevitably in some journal that's been locked up on JSTOR. It lends itself to the practice of arguing far better than any of the rest of the humanities does by asking you consider all the moving parts explicitly. So I suppose there's a parallel - it's got as much value as sufficiently high-level mathematics.

by bcoates 14y ago

lists 14y ago

'Most educated people are aware that there are limits of reason, such as situations where the facts are so thin that the only honest answer is "I don't know".' Some of the value of historical study is that you get to discover just how ideas like "limits of reason" and "I don't know" as a valid answer come about in the first place, out of processes that have nothing to do with progress and advancement. This is the kind of historical relativism people start getting afraid of ("what do you mean there's no objective standards for most anything!"), but it's a result of historical inquiry that actually commends us to actually think about what we say, do, and take to be true. We can have conversations with one another only when we drop assumptions. History is key to all ethical conversation.

bokonist 14y ago

Are you saying that history is in all cases harmful for practical purposes? Or are you saying that it is harmful for most people, who are dilettantes who read a few pop-histories and think they understand the time period? If you are arguing the latter, I agree. True ignorance is preferable to false knowledge. But for the serious student, history can be very informative and useful. True knowledge takes a lot of time. One must find good sources, learn the context of various writers and how their biases might color their writings, learn how to separate the creditable writers from the propagandists, and read both primary sources and the finest secondary sources, And finally you must be willing to recognize the limits of knowledge, at some points you must admit that you do not know what happened and never will. But if that is all done, I think history can be extremely valuable for understanding the present and making good decisions going forward.

bcoates 14y ago
I'm saying it's harmful for most people who are dilettantes. I'm also attempting to say that it's somewhat unique in this, at least among the core knowledge subjects that most people are expected to know. The only other subjects with such a high "what you know that isn't true will hurt you" level are things like medicine, law, and chemistry, but in those everyone is made aware of the danger and there are entire industries worth of safety precautions because of it. Convince someone that they have a sufficient level of historical aptitude to apply it and they can obtain and use falsehoods at a stunning rate.
- agwa 14y ago
  I think this is a much more reasonable argument than what your original comment seems to say, and I agree with you that an insufficient knowledge of history is harmful, and this should really be made clear in high school-level history. But isn't this true somewhat of most subjects? Consider, for example, the deplorable state of software security, or the harm caused by people who misunderstand probability. (One caveat: no subject can be compared in this regard to law and medicine, where other people need to be able to trust practitioners with their lives.) Also, why should this mean the historical society shouldn't encourage more people to study history? When I studied history I felt that I was imbued with the importance of approaching history carefully.

Tichy 14y ago

You can compare lots of historical societies, or lots of historical companies, or whatever. Why shouldn't that provide valid data - more than anecdotes, because you can have a large data sample? Also, even an anecdote can often prove something, namely the possibility of one thing. If you find one society or company that functioned in a certain way, it is a valueable data point.

pm90 14y ago

Its true that getting to the truth is very hard when you're studying historical events. The people who record such events are likely to have certain biases, some of which may seem barbaric in our present time. But that does not mean that you throw out the baby with the bathwater. I would argue that the biggest achievement of the human race has been our ability to archive our past and learn from it, allowing one generation to build upon the achievements of the previous one. This is how scientific progress takes place; unfortunately, it is also how myths and superstitions are propagated, such as religion. Anyways, addressing your specific points: history provides guidance to those facing similar situations. For example, James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, was influenced by the exploits of Robert Clive, of whom he had read in great detail. On the other hand, Hitler failed to learn from Napoleon's mistake and made the same mistake of trying to invade Russia. Be it Military, Science, Economics or even law, history provides a rich database of prior experience from which we can draw lessons from and continue to make progress

chipsy 14y ago

OK. Now go and take this opinion to its logical extreme. Any record, any meta-commentary, any summary, must become suspect, whether it was made 500 years ago or 5 minutes ago. Oops, now you can no longer communicate with people - no "catching up" on events or "living vicariously" through them - all anecdotes. Can't be doing that. You cannot study a timeline or a log of events and believe it. You can't believe a story unless it happened in front of your eyes, but if you try to remember it, now you are recalling a history, so it can't be trusted. Clearly, not a sensible opinion. So then what are you really saying? Are you saying that you don't care about _political_ history? In that case, you have plenty of people agreeing with you. Political histories are popular in school curricula, but are only representative of a tiny, tiny fraction of all history. We also have a history of mathematics and sciences, social and culture histories, histories of the planet, the stars, and all known life forms. All "postmortem" style articles are historical documents. In each of these fields, the specific techniques differ and some are more or less falsifiable than others, but we are ultimately limited by physics, which imposes the final limit on how much of the real world can be "proven."

agwa 14y ago

Your comment is based on a very flawed understanding of what the study of history is. First, while it is true that historical evidence is imperfect, it is extremely uncharitable and frankly unjustifiable to call it a "pile of anecdotes," "based on broad stereotype or outright lies," and "worse than zero." Historical research is centered around primary sources, and while no primary source gives you a complete picture or has a single interpretation, they are not mere anecdotes or outright lies. Second, no serious historian thinks you should use specific events from the past to draw grand conclusions about the present. The past loses potency when taken out of context. But the study of history still has applications to the present. When you have worked with incomplete evidence and conflicting interpretations of the past, you start to realize that your view of the present is similarly imperfect. Any one person only has an incomplete picture of what is happening in the world, but despite this, I encounter many people who think events or trends have only one cause and they know exactly what it is. As another example, people often expect the future to work out a particular way, and fail to appreciate the effects of other, unseen forces. It is easier to realize these fallacies when you have studied history, where information is more obviously imperfect and you have the benefit of being detached. You are right about the limits of reason, but you are wrong to say that history is harmful: to the contrary it is one of the best ways for us to realize those limits.

bcoates 14y ago
I'm basing my comment on the implied definition of history being presented in the article. I think it's trying to move history from the category of study for the sake of study, for "people who simply like the information and modes of thought involved", into that category of things that are essential for everyone to study. I think that's unfair to the other liberal arts and an exaggeration of the universal utility of historical study. You're taking "based on broad stereotype or outright lies," and "worse than zero." out of context, but I'll defend "pile of anecdotes", because that's what even good primary sources are: a non-representative data point of something that happened in an uncontrolled environment. I appreciate what you're saying about the study of history being able to open your mind to the complexity of the world, but that's such a different goal for history than the article presents that I think you're defending a different thing entirely, and not the idea I'm attacking.

ctl 14y ago

But then these people look at history, and see this giant pile of anecdotes, and all the sudden it's the Middle Ages again and we can hermenutic our way to wisdom by staring at it really hard My whole life is a pile of anecdotes! And yet I've used my experiences to build a functional mental model of the world. I can use history in the same way. You argue that anecdotal data should be flatly ignored when making decisions. If that were true then newborn children would be the best reasoners on the planet. Your argument cannot hold in general.

sramsay 14y ago

Humanities professors (of which I am one) now take it for granted that their days are numbered -- that subjects like History, Philosophy, English literature, and Classics won't survive another fifty years as major parts of the university curriculum. This post amply explains why that is happening.

arrrg 14y ago

You think we can discover nothing about the past? You think falsifying is not possible? What weird believes. Of course all of that is possible. It’s not easy, it‘s not perfect, obviously. But it‘s possible.

rplacd 14y ago

I disagree with the arguments as well - it doesn't write off history, though, just a narrow brand of prescriptive history: the value has rarely been in the content (like it is for nearly every other sufficiently abstract subject), it's been in the doing: considering sources, reacting to lines of argument made throughout history in their own contexts, knitting overarching themes together to come to a single, tortured conclusion; inevitably in some journal that's been locked up on JSTOR. It lends itself to the practice of arguing far better than any of the rest of the humanities does by asking you consider all the moving parts explicitly. So I suppose there's a parallel - it's got as much value as sufficiently high-level mathematics.