Set in the four walls of the museum lies the material evidence of worlds long gone. It is a temple what history wishes it was; artefacts, evidence, objectivity, truth. That material truth, woven in shields, parchment, uniforms, and polished war planes is a comfort to the discomforted mind. History is – at first glance – simple in those walls. There are winners. There are losers. There is a lot of pain and a great deal of glory.
In our venture through this space, however, the waters of clarity were dirtied. We were asked the importance of acknowledging both sides in war. This is a troubling question, as it draws on the far greater notion of perspective.
Perspective inherently challenges that darling notion of a singular, unmoving narrative. Its tentative suggestion that there are multiple ways of understanding the same thing is problematic for those who wish history were a science.
And is it not? Does history not hold all those facets we deem familiar to the sciences? Its evidence – often physical and statistical. An analytical, never-ending search for truth. There is the idea that the past may be synthesized into a uniform, collective story. It may seem distant from your view. But in many places around the world, history is a collection of facts. Your job is to know them.
There is conversely the history that is an art. It knows it is art because its evidence comes from us; a locus of uncertainty. It looks at events but seeks to understand them in multitudes. Historians exchange different, conflicting analyses of what things mean. It is a dirty work.
These distinctions may seem futile. But history is a great weapon of justification and an awfully dangerous thing. Histories create the present for they are its foundations. A history of the arts is often conflicting and troubling.
It asks, is Thomas Jefferson a great founding father? Or is he the man under whose basement, where there worked many young slaves, a young boy’s head was bashed in over a lost bundle of raw nail rods?¹
You know all too well which history is printed in textbooks.
An artistic history allows many world-views to co-exist. A scientific history, on the other hand, with its hard facts and simple narratives, perpetuates only one story. None can exist among it. Whoever controls that singular narrative controls the world. This is why convincing others of your history is a big business, and why in some countries, there is a never-ending battle to set the standard².
But it is undeniable that the complexities of the world are a filth hard to tread. They are confusing, and there is question to whether we may ever arrive at conclusions from them. So perhaps there are some merits to a scientific history. It’s simple – and not untrue. History is, after all, numerous facts. Of events, of pained and glorious accounts, and a bundle of nail rods buried deep beneath the ground.
References:
- Wiencek, Henry. “The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson.” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2012. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/.
- Goldstein, Dana. “Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories.” New York Times, January 12, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html.
This post is so beautifully written, Maria, and there is so much to unpack!
I find this comparison between history and the sciences so interesting. All too often, I know I am tempted to buy in to the one-sided history we are generally presented with, simply because the story is easier to wrap my head around. Yet, as you point out, although some facts and dates may be true, history is not that simple. People are “a locus of uncertainty”, and when we attempt to analyse events that so many people are involved in at any point in time, the story can get very complicated. To fully understand history, I believe we need to understand the people that are involved in that history – a tricky task when they have lived hundreds of years before us. In fact, it’s tricky enough when they are our contemporaries. Thus, this search for unbiased truth in history is near impossible in some cases. But nonetheless, unpacking history helps us to unpack our present and better understand the world in which we live.
Perhaps then, along with the question of whose perspective we are reading in textbooks and articles, and which story we are being told in museum exhibitions and during commemorative events, comes the very important question of what perspective we are viewing these with ourselves.
So much to think about! Thank you again for this critical and important post!
Honey, that was a gorgeous blog post, really synthesizing an amazing tone of devil’s advocacy, truly riveting. That point of Jefferson really picked my brain on a recent paper I read which exposed the limitations of rational thought which is an ideology that really underpins a lot of Western constitutional documents. Rational and empiricists thought to tend to naturalize female and racial subordination in political and economic structures which explains the intriguing social constructivist, Marxist, and post-structuralist examination of the rational tradition. “Heroes”, are like Jefferson aren’t really founding fathers of all, merely hypocritical preservers of repulsive institutions. How does one balance, “the at the time social attitudes”, with the progression of history? Is it wrong to tear down figures of the past for engaging in their sense of social normalcy? Not that is a justification of slavery, but a problematic view of the social constructivist position is the denial of certain achievements as there is only a certain extent where one can perpetuate the witchhunt for skeletons in a closet. I’ve always enjoyed the social constructivist revision though remain worried that history with be subjected to social populism and the tyranny of the irrational.
Firstly, this post is so articulate and beautifully written, Maria! I wonder though if we ought to consider the weight and importance of humanity in history. Of course I mean this in a very metaphysical sense- humanity in its rawest, cruelest but often its most hopeful state. When we advocate for a purely factual version of events which seeks the ‘truth’ we often end up with a pages upon pages of a dry recount of history. It’s one dimensional and it lacks the soul which drives humanity to equally devastating and beautiful lengths. History is written by the winners and this often means writing a glorious tale that glosses over the darker facts that paved the way to the future. In this way, the narratives of the ‘losers’ are so vitally important to our ‘scientific’ version of history. In this, it is also key to remember that emotion is a facet of the truth and does not tarnish our desire to get as close to what happened as possible.
I loved reading that! So well written and eloquently put.
As a baby of the sciences and arts, I myself have struggled with the idea that everything in the liberal arts can so beautifully converge like theories of atomic structure. There’s that little part of me that thinks: But maybe there IS one homogenous story that is all-encompassing of ALL sides of the story. Maybe, just maybe, we can all unite under one rainbow and sing kumbaya? 🙂 But of course, the deeper I dive into the trenches of academia, the more I realise that there will always be cracks in the walls and decrepit sea creatures lurking in the shadows.
It’s a little bit hard deciphering what our role as academics truly is, as whatever we feel our calling should be is subject to a lot of influences in our life. Maybe it IS to balance perspectives like circus performers on a tight rope with a net on fire underneath us. Maybe it’s to do the impossible and separate the clear water from the mud. Or to find the missing nails and tell their story. But the story I tell would be subject to my own perceptions, would it not?
You’ve proposed a really thought-provoking dilemma that I feel many academics, historians, scientists, and all of them, should all ponder on once in a while.