Hey I don't know if I'm completely wrong her but this is my take on each of the questions
This is extension history - we're all completely wrong
Can history be objective:
I dont think so. When you have something so large and complex as “history” (aka the entire past) there is never one single objective value that you can pin on it. Also historiography (what History Extension is) is completely different to “history” because its the interaction of the past with PEOPLE.
I love the distinction you have made between history and historiography! Those two are often unfortunately conflated
Tbh history extension should really be renamed to "Historiography 101" or something along those lines!
People have so many different values and ideologies which influence the way they see and interact with the world, and historians are no different. Obviously there are some single “historical objective facts”, like that WW2 happened, Hitler was a bad guy, the Australian government was a bitch to Indigenous people; however there are so many different variables and inconsistencies within each topic that you cannot write a generalise statement and call it a historical fact.
It's weird because though I totally agree with all the "historical objective facts" you have stated, however even so I don't think they can be 100% considered objective! I'd never attempt to argue that Hitler wasn't pure evil, or that the Australian government didn't do some horrific things to Indigenous Australians. In my opinion those things are as plain as the light of day - however a small minority of people disagree! Just take a look at some of the stuff that David Irving or Keith Windschuttle have written on the topics. I think what makes these arguably undeniable truths deniable is that they deal with issues of morality - which in and of itself is a subjective concept. A statement like "Hitler was evil" relies upon an understanding of what "evil" means, and though many of us share some common understanding upon this issue - eg. systematic torture and genocide = hella evil - there can still be some considerable differences between them. For example, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church may perceive homosexuality as "evil", whereas myself (a very left-leaning agnostic) definitely does not so. Thus the term evil - and others that denote a notion of morality eg. good, bad, heroic, etc. - are subjective, no matter wether or not a natural consensus has occured (eg. in regards to Hitler and the treatment of Indigenous Australians). In this way we are really delving into the concept of linguistics again and the idea that language means different things to different people. We could even take this a step further, and look at how limiting language is! For example, the term "bad" doesn't quantify how bad something is. I can say that Pol Pot was bad - but what does bad mean? Do I mean he was bad because he made some regretful/stupid/thoughtless choices, or do I mean bad because he was a malicious, evil person? Even in my explanations I am being subjective f**k! The term "bad" doesn't differentiate between the "bad-ness" level of murder, and the "bad-ness" of a headache - language is flawed.
However, just because something is subjective, does that necessarily mean that it is not true? In my opinion no, and even though these types of things are subjective, I do believe there are more correct interpretations than others. Someone who says "Hitler was evil" is going to have a lot more evidence to back up their claims than someone that says the opposite - thus I would say this interpretation, though subjective, is still widely more correct.
Also, what might be an objective truth for someone, might be a completely different truth for someone else. The multitude of perspectives, and the way in which these perspectives interweave is a really important part of historiography, as we can never know every single thing about a historical event, person or idea (and the effects they/it has/had). Knowing many different stories is how historians can attempt to obtain what happened.
Reminds me a lot of the David Hackett Fischer quote "a historian can only hope to know something about something" (might not be exact). An excellent point - the brevity of historical archives is a key issue that limits our ability to be objective. Though there are many ways in which historical archives are limited (eg. the lack of sources pertaining to various "non-dominant" groups in society like women, ethnic minorities, lgbtq, working classes etc.), even so a historian would have to spend their whole life (and a good chunk of their after life) reading and reading and reading sources is they wanted to see every perspective - and even then they wouldn't know everything because how they to know if one source is more credible than another, or if a key perspective was never actually written down?
However, Ii is important that objectivity is sought, as otherwise historical works could just completely make their own reference lists and write about utter nonsense without any knowledge or analysis at all (like Bill O’Reilly, hey Susie).
Ayeeeeeee
This is a good point - I think this notion of striving for the truth and objectivity, whether it is an achievable goal or not, is one of the things that sets history apart from historical fiction. However, even some credible historians utilise imagination within their works. For example, socio-logical imagination is imperative to the study of social history! The amount of gaps in our knowledge, due to a lack of sources, means that in order to "give a voice to the voiceless" social historians/bottom-up historians need to essentially guess, based on the limited knowledge they have, what happened. In this way you could say that they are "making stuff up". Just something to think about - what do you guys think?
Do you think imagination has a place in history?But ultimately the differing motives and ideologies of different historians will alter (either consciously or unconsciously) the history they produce. Even with historically accurate “primary sources”; the milieu of the creator of a text has deep roots within their works, as stated by historian Howard Zinn “… there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world - by a teacher, a writer, anyone - is a judgement.
Ooooo are "primary sources" always (or ever!) historically accurate? In the same way that a historian is a deeply ideological and subjective being, so to are historical actors - the creators of these primary sources. Also love the quote! Zinn is a babe.
The respective socio-political contexts of authors, and the purpose they had throughout their work influences the way in which their conclusion was reached. So therefore, whilst it is important that historians strive for objectivity in their research methods and subsequent writings, there is no possible way in which they can completely be objective and escape their inherent interpretations.
Often they'll even have a conclusion in there head as well before they even start researching! And this is going to drastically shape their analysis, as they purposely look for sources that specifically back up this pre-determined conclusion. Great points, thanks for sharing! Now onto your next argument!!
Opinions on historical fiction?
Personally I don't hate historical fiction but I’m not a huge fan of it. I think that its important to get at least some historical ideas out into the general public, however, I do understand that the lack of research and authenticity in the pursuit of “art” can actually have more harm than good.
Great point! Historical fiction defs probably makes history more digestible and accessible for someone that isn't crazy like me and will read a history book for fun! But as you say, this is definitely a double edged sword - more people are engaging with history, but they are engaging with fake history. This reminds me in particular of how disney has dealt with history, and how this has shaped peoples interpretations of historical peoples and events. Yes, Disney has probably had a significant influence in making Pocahontas an extremely well known historical figure. However, though she is now more well known, her actual story is clouded by the disney-fied "made for children" version.
Historical fiction is mainly written by “popular” historians,
Hmmm is popular history the same as historical fiction though? Eric Hobsbawm was definitely a popular historian - but I wouldn't say that he was writing historical fiction, in the same way that I wouldn't classify Markus Zusak (author of the Book Thief) a historian.
whom have an ulterior motive throughout their historical works to make money. (You cant really expect anything else however, because within our capitalistic world this is an essential aspect of being human being).
PREACH SISTAH
. Definitely a great point - there are also a heap load of other ulterior motives that I can think of as well - kudos, awards, accolades, to promote an ideology or political agenda, etc, etc.
Popular historians works are so “popular”, because traditional academic history-writing had a specialisation and technical discourse which was less accessible to the general reader. Through losing this technicality, the quality of the history produced is going to be a lot less, and so many people may have a particular idea of how something in history happened and it be completely false (as seen with lots of Indigenous Australian history). However, the question must be asked whether telling the public some aspect of history (badly) is better than telling the public no history at all.
Yeah definitely agree with you here. I do think that a balance definitely has to be made. Also love the question you posed at the end - I feel like that could be an incredibly interesting Major Work topic!
I think that it is important that historical fiction continue as it will influence other people from other ranges of life (not just academics) to become interested in history and to give up their differing perspectives. If we didn't give history a voice, then how would these other perspectives be known at all? History is after all (in my opinion), and interweaving of multiple perspectives to form a single event.
Wow? Have you perhaps changed my opinion on historical fiction? Potentially
I'm still not 100% down for it. I think the distinction has to be made between popular history and historical fiction - however you've definitely shown me a new perspective on the significance of historical fiction that I will have to take on board! I also love your summation of history at the end - nice and neat
Thank you so much for sharing Alex!! Come back any time
Susie