Hey, This is a really cool idea. Not sure if I’m right but this is what I think:
So glad you think so!! And well, as a history extension student you should know that "right" is a very subjective term
Never doubt your opinion - seek to validate it further, and assess new evidence (as you are doing in this thread!) - but never doubt it
Can history be objective?
I believe that history can never be 100% objective as historians are always affected by their personal beliefs, values and opinions on issues. Sources that were made in the past can often be biased and as historians can only write based on past sources (especially when writing about ancient history), they can never be truly objective.
I'd go as far as to suggest that ALL sources from the past are "biased" (though just a technical thing - I suggest being more specific about 'bias' in your essays - ideological adherence, personal prejudice, political agenda works better!). As Keith Jenkins states, as humans we are essentially "ideologically positioned workers" - everything that we do is inherently motivated by ideology. If you want to go into this further, I suggest watching this short clip from Slavoj Zizek's
'The Pervert's Guide to Ideology' (I'd actually recommend watching the whole thing! Such a mindfuck, but sooooo interesting). He goes into how our whole perception of reality is impacted by ideology, which in turn will have a critical impact upon not only the way historical actors have produced sources, but historical producers have produced history!
Furthermore, I think another aspect that is important to consider is that not only are the sources that we have inherently ideological, personal and political, but for a huge amount of history - white, male and privileged! Not even commenting on todays socio-cultural climate in regards to class, race and gender, it is undeniable that throughout history rich, white men were all that anyone seemed to care about, and by extension wrote about. Information on the lower classes, women or other minorities just wasn't considered important enough to record - and thus history "forgot" about them! As John Vincent states "history is about evidence, and evidence flagrantly distorts... no evidence, no history. Imperfect evidence, imperfect history". As history is 'technically' about evidence (that in itself is definitely up for debate, but I'll leave it for now
), if we are missing evidence because no one bothered to keep it alive, then how is it possible to write an objective history?
Most historians begin their research with a question in mind, and therefore when choosing their sources, they are influenced by this prior question and pre-imagined hypothesis.
DEFINITELY! If you haven't read EH Carr's 'What is History?' I suggest giving it a go - super short read, but sooooo informative (and a great source to incorporate in the Section I of the exam!) - he talks about this within the first chapter I think, with his fishing analogy
Essentially what he is saying is that historians choose a particular area (historical period), then a lake within that area (their focus). They then hop into a boat (their investigation), travelling towards a particular spot in the lake (their hypothesis). They get out their rod, and put a particular bait on the end of it (research methodology), catching and eating particular fish (sources that suit their hypothesis), which for the most part ignoring the undesirable ones.
The Ancient Historians didn’t even know what source analysis was, and couldn’t be objective as it wasn’t even thought about yet.
That's a bit harsh! And I'm not sure I agree with you here (though I'm sure that is a very common misconception!). The Ancient Historians definitely knew the importance of sources, and how critical they were to investigation. Herodotus is the "father of history" for a reason! Yeah, he sometimes made up sources (like when he suggested that he spoke to a giant...), HOWEVER the fact that he felt the need to make up sources suggests that he understood how critical sources were to the study of history - they are what differentiates history from historical fiction in many ways. One of his most famous quotes even alludes to this: "I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it."
If you look at the work of Herodotus (and many other Ancient historians), they reference sources throughout their works. For example, Cassius Dio references the now long lost diaries of Agrippina the Younger in his account of her life. Some ancient historians even assess the reliability of their sources! Both Tacitus and Suetonius (though the latter is not technically a historian - rather a biographer) are examples of this.
Overall I think I support Mary Beard's point of view - "It is a dangerous myth that we are better historians than our predecessors."
Throughout history, most historians have strived for objectivity but even Von Ranke (the father of scientific history) was subjective as he aimed to find the signature of God through history. Macaulay’s teleological approach to history wished to show how English history was progressing and improving. Therefore, he was influenced by these ideas while conducting his research and writing his works. The school of Public history is subjective as they are often funded by the government and provide views in the context of current political debates.
Agree with everything here
Interesting fact though - Despite the fact that Von Ranke has basically become the most famous empiricist (and don't get me wrong - he was an empiricist), his most famous quote, that he was writing about the past "as it actually was", is most likely a mistranslation of German! It is believed that he actually said "as it essentially was" - which is VERY different. You could also add that public history is also often written for entertainment, and to "make money" - thus are more likely to present a more dramatic account of events (re. the entire work of Bill O'Reilly, who himself even admits that if you write exciting history you can sell a lot of copies and have movies made about them - as he has for many of his historical works).
Post Modernists believe that there is no real truth and rarely use footnotes.
This isn't just a fault of postmodernists (and not even all postmodernist!) - A lot of popular/public historians do the same thing. Some publishing houses consider too many footnotes to distract the reader, which puts off consumers from purchasing the book, so historians are instructed to limit their use of them, or only use them for menial background detail (for example Bill O'Reilly uses footnotes to tell us the actual hair colour of Ronald Reagan... fun fact my 2500 word major work had more footnotes than an entire Bill O'Reilly work). I also think that you need to remember that there aren't many postmodernist historians, more so postmodernist historiographers. Postmodernists typically don't write history (because as you said, they don't believe that there is one, accurate portrayal), but more so analyse and criticise the constructions of other histories. Thus as their work is more so theory based, a theory they themselves have developed, it is understandable that they have comparatively less sources.
One historian (could have been schama-not sure) that we studied in class mixed narratives with his histories as he believed that if there was no truth it didn’t really matter if everything was historically correct.
Interesting point! And yes that was Simon Schama who did that
Definitely that would impact upon the factual reliability, however do you think the fact that he disclosed this makes a difference?
Obviously this would be greatly subjective. Therefore, I don’t really believe that history can ever be objective, no matter how hard a historian may try.
Overall I agree with this, and you make some awesome points
Well done! Now onto the next topic
My Opinion on Historical Fiction
I actually used to really love it but I haven’t read a lot in ages. I’m doing the Book Thief as one of my related texts for English and focussing on the Holocaust for my history extension major, and I really like the book.
It is a great book
Though I'm still not a fan of historical fiction as a genre, I can definitely appreciate the Book Thief
(also awesome related text idea btw
). Also a lot of really interesting historiographical issues and concerns with the history of the Holocaust! Sounds like a super interesting major work topic! Super interested to hear more about your thesis - did you have a look at David Irving and the whole concept of 'Holocaust Denial'? Really demonstrates the slippery slope of postmodernism!
I also love the book War Horse by Micheal Morpurgo which is based off WW1 and has a movie adaptation. I read the YA book Gemina last holidays and it mentioned the battle of Thermopylae which was really cool when I got to class the next term and we were talking about it in Sparta.
Interesting! I haven't watched/read either of those (however I have heard of War Horse - that was the one with Tom Hiddleston right? Wasn't the horse nominated for an Oscar?). I will admit, the one thing that I do like about historical fiction is that if you have already studied the period it becomes so much more immersive as a narrative (but then that one blatant historical inaccuracy pops up and then I'm just pissed off hahaha)
However, I could understand how it could be really annoying if it isn’t historically accurate or you couldn’t tell between fact and fiction. I found that especially when I was younger, this was a lot easier for me to read about history then reading a long, boring history book.
I think I maybe mentioned this earlier in response to this, but I'll say it again anyway - I can definitely appreciate the merit of historical fiction in that it "opens" up the world of history to people in a more accessible format! However I just think that sometimes, it can do more harm than good as it opens them up to a false narrative. Disney's 'Pocahontas' is a good example of this - kids are being fed a highly romanticised version of events, which clouds the significance of the events and personalities themselves (plus just the portrayal of a romance between Pocahontas and her alleged rapist is pretty gross... As Robert Eaglestaff, principal of the American Indian Heritage School in Seattle states: ""It's like trying to teach about the Holocaust and putting in a nice story about Anne Frank falling in love with a German officer ... You can't pretend everything was O.K. between the Germans and the Jews.")
I think I might do the other two questions later. Thanks, Susie. This will actually be really good help for my trials coming up.
AWESOME! Looking forward to it Katie
Thanks so much for sharing your opinions so far, can't wait to hear the rest of them