Why "History as Regression"?
History is unknowable.
That's a statement that we, with our postmodern outlooks, probably all think has at least some validity. Though we dig up evidence that points us to some conclusions, we can't really know for sure what went down on any given day of the past. Even if we witnessed an event with our own eyes, the instant afterwards the memories start to fade. Every time we revisit a memory, we trace new paths over it, so what could be left may be completely different than what we started with.
History is even more slippery a subject. Not all events leave clear marks behind, and the marks that are left are not easily found. The evidence we do find of past events is rarely more than a set of data points, but it's human nature to immediately connect the dots. We cannot help but fit a curve, to enact statistical regression, on that data.
History is even more slippery a subject. Not all events leave clear marks behind, and the marks that are left are not easily found. The evidence we do find of past events is rarely more than a set of data points, but it's human nature to immediately connect the dots. We cannot help but fit a curve, to enact statistical regression, on that data.
If one sunny day, sifting through the sands of Cairo, Egypt, we find a ancient bottle with engraved latin words, it'd be reasonable to conclude the bottle is evidence of trade between Rome and Egypt. We found two data points, and we immediately produced a line, as is human nature to do. However, it is a different thing to then report that there definitely was trade between Rome and Egypt. One is evidence that has been uncovered, and another is the conclusions that are drawn by human minds, which are easily fallible.
Historians tend to fail to separate the evedence of past events and the conclusions they draw from them. Both of those things, evedence and conclusions, are usually reported as fact. In science, however, it is different. There is separation between the data and the conclusions that are drawn from that data. In most scientific papers, the data is offset in a entirely different section than the conclusions that are drawn. I believe that historians should try to use the same approach.
Our tendency to turn data in to narratives may in part stem from our interest in stories. Looking at a sheet of numbers would be so boring, so for consumption the data must be brought to life. Hard data is meaningless by itself, but when properly interpreted it can teach us what to do in the future. However, it would probably still be for the best if we were to have our historians separate the evidence from their conclusions.
Doctorow's Ragtime plays on the mixing between fact and fiction. A book such as Ragtime could be imagined as a description of the use of data points that may be moved or hidden or altogether fabricated to create an (unreasonably) intricate curved. Since it is difficult to know which data points are true and which are false, the line between history an fiction is blurred.
Unlike Doctorow, I claim that there is a important distinction between fiction and history. Fiction doesn't necessarily need to adhere to the bounds set by the evidence in the world around us--though sometimes it is more interesting to do so--but history's goal is, or should be, an accurate account of what was. Maybe a call to change the way in which we do history is too drastic a measure, but at least an understanding of the differences would help us think about those sorts of things.
Historians tend to fail to separate the evedence of past events and the conclusions they draw from them. Both of those things, evedence and conclusions, are usually reported as fact. In science, however, it is different. There is separation between the data and the conclusions that are drawn from that data. In most scientific papers, the data is offset in a entirely different section than the conclusions that are drawn. I believe that historians should try to use the same approach.
Our tendency to turn data in to narratives may in part stem from our interest in stories. Looking at a sheet of numbers would be so boring, so for consumption the data must be brought to life. Hard data is meaningless by itself, but when properly interpreted it can teach us what to do in the future. However, it would probably still be for the best if we were to have our historians separate the evidence from their conclusions.
Doctorow's Ragtime plays on the mixing between fact and fiction. A book such as Ragtime could be imagined as a description of the use of data points that may be moved or hidden or altogether fabricated to create an (unreasonably) intricate curved. Since it is difficult to know which data points are true and which are false, the line between history an fiction is blurred.
Unlike Doctorow, I claim that there is a important distinction between fiction and history. Fiction doesn't necessarily need to adhere to the bounds set by the evidence in the world around us--though sometimes it is more interesting to do so--but history's goal is, or should be, an accurate account of what was. Maybe a call to change the way in which we do history is too drastic a measure, but at least an understanding of the differences would help us think about those sorts of things.
Interesting post! One thing that we talked about in class is that it's impossible to be accurate about certain parts of history. There are some things that we can be accurate about, like dates and who shot who, etc. However, the specifics that take place within history are often lost and can have different interpretations. Ragtime is interesting in that it takes different perspectives from people in the early 20th century and somehow mends them all together. We get capitalists like Ford and Morgan and anarchists like Emma Goldman. We get a somewhat sexist and racist guy like Father and also get to read about Coalhouse Walker. I think that Ragtime shows that history is up to interpretation and is often different depending on who is experiencing it.
ReplyDeleteThings get even more murky when there's evidence without a clear narrative to go with it. An example is the JFK assassination, where there's a lot of evidence but some of it seems to contradict other bits. No narrative yet proposed can account for everything, but people are so desperate to have some explanation that they come up with conspiracy theories (aliens! the Illuminati! the Mafia!) that have even less chance of being right. On the other hand, if we were to separate evidence from narrative, people would probably ignore the vast piles of evidence and trust historians to make a more easily interpreted narrative.
ReplyDelete-Reed
In a certain sense, we already tend to do that sort of thing (ignoring the piles of evidence and trusting the experts) with the field of science. I for one haven't even looked at the data on global warming, let alone analyze it to the extent that I wouldn't simply have to take the scientist's word for it. (How do you really know that human caused global warming is real? Hmm.) That sort of simple acceptance is not limited to the theory of global warming, but in fact applies to nearly every scientific claim there is. Interestingly no one (no one we believe isn't off their rocker) claims that science is akin to fiction. That would make for an interesting paper though.
Deleteinteresting post! I agree with you that the purely postmodern view of history at times seems like it could go to far. It almost seems like tempting a "fake news!" type debate: how can you say something is *really* true if every narrative is subjective anyway, and any viewpoint equally valid?
ReplyDeleteIt's useful to take a moderately postmodern view by acknowledging the flaws and biases inherent in writing historical narratives, and realizing that it's probably impossible to ever be purely objective; but at the same time you have to have an understanding that there is some truth that exists, even if it's not possible to perfectly achieve a truthful narrative.