(No need to apologize. I like it, when people disagree)
Nope, he just used terms that in my (limited) experience, mainly marxist use, while explaining society.
I know all the dangers of 19th Century "fact based" nationalism, byt my take is a little different. Total objectivity is a goal, that might be impossible to achieve. Instead of labeling ourselves being part of this and that "ism" we should try our best not to put our own opinions in the paper. I've worked in museums, so I have special interest for actual sources. If I were to decide how to study history, I'd make students first learn latin, how to scientifically separate different periods by material used and possible alterations (fakes) in sources, learn about different archives in local museums and then tell them about all 1001 different theories that try to explain all human history (such as nationalis, hegelianism, marxism etc)in last year of study.
I seriously don't see how I could be doing nationalistic historiography by studying original sources with the needed critique.
My main problem with any theory that attempts to explain the whole human history from past to some future utopia is that they only apply to the culture where the theory comes from. They also tend to ignore human nature (I know this is matter of great debate also)
I'm from Finland, where history was also nationalistic in 19th Century (but not very radically, because we were part of Russian Empire, it was more of a language and culture issue) After WWII we were a semi-satellite of USSR (due to certain agreements) which caused a sensorship on education of history and communist takeover in academic world (mainly done volutarily by Finns themselves). Now, it seems to be, that some historians are trying to go past both. What I've red, main problem with this emphasis on original sources (trial documents, letters, church records, diaries etc) is that when the historian refuses to state his/her own opinion, reader gets an impression, that the historian believes 100% his/her sources (which is of course not true, because sources have been made for different reasons to begin with.
What is the stereotyped vision of my past? As an investigative and suspicious person I tend to be naturally against anything people tell me that would appear to explain eveything. I was fed nationalim in school and marxism later in university and don't believe in either. I'd rather aim to make up my own mind and even my own theories, if need be. I do have political and ideological opinions (mild conservative and somewhat supporter of Spenglerian cycle theory) but I can still treat French revolutionaries of different parties (and even Napoleon) and absolutist monarchs with equal respect. I would never specialize on historical periods that I could not treat with the same approach (In my case this would be anything starting 1917 to this day)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 10:14 pm (UTC)Nope, he just used terms that in my (limited) experience, mainly marxist use, while explaining society.
I know all the dangers of 19th Century "fact based" nationalism, byt my take is a little different. Total objectivity is a goal, that might be impossible to achieve. Instead of labeling ourselves being part of this and that "ism" we should try our best not to put our own opinions in the paper. I've worked in museums, so I have special interest for actual sources. If I were to decide how to study history, I'd make students first learn latin, how to scientifically separate different periods by material used and possible alterations (fakes) in sources, learn about different archives in local museums and then tell them about all 1001 different theories that try to explain all human history (such as nationalis, hegelianism, marxism etc)in last year of study.
I seriously don't see how I could be doing nationalistic historiography by studying original sources with the needed critique.
My main problem with any theory that attempts to explain the whole human history from past to some future utopia is that they only apply to the culture where the theory comes from. They also tend to ignore human nature (I know this is matter of great debate also)
I'm from Finland, where history was also nationalistic in 19th Century (but not very radically, because we were part of Russian Empire, it was more of a language and culture issue) After WWII we were a semi-satellite of USSR (due to certain agreements) which caused a sensorship on education of history and communist takeover in academic world (mainly done volutarily by Finns themselves). Now, it seems to be, that some historians are trying to go past both. What I've red, main problem with this emphasis on original sources (trial documents, letters, church records, diaries etc) is that when the historian refuses to state his/her own opinion, reader gets an impression, that the historian believes 100% his/her sources (which is of course not true, because sources have been made for different reasons to begin with.
What is the stereotyped vision of my past? As an investigative and suspicious person I tend to be naturally against anything people tell me that would appear to explain eveything. I was fed nationalim in school and marxism later in university and don't believe in either. I'd rather aim to make up my own mind and even my own theories, if need be. I do have political and ideological opinions (mild conservative and somewhat supporter of Spenglerian cycle theory) but I can still treat French revolutionaries of different parties (and even Napoleon) and absolutist monarchs with equal respect. I would never specialize on historical periods that I could not treat with the same approach (In my case this would be anything starting 1917 to this day)