Historians do not work in a vacuum. Each one presents whether
consciously or unconsciously a perspective, ideology or at least a moral
attitude towards the history they study or put another way "When you read
a work of history, always listen out for the buzzing. If you can detect none,
either you are tone-deaf, or your historian is a dull dog".[1]
Does this moral or ideological entanglement with history rule out the
possibility of a struggle for "true objectivity" or historical truth
I do not believe so?
An objective attitude towards history has been closely associated
with the Marxist movement. It is in the basic DNA of a Marxist Historian to
present their work with the understanding that he or she must at all times tell
the truth or more importantly understand that their study of history is the
reenactment of an "objective process".
Following on from this, can we then treat the study of history as
a science with its laws? It is very difficult to argue if not impossible to say
that it is a pure science in the sense of the type of laws uncovered by
physicists, chemists and mathematicians. Having said that any professional or
amateur historian worth his or her salt should work in the archives or library
with the same devotion and accuracy as a chemist or biologists working in the
laboratories.
A historian who understands that history has its laws and carries
out a systematic and honest study of these laws can not only give us a deeper
understanding of past events but can in some way anticipate future historical
events. The use of counterfactual history is a very useful historical
genre. Again it should go without saying that the historian must approach their
research in archives with honesty and integrity.
While it should be taken for granted that a historian in order to
attempt to recreate the past must have "empathy and imagination", the
historian must study the past with a doggedness and intellectual objectivity.
Historians are not machines. A famous criticism of the historian Christopher
Hill was that he was a Rolodex historian in other words picking pieces of
history that fitted his ideology.
I do not believe this was an accurate charge against Hill, but a
historian must be disciplined enough not to allow his imagination to run riot.
The presentation of facts is not without controversy. It should be noted that "facts"
themselves are products of the ideological, social, cultural and political
currents of the time.
In seeking a more objective understanding of history, the
historian must be disciplined. He or she no matter how talented do not know
everything there is to know about their area of expertise. It is not possible
to know every fact. The point I am making is that the historian must present an
honest piece of work and not let this frustration lead to a short cut in their
work or more dangerously lead to outright falsification of history. By doing
this, the historian will have a greater understanding of their role in the
presentation of facts.
The historian Edward H Carr was a great believer that the
historian had a "dialogue between the past and the present". While it
was the duty of every good historian to present this dialogue in a readable
form, he or she had to be extremely careful and not to fall into the trap of
treating their topics of research as if they were organically linked to the
present day. It would be completely wrong to treat figures such as Oliver
Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte as contemporaries. It should not need to be said
that they lived in completely different times to people from the 21st century.
The French historian of feudal society, Marc Bloch, who wrote the book,
The Historian's Craft noted "In a word, a historical phenomenon can never
be understood apart from its moment in time. This is true of every evolutionary
stage, our own, and all others. As the old Arab proverb has it: 'Men resemble
their times more than they do their fathers.'
It is one thing to seek to be more objective; it is perhaps
another thing to achieve it. In the 20th century, a significant number of
historians who have sometimes been mislabeled Marxist had sought to interpret
Marxist theory and apply it when studying the past. The historian that has
perhaps been most identified with the application of the Marxist method to the
study of history certainly as regards the former Soviet Union is Edward Hallett
Carr ((1892 –1982). Carr was not a Marxist, although he certainly was not a
Stalinist. Carr, while being a determinist, sought to present a more
objective presentation of history. Philosophically he was closer to Hegel than
he was to Karl Marx. He was heavily influenced by the English Hegelian
philosopher and historian R G Collingwood.
The historian, R.G. Collingwood, said, "the historian must
re-enact in thought what has gone on in the mind of his dramatis personae".[2]
Carr's groundbreaking book What is History was heavily influenced by
Collinwood. That a historian should spend so much time propagating the need for
a philosophy of history was not a thing that many English historians had felt
the need for. It is a bit strange because the book sold in the hundreds of
thousands all over the world.
Carr's book, on the whole, was warmly received amongst the general
reading public amongst historians it was another matter it led to a very public
and polarized debate. The British historian Richard J. Evans correctly points
out that the book provoked a revolutionary change in British historiography.
Even amongst its critics, the book was cited by the Australian historian Keith
Windschuttle, as one of the "most influential books written about
historiography, and that very few historians working in the English language
since the 1960s had not read it".
Carr believed that the first obligation of a historian was, to
tell the truth. By this, I do not mean that the historian must swear on the
bible, but he has a duty not to falsify evidence to fit in with his ideology.
When a historian deliberately falsifies history to fit in with his or her
ideology, then other historians and political writers must expose it. A recent
example of this falsification can be seen in Robert Service's biography of Leon
Trotsky. Service's book was a collection of distortion, lies and half-truths.
Character assassination was dressed up as a biography.[3]
Service would have done well to head the advice of one of the
better American historians of the Russian Revolution, Leopold Haimson
(1927–2010), when he said "The original source of the significance of any
truly original and important historical work is to be traced—first and
foremost—to its author's original selection of primary sources on which he
elects to focus attention in his research. To this, I would add that its
essential value will ultimately depend on the degree of precision and insight
with which these sources are penetrated and analyzed". I doubt Service has
read this book.[4]
Not all historians agree with the premise that historical study
would be better served with a more objective understanding of its historical
laws. It would not be an overstatement to say that in defending a more
objective attitude towards the study of history, Carr ploughed a very lonely
furrow. His book What is History was a response to an attack by Isaiah Berlin.[5]
Berlin accused Carr of being a determinist for ruling out the possibility of
the accidental or counterfactual history. Berlin correctly chastised Carr for
this historical blind spot, but his attack on Carr was more to do with his
perceived view that Carr was a Marxist.
Berlin, after all, had a reputation for going after any historian
who was left-wing whether or not they were a Marxist. His "historikerstreit"
with the historian Isaac Deutscher is one such example of what was a nasty
vendetta.
So in researching this essay, it has not been difficult to find
historians who in some way, disagree with the premise of historical truth or
objectivity. The last three decades have seen an escalation of attacks on the
concept of historical objectivity.While the historian G E Elton was seen as a
critic of Carr he upheld the view that the historian and his study of history
should be separate from the present or put another way – the historian "should
not be 'at the centre of the historical reconstruction' and should' escape from
his prejudices and preconceptions".
His 1967 book The Practice of History Elton attacks Carr for being
"whimsical" with his divorce of "historical facts" and the
"facts of the past". He stated Carr had "...an extraordinarily
arrogant attitude both to the past and to the place of the historian studying
it"[6]
Hugh Trevor-Roper is another historian who attacked Carr's philosophy of history.
Roper like Berlin had a habit of attacking left-wing historians so it would
probably best to take his criticisms of Carr with a hefty pinch of salt
He was heavily critical of Carr's dismissal of the
"might-have-beens of history". He believed that Carr had a lack of
interest in examining historical causation. He also accused Carr of not looking
at all sides in the debate. He believed that Carr's "winner takes all
approach' to history was the mark of a "bad historian". While it is
important to look back at what historians have said in the past about a subject,
it is equally important not to dwell too long to the detriment of what has been
written recently or at least in the last few decades.
Certainly, the most damaging attack on the concept of historical
truth has come from what I term the post-modernist school of historiography. It
would not be an understatement to say that post-modernist historians have been
extremely hostile in academia to the concept of historical truth. The last few
decades have witnessed the emergence of post-modernism as the dominant force in
university life. This philosophical and historical outlook has replaced what
passed for Marxism inside universities all over the world.
The chief characteristic of the post-modernists is the use of
debatable philosophy, to blur over the difference between truth and lies, and
in doing so, commit a falsification of history. The practice of lying about
history has been taken to a new level by the various schools of post-modernism.
It would not be an overstatement to say that the impact of this school of
history has been as David North put it "nothing short of catastrophic".
There is, of course, a connection between the falsification of
history and the attack on the struggle for objective truth. One of the most
outlandish post-modernist thinkers and an opponent of objective truth is the
German Professor Jorg Baberowski b (1961)[7]. A
student of Michel Foucault, Baberowski describes his method of work in his book
the (The Meaning of History)
"In reality, the historian has nothing to do with the past,
but only with its interpretation. He cannot separate what he calls reality from
the utterances of people who lived in the past. For there exists no reality
apart from the consciousness that produces it. We must liberate ourselves from
the conception that we can understand, through the reconstruction of events
transmitted to us through documents, what the Russian Revolution was. There is
no reality without its representation. To be a historian means, to use the words
of Roger Chartier, to examine the realm of representations".
This is pretty dangerous stuff from Baberowski. If this
methodology becomes the norm in a historical study, it denotes an anything-goes
approach that does not require the historian to tell the truth. For that matter,
it also means that reality does not exist outside the historian's head.
Therefore, history has no objective basis. He sees history only in terms of his
subjectivity. Why bother with a history that tries to show the economic, political
or social conditions at the time.
He continues "A history is true if it serves the premises set
up by the historian." It is clear from this statement that he believes
that it is all right for a historian to falsify his work in order to best serve
the reader of history. This lying about history can bring about a fundamental
and dangerous change in the way history is served to the public. The most
extreme example of this fraudulent narratives is the lying about the crimes of
Nazi Germany. It is no accident that Baberowski is a leading figure in
the attempt to rehabilitate Hitler.
The study of history is a battleground. "The tradition of all
the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living,"
wrote Marx. According to Baberowski, we cannot learn anything from history. He
pours disdain on any approach that seeks to understand the future. A more
objective approach is just a dream. This leading spokesman on the "subjectivist
school" states "The fact that we could learn from history is an
illusion of days gone by… The claim (of the historian) to show how things were
having been proved in reality to be an illusion. What the historian confronts
in the sources is not the past… the past is a construction. Truth is what
I and others hold to be true and confirm to each other as truth.... Therefore,
we must accept that there are multiple realities; that it depends on who talks
to whom about what and with what arguments".[8]
To conclude If we accept this premise that truth is not objective
but relative, it sets a very disturbing precedent. Aside from the moral and
intellectual damage, this may do to the individual historian, this kind of
false philosophy will poison the well that future young historians and people
interested in history have to drink out of.
The logic of this philosophy of history is that truth is whatever
goes on in someone's head. Smoking is good for you, and hard drugs are
not dangerous, Hitler is misunderstood and was a good guy. No person who wants
to function and live effectively in the world cannot do without some sense of
truth's objective correspondence to reality. I believe that Objective truth is
possible but not without a struggle. The first stage in that struggle is, to
tell the truth about history.
[1] What is History E H Carr?
[2] Reading Architectural
History-By Dana Arnold
[3] The American Historical
Review discredits Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky
[4] Socialism and historical
truth- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/17/lect-m17.html
[5] Isaac and Isaiah: The
Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic Paperback 2015
by David Caute
[6] The Practice of History,
Sir Geoffrey Elton
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Baberowski
[8]Jörg Baberowski, The
Meaning of History, Munich 2005,
