I love how much philosophy is levelled against History in an attempt to express how it is an Art and not a science. History is really independent from this ridiculous way of organising academic fields. The only reason these labels were created was to form different administrative departments at universities.
So in England its an Art, America its a Social Science and in Germany its a Science, all to do with the specific development of the academia. It does make any difference to how the study of history is performed.
Why such epithets are hurled at History is mainly because,
often, any one event will have many versions of the truth and it is very
difficult to judge objectively which version
of truth is the truth. There is no single method that can distinguish
a good history from a bad one. And, as
already posted on the Forum a good history of one generation may become the bad
history for the next generation. Further, the process of recording history involves a number of
variables and many of those are beyond the control of the historians. It also
depends on such mundane factors as-- who wrote the history? About whom? Why
they wrote it? How they wrote? Etc. In short, there is no benchmark for good
history. |
This at the end of the day is merely a manipulation of ideas to form a rather simplistic conclusion.
Firstly, there is truth in History. There are facts, one cannot deny certain facts in History, things did happen.
Now the writing of history is based on the personal subjectivity inherent within whatever academic is writing that history. There are many difficulties in intepreting the past, because of how our minds are shaped within our contemporary enviroment. This does not invalidate History, nor does it mean history is wrong, just means it is never going to be absolute. There is a difference between recording the past and history, History is the study and analysis of the past, recording the past is the role of the administrator or not, as it might seem.
As for good history - there are plenty of methods to indicate good and bad history. Use of sources, methods, their interpretation etc - it is part of history - to understand what is good history.
As for the dichotomy between "us" and "them". This goes for everything. We cannot help but analyse in relation to something. In the Western Case, we generally are writing in relation to ourselves. In other areas, often people write in reaction to the West. But there is really no easy seperation from certain conventions.
I do not think that this is a significant problem, we just need to be aware of this and, obviously, be careful how we use such material.
Bad History is Bad history. Most History is written for the right reasons.
back projection? Never heard of this.
As for History now, its changing yes, but its just forming a new elitist ideal on what history should be in the future. It is becomming a world of individualism and having an understanding of human nature and selfishness of the human spirit - which are ideals taken from modern society and not from an understanding of the past as it was.
There are always going to be fundemental flaws in History, just as with any Academic field. Name one Academic field that is 'Exact'?