SubscribeAnyone wanna turn this list into the chorus of some kick-ass punk song?
Finding the course of history littered with the débris of exploded philosophies, the historians of the last century, unwilling to be forever duped, turned away (as they fondly hoped) from 'interpretation' to the rigorous examination of the factual event, just as it occurred. Perfecting the technique of investigation, they laboriously collected and edited the sources of information, and with incredible persistence and ingenuity ran illusive error to earth, letting the significance of the Middle Ages wait until it was certainly known "whether Charles the Fat was at Ingelheim or Lustnau on July 1, 887", shedding their "life-blood", in many a hard fought battle, "for the sublime truths of Sac and Soc". I have no quarrel with this so great concern with hoti's business. One of the first duties of man is not to be duped, to be aware of his world; and to derive the significance of human experience from events that never occurred is surely an enterprise of doubtful value. To establish the facts is always in order, and is indeed the first duty of the historian; but to suppose that the facts, once established in all their fullness, will 'speak for themselves' is an illusion. It was perhaps peculiarly the illusion of those historians of the last century who found some special magic in the word 'scientific'. The scientific historian, it seems, was one who set forth the facts without injecting any extraneous meaning into them. He was the objective man whom Nietzsche described— "a mirror: accustomed to prostration before something that wants to be known, ... he waits until something comes, and then expands himself sensitively, so that even the light footsteps and gliding past of spiritual things may not be lost in his surface and film". "It is not I who speak, but history which speaks through me", was Fustel's reproof to applauding students. "If a certain philosophy emerges from this scientific history, it must be permitted to emerge naturally, of its own accord, all but independently of the will of the historian." Thus the scientific historian deliberately renounced philosophy only to submit to it without being aware. His philosophy was just this, that by not taking thought a cubit would be added to his stature. With no other preconception than the will to know, the historian would reflect in his surface and film the "order of events throughout past times in all places"; so that, in the fullness of time, when innumerable patient expert scholars, by "exhausting the sources", should have reflected without refracting the truth of all the facts, the definitive and impregnable meaning of human experience would emerge of its own accord to enlighten and emancipate mankind. Hoping to find something without looking for it, expecting to obtain final answers to life's riddle by resolutely refusing to ask questions— it was surely the most romantic species of realism yet invented, the oddest attempt ever made to get something for nothing!I've bolded the key sentence. This insight was insisted on so noisily by the frequently annoying but unquestionably brilliant postmodernist crew that I would have thought no one could ever again talk with a straight face about facts speaking for themselves.
As I understand it (I'm not a professional historian), what Becker said was really a function of history as it was practiced in the early 20th century, and the beliefs of historiians then. People really thought that once we'd established all the facts, once we'd published all the important state document, we would be able to write a "complete history".
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posted by sonic meat machine at 8:03 AM on May 2