Does history repeat itself?

b12mearse

If so, why do we let it happen?

nyarlothothep

I don't think it repeats itself, its one of those statements which annoys me because it appears self evidently true even though it may not be. I like to think of history as another form of evolution. Things appear to repeat themselves but there are small differences in context, circumstances etc which lead to big changes over a very long period of time. Historians are probably crucial to this.

Capt'n Midnight

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
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Joycey

My first instinct was to just reply with a simple "no, of course it doesnt", but ive revised that because I think the answer depends on how we define "history".

If we think of it in terms of "History"(with a capital H), or something like the "reality" of things were an objective view of the world possible, where you have at the most basic level certain configurations of matter, then the "no, of course it doesn't" answer suffices.

However, if we take as our definition "history", one in which it is accepted that all that is possible is the construction of subjective narratives which purport to represent past events, then it is indeed possible for "history" to repeat itself. For instance, if our narrative of what happened when Henry the Eighth was alive and kicking was "a tyrant governed the people without respect for some individuals rights", then lo' and behold history repeated itself! and indeed is still repeating itself.

I hope what this has shown is that while indeed it is possible to describe history as repeating itself, this description is so trivial that it is barely worth expressing, due to the fact that after it has been uttered nobody is any the wiser as to what aspect of "history" has been referred to.

dreamlogic

Does it? Historically, yes :pac:
Is it destined to continue repeating itself? Lets hope not!

why do we let it happen?

IMO it depends on education(in the broadest sense). If education doesn't change then nothing really changes.

af_thefragile

History always repeats itself in cycles.
Cycles determined and driven by the basic human instincts and emotions.

Like the eternal struggle between power and freedom.

Take this for an example (something i posted in another thread a while ago):

People fight quite hard to get to their level of power and once they get there it becomes almost impossible for them to let go of the power they've worked so hard to achieve. A mere mortal can't do that!! Instead leaders crave for more power and the state slowly constricts into a form of false democracy/social dictatorship. Like in the book Lord of Flies. Democracy slowly loses out to a form of savage, animalistic order under a ruthless, power hungry leader.

And maybe the only way of putting things back to order is by the uprising of a revolutionary force from within the increasingly oppressed members of the state (as the leader keeps getting more and more oppressive on his power trip, he also needs to keep becoming more oppressive to control the growing number of responsibilities he's taking over and to make sure his state stays intact), the force itself led by a radical leader with fair intentions, fighting for freedom and liberty (a Che Guevara), to come and press the "Reset" button on the society. By overthrowing the oppressive leader and bringing back freedom to the people (after the dictator's oppression has gotten to a point people can't take it anymore). The new leader rises up to power the state and although he's been fair and for the people all along, now he's the head of the new state and now knows what power tastes like. The new leader (Fidel Castro could be the example here) gets addicted to this new power he's achieved and then only starts craving for more. The cycle continues until someone else rises up to press the "Reset" button and start the cycle over again!
This is the order of humanity. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.


With freedom comes responsibility which brings power which competes for freedom. The only way humanity can break this cycle is by becoming more human.

Its the animalistic, savage instinct that lies within humans which can be so accurately predictable that leads to these cycles.

Joycey

af_thefragile wrote: »

History always repeats itself in cycles.
Cycles determined and driven by the basic human instincts and emotions.

Like the eternal struggle between power and freedom.

How could there be an "eternal" struggle between two abstract, subjective properties which humans project on the world?

In what sense could you say that there have ever been two moments in history which were the same, and hence would merit one being called a repitition of the other?

af_thefragile

Joycey wrote: »

How could there be an "eternal" struggle between two abstract, subjective properties which humans project on the world?

In what sense could you say that there have ever been two moments in history which were the same, and hence would merit one being called a repitition of the other?

The struggle is between the human will to gain power over one another conflicting with the human will to become free.

You won't find exact same moments. But you find similar patterns throughout history.
Empires getting so big and power that to maintain itself, they need to keep getting more and more oppressive. Ultimately people can't take the oppression anymore and rebel against the empire.

How the Moses defeated the Egyptian Pharoh.
How ancient Rome fell.
How America became an independent country.
How the British imperialist colonialism ended.
How Soviet Russia split up.

There are more examples if you dig up through history. But you'll notice this pattern through time.

Every empire that raises, comes down at some point.

You can see it starting to happen to America now too.
Countries like China and Russia don't want America's false dollars anymore.

Denerick

History does not repeat itself... Marx really has a lot to answer for with all his and his successors pseudo scientific nonsense.

Some people think history is determined solely by the base; IE, Class Conflict. For example, a Marxist Medieval historian would tell you that the city emirates of Syria in the 11th century were so fractured and divided because there wasn't a large enough merchant class present to provide enough force for the creation of either a Republic or a centralised monarchy.

Me, and others like me, would account it to an insufficient type of leadership first and foremost; a disastrous inheritence problem which caused frequent wars between sons, and the need for certain states in the region to live by raiding in order to survive during certain seasons.

Of course, both overlook things, but people who try and associate patterns and cycles in history often get lost in their loosely based hypotheses. History IS NOT a science. Don't treat it like its someway unique. It is simply what has happened before, no more, no less.

Joycey

Denerick wrote: »

History does not repeat itself... Marx really has a lot to answer for with all his and his successors pseudo scientific nonsense.

Some people think history is determined solely by the base; IE, Class Conflict. For example, a Marxist Medieval historian would tell you that the city emirates of Syria in the 11th century were so fractured and divided because there wasn't a large enough merchant class present to provide enough force for the creation of either a Republic or a centralised monarchy.

Me, and others like me, would account it to an insufficient type of leadership first and foremost; a disastrous inheritence problem which caused frequent wars between sons, and the need for certain states in the region to live by raiding in order to survive during certain seasons.

Of course, both overlook things, but people who try and associate patterns and cycles in history often get lost in their loosely based hypotheses. History IS NOT a science. Don't treat it like its someway unique. It is simply what has happened before, no more, no less.

You cant blame Marx exclusively... History is the creation of narratives which purport to explain the past. To the extent that Marx fell into the trap of assuming that his narrative was "History"(as opposed to just another narrative "history"), then he is open to your criticism. But any attempt to identify one pattern running throughout "History", and seriously claim that this is the truth is just as falacious.

silverharp

In financial History i would say yes , one reson is that for instance anyone that was around during say the crash in the 1920's/30's is not around now so their "wisdom" is lost and hence the next generation of the luckless roll around and broadly fall into the same trap and react in very similar ways as groups.
It's pity that the economic and political powers that be operate as if they have never picked up a history book

Joe1919

A nice quote.

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_history.html

Denerick

Joe1919 wrote: »

A nice quote.

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_history.html

There is much to learn from history, since most of history is one person or group capitalising on another person or groups mistakes. It doesn't mean 'it' (Some people seem to regard 'history' as some sort of seperate, autonomous and living entity) repeats itself.

Joe1919

Denerick wrote: »

Some people seem to regard 'history' as some sort of seperate, autonomous and living entity.

Hegel distinguished historical consciousness as something that is different to history. Historical consciousness is a sort of 'living entity' in terms of how we percieve the past. It may or may not necessarly be the truth in terms of our consciousness of the past corresponding to the events that actually happened. An example used is of Jesus' incarnation and existence, and he states that it doesent really matter whether this happened or not, what matters is that he came into conscious existence.

In this sense, history can be considered as a living 'dialogue between the past and the present'. It is not just static facts but dynamic interpretations of the past that are subject to change.

An example of this is our perception of Cromwell. It was only after the famine, which created a bitterness by the Irish against the English, that Irish people become conscious of Cromwells misdeeds that took place some 200 years previous and we became conscious of him as a great villian. (Incidently Cromwell was dug up some years after his death and hung, drawn and quartered).

No-one generally claims that the facts in themselves are not static. But the facts are so numerous and difficult to assess that all we can really have is interpretations.

DadaKopf

As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

I don't mean this to sound trite. You could say there's a philosophical tension between our perception of permanence and impermanence.

Take European civilisation's changing concepts of time. Over a historical period, a linear concept of time replaced a cyclical one. Did this really happen?

I've been reading about Kondratieff waves recently. The claim is that economies run in vaguely repetitive historical cycles, but at the same time (before he was executed by Stalin, or whoever made the order) Kondratieff saw his observation as proof of progress. In other words, things repeat, but things change, too. No cycle is identical.

That reminded me of some thoughts I've been having about cultural amnesia and I was interested to find a theory that the Kondratieff wave is linked to cultural memory - the waves repeat roughly every third/fourth generation. An error with the Kondratieff wave is how it correlates various economic data with major historical events - why these events? Why not others?

I was always sure our economy would collapse, and now it has. Histories and theories I read convinced me of that. But I don't think we're in the same river our grandparents were in, though there are apparent (superficial?) similarities.

And so I come back to Joycey's comment. The problem is unanswerable. We simply cannot ever answer whether history repeats or not. The best we can do is construct the best interpretations of events we can. We're pattern-seeking beings, filled with wonder, searching for explanations. I think we answer this question for ourselves through our activities. When I was studying democratic theory, I was struck by the wisdom of some scholars in comparative politics who insisted on the point that we should only seek patterns but never let them crystallise into dogmatic theory because each and every event is singular, formed out of a conjuncture of factors which may or may not be duplicated in another context.

I *do* think, though, that natural cycles, such as life and death, the seasons, conception and birth, etc. do influence our narratives due to the existential power of those cycles. The set the tone, but not the reality of whether history repeats. You think dogs worry about whether history repeats? Only a human could worry about this. We simple cannot ever access a place where we can truly answer this, but it seems so self-evidently true to me that history does not repeat in any noumenal sense. The universe is indifferent to this so-called 'problem'.

Denerick

Joe1919 wrote: »

Hegel distinguished historical consciousness as something that is different to history. Historical consciousness is a sort of 'living entity' in terms of how we percieve the past. It may or may not necessarly be the truth in terms of our consciousness of the past corresponding to the events that actually happened. An example used is of Jesus' incarnation and existence, and he states that it doesent really matter whether this happened or not, what matters is that he came into conscious existence.

In this sense, history can be considered as a living 'dialogue between the past and the present'. It is not just static facts but dynamic interpretations of the past that are subject to change.

An example of this is our perception of Cromwell. It was only after the famine, which created a bitterness by the Irish against the English, that Irish people become conscious of Cromwells misdeeds that took place some 200 years previous and we became conscious of him as a great villian. (Incidently Cromwell was dug up some years after his death and hung, drawn and quartered).

No-one generally claims that the facts in themselves are not static. But the facts are so numerous and difficult to assess that all we can really have is interpretations.

I think your misusing Hegel in your Cromwell example.

The facts are constant, and the interpretations are (Or at least should be) shaped by the surviving evidence. The surviving evidence for Cromwell in Ireland has always remained the same, and so the basic chronology and basic narrative of the Cromwellian invasion have not changed. The only thing that has changed is the popular perception of Cromwell. Which is largely a myth manufactured in the early 19th century.

So for a start, you really have to distinguish what historians think and what the general public thinks about history. Because historians interpretations haven't really changed in a 100 years, because the evidence has not grown or diminished. Essentially all that historians do now is entirely pedantic - they either strongly disagree with some of what an older historian has already said or slightly disagree with everything an older historian has said.

Take Lecky, Froude and Prendergast for 17th and 18th century Ireland for example. They differed widely on their interpretations on the 'Irish' (Froude believed that the problems of the Irish lay in a weak and ineffective anglo Irish nobility, Lecky believed it was down to an ineffective English policy in Ireland and their aloof and uncaring attitude for our concerns.) They all based their history on the same, solid evidential footing and came up with the same 'history'. All they differed in was the causes of this history. So the story of Cromwell hasn't changed whatsoever, its the causes that brought Cromwell into being that are only ever challenged.

storinius

DadaKopf wrote: »

As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

It strikes me that no man ever steps into the same river once in this analogy. One of the problems here is considering History as a static entity. I think that Marx was right (this should spark some controversy!) when he refused to look at history as a snapshot in time. The analysis of history in this way is meaningless, as the only things that matter in history are interactions. SO to use the river analogy, it is constantly flowing, therefore standing in the same river once is problematic.

I would also say that I think that joycer is absolutely right to say that it depends on the definition of history. The example (s)he uses is also bang on the mark. For my part I think that it is useful sometimes to analyse history in the large terms, especially as we can then see it about to repeat itself, and act to change the outcome if we didn't like it the first time round. It is easy to talk about history in philosphical terms, but we have to remember that we are all active agents, who can influence it if we want to.

Denerick

You say that you personally can influence history yet agree with Marx's theory of history as class conflict. The two don't go together.

storinius

No, I agree with Marx's analysis of History as dynamic, and focused on interactions rather than static 'snapshots'. I see no reason that the interactions that happen between individuals should matter less than those that happen between classes.

Joe1919

Denerick wrote: »

So for a start, you really have to distinguish what historians think and what the general public thinks about history. .

My old history lecturer use to say that it takes a generation (30 years) for historical opinion to go from what the historian thinks to what the general public think.

There are still many arguments about how to interpret Cromwell i.e. was he a hero or a villain. Many of the people who died in Drogheda were actually English Royalists. http://books.google.ie/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=cromwell+drogheda+royalist&source=bl&ots=_D2gHcy5V2&sig=ee-L0N-OPm8XHeIonOs3FSH-6mQ&hl=en&ei=Rk0USrmeN5aV-gaStoioDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#PPA118,M1

The point I am trying to make is that although there exists a framework of facts, there is much scope for the historian to select the particular facts that suit his case and hence history does contain much differences of opinion and hence is constantly been revised.

Also there really is no way to assess in many cases what really are the causes. History is about human action and human action is triggered by motivation but it can be difficult if not impossible to really figure out what motivates a particular human to act in a particular way.

Denerick

Joe1919 wrote: »

My old history lecturer use to say that it takes a generation (30 years) for historical opinion to go from what the historian thinks to what the general public think.

There are still many arguments about how to interpret Cromwell i.e. was he a hero or a villain. Many of the people who died in Drogheda were actually English Royalists. http://books.google.ie/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=cromwell+drogheda+royalist&source=bl&ots=_D2gHcy5V2&sig=ee-L0N-OPm8XHeIonOs3FSH-6mQ&hl=en&ei=Rk0USrmeN5aV-gaStoioDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#PPA118,M1

The point I am trying to make is that although there exists a framework of facts, there is much scope for the historian to select the particular facts that suit his case and hence history does contain much differences of opinion and hence is constantly been revised.

Also there really is no way to assess in many cases what really are the causes. History is about human action and human action is triggered by motivation but it can be difficult if not impossible to really figure out what motivates a particular human to act in a particular way.

'selecting facts to suit their case' - I don't know where this idea comes from really, but its rarely actually done by any credible historian. When (I'm thinking of the likes of Conor Cruise O'Brien or even Tim Pat Coogan) historians pick and choose their evidence they get caught out pretty quickly.

Its another thing entirely for an historian to choose all the evidence, and rationalise why its acceptable/reliable or not.

All history is the investigation of motivation. We can't really figure out what motivates an individual to do the things they do (Unless its REALLY spelt out, like Pearse or Hitler or the like) but we can figure out what causes a sequence of events to occur -> for example, we can trace a sequence of events that happen from 1912 to 1921 which leads pretty directly to the Anglo Irish Treaty.

Though I will revise some of what I said, in that it is clearly possible for an historian to 'pick and choose', I think that that gets caught out pretty quickly. History is about the exercise of the rational mind with regards to analysis and deduction; Its also 'peer reviewed' like any other social science. Few get through the standards easily.

Unless of course your a postmodernist who thinks everything is relative and that every historical event is just a formation in the mind of an historian. Which is quite blatantly bonkers.

Joe1919

Denerick wrote: »

'selecting facts to suit their case' - .

The problem is many of the 'facts' that are assessable to the historian have already gone through a process of selection. For example, people who write diaries about themselves usaully show themselves in a good light. Estate and family papers are similarly filtered. People constaintly 'cook the books'.Also historians in the past were often employed by the state or by some vested interest to put forward a particular viewpoint.
Military history was often and usaully written by the victors. Those who are defeated are often not around to tell their side. And of course, women were pratically not mentioned at all in history. We also choose ourselves to selectively forget part of our history, such as the contribution Ireland and Irish regiments such as the Royal Dublin Fusilers made in places like Gallipoli during WW1. They were written out of Irish history.

I am not saying, like the post-moderns, that history has less truth than poetry. However, history is written by the historian, who brings the sources together, in order to give meaning and this process is not perfect.

Joycey

Denerick wrote: »

Unless of course your a postmodernist who thinks everything is relative and that every historical event is just a formation in the mind of an historian. Which is quite blatantly bonkers.

Why is that exactly?

The point is that history, like anything else, is unknowable except through an individual's interpretation of the events which constitute your area of enquiry. What you (or any historian) is trying to do, is establish a science of something that occured in the past. If the only way you can attain knowledge in the world is through the lens of your own subjectivity, then how exactly is history not just a formation in the mind of a historian?

What you are talking about is "History", the objective, supposedly more real events which really took place. However, due to the impossibility of discovering this empirically, hence disallowing scientific enquiry, we are left with "history" as our only available way of coming to knowledge of the past. And the method we use is the construction of a narrative, which is entirely grounded in an individual or a group's subjectivity.

Denerick

I'm not being personal but philosophy often-times takes on the resemblance of intellectual masturbation - It is much easier to entirely dismiss something due to a seemingly 'insurmountable' logical hole than actually examine it in practise. As in 'Doing' history.

The historian essentially adds order to the chaos of the traces of the past. From this evaluation of all the evidence, one comes up with a rough consensus of the basic chronology and narrative of events. If you can provide two radically different narratives from two major and well respected historians on any event in the 20th century based on the same evidence please provide it. Because you'll quickly find there is one essential narrative, and that all the disagreements are fundamentally pedantic.

That is not to say that there is no value in that philosophical position - of course no historian can be 100% objective. But no surgeon can make an operating theatre 100% sterile. Doesn't mean he shouldn't try and attempt a heart transplant.

Joe1919

Denerick wrote: »

If you can provide two radically different narratives from two major and well respected historians on any event in the 20th century based on the same evidence please provide it.

I always found when I done research for my history essays that there was always plenty of disagreement among historians. An example of this is the controversial question over who was to blame for the failure of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign with for example Robert Rhodes James blaming Churchill, Roger Keys blaming the early withdrawal of the naval campaign, Christopher Pugsley blaming the lack of resources, N. Steel and P Hart blaming Lord Kitchner, Philip J. Haythornthwaite blamed Lord Kitchener for appointing the wrong military Generals, such as Sir Ian Hamilton who was not considered ruthless enough, Sir Hunter Weston who was blamed for slaughtering his command by hopeless attacks and Lt. General Stopford, who was appointed by seniority and was 'completely inept' and of course Battlefield detectives blaming the general terrain and lack of accurate mapping.

Similarly the Americans were always giving the credit for rescuing European democracy during WW2 but many modern military historians such as David M. Glantz in his 'When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler' argue that it was paradoxically Stalin and the Communist system that saved Europen democracy as most of the action took place on the Eastern front and it was only a centrally organised political system such as communism that could have moved the factories and workers east.

It also the case that some of the US generals tried to make history for themselves by going for high profile glory e.g. The US freeing of Rome.

There is much controversy and difference of opinion in history. That's the fun.

Denerick

Joe1919 wrote: »

I always found when I done research for my history essays that there was always plenty of disagreement among historians. An example of this is the controversial question over who was to blame for the failure of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign with for example Robert Rhodes James blaming Churchill, Roger Keys blaming the early withdrawal of the naval campaign, Christopher Pugsley blaming the lack of resources, N. Steel and P Hart blaming Lord Kitchner, Philip J. Haythornthwaite blamed Lord Kitchener for appointing the wrong military Generals, such as Sir Ian Hamilton who was not considered ruthless enough, Sir Hunter Weston who was blamed for slaughtering his command by hopeless attacks and Lt. General Stopford, who was appointed by seniority and was 'completely inept' and of course Battlefield detectives blaming the general terrain and lack of accurate mapping.

Similarly the Americans were always giving the credit for rescuing European democracy during WW2 but many modern military historians such as David M. Glantz in his 'When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler' argue that it was paradoxically Stalin and the Communist system that saved Europen democracy as most of the action took place on the Eastern front and it was only a centrally organised political system such as communism that could have moved the factories and workers east.

There is much controversy and difference of opinion in history. That's the fun.

There is indeed and I agree with you. But none of that challenges the fundamental narrative - ie, the dissemination of order from chaos. All that differs is the analysis... In my opinion, the more theses the better because diversity of opinion (This is what I mean really by pedantry) is a lot of fun, as you say.

P.S. Where did you do history at college?

DadaKopf

Denerick wrote:

you'll quickly find there is one essential narrative, and that all the disagreements are fundamentally pedantic.

That is not to say that there is no value in that philosophical position - of course no historian can be 100% objective.

I don't agree. I'll make a methodological point first. Around the 19th century, historians tried to apply scientific principles to make the writing of recent history more objective. Fine, except their primary sources were official sources (government documents, etc.). But this is necessarily selective, as good as such 'objective' historians' intentions were, it priviliged a history of, predominantly, white, male European power over the histories of women, workers, non-Europeans, etc. This is a concrete example of how, while it's possible for an objective history of all that has happened to have existed, this panoramic view will always be outside of humans' grasp. So we have no choice but accept the infinity of histories that can be written.

So, in a broader context, I think philosophy has made a contribution to questioning the nature of knowledge and language by reaching beyond the limits of positivistic sciences, which ironically have limited the purpose of philosophy in the present day to more abstract concerns. I said it in this forum before before, but I think it was Slavoj Zizek who said that philosophy today "does not answer questions, it asks how to ask questions", in other words, it questions the nature and outer limits of how we construct understandings of our worlds, which is of important, practical significance.

This role has even been recognised (reluctantly) by economists, some of who admit that economic questions themselves structure the kinds of answers reached. Questions are at least as important as the answers.

I think knowledge is instrumental. That is: people are teleological. They usually decide a preferred outcome and construct knowledge around that outcome to justify it. Not always, but I think it's a powerful, though less acknowledged, reality of how we create intersubjective understandings of the world, that is shared ideas, cultures, ideologies.

And power is implicated in knowledge, so we have to be careful about the idea of history. As international relations theorist Robert W. Cox says, "theory is always by some one, for someone" - ideas support certain perspectives.

Narratives imply interpretation.

Your issue is whether man can access the reality of events beyond human perception and, frankly, we can't. This was tried by Marcel Proust through the form of the novel - Proust, as a Realist, tried in 'Rememberance of Times Past' to record every event within a certain timeframe. He profoundly failed. Joyce tried something similar, but even still, his solution was so abstract that he paved the way for precisely the philosophical viewpoint that you're challenging: postmodernity. The relativity of (meta)narratives.

We have no choice but to be prejudiced about time.

Denerick

19th century historians in Britain professionalised. The sources they used then aren't all that different from the sources we use now. Women's history, ethnic history etc. have all been exposed for the irrelevant sham that they are, only slightly related to any sort of honest historical inquiry. They don't work on the basis of original sources but tend to be almost universally speculative. I invite anyone to read some feminist history - it really is a mind-numming bore. Nearly nothing discussed in most feminist history is ever based on primary sources. Worse again is a Marxist Feminist (Like Sheila Rowbotham *Yawn*) but worst above all are the Marxist historians who have claimed a monopoly on the study of class - even though the likes Geoffrey Best had been writing on the history of the British middle class for years. Not that I find it all dis-interesting, just horrifically boring, and written with an ahistorical style. All that changed from the 19th century and now is that historians have learnt to analyse documents deeper, and the focus has moved away from political history to economic and social history, at least for the time being. This means historians are looking at either the same documents in a new light or are evaluating documents often overlooked (Such as wills, city books, port duties etc.)

Look it, history is not the study of the past (Which is where I think you are looking at this the wrong way) but the study of the traces of the past - when the Romans conquered Carthage they destroyed all their documents; we know practically nothing about them now. Carthage are within 'history' but not within the 'historians scope'. Therefore there is NOT an infinity of history out there to be studied. Thats the most dangerous and foolhardy assumption philosophers tend to make about the study of history.

Joe1919

Denerick wrote: »

Nearly nothing discussed in most feminist history is ever based on primary sources. .

Historians have to be very innovative to find sources for 'feminine history' but they are some out there. I was talking a few years ago to historian who spending time in London analysing Royal Irish Constabulary eviction reports which contained a lot of information about the families been evicted.
The Irish poor law report (1835)is now also available on line (restricted)and contains some primary evidence in terms of women vagrants, prostitution, infantside etc.
I believe the official Magdalene laundries records will me available to the public shortly. And of course, there are newspaper reports such as the death of 9 girls of foodpoisining in a orphanage in Limerick in 1908. Women and children also suffered in history.

However, some historians have criticised works such as Foucault 'Madness & Civilization' as not been true to the discipline of history in terms of accuracy and this style of writing may have influenced historians that may perhaps have come from the social science side of things. However, I'm no expert.
Having said that, it always worth remembering that even works of fiction can reveal much evidence of the mood and feeling in the past. It was with this in mind that Aristotle perhaps said that poetry contained more truth than history as poetry contained universal truths whereas history only contained particulars.

Denerick

Joe1919 wrote: »

Historians have to be very innovative to find sources for 'feminine history' but they are out there. I was talking a few years ago to historian who spending time in London analysing Royal Irish Constabulary eviction reports which contained a lot of information about the families been evicted.
The Irish poor law report (1835)is now also available on line (restricted)and contains some primary evidence in terms of women vagrants, prostitution, infantside etc.
I believe the official Magdalene laundries records will me available to the public shortly. And of course, there are newspaper reports such as the death of 9 girls of foodpoisining in a orphanage in Limerick in 1908. Women and children also suffered in history.

There are sources but they are few and far between. Of course women and children suffered in history :P I just don't think feminist historians do themselves any justice with the stuff they write. Anything I've ever read is essentially limited. Though funny enough the best feminist history I've ever read is an article by a man! (The Double Standard - Keith Thomas)

DadaKopf

Denerick wrote:

Look it, history is not the study of the past ... but the study of the traces of the past

This is precisely my point, very well put. But it's for this reason that I think you're contradicting yourself.

Joe1919

Its often thought that the study of history has many stages. The first stage is a search and investigation stage, a digging stage for traces.

The second stage is an assimalation of information, an attempt to make sense of the information, the chronicles.

The historian then uses his imagination to create a narrative, as Von Ranke says, to" re-create the past."

Most postmodern historians such as Keith Jenkins or Hayden White would criticize Von Rankes scientific view , saying that historians go to history with already a narrative in mind.

Hayden Whites famous and colourful quote is "'If one is going to "go to history," one had better have an address in mind, rather than go wandering around the streets of the past like a flaneur. Historical flaneurisme is undeniably enjoyable, but the history which we are living today is no place for tourists. If you are going to "go to history," you had better have a clear idea of which history you are going to, and you had better have a pretty good notion of whether the one you are going to is hospitable to the values you carry into it. This is the function of theory in general, that is to say, to provide justification of a stance vis-a-vis the materials being dealt with that can render it plausible. Indeed, the function of theory is to justify a notion of plausibility itself. Without such a justification, criticism especially is left with nothing but "common sense" to fall back on.' "

By the way, I dont totally agree with him . I think the historian can approach history with an innocent eye.

Denerick

I don't think I'm contradicting myself whatsoever really. History is a 'science' (very loosely termed though) of the available source material. My beef with the more 'out there' areas of history is that they practically invent sources; they read too much into a small selection of sources and judge that its reasonable that certain conditions occured as a result of the small amount of source material they had. Which is why I think women's history, and much of the study of ethnic minorities is impossible in any meaningful way.

History is only an approximation of the past... No-one tries to claim otherwise. History is essentialy infinity and there are too many things that are ultimately unknowable - but if we follow this philosophy to its natural conclusion it just gets lazy. After all, if we adopt that line of thinking then we might as well drop dead and stop living at all.

After all, if all of history is merely a formation of the historians mind, surely that means that no past event (Which includes the present) can possibly be considered to have happened, since in all likelihood it is impossible that we can ever understand what happened, even if we see it with our own eyes (After all it is equally plausible that I was simply imagining what I saw - hence what I saw neither can or cannot be confirmed to have happened. Its equally possible that none of the world as I conceive of it is real, and if it is not real how can it possible be objectively true?)

If we logically analyse the postmodern conception of history and existence then we can just as easily discount their argument by saying 'But your belief that all history is unknowable is a value judgement and a product of your mind - hence, what you say is fundamentally unknowable and therefore without value'.

See how crazy this whole thing gets? its not simply a matter of history and our ability to understand it, its a basic acceptance of reality since one way or the other we all 'create' a system of existence that is 'normal' to each and every one of us, and it is in this system that we operate. Postmodernists seem to think this system is wrong, but if they really take that belief then anything they ever say or believe in is also wrong because everything is merely an infinity of possible right or wrong answers.

I apologise for the inevitable incoherence. I'm tired and its 1 AM in the morning and spewing forth a wild stream of consciousness...

Capt'n Midnight

Joe1919 wrote:

We also choose ourselves to selectively forget part of our history, such as the contribution Ireland and Irish regiments such as the Royal Dublin Fusilers made in places like Gallipoli during WW1. They were written out of Irish history.

Note about the 1925 Wireless Exhibition in the Mansion Hall

11 November, 1925 the opening day of the exhibition, was also the seventh anniversary of the singing of the Armistice at the end of World War 1 and great crowds were expected in Dublin for the ceremonies to mark the occasion. 250,000 Flanders poppies were available in the city but a further 60,000 were rushed in to meet the great demand. It was expected that the number of poppies bought would greatly exceed the sales in the previous year when, it was reported,"in friendly rivalry, Dublin had easily beaten Belfast".

The exhibition organisers had decided to delay the opening until 2:30 p.m. to allow patrons to avail of the ceremonies. An estimated 120,000 people attended the wreath laying in At. Stephen's Green.

Capt'n Midnight

Joe191 wrote:

Similarly the Americans were always giving the credit for rescuing European democracy during WW2 but many modern military historians such as David M. Glantz in his 'When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler' argue that it was paradoxically Stalin and the Communist system that saved Europen democracy as most of the action took place on the Eastern front and it was only a centrally organised political system such as communism that could have moved the factories and workers east.

All you have to do is count the number of divisions / casualties on each front.

The UK went further down a total war footing much earlier then Germany. Much human rights legislation was put aside in the UK, while in Germany it was only for the minorities. Women were working in factories and on the land while Germany relied on foreign workers, also until very later in the war German aircraft were still getting full trim and creature comforts.

Denerick

Just came across a great Mark Twain quote: "[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, 'times new roman']History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it does rhyme"[/FONT]

Joe1919

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Note about the 1925 Wireless Exhibition in the Mansion Hall

11 November, 1925 the opening day of the exhibition, was also the seventh anniversary of the singing of the Armistice at the end of World War 1 and great crowds were expected in Dublin for the ceremonies to mark the occasion. 250,000 Flanders poppies were available in the city but a further 60,000 were rushed in to meet the great demand. It was expected that the number of poppies bought would greatly exceed the sales in the previous year when, it was reported,"in friendly rivalry, Dublin had easily beaten Belfast".

The exhibition organisers had decided to delay the opening until 2:30 p.m. to allow patrons to avail of the ceremonies. An estimated 120,000 people attended the wreath laying in At. Stephen's Green.

But Fianna Fail posed restriction on the legions right to march when they came into power in 1932. In 1945 the then Minister of Justice Gerry Boland said the rational was 'that in the past these parades were regarded by a large section of the community as provocative demonstrations antagonistic to national sentiment." (Brian Girvin, From Union to Union, P.109)

Also some reference to these arguments in Dail Debates Dáil Éireann - Volume 98 - 14 November, 1945 Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - British Legion Parade. http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie/

Joe1919

Denerick wrote: »

History is a 'science' (very loosely termed though) of the available source material. .

Many argue that history is also an Art.
To reduce history to science to fall into the trap of material reductionism and not to acknowledge that history is about human action, feeling, values and freedom. Whats wrong with the scientific view (imo) is not that its totally wrong, it just insufficent.

It also fails to acknowledge the creative aspect of history. Historians dont just collect historical facts. They bring there judgement and their values to bear on these facts. They show empathy to the facts and to the people who are the subject of history. In this respect, Art is superior to science because science can only describe wheras Art can create. The historian not only describes the past but he attempts to give meaning to the past. He states 'what does the past mean to me'.

Joe1919

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

All you have to do is count the number of divisions / casualties on each front.

The UK went further down a total war footing much earlier then Germany. Much human rights legislation was put aside in the UK, while in Germany it was only for the minorities. Women were working in factories and on the land while Germany relied on foreign workers, also until very later in the war German aircraft were still getting full trim and creature comforts.

Im not an expert in this area (other than doing an essay on this subject once). All I'm stating is that opinions are varied and subject to change, in this case, especially, as new information is coming to light since the fall of communism and the end of the cold war.

mewmoo

Humans enjoy looking for patterns...

Seeing faces where there are none, finding meaning in the meaningless.
History seems likes repeating itself if you make generic statements like "a tyrant comes to power and is then over thrown".

It's all about circumstance an context as someone put it on the front page.