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Not to be blunt, but as an undergrad, you shouldn't know what you're talking about.....at least not yet. Look, I got the same treatment from my professors as an undergrad, and even still as a graduate student. If you are serious about learning History, you will have to come to grips with the learning process which is full of criticism. It's academic boot camp if you will. I started out believing the exact same thing you believe now, and I was just as stubborn and willful about it as you are, and in the end, I finally came around and began to see what my instructors were talking about. We aren't putting you down trust me. If I didn't care about how you are learning History, I wouldn't even open my trap...I simply wouldn't care what or how you were learning. But I do, and if I come across harsh or high brow, it's because I want you to learn the same things I was taught....and believe me I am grateful for all the time my professors spent arguing with me. I'm just trying to spare you the pain and agony of going through the same thing down the road.
I'd like to weigh in on this for a moment. I agree that undergrads generally shouldn't be lecturing their professors on points of history inside the professor's field of expertise (or even outside it), but professors don't have a monopoly on the truth, either. Students are sometimes able to see things that professors can't see from their vantage point, and professors might sometimes rest on their laurels while students are actively doing intense research. I have had different types of professors as an undergraduate or in the different graduate schools I have attended. My favorite professors are those who are intelligent in their fields while being humble enough to listen to and appreciate good input from their students. I really don't like professors who are pompous or put students "in their place". Professors ought to promote learning by encouragement, rather than learning by degradation. At the same time, students should not be overly argumentative with their professors, and if they do disagree they should do their research first and later come back to challenge the professor's point. Years ago I learned something about degrees and arguments that has stuck with me. I was once arguing with someone and made a point of mentioning my degree as a means of saying that I had the superior argument. Now, I find this type of argument awful. If someone wants to argue with me about a topic that I have expertise in, I welcome it, and I argue on the merits rather than based on any title.
I think deference is and should still be a part of the education system. Yes it is fine to challenge the professor, but at the end of the day, the professor has earned his or her title by doing the leg work. We as students MUST defer to their greater knowledge and experience. When we have achieved a similar level of mastery of the discipline, then we can challenge our teachers as peers, but not until then. Oh and yes I've been guilty of overstepping my bounds here, but I was wrong to do it publicly as I did. I should have done it privately so that the continuity of the classroom wasn't disrupted.
Ski, I am making generalizations about writing historical narrative. Do not get too caught up in the specifics of one case. I personally would not use the word murder in association with Hitler and the Nazi attempt to eliminate the Jews. In the case of Jack the Ripper or Charles Manson, murder is accurate, Manson was convicted of that crime and Jack the Ripper is the anonymous perpretator of those murders. My consistent point is that a historian should avoid making moral judgments part of his narrative, that is the bottom line. We can argue specifics all day and no two historians will agree 100% of the time.If you strive to make your work as impartial and unbiased as possible you cannot go wrong. However, if you insert opinion into narrative, especially academic work, you run the risk that the professor will disagree with you and your grades will suffer as a result. Opinion's are personal, facts are not. It is easy to argue with opinions but impossible to argue with facts. The place for opinion is in your interpretation of events.A morally non-controversial example is the historical theory of RMA's or Revolutions in Military Affairs. The proponents of RMA's insist that some technologies, such as gunpowder or aircraft, have revolutionized the battlefield. Meaning wars are waged completely differently. Some historians, like me for instance, disagree with the theory. It is very controversial in military history circles and depending on interpretation can be proven or disproven. I personally think the debate is insoluble but it sure makes for interesting reading. There are some historians who have staked their career on proving RMA's are correct and others have taken the contrary position. I take the middle ground in the debate. I think some technology has radically altered the face of the battlefield but traditional principles still largely apply. I think men fight wars and the tools used do not alter the basic character of men.
After further thought, here is an example of what I mean when I say bias in history is both bad writing and just plain bad history. I will use as my example a short account of the reasons for the Iraq war in 2003. The way I see it, there are three possible ways of presenting the story using the same facts.1. Liberal/Anti-War Bias: In March of 2003, after making wildly inaccurate claims that the Iraqi regime had WMD?s. The regime of American President George W, Bush launched an illegal invasion of the country and removed Saddam Hussein from power throwing Iraq into turmoil and causing immense suffering among the people of Iraq as a result of his illegal actions.2. Conservative/Pro-War Bias: In March of 2003, the United States led a coalition of nations in ousting Saddam Hussein and the Baath party from power in Iraq. U.S. President George W. Bush was led to this eventuality by a preponderance of intelligence that led him and his administration to believe that the Iraqi?s not only had, but were prepared to use, chemical and biological weapons.3. Objective Historical Narrative: In 2003 the United States, under President George W. Bush, in concert with other nations, invaded Iraq and ousted the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The premise for the invasion was the belief, later proved false, that the Iraqi government had restarted programs to develop chemical and biological weapons that had been stopped after the first Gulf War of 1990-1991.As you can see, all three accounts use the same facts. The difference is in the adjectives use to describe the events. Historical narrative does not pick sides. I am not saying historians don?t have opinions. I am simply saying that personal opinion has no place in historical writing. Historians write to a bigger audience than political pundits, we are writing for posterity. Therefore it is incumbent on the historian to present as balanced and objective a viewpoint as possible.
Scout, I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's that simple. I'm sure you already know that it's not only the adjectives that one uses, but also the facts that one chooses to make use of, the degree and quality of detail, the stories one tells to illustrate points, etc. A person could write a book in a neutral voice (like your example #3), only to use a disproportionate amount of illustrative stories of American military abuse. Would an entire chapter devoted to Abu Ghraib be too much? Too little? How does one know or decide on how much to use to eliminate bias? Should it be reflective of how much news coverage a story was given when the abuse was going on? But then what if the media was biased in airing the coverage? These can be difficult questions to answer definitively.Or, the author could report on his own findings based on personal interviews with soldiers, but if those interviews are for some reason not representative of the larger military, we would be getting a distorted picture. Another problem can be in balance; in order to compensate for potential bias, the author goes out of his way to include an opposing viewpoint. But if that opposing viewpoint is shared by an extreme minority, the picture that is painted would make it seem like that view is fairly typical. Should we then leave that view out altogether?I think that neutral historical narrative is a good start, but there will still be bias present, and sometimes this bias can be quite significant.
I am realistic enough to know that bias can not be completely eliminated. What I am arguing for though, is for historians to consiously try to be as unbiased as possible. What I deplore is the trend for historians to throw up their hands and say that since bias is going to be present anyway we might as well wallow in it. I blame post-modern thought, specifically Michel Foucaullt, for the increase of biased histories.
Interesting discussion…Unbiased historical narrative can also be extremely boring historical narrative. I think that we might want to consider balance as well as bias, that is presenting facts and opinions from all sides and drawing an "unbiased" conclusion. If wall we do as historians is write facts into narrative form then we are largely just rehashing what has already been recorded - or as one of my professors put it "recounting one damn battle after another!"I think it is okay in writing a scholarly paper to offer opinions supported by facts. We can never have all of the facts and my have to resort to stating our supported and learned opinion of why things happen the way they did. Based on the facts presented, why do we believe that the events occurred as they did -- why did Meade not counterattack after Pickett's Charge? Why did the Soviet Operation URANUS succeed outside Stalingrad while its sister Operation MARS fail at Rzhev? Being a student of history, in my opinion, isn't just about "what" happened, but "why" it happened as well. Isn't that process how we discover and create knowledge?The difference between "good" history and "not-so-good" or even "bad" history is in the quality of the research, the balance of the facts presented, and the rationalilty of the argument and how well it is supported.Just my two cents (about all I have left in my budget this month!)
Vulture, I like how you put that, and it's worth much than .02! It seems your way is more about analyzing events instead of just reporting and recording them. The latter seems quite dry and boring while the former requires the use of intelligent analysis and logic to answer the whys. It is very difficult to not be biased, but if one is able to know there may be or is bias on both sides, realize that even though it's biased or you don't agree with it there may be some truths to it, and do your best to eliminate your own bias and beliefs in order to be objective as possible (such as in the Israel/Palestinian conflict for example) then you are on the right path, IMHO.And when I say eliminate beliefs I don't mean ignore or be weak-minded in your personal beliefs or convictions, be that political or religious or whatever, I mean one needs to put them aside in order to be objective.
I have been very careful in trying to frame my argument such that I am separating recounting the facts from interpretation. Interpretation is the meat and bones of history. The why of events, if you will. What I am arguing for is an unbiased recounting of the known facts. You can let your personal opinion show on your sleeve in your interpretation and indeed that is encouraged in the academic world and I do it as well. Often not all of the facts are known. New evidence is what makes history interesting.My gripe is when the facts are presented in a manner that presages the interpretation. Indeed, sometimes the facts are presented in such a way that the authors interpretation of events is telegraphed. Other times the bias in recounting facts is more subtle.I am not saying historians dont have opinions. I am simply saying historians should endeavor to minimize the influence of opinion in their selection of facts to present. Nobody is served by unbalanced history, that is history is twisted to serve agendas. Historians should have no agenda but seeing that the truth is known as best we can know it.
My gripe is when the facts are presented in a manner that presages the interpretation. Indeed, sometimes the facts are presented in such a way that the authors interpretation of events is telegraphed. Other times the bias in recounting facts is more subtle.
Do you see this a lot in your field? While many authors may take sides on issues related to the Iraq War, I'm going to guess that not many people will react with biased passion in the telling of Visigothic history. Where I'm guessing such biased interpretation will emerge is in areas of history that are approached from one of the more modern methodologies (e.g. feminists, psychoanalytic, post-colonial, etc.).
My gripe is when the facts are presented in a manner that presages the interpretation. Indeed, sometimes the facts are presented in such a way that the authors interpretation of events is telegraphed. Other times the bias in recounting facts is more subtle.
Do you see this a lot in your field? While many authors may take sides on issues related to the Iraq War, I'm going to guess that not many people will react with biased passion in the telling of Visigothic history. Where I'm guessing such biased interpretation will emerge is in areas of history that are approached from one of the more modern methodologies (e.g. feminists, psychoanalytic, post-colonial, etc.).
It is becoming more common in all areas of history. The current fad seems to be passing judgment on past actions based on contemporary morals. Example, the invasions of the Mongols are abhorred because the mongols were unnecessarily vicious in their methods. Obviously the Mongols would have benefited from some enlightenment but since they werent it is perfectly OK to condemen them because of what they did.My problem with this is the tendency then becomes to hold the ancestors of these folks responsibles for actions 100, 200, even 1,000 years ago. A perfect example of this is that somehow I am responsible for slavery because my family owned slaves in the early 19th century. It makes me shake my head in confusion and disbelief.
Give me boring substance so I can cite it. 🙂
Guess that depends on perception and interest level, no? I'm sure many find the Ancient Greek historians to be boring and dry, but I find they transport me to"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."(PS. How can I scroll this? ;D )I prefer reliable sources. (can you hear me now you old British historians with superiority complexes??)
My problem with this is the tendency then becomes to hold the ancestors of these folks responsibles for actions 100, 200, even 1,000 years ago. A perfect example of this is that somehow I am responsible for slavery because my family owned slaves in the early 19th century. It makes me shake my head in confusion and disbelief.
That sounds like post-colonialist history that said this. Since that methodology/theory is rooted in political belief, I can see why it would be subjective, rather than objective. They have a point to make with their history which reverberates in present-day socio-politics. While I think that post-colonialism has some merit, by and large I have a similar distaste for such an approach.
