posted
A subject which has always interested me is the moral responsibility of historians, and specifically when regarding military history. It was going to be the subject of my major work last year, until I broadened it further to cover the role of emotion in the writing of history.
I'd like to pick your brains, Hatrack. What do you think?
I have personally never been able to come up with a satisfying answer to the question of whether it is moral responsible for a historian to glorify warriors; no doubt that's why the question has interested me so.
On the one hand, there are examples of cultures with a very rigorous code of martial valour (not least, my native Japan - which was a bloody place indeed in Mediaeval times) which most likely contributed to bringing war closer into the realm of policy execution, and got more than a few people killed. The writing of history both contributed to and reflected this code of martial valour.
Yet on the other hand a pride in the military history of one's nation can have a unifying effect. Australia, for example, has about 4 'beginnings'. We didn't have a glorious War of Independence (gaining complete independence was actually a long drawn out affair, ending in 1986). The first 'beginning' was about 40,000 years ago when the Aborigines settled the land. The second was in the late 18th century when white Australia began as a wretched penal colony of people who killed, raped or maybe stole a handful of wheat. The third was the year of Federation, and the most recent one is arguably during WWI - specifically, during the failed campaign at Gallipoli. This put Australia on the map, and marked the beginning of a very proud military tradition which continues to this day (though it was interrupted during Vietnam). ANZAC day, our veterans' day, is one of the most important events on the calendar - right behind Christmas, for many people. And recently there has been a lot of interest in the Vietnam War - people seem to want to make it up to our soldiers, whom we shunned at the time.
So how should a historian write military history?
Should it be with a Thucydidean detachment, with a modern Japanese tragic pacifism, or a patriotic Australian vigour?
How should the Iraq War be recorded? How about 10 years from now?
Feel free to use whatever historical examples you like to illustrate your point.
Edit: Glorify warriors, not war. A very important distinction.
posted
I think when it comes to war they should use an honest interpretation free of sentimentality exposing the atrocities of people on both sides. It's impossible for me to take sides in a war. It seems that both sides are different degrees of right and wrong.
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posted
Sure, but does this mean you preclude the possiblity of heroism in war? Is war purely a string of atrocities? Is it impossible for a soldier to fight for or represent virtues? Not that I disagree with you - as I've said, I'm divided on the issue, and very much respect a model of heroism which doesn't involve violence. I'm actually quite partial to pacifist literature and film.
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quote:It's impossible for me to take sides in a war. It seems that both sides are different degrees of right and wrong.
It seems to me that if the two sides are different degrees of right and wrong, then you we should take sides.
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Historians should strive as much as possible to record and reinterpret historical facts free of an ideological influence. In the specific example of war it should try and examine the complete and multifaceted aspects of war. We need to look at the motive(s) who became in conflict to get into that position. To look at the specifics of indivudal heroism and individual cruelty, how it affected the nations at home, their economies the good and the bad that came out of war.
It is necessary for all historians in my opinion to merely record and retell and possibly reinterpret the facts, myths, and legends of a society with as little ideological influence as possibly that way the reader can use his or her own values to determine the rightness or wrongness of war or of a war.
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quote:It's impossible for me to take sides in a war. It seems that both sides are different degrees of right and wrong.
It seems to me that if the two sides are different degrees of right and wrong, then you we should take sides.
Not nessasarily, if they both have points that are true, such a s a dispute over land, Catholics and Protestants in North Ireland come to mind and if they both have vile ways of carrying their point across.
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posted
On the other hand - sometimes it is hard not to take sides. Take the Israeli War of Independence as an example. Either you believe that Israel should not exist and that attacking the country was the right thing to do, or you believe that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself. You may not agree that driving Palestinians off their land was right, but you can't withdraw your support of Israel because of that.
"To look at the specifics of indivudal heroism and individual cruelty"
I don't think it's important to discuss every soldier who acted heroically. It doesn't teach me anything except for the fact that soldier X was a good/brave person. That's not history.
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posted
I think it is, in many ways. One way to get people more interested in history is through personal stories rather than having it taught from a distant perspective.
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I tend to look at the cultural, political, economic, military, and other movements that shape history because that's what fascinates me. Whereas other people whose knowledge of history is great tend to read bipographies because it helps them to feel connected to the historical event they are reading about.
But to call one of the two styles of historical writings as not qualifying as history is merely incorrect.
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posted
Anecdotes do not represent historical [lacking a word here - processes? developments? trends?]. The fact that Jefferson had children with one of his slaves is meaningless unless it is one example of many. This would show us one form of interaction between slave owners and their slaves. But on its own, this fact doesn't teach us anything, regardless of how interesting it is.
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posted
Well, serious historians don't make moral value judgements. They simply don't.
Which is not to suggest some kind of God's eye view objectivity is possible; every last historian writes from a particular point of view. But that POV is based on material selection and personal interest. If you start putting "heroism" or "glorification" into your writing, you might as well be this guy.Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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On the other hand - sometimes it is hard not to take sides. Take the Israeli War of Independence as an example. Either you believe that Israel should not exist and that attacking the country was the right thing to do, or you believe that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself. You may not agree that driving Palestinians off their land was right, but you can't withdraw your support of Israel because of that.
Personally I don't think the Arab Israeli conflict would be a great example of a conflict on which it is easy to take sides - I would have picked something like the British fighting Germany during WWII...
quote:Originally posted by Shawshank:
Crescentss: it happened in the past.
Therefore it is history.
I tend to look at the cultural, political, economic, military, and other movements that shape history because that's what fascinates me. Whereas other people whose knowledge of history is great tend to read bipographies because it helps them to feel connected to the historical event they are reading about.
But to call one of the two styles of historical writings as not qualifying as history is merely incorrect.
Unfortunately that's not necessarily the case. While historians and historiographers have debated the question 'What is history?' for many years and will do for many years to come, it's generally agreed that not everything in the past is history. A good working definition might be: history is what people write about some of the past. A shopping list lying in someone's attic for example, is not history. Even if it was written in 1930.
I think there is a very fine line between history and biography. I can think of many examples of good history which followed the life of one man. Even relatively 'unimportant' people.
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On the other hand - sometimes it is hard not to take sides. Take the Israeli War of Independence as an example. Either you believe that Israel should not exist and that attacking the country was the right thing to do, or you believe that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself. You may not agree that driving Palestinians off their land was right, but you can't withdraw your support of Israel because of that.
Personally I don't think the Arab Israeli conflict would be a great example of a conflict on which it is easy to take sides - I would have picked something like the British fighting Germany during WWII...
Very true, although I wasn't talking about the Arab Israeli conflict as a whole. You can support the English and still accept that flattening Dresden to the ground was immoral.
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Foust: I agree that it is the historian's responsibility to present the past as objectively as possible, to tell it 'as it essentially was'. Yet, the story of the past itself can be heroic, or stirring. And a historian must select the evidence and interpretation he selects. Is a historian writing about a heroic military figure obliged to remind us of the horrors of his subject's profession? If so, how often?
Consider this; two historians both use the same reliable evidence, and write only verifiable facts.
The first historian writes:
quote:On the xxth of xxxx, elements of the xxth infantry battalion assaulted the enemy at xxxx. Although they lacked many essential supplies, they were able to route the enemy in a spirited charge. They suffered xxxx casualties, and inflicted xxxx upon the enemy...
The second historian writes:
quote:The remaining men of the xxth infantry battalion, though ragged and low on munitions, made preparations to assault the enemy at xxxx. In the half-light of dawn, they affixed their bayonets and arranged themselves in formation at the edge of the wood. At xxxx the artillery ceased and the whistle was blown. In a fury the men charged down the hill...
It's a stylistic difference; both are writing verifiable history. My question is, is it responsible for a historian to do the latter? And to what extent?
It is of course possible to distort all kinds of evidence to manipulate the truth (for example, leaving out bits about atrocities and writing to make IJA soldiers responsible for war crimes appear honourable), but is telling a story dramatically a different matter? In fact, couldn't reciting facts actually involve reneging on a historian's responsibility to tell the past 'as it essentially was' (if you do accept that as being a historian's responsibility)?
NB I fixed up the OP to say 'glorify warriors' rather than war. I don't think it's ever excusable to glorify war itself.
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posted
Historians should never "take sides." Even in W.W.II, there were many atrocities committed by the allies and not a few noble acts committed by the Germans. History is an objective account of facts interpreted as objectively as possible. The best historians often offer many possible interpretations.
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The fact that Jefferson had children with one of his slaves is meaningless unless it is one example of many. This would show us one form of interaction between slave owners and their slaves. But on its own, this fact doesn't teach us anything, regardless of how interesting it is.
(my italics)
I'm inclined to disagree. It sounds like you prefer thematic or social histories, which are more in fashion today. I believe that the lives of influential historical figures still lies within the realm of the historian.
Also, does something have to be typical to be historical?
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posted
Pelegius, I'm aware of Allied atrocities and noble actions by the German forces. We were discussing examples of times when it would be easier to take sides, and I believe my example fits the criteria. It's very useful in testing the theory that no moral judgments can be made during war, which is what it was for.
What is objective interpretation?
quote:The best historians often offer many possible interpretations.
Sure. A historian might say;
quote:Although xxxx writes that the remaining elements of the xxxx battalion were low on supplies and outnumbered, recent archaeology indicates otherwise. Large quantities of tins and artillery shell casings were found in the upper strata of the soil, where the memoirs of Pvts xxxx and xxxx indicate the battalion bivouacked that night. Dr. xxxx states however that these artifacts were from the next war....
But sometimes there isn't enough variation between the evidence to write two or more stories about the same subject. As I've mentioned above, a historian is forced to make a stylistic decision. Which style represents the past most objectively? Are they both as accurate?
I also believe that a historian who gives all interpretations similar weight is a poor historian. A good historian will weigh different interpretations using the evidence, and determine which is closest to the holy grail; the objective history. If two come close, or none of the interpretations have much weight, the historian should write up more than one. He should then indicate what he can be sure of, and what he still does not know.
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posted
If historians decide they should not take sides, what'll happen is they'll take sides but pretend not to. Their bias will be hidden from them (but probably not from us).
Better to admit it so the reader can discount it.
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posted
"Which style represents the past most objectively? Are they both as accurate?"
Your first style is Scullard, your second style is over done, like Gibbon, but if tuned down could make a nice Grant. (For those unfamiliar with the reference, H.H. Scullard and Michael Grant were the two most august writers of Roman history in the twentieth century.Gibbon, of course, wrote a monumental and rather overwritten history of the decline and fall of Rome.)
I prefer Grant myself, who takes an academic view but also makes it interesting. Not to say that Scullard can never be interesting, but he chose to write in a drier style (his most famous book is also written out in columns like a newspaper, which is distracting.) Gibbon, who never pretended to be objective, just gives me a headache.
Scullard had sort of a just the facts ma'am style, and was the best at getting the facts. Grant lingered for a long time on meaning, looking at different interpretations. Grant also tended to be more critical of his sources than Scullard.
However, I should point out that Grant was a controversial writer (mainly for his admittedly over-heavy use of numismatic evidence) whereas Scullard is almost universally beloved.
I am sorry if this doesn't answer your question, I did my best.
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A call for the young men to act with Honor in war.
I have seen papers on how Japanese Shinto culture made the leadership the prisoners of the perceptions of the youth to whom they dared not lose face. Very possibly true. It seems however that survival as a nation and politically significant body in the world requires that one have a strong military force for deterrence at the very least. With that in mind and given the difficulty of military service, it makes sense for a society to heap honor on those that serve. One of the simplest ways to do that is to recognize those who served with distinction in the past as men of honor.
There is no higher virtue for the State then to put your life on the line to defend its prerogatives. (Regardless of the virtue of the state in question, from the perspective of the State itself servicemen are always the Heroes)
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I am sorry if this doesn't answer your question, I did my best.
Don't apologise I spent a year of history class trying to answer my question and haven't gotten much closer. I haven't read Scullard or studied Rome in any depth, but from your description I don't think our preferences in writing style differ too much.
quote:Originally posted by General Sax:
With that in mind and given the difficulty of military service, it makes sense for a society to heap honor on those that serve. One of the simplest ways to do that is to recognize those who served with distinction in the past as men of honor.
Certainly. I wonder where the line should be drawn between healthy pride and militarism.
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posted
Euripides- Wouldn't a shopping list from 1930 tell you a lot about what kinds of things people bought in the 1930s? And from that what life was like in the 1930s?
Or is history different from "providing historical information"?
I'm not a historian, maybe this is a stupid question.
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posted
I think the guide is expansionism, Empires are built on militarism. I would look at the percent of the population in the military as a guide, in America the fraction is pretty small, you do not see 25% of the male population in the service. Was it Rumsfeld who said "America has never asked for more land then what it takes to bury our fallen soldiers on in any foreign land"
Really all the fun: rapine, pillage, looting, taking slaves and random slaughter, is out of fashion. So soldiering is pretty darn honorable today.
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No, it's not a stupid question; also, I'm not a historian either. I would consider it historical evidence, if it was used as you say to learn more about life in the 30's. But history is the written work, which is the culmination of research, the analysis and weighing of evidence, and finally its interpretation.
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posted
GS, I think I can hear the footsteps of the mob about to jump on you for your last post!
But honestly, excessive pride in one's military can make war appear more acceptable as a foreign policy decision, and therefore get people killed. A strong military is a very potent organisation, and not all of its members are happy to sit tight. Militarism can exist without an expansionist agenda.
There will always be rape, pillaging and random slaughter in war. I assume you were talking about the US army, but there is plenty of slave-taking elsewhere, and we all know about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other scandals. Some armies are more careful and dare I say humane about the way they conduct war, but war is never anything other than an organised act of violence.
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I spent a year of history class trying to answer my question and haven't gotten much closer. I haven't read Scullard or studied Rome in any depth, but from your description I don't think our preferences in writing style differ too much.
