Biding my time with useful thoughts on the snags of history: on the subjectivity of perception and of the interpretation of perception. David Perkins starts me off with his reference to Nietzsche's writings on 'historisches Bewusstsein':
'What distinguishes the present age from all past ones, he says, is that we know so much more about them than they did about each other. This knowledge is unhealthy. "Alien and disconnected" images from many times and place, a "carnival of gods, customs, and arts" fill our minds as a spectacle, but none are felt to be ours. As they collide in our minds, they are all relativized, and so also are whatever convictions and values characterize the present moment in history." (Perkins 1993. p.175).
If, as Nietsche claims, knowledge of the past colours the present, then the affected present will in its turn contaminate our notion of the past. Even if this is a supposition and not a fact, this seems an unstable basis for research, and I do remember reading a book about marginalia a couple of months ago, making a mental note not to let my own findings lead to unbased postulations.
To be continued.
I was pleased to stumble across this post while sorting through the pile of unread posts from the blogs I follow. This Nietzsche quote is a very useful one for us historians, and one I had forgotten about.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI'm currently researching censorship in Iowa (U.S.) libraries during World War I, and one of my biggest challenges has been to not impose my 'hindsight is 20/20' views on the work. From today's vantage point, libraries and censorship interact much differently than they did near the turn of last century, when they were institutions to promote 'good reading' rather than serving as brokers for whatever information the public desired. Librarians in 1918 were concerned that by not removing questionable works, they were not fulfilling their duties.
Thank you for providing this quote as a reminder to go back and read these writings, and good luck with the research. I look forward to seeing more of your writing on this subject and more of your posts on the research as a whole!