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Interesting Items/Snippets from Australia's Colonial Past |
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Three Propositions:
If facts and dates are not so important in history, then what is important? History is the study of the past. This can be undertaken by an individual, by that person directly reading historical material - from curiosity or for entertainment. More commonly it means the written record or narrative that is produced by a person (student or historian), as a result of studying historical material. This is the meaning that will be foremost in the following discussion. Thus history is written by an historian, to be read by an audience. Because there is so much material in the past, so many facts and dates, it is simply not possible to study them all. Historians have no choice but to be selective. They pick certain times (eg centuries or perhaps decades) and within those times they concentrate on particular locations or themes. Even within this restricted focus they are only ever able to review a limited number of the available facts. Once historians have chosen their selective focus they use these facts to draw conclusions and to produce an interpretation. Their interpretation is then reported in a written document, often in a narrative form that tells a story. The same set of facts can lead different historians to draw different conclusions, provide differing explanations, and even to produce opposing interpretations. It is rare for two historians to write identical accounts of the same events. History without interpretation is hardly history. A list of facts or dates without interpretation does not qualify as history. It is merely chronology. In the bad old days, when students’ were tested on their knowledge of the past by having to memorise a string of dates and facts, they were not being taught history. Dates and facts without causality and interpretation have little meaning. They require no exercise of the intellect or imagination on the part of the writer, or the reader. The two most important things in history are interpretation - and imagination. These are what draw a reader’s interest to history. History that is lacking in these qualities will rarely find a wide audience and will have minimal impact. Why Precise Dates are not so Important Rote learning a series of dates or a list of facts holds no meaning. “Learning” them changes nothing. It inspires no action, evokes no sympathies, induces no commitment, and fosters no understanding. Dates of themselves are of little importance. It is neither here nor there if the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066 or 1076. No one really cares what month in 1914 Archduke Ferdinand was killed, or even whether it was in 1913. What is important is the sequence of events, and the interrelationship between them. It is necessary to establish that William the Conqueror landed in Britain before the Battle of Hastings, and it is necessary to show that World War I broke out after the Archduke’s death. But once a sequence is established the really important process in the writing of history is the interpretation drawn from the facts. It is the explanation of why and how the events happened that arouses the interest of readers of history. Why did William land in Britain, and why did war break out after Archduke Ferdinand’s death? These are the questions readers want answered. What motivated the people involved? Who was in the right and who was in the wrong? What would it have been like being involved in either of these conflicts? These issues require imagination on the part of the writer, or the reader, or both. History might start with dates, but what it ends with is an appeal to human intellect or emotions. This is the important part of history. History at a professional level can concentrate on an intellectual response, but history without an emotional response is history without imagination. It is unlikely to be read by any but a select few. Can History Ever be Objective? The answer is yes and no. But we have to qualify the yes. In some restricted branches of history, such as Scientific or Environmental History, it may be possible to establish, by weighing up the evidence, in a similar process as is conducted in the courts, that certain physical events took place. However, as soon as history encompasses the study of human actions even the basic facts can provoke dispute. There is no shortage of examples of such disputes, even in relation to major public events. Who killed the princes in the Tower of London is a perennial. More recently there are numbers of people who do not believe that an American walked on the moon. Was the FBI involved in President Kennedy’s death? And why did Marilyn Monroe die? Was Princess Di’s death an accident? If it is not possible to establish the facts in these very public cases, what chance is there that all the relevant evidence can be discovered in more mundane historical events? And even if evidence is available, can it be trusted? Any person closely acquainted with events reported in today’s press knows that a vast amount of inaccurate reporting occurs. Much of this is accidental, but sometimes it is deliberate, particularly where politics is involved. This is not new. The early newspapers in Australia contain numbers of letters pointing out where facts have been misreported, often in rival papers. These can make amusing reading. In 1858 a reader wrote to the Editor of the Mudgee Newspaper complaining that “the article to which I refer must have been written by your “special correspondent” here, as it is so exactly in accordance with the misstatements which appear in your paper so frequently from his pen, and which have no other foundation than his own imagination.” In 1848 the Sydney Morning Herald was caught out writing false reports of meetings during the elections for the Bathurst District, including printing at length a speech from one candidate that was never given, and which the reporter admitted had been handed to him by the candidate. This is the material historians rely on to produce their interpretations. In most cases it is not possible to know what is accurate reporting and what is not. Is it any wonder that historians’ conclusions vary? An interesting comment on this problem appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial on December 3, 1861. I will quote it at length as it is a colourful illustration of the difficulty of achieving objectivity in history.
This editorial demonstrates how it is possible for the same event to be interpreted in two very different ways. The “riot” was viewed differently depending on the prejudices of the viewer. In a similar way, the views of historians are coloured by their own beliefs and prejudices. An old example is the Tudor history of England, written by the Tudors. More recently the “history” of the troubles in Ireland will be quite different if written by a Protestant or by a Catholic, and there will be little similarity between a Jewish and a Palestinian version of the Middle East conflict. How history is written will reflect the cultural values of its author and the audience it is written for. Historians cannot escape their backgrounds. They are the products of their own societies. Their subjectivity starts with the selection of subject matter. In Australia, until relatively recently, women were not often the subject of historical investigation, and early Australian historical studies gave little attention to Aboriginal history. These are areas where the values of Australian society have changed. Historians write for a modern audience. They look to the past to make sense of their present. As the values of societies evolve, so do the interpretations of historians. This is why history is forever being revisited. History can never be truly objective. The emphases and interpretations of historians will be forever changing, and will always vary, depending on the society or social group from which the historian is drawn and the audience the historian is writing for. Often it will not be possible to establish the true facts about what happened in the past, or to prove one interpretation right or wrong. What is important in history then is not what happened but what people think happened. This is what drives their present day actions. Does History Teach us Lessons? It is often said that we can learn from the lessons of history. A major technical barrier to “learning” from the past is the uniqueness of historical events. The historical context is always changing, so there is no guarantee that what worked or did not work in the past will do the same in the future. As history is always written from a present day perspective we do not usually learn from the past. Rather, the process is the other way round. We interpret the past from the viewpoint of the present. Societies look to their past to give support for present day positions and actions. Nazi Germany looked to the past to provide support for its race supremacy theories. While these are now discredited, principally because of the defeat of the Nazis, there are still some groups who are using the same historical facts to support a present day racist movement. In Australia we no longer hold the racist views that were current in the 19 th Century - so we are re-writing our history accordingly. The facts have not changed. But there is now a very different version of what happened when the white colonists landed on the continent. It is not that we have learnt from the past. Historians are now using the same facts differently. When we revisit the past the process involves searching out the facts that support our preconceptions. Understanding the past is used to give meaning to the present. History does not teach us lessons. We use it to teach ourselves lessons. Why are Historians so Obsessed with Facts? History starts with facts, so there is a need to establish what is true and what is not true, before moving on to draw conclusions and provide an interpretation. When historians challenge the facts in an opponent’s work, what they are really trying to do is to attack that person’s interpretation. This is why there is so much emphasis on establishing the accuracy of facts. Historians believe that if they can show that their opponent has got their facts wrong this will undermine that writer’s credibility. But what they are really attacking is that person’s interpretation. Does this work? Not usually. Rarely does an historian agree that their interpretation is totally wrong. What usually happens is that a vigorous debate ensues, in which each tries to find holes in each other’s facts and arguments. They each try and convince readers of the correctness of their interpretation and the incorrectness of that of their rival. The overall views and interpretations of the historians rarely change. History is not about learning from the past, but about convincing others of the correctness of a certain interpretation. Imagination in History History is not always about the big picture. Often what draws people to read or to study history is a fascination with the past itself. In these cases people are interested in understanding what it was like to live in the past. They want to be able to use their imagination to evoke the past. A good historical account will be written imaginatively, so as to give the reader an appreciation of what it was like to be involved in the events being recounted. For written history to be popular it needs to provide scope for readers to use their imagination. Another way for history to be presented is to let the primary source material tell its own stories. This is what www.historypages.net seeks to do. The following items show how a well selected piece can provide scope for the exercise of a reader’s imagination. On May 10, 1862, the Sydney Mail reported from Burrangong (now the town of Young, New South Wales) that:
On June 4, 1862 the outcome of the court case was reported:
The reader can imagine the fracas in the Diggers Theatre. There would have been a considerable commotion as the horsewhipping took place – with friends of the parties and the police becoming involved. The motivations can also be guessed at. There would have been no love lost between Torpy, a leader of the diggers during the recent anti-Chinese riots, and Duncan who was a junior officer amongst the troops despatched to the gold field to restore order after the riots. The “Julia” in Byron’s poem is a young wife married to an older man, who has an affair with young Don Juan. Perhaps the “lady” who Ensign Duncan sent the poem to was also married to an older man. This could explain Torpy’s indignation. There is certainly scope for imagination here. Then there is the leniency of the sentence. This allows us to speculate on the different attitudes that prevailed in the 19 th Century, and the nature of the justice system at the time of the New South Wales gold rushes. All of this can happen in an imaginative reader’s head, with only minimal additional information provided by the historian presenting the material. History that provokes the reader’s imagination is interesting history. But even presenting history in this way is subjective. The items have to be selected from all the other available material. This will happen on the basis of the presenter’s biases and interests. Not all readers will find the selected items of interest. Who Decides what is Important in History? Regardless of the selections made by the historian, it is ultimately the audience who decide what is important to them in history. Readers will only pay attention to material that is meaningful to them, depending on their personal background and interests. There are even numbers of people who have little or no interest in history. To particular groups certain events hold special significance. For the descendents of the convicts, the arrival of their convict ancestors in Australia is significant, whereas it is of little interest to more recent migrants, such as Greeks, or Vietnamese. Similarly, local history is of most interest to the people in that locality and of little interest to those who live outside it. The extreme example is family history, which rarely means anything to those outside the family group. This tendency to pay most attention to history that is of direct relevance to the reader reinforces the tendency of historians to “preach to the converted” – to write material that accords with the perspectives and prejudices of their audience. Hence historians become popular within groups that share their values and views. Recent Australian examples are Manning Clark and Geoffrey Blainey. Both write strongly interpretive and imaginative history, but appeal to different audiences. They are good examples of history being interpreted from the particular writer’s viewpoint. Is History Art or Science? History can never be a science, however much emphasis is put on factual accuracy. Certainly there is a need to follow a rational methodology in trying to establish the facts. The laws of logic need to be followed in presenting arguments and explanations. Truth has to be weighed up, and judgements made. But even before the writing starts there is too much scope for subjectivity. Historical events are unique. There is no possibility of applying scientific method. The experiment can never be repeated. The way history is written is almost as important as what it says. A well written piece of work will hold the reader’s interest, engage their mind, and stir their imagination. Such skilful writing is an art itself. Readable history is closer to entertainment than to science. It involves the use of subjectivity and imagination. Each person’s response to the written work will be individual. This is akin to the response to an art form. As with other art forms people will only read what they like and enjoy. Historians and students of history should always remember this. While the facts are important in history, they are never as important as what is done with them. Hugh Capel Note: |