"competing esotericisms," or, "can't we just go get a beer now?"

As I was reading, I kept asking myself whether or not I was interested in this debate at all. Indeed, the "crosssing of swords" between Moses and White is an interesting forum in which we can address questions, not only of truth and objectivity in the field of history, but also the long term implications of widely held beliefs on either side of the theoretical and epistemic fence, and within the discipline of history in general.* Debates about what we do and its "relative" (get it?) importance are always good, but sometimes it can have such an esoteric character so as to be less than enjoyable for the reader and/or historian who only peripherally struggles with the issues that scholars such as White and Moses debate with such depth. It isn't that I am uninterested in the debate itself, but rather the (onto)logical extent to which such debates are taken. (A quick aside: if White has art, poetry, and the avant garde on his mind when he thinks of history, perhaps he should remind himself that his writing would be a lot more fun if he did it in iambic pentameter.) Anyway, I admit that the debate is, in fact, important, and that despite the tortured academic prose, each of them seem to waste few words. At the same time, I would humbly ask that they try to use better ones. But that's just me; I'm a crazy and weird simpleton. Ironically, I stand with White in the de-systematizing and de-intellectualizing of history (a charge I make of White that we can debate). All of that being said, I'll just talk real quick about the debate, give you a hint of where I stand (for now; I could be convinced otherwise), and then leave the rest of the issues for discussion.

Commence rambling:

Something that I think both Moses and White agree on, though to different degrees, is that history is not about the events, but trying to find a way to attach meaning to these events. The problem becomes when there are a number of different understandings and interpretations of the meaning of a particular event (to take their exhausted example, the holocaust), "which one achieves primacy?," Moses might ask. It seems to me that Moses is saying that historians, as professionals, possess the credentials that enable us to interpret and assume fact. In a sense, then, (dare I say) we get to be the arbiters of right and wrong in the historical record-- this is our intellectual responsibility. White, on the other hand, appears to argue that there can be many interpretations and many meanings, and that the important thing is not to create an historical record, but rather a collection of records through which subsequent readers, should they be so inclined, can divine their own meanings, just like we, as historians, have divined our own. Of coourse, as Moses argues, this is dangerous-- especially given the use of historical interpretations and revisions for genocide, ethnic cleansing, and visions of new nationalisms that are violent and exclusionary. Dangerous though it may be, perhaps it is a calculated risk. I mean, if history does hold such power through narrative and factual construction, would it not, then, be best to disinvest ourselves from the discipline as it is today? I think with his allusions to the avant-garde, poetics, and the fictive nature of history, White might agree with this, while maintaining that there is still some power in the divining meaning of historical events. Obviously, this does not mean that we should all quit history and categorize it as a useless exercise in ego (although I can't help thinking...). No, the meaning that we interpret from historical events is, I think, an important job. I just might agree with White, though, when I say that it isn't as important as historians themselves might believe.

Another quick point is that both arguments stem from a premise of the elite construction of history, a common assumption that presupposes the invisibility of regular people. I really don't know what to do with this point besides be unhappy about it. Give me a couple days to think about it, and maybe I'll come up with something.







*Truthfully, the whole thing makes me tired.