Moses-White exchange

Instead of discussing one or more of the major arguments set forth by Moses and White, I’m going to look at a tangential issue, and then work my way toward center. I’d like to focus for a moment on the use of the word “science” in these debates about the construction of history.

The use of the word “science” troubles me in this context because I wonder if it perpetuates the disciplinary hierarchy that increasingly privileges the sciences over the humanities. During the Cold War’s arms race and space race, universities, and even high schools pumped funding into science and mathematics programs, while humanities departments lost support among potential sponsors. While the situation may not be as drastic today, I faltered when I saw that the UCSC Humanities Division used the word “science” repeatedly in a recent advertising brochure. Are people still more likely to value the humanities if we call it a “science?” And if so, would historians, therefore, reach more people with the “scientific” approach that Moses suggests?

Perhaps, but since I wouldn’t characterize UCSC’s humanities courses as scientific myself, I also question whether or not Moses’s suggested methodology actually is “scientific.” Kelly and I discussed this aspect of Moses’s use of the word “science” yesterday: Scientists collect data, analyze it, and present results, without necessarily stating their beliefs, morals, or ethics based on that data. While they may seek a certain outcome or set out to prove an ethically or morally charged hypothesis, in the end, it seems that ideally, scientists produce results, and everyone else decides, individually, what those results mean to them based on their own morals and ethics. This is, I suppose, how some historians work as well, to an extent.

“Individual.” “Their own morals and ethics.” By now you can tell that I’m more of a “cultural relativist” than not, but while there may not be one grand truth out there, as a historian, I feel that I am working toward some version of a truth, if the word “truth” must be used. And while I’d like to think that my reasons and methods are morally sound, people have different moral values. Maybe it’s hubris to think that historians can or should influence morals and ethics. Maybe it’s hubris to think I have the ability to revise what I see as misrepresentations of gender in early America, which is the “moral” direction of my own work. Still, I’m going to try to get at something “true,” or at least something different, while I maintain a level of awareness that this is just the “truth” as I see it. Perhaps then, the goal, for me, is to present truth-as-I-see-it “poetically” or “aesthetically,” as Hayden White says, drawing attention to the constructed nature of my work, while I attempt to convey a different perspective of a truth that may or may not exist. A quixotic endeavor, to say the least.

- Heather