Historians “kill history”

Katherine Epstein teaches history at Rutgers University-Camden and has some very good thoughts about her (and my) subject. Here's a taste of her piece Freedoms“Historians Killing History”:

The indifference to academic standards should be obvious to even casual observers of the academic culture wars. The late Harvard law professor Charles Fried justified his refusal to examine the plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay on the basis of who made them: they were part of a “right-wing extremist attack on elite institutions.” In strikingly similar language, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman refused to investigate the plagiarism allegations against his wife because they were part of “attacks on my family.” This is not the language of the standards. This is the language of the bunker.

What may be less obvious to the casual observer is the indifference to academic standards that has characterized the history wars in recent years, or the way in which the common silence of supposed opponents in the history wars about standards is the same common silence in the academic ones culture wars rather broadly anticipated. Too many historians of different ideological orientations imitate the forms of science without reflecting their content. They make trips to archives, consult secondary literature, and cite sources in footnotes, but their research lacks rigor and integrity. It's not science, it's a pseudo-science. The intellectual incompetence – or dishonesty – of many critics of the historical profession simply reflects that of much of the profession itself. No wonder neither of them wants to look in the mirror: they would find their enemy, themselves, staring back at them.

It is important to reframe the problem in terms of standards rather than ideology for three reasons. First, it creates the basis for a vital center in science, which is needed there as well as in politics. If this center is to be real and not just a band-aid for differences, it cannot be defined a priori ideological commitments; It must be defined by a stronger commitment to process – be it scientific or liberal democratic – and to human dignity. The call for “process” may not sound like an inspiring trumpet blast, but (as I have argued before in these pages) process secures moral substance that should excite the heart. It guides historians to humanize rather than dehumanize the people they study. It encourages them to treat those who lived in the past as subjects who need to be understood as fully as possible, rather than as mere objects to be oversimplified and manipulated according to the whims of historians. Therefore, standards that distinguish between more and less rigorous processes also distinguish between more and less humanistic content. It is no coincidence that liberal democracy requires the same humanism.

Read the entire article here.