[Wikipedia-l] Historical NPOV and wikipedian NPOV

[Julie Hofmann Kemp]

I knew I needed to unsubscribe sooner.  

Martin said:

If I understand Julie correctly, historians tend to refrain from making 
moral judgements about history, particularly when the people of that 
period had a significantly different world view. So it's not OK to say 
that "women were treated unfairly", but it is OK to say that "women were

not able to vote or own property" - the former being a statement of 
morality and the latter being one of historical fact. Similarly, 
historians explain things in terms of the temporal context, so the Rape
of 
the Sabines in Rome would be explained in terms of how the romans viewed

women, sex, marriage, and the necessity of making lots of little Romans 
who would grow up to throw weird-shaped spears and feature in historical

novels.

Julie Replies:   Pretty much -- although more in terms of women being
legitimate spoils of war and the story perhaps semi-legendary

However, certain periods in history have been reinterpreted by later 
generations. The inquisition is a classic example, in that some neopagan

religions have used as a quasi-historical basis. Also, (IIRC) later 
christian leaders have retrospectively apologised for the inquisition,
so 
clearly they were judging the morality of the period against modern 
morality. The inquisition has been used as evidence for the claim that 
christianity and/or organised religion is amoral. Finally, the term
"witch 
hunt" is an idiom for an irrational search for evil-doers that works 
similarly to the way the Salem trials and the Inquisition are supposed
(in 
popular imagination) to have been conducted.

Julie clarifies;  In an article on the Inquisition or on witch hunts, I
would expect to include such things as "current research suggests that,
in fact, some (perhaps many) people were the subjects for ulterior
motives -- for example, in so-and-so's (can't recall -- its out there)
seminal work on with trials of the 16th c.  s/he demonstrated that many
accused of witchcraft were independent landowning widows who had no male
relatives to protect them or defend them in the legal system or
community or whatever."  This does a couple of things: 1)  it brings
forward more current views, which may not be available to the general,
non-scholarly public; and 2) it allows people to see that the situation
wasn't morally cut and dried, and allows them to make their own moral
judgments (a la RK's comments).  In the case of the Inquisition, there
is no reason NOT to mention apologies for the institution -- Just as in
an article on the Rape of Nanjing, one should include the fact that
there have been demands for apologies and that Japan has acknowledged it
happening, but never actually apologized.  Let people make their own
judgments based on the facts and the least intrusive, least biased
interpretations.


The historical NPOV would seem (if I read Julie right) to be to ignore 
these later moral judgements as fundamentally ahistorical,
anachronistic, 
and irrelevant. My question is, is the wikipedian NPOV "wider" than the 
historical NPOV: should we include content that historians would judge 
inappropriate? If so, how can we include it so that the historical view
is 
not damaged or confused by non-historical approaches?

Julie replies :  I believe that, if wikipedians stick to the keep out
the utter dreck, give appropriate space to minority valid opinion, part
of NPOV, things will be fine.  If, as Fred suggests, we:

should resign herself to inclusion of viewpoints from popular culture.

I think you're heading down a slippery slope.  Take for example the "jus
primae noctis"  -- the so-called Law of the First Night.  Popular
culture loves this -- it shows up as a motivating force in "braveheart."
It didn't exist.  Should articles give credence to it because it's part
of the popular conception of manorial life?  NO.  I cannot for the life
of me see talking about the Middle Ages in a way that panders to the
Society for Creative Anachronism.  If it gets a mention, it should be in
the context that the great German historian Karl Schmidt debunked this
ages ago and that, although many people accept it as "truth", really it
was a conflation of laws granting permission for a woman to marry off
the estate, and a church tax paid by the newlyweds to be allowed to have
sex on the first night of marriage.

In the same way, an article on the medieval economy would say that for
years historians believed that an agricultural boom in the 10th, 11th,
and 12th centuries was partially the result of technological advances
like the padded horse collar and tandem harnesses, the most recent
research shows that the climate became milder and that, in fact, there
is a great deal of evidence showing that the ancient world had very
similar horse collars and that chariot horses were in fact yoked in
tandem, and that most of the previously held theory was due to one piece
of flawed research which was nevertheless accepted by people who perhaps
didn't know much about farming and horses, but read a source that
appeared to them authoritative.    So the article says what most people
thought (and what popular culture pretty much holds) and why they
thought it, but shows that this theory, which influenced the writing of
history for many years, has been more than legitimately challenged and
is now in the process of being discounted.  It will probably take a
while to trickle down, by the way.  Not, as Erik seems to think, because
historians like to misrepresent things, but because we live in a world
where people who took one course in this subject as an undergrad 20
years ago are now being called on to teach outside their specialties.
Most professional historians who reach the top are very specialized --
not medieval, for example, but Visigothic Spain, or 9th c. land
transfers in southern France, or 8th c. sewer construction in English
towns.  The rest of us -- the people who teach more than research, often
teach outside their fields to make ends meet.  As long as we have a
system that relies on part-timers, we'll have modern Europeanists and
Americanists teaching the invention of the horse collar -- because they
took a class years ago that taught them that, and nobody can keep up
with everything.

As for Erik's letter,  I will say that I think that there is a
fundamental disagreement on what Erik thinks we disagree on.  This is
not meant to be a flame in any way, simply my understanding of things.
Just as with facts, historians also deal with the history of writing
history -- it's called historiography.  Although we might not know the
state of specifics, most of us are reasonably familiar with current
trends.  Unfortunately, a lot of our knowledge is acquired through
conversation with colleagues -- just plain old shop talk about people we
know (or that we've heard of) and what they're working on.   A lot of it
happens through glancing through mailing lists where someone says --
"I'm working on x, and need info about y -- can anybody help"?  The
responses might be about x, they might be about y, and they might be
"so-and so is working on something where he thinks y is really the same
as z."    I know it's not very scientific, but it's how we work a lot of
the time.   There is no universal database where we can search and see
what the latest is on any given subject.  Journals are mostly
specialized, and some only published for small local audiences.   From
my conversations with Erik, I gather that he rejects this.  Moreover, he
seems to believe, based only on a small selection of books that support
his own viewpoint, out of the overwhelming majority that do not, that
historians, medievalists in particular, are not to be trusted.  One of
these books (Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages) has little in the way
of concrete evidence to support its claims -- and really only deals with
one mostly geographical section of the world's medievalists.  Despite
this, or perhaps because of it, Erik feels comfortable in labeling
anyone who disagrees with this an apologist or at least wishy-washy.
It's kind of like, "what Julie says disagrees with  what Erik sees as
being true (the destructive force of the church, for example) , ipso
facto, she fits into Cantor's group of apologist historians, and can't
be trusted to be non-biased. "  

That is patently untrue.  Anyone who has read my work can tell that --
except Erik, because he has an agenda based on the idea that I've been
corrupted by my teachers and tradition and just don't know the
difference.   All I can say is that I have been trained to read
documents and look at other primary sources and interpret them, both
apart from other interpretations and, critically, in light of other
existing interpretations.  Oddly enough, I don't specialize in the
Church -- I specialize in Carolingian political, institutional, and
social history, mostly using written histories and land transactions.
One would think that would be fairly neutral.   But here's the deal.  I
can't defend myself against Erik's accusations, because he has set up a
situation where anything I say that disagrees with his preconceived
notions is by definition wrong.   Unfortunately for the wikipedia, Erik
is not speaking from a position of expertise, or training, or even a
broad and comprehensive exposure to the many schools of historical
thought.  And, it appears clear from your responses to the issues at
hand, that his approach finds more merit in your eyes, because it may
reflect more popular (albeit not really sustainable) beliefs.  If that's
the case, and if such attitudes are encouraged, then NPOV will cease to
exist on the wikipedia -- instead, NPOV will become PC POV, and reflect
whatever the lowest common denominator holds true.  It's a shame,
because the immediacy of the technology could make wikipedia cutting
edge.   I don't see it happening.  I am going to unsubscribe to this
list after sending (when I'm not subscribed, my posts don't go through
-- someone should check on that). 

JHK