From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
NPOV is not impossible for textbooks. Why should it be? It's the
easiest thing in the world. I don't agree with Alex's comments on
history being necessarily POV at all -- I think that his comment
misunderstands the social evolution of consensus embodied in an NPOV
policy.
The problem with historians is that they see the story of history as
being about belief systems, ways of organizing knowledge and
coming to conclusions. It is a debate in academic circles that has
been going on for years. History, as an "academic discipline" (as
oppposed to what most people call historical facts) is based upon
interpretation. Most historians will, at some point recognize the
relatively validity of another historical method or interpretive approach,
but ultimately the reasons things happen are mysterious. Take the
French Revolution, hundreds of books have been written from it
from different points of view, even writing a book that fairly documents
such different points of view would be daunting; are these historians
searching for the one "right" way of looking at the FR and going to
discard all the other approaches as "flawed" only the most closeminded
historians do not see the merits in the approaches of other historical
methods having a multiplicity of POVs is good.
The point is that historians would not agree with a social consensus
because the data that they use is always open to interpretation.
It is not about inaccuracy or flaws, it is just that when people
interpret events they do so in differing ways with differing ideas
about what is right or wrong. Even the data that is recorded (primary
sources) can be looked at in different ways, unlike other areas of the
social sciences (though some mind disagree with this) the data
varies and what the significance of that data might be.
Perhaps I am wrong but I thought NPOV was large enough to
incorporate all this differences without putting the "flawed"
judgement upon the valuable work of scholars that contributes
to some understanding of the past without trying to create one
total "objective" history, which most historians already agree is
inpossible to create in a world filled with a diversity of cultures,
beliefs and opinions about the meaning and signficance of events.
My undertanding of NPOV is that it requires a recogition that
there are multiple points of view; the historical approach to
"narrative" (which is what this discussion is really about) is
that it is based upon the "objective" narrator. Today we know
that events can be interpreted, recorded and understood in
a variety of methods, according to different cultural norms
and expectations. It is not a matter of determining what is
right or wrong, but relevant or irrelevant. All the differing
opinions can be respected. (I am not talking here about
inaccuracies or situations where individuals obviously have
an overt agenda they are trying to push; we are talking about
sophisticated differences in approaches; valid epistimological
issues).
Suppose it is true that at any point in time, a
history text will be
imperfect, biased in some way. Does that mean we have good reason to
celebrate this flaw? And to enshrine it? I think not. If someone
comes along to improve the text by making it neutral, that's great,
and that's what NPOV is all about.
Once again, I don't think that differing historical methods are necessarily
flawed or imperfect. These are questions of interpretation that
require a detailed analysis of the analytic methods of one historian
and his/her data. Rarely will the critique of an approach uncover a flaw,
usually it will be a differing opinion, which reasonable people are
all allowed to have; Lefevre has one idea about the role of peasants
in the French Revolution, Braudel another, and Schama might practically
discount their influence almost all together seeing the revolution as an
revolution in ideologies and "mentalities".
Braudel might see Schama as being a right wing apologist and Schama
might state that Lefevre is a warmed over communist (and they all
might be right about such things to a particular extent), but they will
all recognize the work of the other as being of interest, significant
and of merit to the development of a historical discourse and the
evolution of historical analysis. The study of history is not about
coming to one final analysis of events, but to review the events from
differing perspectives and to allow such differences in approach to
highlight different factors and possible causes for the development
of events. There is no one theory of the French Revolution just an
evolution of theories as they are developed by new schools of
historical research and methodology. de Toqueville's work on the
"ancien regime" is not flawed because it was displaced by later,
more analytic historical methods. It has its own place, its own voice,
and a significiance that most people would not question even today.
It is another secondary source that adds to the historical dialogue.
Alex756