History
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Part One
Question One
“The great historians have always responded to these difficulties by expanding their sympathies beyond narrow in-group boundaries. Herodotus set out to award a due meed of glory both to Hellenes and to the barbarians; Ranke inquired into what really happened to Protestant and Catholic, Latin and German nations alike. And other pioneers of our profession have likewise expanded the range of their sympathies and sensibilities beyond previously recognized limits without ever entirely escaping, or even wishing to escape, from the sort of partisanship involved in accepting the general assumptions and beliefs of a particular time and place.” William McNeill, “Mythistory,” p. 7.
The passage defines the dilemma historians find themselves in when trying to define historical truth. The concepts of myth and history are mostly thought to be different, with myth being depicted as false and history depicted as the truth. Both concepts are similar such as in the way that both of them seek to explain a past event through a story. However, the truth about history is that what one historian believes to be true is not always true to another historian. There is, therefore, the concept of another historian disregarding a fellow historian’s truth as a myth (Munslow, 2018). The concept of non-universal acceptance of historical concepts helps to explain how history and myths are closely related. How can one establish that their historical understanding is not a myth? Historian predecessors believed that using the scientific method to represent historical data was the ultimate way to fix the issue of myths. In this event, historians had to present their data accurately and chronologically to validate their concepts. While this method seems sufficient in validating data, the reality is, without subjective judgment and making intellectual choices, these facts would remain clusters of information without meaning.
History is therefore created by finding patterns in the historical data and developing an interpretation of these facts. History cannot occur without a narrative, and these narratives are subject to challenges. There was a time when challenging agreed-upon facts were not received well. Even today, human beings are still divided according to shared truths that they believe in (Spiegel, 2019). Those who do not share similar truths are hardly welcomed into these groups. Historians strive to develop a better understanding and acceptance of upcoming ideas. This is explained by the fact that historical patterns do not account for all facts, rather just selected facts that meet a certain pattern. It does not mean that other facts do not play a part since other patterns could also be realized. Historians have, therefore, extended their sympathies and sensitivity when evaluating historical concepts and differing truths.
Question Two
‘As objective, historical experience and writing share the same fate. Historical experience as inscribed is put at a distance, and so history is a science-based on traces. That it may begin with an eternal critique of the documents in an archive is a result of this fact, that historical experience allows itself to be externalized, inscribed, and perpetuated in the form of archives.” Paul Ricoeur, “History and Hermeneutics,” p. 692.
Explaining how history and writing share the same fate begins with determining the common element of the narrative. Both seek to explain occurrences in the past by narrating what happened and how one event linked to the other in order to reach a specific point. For example, history hopes to explain how current occurrences came to be through the exploration of the past. One of history’s characteristics is that it explains events that cannot be reviewed and validated because they cannot happen again. It is the reason that history is externalized because the historians did not experience the events first hand. While the documentation of these events is factual, the factors that influence them are not all documented. Evaluating a past event’s causation can be difficult without firsthand experience because some influencing factors may be lost. History only seems keen on causation that seems to fit the topic they hope to verify using history. It leads to the concept of bias and subjectivity in history (Meretoja, 2017).
Historical critique hopes to validate a historical concept through the scientific method by re-evaluating data to find new patterns or challenged the existing patterns. The concept of critique is believed to better historiography in that it hopes to increase the scientific process of explaining the history. The main problem is that history is full of fragmentary evidence that makes it hard to recreate past events’ full concept (Tozzi, 2018). Even with a lot of historical data, many missing pieces do not give the real picture, leaving historians to make an assumption and maintain some biases when presenting historical concepts. It is also very challenging for historians to determine which fragments of the past are explicable causes or accidents. These misgivings in history make critique extremely important and allow for more flexibility in understanding historical concepts.
Part Two Essay
The role of narrative in history is a matter of fact – most history books are written in narrative form or treat historical events as events in an unfolding story. Carr argues that despite this fact, many theorists claim that there is a discontinuity between the historical narratives of historians and the events these narratives are “supposedly” about. Explain this discontinuity, the arguments for it, and then contrast it with the position Carr puts forth. The narrative also plays an important role in Christian’s understanding of universal history and global citizenship. In concluding, connect Carr’s arguments to Christian’s theory of universal history.
The narrative plays an important role in history as it is the main form of presentation of historical facts. History faces many challenges, especially with respect to its narrative characteristic. This is because the narrative is believed to be a lesser form of truth. If anything, the narrative is thought to have very little validity; hence, not trusted to present the ultimate truth. The historical narrative presents events in a past timeline and depicts its characters as existing in the past in relation to the historical distance. Historical distance dictates the required time gap between the present and the past to validate events as historical (Munslow, 2018). Historians, following the concept of historical distance, present facts, and events that they did not experience since current events do not qualify as history.
Due to the aspect of historical distance, history cannot be presented in any other way apart from the narrative because historians describe events that occurred in the past and disappeared. These events are neither current, nor can they be re-experienced. While historical facts are used to develop historical concepts, these concepts rely on the historian’s interpretation. Historians use narrative as a way to link the different historical facts to the concept they are presenting. Without their subjectivity, assumptions, and bias, historical concepts cannot be represented (Meretoja, 2017). It is, therefore, clear to understand the link between history and narratives.
While most people believe that history and narrative project a discontinuity between the reality of the past and its representation, David Carr believes in the continuity of the past into the present. The justification in the concept of discontinuity is based on the vagueness of truthfulness in history presentation (Tozzi, 2018). While historical narratives claim to present the truth about past events, there is no guaranteed way to tell if these histories are indeed accurate. By definition, narrative can be fictional or non-fictional. History is expected to present facts hence considered a non-fictional narrative. Fictional narrative, while distanced from reality, is still said to be true to life. It presents unreal events in a way that depicts how they would have appeared in reality. There is certainly a vague line between truthfulness in fictional and non-fictional narratives as both are successful in achieving conviction on their audiences. History as a non-fictional narrative can still be argued not to be true even though it represents real facts. In reality, historical events do not occur chronologically in a specific pattern lining up to cause a significant momentum in the future (Carr, 2016). The reality is that historical facts occur separately and individually, and it takes a historian to develop a connection between these events hence introducing the concept of theory in history. Narrative accounts only present an incomplete picture of past events hence establishing a disconnection between the historical representation and the reality of past events (Speigel, 2019). The narrative is perceived as a mere extension of past events’ primary features, and when these projected features are linked together, they make a formal distortion of these events in general. History is both narrative and theoretical, which weakens its truth claims.
While there is a clear discontinuity expressed in historical narrative, Carr argues against it, depicting that historians have a way of experience the past even in present times. Carr argues for the fact that the past persists into the present, which is what history presents; hence if there is a presence of the past in current times, present-day historians experience it. In his article “Reflections on Templar Perspective,” Carr presents a non-conventional approach to how history is understood, depicting a phenomenological approach of experience to replace the common concepts of memory and representation (Tozzi, 2018). While Carr argues on the persistence of the past into the present, there is the question of how this happens while so many changes happen over time. Carr argues for continuity in that he believes there are real elements of the past that carry on to the future. It is made possible through experience, which is characterized by its psychological and cultural determinants. In this effect, the only real way for historians to experience the past in the present is to be part of the community that passed down these experiences. Through membership to communities that experienced past occurrences, it is possible to feel the past. Carr, therefore, believes that the present is the temporal locus of experiencing the past. He believes that we are trapped in the present and thereby condemned to it (Carr, 2016). Therefore, the understanding of the past can be gained only if a certain element of this past persisted into the present.
In his argument for continuity, he does not view the concept of narrative as a distortion. When evaluating what is being distorted, we realize there is no accurate definition of reality. Reality is, in fact, random, which means we cannot tell if reality is distorted or its just acting according to its characteristic of randomness (Spiegel, 2019). Carr believes that narrative does not present an alien structure on how past events happened; rather, it is continuous with every activity that makes up the past. Through a narrative, people can humanize events and occurrences in their lives, which means the narrative is part of life. Carr explains that people cannot understand that something is happening in the present unless they are comparing them against a past background justifying the presence of the past in current times.
The narrative also plays a role in Christian historiography. The church history is presented in a chronological form called the chronicles. In these chronicles, the Christian history authors narrate the past events in the order that they happened (Derrida & Newheiser, 2020). The early Christian narratives seemed only focused on specific parts of the world hence did not show interest in the idea of universal history. These narratives did not include or concern themselves with explaining events in the non-Christian world as events in the old testament rarely link their understanding of world history. Early Christians were not inclined to time because they believed in the imminent end of time. In Christianity writing, there is the concept of apocalypses, which are narratives written about the end of the world in the future. The writing was based on the prophetic revelation of the future, and yet there is no given timeline of when these occurrences might occur.
As depicted in these apocalypses, the concrete expectation that the world was near an end opened Christianity towards the reality of universal history (Vincent, 2019). The depicted apocalypses were expected to happen to all nations across the world and not just the Christian communities. It is easy to think Christianity easily discovered world history considering it was present very far into the past. Christianity had borrowed from the Jewish tradition, and we see a connection of many single stories into one history of the world. Christian authors connect the Christian world to the outside world to help incorporate universal history in their narratives. Their interest in universal history only came about in the second and third century leading to the deeper discovery of the Jewish heritage in link to Christianity. The chronological narrative in Christian writing helped to link Christianity to the universal history through the evaluation of the Greek and Hebrew links to Christian history in a new sense (Rouwhorst, 2020). It is also important to understand how the development of apocalyptic literature in Christianity did not internally incorporate universal history. The apocalyptic writing was in no way influenced by universal history because it did not acknowledge the idea of time nor cared for a chronological timeline that did not affect the apocalyptic future. It only opened the Christian community to think about the universal history but did not follow into incorporating it into its writing.
In regards to global citizenship, Christian views establish all people as created by one God in the creation story. Having all originated from the same descendant establishes that each person is equal and a child of God; hence all humans are global citizens. Christian views also expect that everyone extends the same treatment they would like on them to others. Early Christians developed their historical view as part of the interaction with the ekklesia community, also known as the church (Derrida & Newheiser, 2020). These views were developed as they engaged in reading the scriptures, worshiping, preaching, and instructing the young, among other things. Through the church community, Christians elaborated, taught, maintained, revised, and unfolded their views on history. They reached the development of a universal history understanding. The universal history helped to elaborate and maintain the sequence of creation, fall, redemption, and culmination depicted in the bible (Rouwhorst, 2020). The historical depiction over the course of time believes that the creation of the world and everything is the beginning, and as Adam and Eve entered into sin, they brought about the fall. Falling out with God led to a lot of suffering until God, in his merciful ways, established the possibility of redemption through Jesus Christ and the church. The culmination depicts the last days where Christ’s return would signify the end of the world and judgment day. The Christian depiction of world history shows continuity and maps out an ongoing process to the future; hence, believes there are a beginning and an end.
We can link Carr’s arguments to the Christian view of universal history. Christian historiography has been passed down through narratives that were later documented into writing. Therefore, Christianity views history as a continuity similar to how Carr believes that narrative occurs naturally in human activities as a way to humanize occurrences. Christianity is deeply based on the cultural believes that have been passed down from the early church (Vincent, 2019). The church has kept the past alive, and there is so much evidence of the past in the present. Carr’s continuity argument believes that the past is in the present, just like Christianity is seen to bring the past history alive. To be able to experience a past, one has to join a community that has passed down these past elements into the future. Christianity is one of these groups that can allow a historian to experience the past in the present time. There are rich history and connection of present-day Christian views and past occurrences. Christian history also follows Carr’s continuity argument in the way that narrative is used to link different occurrences to make one whole concept of world history. Like history, the different facts documented in the bible are open to different interpretations. It is one of the reasons why the Christianity divide between the Catholics and Protestants occurred (Vincent, 2019). Even so, the reconciliation of Christianity after the split of the religion is maintained by similarity in major views between both groups maintaining an undisputed element of continuity.
The Christian view on universal history shows a chronology of events from creation to culmination. While discontinuity would argue that events in the past do not occur in chronology to lead to the current events, the bible believes otherwise. Like Carr, Christianity believes that the present is built on the past, and without the elements of the past, the present would not exist. The persistence of the past into the present argues for the continuity of events. While the narrative element of Christian world history is similar to that of historians in selective pattern connections, it does not disregard the impact of history on the future. Carr’s argument for continuity and the Christian view on universal history share numerous similarities.
References
Carr, D. (2016). The reality of history. na.
Derrida, J., & Newheiser, D. (2020). Christianity and Secularization. Critical Inquiry, 47(1), 138- 148.
Meretoja, H. (2017). The ethics of storytelling: Narrative hermeneutics, history, and the possible. Oxford University Press.
Munslow, A. (2018). Narrative and history. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Rouwhorst, G. (2020). The Making of Early Christianity: A Processing Perspective on the History of its Rituals. In The Making of Christianities in History: A Processing Approach (pp. 83-118).
Spiegel, G. M. (2019). David Carr’s theory of experiencing times past. History and Theory, 57, S15-S19.
Tozzi, V. (2018). A pragmatist view on two accounts of the nature of our ‘connection’with the past: Hayden White and David Carr thirty years later. Rethinking History, 22(1), 65-85.
Vinzent, M. (2019). Writing the History of Early Christianity: From Reception to Retrospection. Cambridge University Press.