Wesleyan University

The Public Relevance of Historical Studies: A Reply to Dirk Moses Author(s): Hayden White Reviewed work(s): Source: History and Theory, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Oct., 2005), pp. 333-338 Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3590819 . Accessed: 31/05/2012 09:52
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44 and 2005),333-338 History Theory (October

2005ISSN:0018-2656 University ? Wesleyan

THEPUBLIC ROLEOFHISTORY FORUM:

2.

THE PUBLIC RELEVANCEOF HISTORICALSTUDIES: A REPLYTO DIRK MOSES

WHITE HAYDEN

ABSTRACT

and I amgrateful DirkMosesfor takingthe timeto studymy workso assiduously to to well-informed even-handed, and His on comment it so perspicuously. essayis eminently of of andI havelittleto addto or correct his characterization my many,long on-going, modern historical discourse. underHe to flawedattempts deconstruct and admittedly to We his me stands well enoughandI thinkthatI understand objections my position(s). notionsaboutthenature but of on do notdisagree matters fact,I think, we havedifferent can be and of historical discourse theusesto whichhistorical knowledge properly put. I would like to begin my response to Dr. Moses by quoting a passage from Michel de Certeau:
Envisaged as a "discipline"historiographyis a science which lacks the means of being

to undertakes dealwithwhatis mostresistant scientificity relato one.Its discourse (the that each to tionof thesocialto theevent,to violence, thepast,to death), is, thosematters as in to musteliminate order be constituted a science.' scientific discipline In this passage, I believe, de Certeauhas identified the principal reason that modernWestern,professional historiography (historicalresearch,historicalwriting, historicalconsciousness) continues to fascinate us modems, but always fails finally to satisfy our curiosity about the objects of study to which it draws our attention. History's subject matter,that is, the past, is a problematic object of study--especially for a society that has lost its faith in religion and is disillusioned with metaphysics.The past is the realm of the dead, or, as Heidegger has said, the domain of the "once having lived." It is a place of fantasy that we confrontwith anxiety. It is not presentto perceptionbut is known only by the traces that its once living inhabitantshave left behind. The past is an absent presence, the equivalent for a community of what one's ancestors or, indeed, one's own childhood,is for an individualperson.The dead can be studied scientifically,but science cannot tell us what we desire to know about the dead. Or rather,those aspects of the past that can be studied scientifically do not yield the kinds of informationor knowledge thatdrives us to the study of the past in the first place.
1. Michel de Certeau,Heterologies: Discourse on the Other (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 219-220. I thank Andrew Baird, who will soon publish a book on de Certeau, Laplanche,and historicalconsciousness, for this quotation.

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All culturesimagine a relationshipbetween past and present,but only the West has posited a radical gap between the two and sought to bridge this gap by creation of a special "science"or "discipline"called "history."For most of its long development in the West, the discipline of historicalinquiry was directedto the study of the past and the translationof historicalknowledge into present uses in an informal and relatively unsystematic way. Inquiry was as much by poetic "invention"as by "scientific"inquiry,and the presentationof findings was regulated by traditionalnotions of rhetoricity.Historylaid claim to the statusof both "science"and "art"(as understoodby Aristotle, althoughhe insisted on a difference between history and poetry), aimed at moralinstructionby provisionof idealized examples of virtue and vice for imitation, and served as a basis of pedagogy for the differentkinds of traditionalistsocieties that succeeded one another in the West from ancient Greek times to the modem Enlightenment.All this changed as a result of the process of modernizationwhich began in the fifteenth through sixteenth centuries, radically altered the social bases of Western societies, and resultedby the eighteenthcenturyin the elevation of the physical sciences to the statusof lead disciplines for the studyof both natureandhumankind. The effects of these changes for the study of the past were profound:now historical studies were professionalized, moved into the university, endowed with the task of providing genealogies for the new national state formations, and and socially chargedwith providing an antidoteto the appeal of future-oriented transformative ideologies. The developmentof the social sciences and the continued advancementof the physical sciences requiredprofessionalhistoriansto redefine the natureand status of their discipline. This redefinition, among other things, drove a wedge between two notions of the past that had formerlybeen indistinguishable:what Michael Oakeshottcalls "the historicalpast,"the preserve of professionalhistorians interestedin "disinterested" study of the past "as it really was" and "as an end in itself," on the one hand, and, on the other hand, "the practicalpast," the past considered as a storehouse of memory, ideals, examples, events worthy of remembranceand repetition, and so on, the kind of past ordinarypeople and politicians, ministers, ex-soldiers, and social reformerscarry aroundwith them as an imagined"reality"servingin lieu of both religion and metaphysicsas a paradigm or bedrockof "the real." The distinctionbetween "thehistoricalpast"and "thepracticalpast"was necessary for establishinghistory's status as a (special) kind of scientific discipline, a discipline purified by the elimination of futuristicconcerns, on the one hand, and excluded from making moral and aesthetic, not to mention political and social, judgmentson the present,on the other.At the same time, professionalhistorical inquiry,in the main or orthodox line of its development, set itself up as judge and arbiterof "practical" history.Historyclaimed authorityto criticize and judge both the kind of historicalreflection found in the "philosophyof history" (Hegel, Marx, et al.), which was deemed "unscientific" precisely in the extent to which it wished to study the past in orderto provide a "scientific"critiqueof the presentand indicate paths of futuredevelopmentfor societies tornby class war-

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fare, ethnic divisions, and technologically induced traumasfor which the physical sciences themselves could find no antidotes.And it claimed authorityto criticize and judge the kinds of visions of history found in literarywriting, poetry, religion and myth, and "ideology" in general. "Practicalhistory" (like the kind of historiographywritten since the time of Herodotus) was still motivated by existentialconcernsover the traditionaltopics of myth, religion, and metaphysics (loss, violence, absence, death),and it continuedto live a somewhat shabbyexisand or tence as "popular" amateurhistoriography, (horrors!)the historicalnovel. needed practicalhistoriography, since its own Yet, professionalhistoriography scientificity (or objectivity) consisted precisely in its status as negation of its inferiorantitype.This bifurcationof historicalconsciousness-into a professional and pseudo-scientificor "objective"study of the past, and a practicaland exiswith the great enigmas of temporality,death, and tentiallyengaged confrontation absence-accounts for the ambivalence felt about historical studies in our own time. On the one hand, there is a distinct loss of interest among ordinarycultivated persons in the work of professional historians,and, on the other, we have witness litera simultaneousresurgenceof interestin "practical" historiography: ature,postmodernisthistoricalnovels, historicalbiography,the History Channel, docudramas,historical metafictions, the heritage industry,the "collective memory" scam, and so on. I will not furtherrehearsethis scenario. I will merely note that the salvation of professional historiography-if it deserves salvation at all-does not lie in the vulgarizationof its practicesand efforts to do betterwhat the heritageindustryor the History Channel does badly. It consists in reversing or ratheramending our notions of history's importanceas a field of study, the revision of history's soand called "methodology," most importantlya returnto the intimaterelationship it had with art,poetry,rhetoric,and ethical reflection priorto professionalization and embarkationon the impossible task of becoming "scientific"in the modern lacks are poetsense of the term.Whatcontemporary professionalhistoriography ic vision, philosophical self-reflexivity, and the kind of engagement with the enigmas of humanexistence thatengaged psychoanalysisand ethnographyin the early twentieth century. What has all this to do with Moses' articulatecriticism of my-let's call it what it is-philosophy of history?Moses says that I challenge "the role of professional historiographyin policing the way in which the past is invoked in the presentfor political projects"(313). I certainly do. I not only deny the authority of "professionalhistorians"to "police" anything, I also deny that historians, in theircurrent"professional" capacity,possess the resourcesnecessary for renderIn judgments on whateverit is we mean by "history." ing "ethicallyresponsible" other words, as a result of history's efforts to transformitself into a "science," however modest, however different from the physical science paradigm,in its desire to "tell the truth[andnothing but the truth]"aboutthe past, in its desire to isolate itself from the temptationsof literarywriting, the excesses of philosophy of history,and the seductivenessof ideology, professionalhistoriographycannot honorablyparticipatein discussions of the main political, ethical, and ideologi-

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cal issues that beset a society which, being deprivedof both religion and metaas physics, has little more than "history" a basis for making cognitively justified on currentissues. It has sold out any claim to relevance to present judgments existential concerns of the societies in which it is practicedin orderto purchase a much more dubious claim to "objectivity"(or as Carlo Ginzburgwould prefer, in "neutrality") the study of the past. In a word, Moses, in his discussions of the why and wherefore of the notion of historicality,simply assumes the adequacy of the currentversion of professional historiographyto the analysis and adjudicationof pressing social issues, such as national and ethnic-not to mention class-identity; the significance of the Holocaustfor the understanding Western(andnot only German)society in of its modern phase; the currentPalestinian-Israeli dispute over possession of a land to which each claims title on different"historical" grounds;such phenomena as collective memory, terrorism,genocide, and so on. For example, Moses writes: "In a world in which narrativesof victimization underwritegroup identity and are used to license paranoid attacks, and where rival claims to land and indigeneity are so vexatious, interrogatingthe political uses of historical memory are as urgent as ever" (315). I agree with this statement, but the problemis not with "politicaluses"; it is with the idea of "historical memory,"which seems to me to be a contradictionin terms. "Narrativesof victimization"do not belong to the domain presidedover by "professionalhistoriography,"for the only means professional historians legitimately deploy in their efforts to tell the truthaboutthe past cannot counter any given narrativization of real events. Historiansmay be able to establish that certain events could not have happenedat the time they are thoughtto have happened,but the denial of any given particularevent's occurrencecan hardly affect the appeal of a narrative mode of presentation,whether of "victimization"or anything else. The best counterto a narrativethatis supposed to have misused historicalmemoryis a betternarrative, which I mean a narrative,not with more historicalfacts, but by a narrativewith greaterartistic integrity and poetic force of meaning. Yet even here, the historian'saccount, simply by virtue of its real or feigned scientificity, must go amiss, because "victimization"is not quantitativelyand thereforenot scientifically assessable. No amountof professionally established historicalfact could possibly adjudicatethe contending claims of Palestinians and Israelis to the land of-what shall we call it in order not to prejudgethe issue? Palestine? Israel? In this kind of dispute, it might be betterto abandonall claims to sober and "clarity" "objective"subjectivity(Weber)in orderto seek a common ground on which to dissolve disagreementsfueled by religious fanaticism,in which case the discipline of history would have to show its anti-transcendental, religiously agnostic, and ethically relativistic credentials, without which it is prone to become merely anotherarm of religious dogmatismand political correctness. Moses notes that many historiansthink that my "moralrelativism, epistemological skepticism,and failure..,. to distinguishmyth from history"(315) expose me to the danger of seduction by a "dubious politics" (a code word for "fascism"?)and "seeminginabilityto guardthe historicalintegrityof the Holocaust's

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facticity"(316). The first charge,which repeatsthe commonplacethat relativism authorizesbelief in, if it does not inevitablylead to, fascism (an argumentmounted againstme by Carlo Ginzburg),I simply reject.As far as I am concerned,cultural relativism can lead to many different ethical and political positions, but leads more often to tolerance and efforts to understandthe other,ratherthan to intolerance, xenophobia, and fascism. The Nazis were anything but relativists. And I do not think that Hamas and the Zionists or for that matterthe Neo Cons in Washingtonare relativists either. Would that they were. As for skepticism, I had always thought it was a necessary component of any scientific worldview and a necessary counterto dogmatism. As for my failure to distinguishmyth from history,I take it as a point of honor that I have tried to expose the extent to which this distinction was never earned in historicalstudies: eithertheoretically,insofar as narrativecontinuedto remain the mode of presentationof choice among "professionalhistorians,"or in practice, insofar as professionalhistoriographyhas never been able to liberate itself from "ideology."I repeatmy assertion that, as Ldvi-Straussput it, history is the myth of the West. I have triedto show the extent to which the modernconcept of history only represses,ratherthan dispels, mythic modes of thoughtand expression, and promotes the returnof this repressedmaterialin the form of a worldview that purportsto show that things are always the way they should be and never other. As for the failure of my notion of historiographyto "guard the historical integrity of the Holocaust's facticity" (316), I have said on other occasions, and I wish to repeat it now, that professional historians are threatenedby the revisionists, not because they offer another interpretation of the Holocaust, but because they reveal the factitiousnessof professional historiography'sclaims to be able to deal "scientifically"with such events. The revisionists play the scientific game that professional historianspretendto play; they insist on proof of a scientific and objective kind of the use to which the crematoria were put. Historianswho try to meet them on these groundsgive the revisionists too much honor; they treat them as if they were engaged in the same enterpriseas themselves, insteadof treatingthem with the contemptand derision they deserve. The idea that the Holocaust never happened is simply absurd.We have more than enough evidence to compel belief in its occurrence.The problemthat the occurrence of the Holocaust raises is, I said before, what is its significance, its meaning, its relevance to us, today, tomorrow,for the next generation?But I have to say that Moses' way of formulating this issue confuses me: "the historical integrity of the Holocaust's facticity"?What is "the historical integrity"of the Holocaust's "facticity"? As far as I am concerned,the Holocaust is a synthetic concept or a figure of an event, the occurrenceof which could hardly be doubted but the meaning or the significance of which, for European, American,Jewish, and Near Easternhistory is an open question, begging to be treatedunderas many differentmodes of as meaning-production possible. What we should wish for is the multiplication of as many different treatments-historical, poetic, ethnographical,psychoana-

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lytical, philosophical--of the Holocaust as possible, not in orderto establish or disestablishits "facticity," in orderto get a handle on what the meaning of its but occurrencemight be. Jews certainlyhave a special interestin the Holocaust-or should have-but the Holocaust does not belong only to them. It was an event that occurredin Europe,in the West, and it was an event in which we Americans and God knows how many other nationalgroups were involved, as perpetrators, bystanders,or victims. I regardthe Holocaust as the most significant event in the internalhistory of the West in our time. We need much more than a discipline devoted to establishing "the facts of the matter"to deal with this event. So I accept Moses' charge that I think history-writingis more about meaning than about knowledge. Our knowledge of the Holocaust could hardlybe more complete or more compelling in regardto its "facticity";what we need are imagination and poetic insight to help us divine its meaning. Finally,if Moses is right (and I think he is) in his assertionthat "the historical is the ethical,"then he might wish to give more thought to the relationbetween ethics and the historicalthanhe appearsto have done. I take ethics to be aboutthe differencebetween what is (or was) the case and what ought to be (or ought to have been) the case in some departmentof human comportment,thought, or belief. As de Certeausaid, the ethical opens up a space in which "somethinghas to be done."2 This is quite differentfrom moralitythat, on the basis of some dogmatism,insists on telling us what we mustand must not do in a given situationof choice. The historical past is "ethical"in that its subject-matter (violence, loss, absence, the event, death) arouses in us the kinds of ambivalentfeelings, about ourselves as well as about the "other,"that appearin situationsrequiringchoice and engagement in existentially determiningways. In order to deal with these kinds of events, which interestor should interestmodern publics, appeal should be made to ethically rich traditionsof literaryexpression;but it is precisely these of which, in their efforts to become "scientific"or "objective"or indeed even historianshave deprivedthemselves over the last century or so. This "neutral," for a rethinkingof the trainingof historiansthatwould reestablishthe overargues lap betweenthe aims of historicalinquiryandthe aims of poetic expression.In the academy,historyneeds to returnto the humanitiesand the humanitiesneeds to be linked more intimatelyto the arts, which at the present time the humanitiessimfor ply cannibalizeratherthanhelp cultivate.It is unfortunate historiansthatprofessionalized history is all they have to provide insight into the great existential questionsposed by time, aging, absence, loss, violence, and death. Santa Cruz, California

2. I cite Baird's book on de Certeau,still unpublished.