"We are victims of narrative" Topic

"I myself am a victim to narrative," says Alex Rosenberg, a Duke University philosophy professor whose new book hopes to convince readers that narratives — and especially narrative history — are flawed as tools of knowledge…

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Isn't that how oral "histories" in ancient cultures came about, to be memorized and passed along to the next set of ears?

Of course, to get the most ooos and aaahs from the listeners, more and more embellishments were added and eventually the telling of a story had little to do with sharing actual reliable facts.

And eventually, that new kind of storyteller started spreading the stories in written form, and came to be called "journalists" and historians. :)

Dan

"Source criticism" has been used by Historians for Generation to balance out narratives.

This is nothing new History is a series of interpretations of events governed by personal experience and opinions. There is an old saying that goes To Know Your History Know Your Historian.

Think what you will about historians but leave journalists out of it.

To some, the journalist is their historian.

Dan

Good historians don't use narrative to drive a story. They use the events, as they occurred, to figure out internal motivations.

Not to forget that a lot of recent history includes the people specifically stating their intentions (although clearly not accurate objectively, they have value).

This philosopher is part of the scheme to deride objectivity. According to that line, because we can't actually be objective it means that the truth as such doesn't exist.

Well, I call on that. There was a set of events we call history. They occurred because people had motivations. We can't be exactly correct with those events and motivations but we can, and should, try.

What we should definitely not do is repeat all the very obviously bad moves of the past because the narratives we understand them by might be flawed.

It would be interesting to ask the esteemed professor if his strictures apply to Nazi Germany. Perhaps Hitler has been misunderstood by our Western narratives. Perhaps "real Fascism" hasn't really been tried.

I cannot help feel that pressed on the subject there would be plenty of narratives he was unwilling to see rejected.

Of the 'what's' of history (the major events) and to
a smaller extent the 'how's' of history (methods, in
some cases) there really isn't much doubt, narrative
or no.

The 'why's' however – aye, there's the rub, to quote
someone who was unshy about unleashing his/her
(probably 'his,' but one never knows) own views of
certain historical events.

Squirrels! H

I am not the victim. I am the historian…

You know, this is bonkers in so many ways it would require a fresh essay. Not the least is the notion that "history" consists of imputing motives to other people.

Perhaps instead, the Verge could ask a Duke University History professor to outline the more spectacular fails of Philosophy? After 2,000 years, Herodotus's History continues to provide useful insights--and Plato's Republic continues to leave a trail of death and poverty wherever it goes.

History is written by the victors.
But some people don't wait for that part and begin rewriting it immediately…

Wrong, Zephyr. History is written by survivors. (Read any of the Confederate or Nazi memoirs to understand the difference.) And among survivors, all too often it's written by people with an agenda. I don't regard Belleisles as a historian, but you get the idea.

But it's still several up on Philosophy, written exclusively be the agenda-driven, and intentionally impossible to verify or refute.