It seems to me that American historians since the 1960s have often liked to
play both sides of the field--on the one hand denying the possibility of
total objectivity while also harboring in their hearts a true desire for it.
The New Social History, for all of its greatness and foibles represented to
some extent an embracing of statistical methods as a path to a truer
historical truth. If this was not old style Rankean objectivity slipping in
through the back door than what else was it? If you look at faculty list you
will see that these first and second generation NSHers are alive and well. I
have heard many scholars argue emphatically for the authority of the
numbers--guess it's part of being Western. It seems to me that archaeometry
offers the same kind of shelter under the culturally secure umbrella of
science. There are always academics who are willing to challenge the
perceived objectivity of the sciences, but for most folks the sciences are
still seen as objective endeavors as opposed to the subjectivity of the
humanities (we can go on that one for weeks). The so-called hard sciences
themselves often seem to still embrace this vision. The closer Hist arch or
history gets to the style, image, and form of the hard sciences the stronger
the attempt to claim the hard sciences perceived objectivity. It seems to me
that the divide in objectivity is not between historians and archaeologists
per se but rather between practitioners in both fields who reject/struggle
with/critique objectivity and those who try to practice it.

Ned Heite offered some good points here. A friend of mine liked to say that
theory had no role in history. I always relied to him that that was a
theory.

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Perdue <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 3:21 AM
Subject: Re: History vs Anthropology


>Philip Levy wrote:
>
>> I would submit that Appleby et la are not the best judges
>as they spend most of their
>> page time defending the social history orthodoxy they were
>part of creating. The
>> stridence of their opposition to theoretical approaches
>(particularly postmodern) is
>> really the sound of one generation lamenting the trends of
>the next.
>
>In a sense you're doing the same thing, but in reverse;
>lamenting the trends of the past generation.   :)   If
>there's one thing we have all learned from history, in
>particular the historiographies of our varied disciplines,
>it's that one 'trend' (paradigm shift, theoretical school,
>what have you) follows another.  It is only a matter of
>time, perhaps only a generation, before the postmodernists
>will in turn flee to the intellectual hills, holding high
>the banner of old fogeyism.  (er, to make liberal use of the
>metaphor <g>)  We should recognize the value and benefits of
>our epistemological heritage.  We may not have much call,
>for example,  for environmental determinists these days, but
>they blazed the trail for modern environmental historians.
>Of course, I'm assuming that the past shapes the present . .
>.     I don't know exactly where I'm going with this other
>than to say that we can benefit from an openness to many
>theorhetical schools of thought and disciplines.  Does each
>orthodoxy that comes along  necessarily have to kill and
>nullify the one(s) that preceded it?   That sounds so
>Freudian,  . . . or Oedipal...,
>
>>  The old belief in achievable objectivity has faded in all
>but the most hide bound of
>> histories.
>
>I have a question about this.  I graduated in 1978 with a
>B.A. in anthropology and since changed disciplines.
>Presumably my training was in the 'old school' of thought.
>I don't recall that objectivity was ever touted as something
>completely attainable; rather it was a goal to strive for.
>It was understood that no one could be totally objective,
>whether studying another culture or one's own past.  In
>practice, this often boiled down to a restrained
>subjectivity, nonetheless the aim remained the same.  What
>has taken the place of objectivity?   Has the baby been
>tossed with the bath water?
>
>Next, you'll tell me that there is no such thing as
>discernible historical facts.  :)
>
>Marty Perdue
>[log in to unmask]
>