Writing History: Problems of Neutrality

Part 2 Writing History: Problems of Neutrality This Part of the book challenges widespread assumptions that, where it matters, it is possible or desirable for historians to avoid value judgements and the sorts of evocative descriptions that imply or could reasonably be expected to prompt such judgements. The first section distinguishes between History and particular traditions within the social sciences in order to show why the ‘rules’ about moral evaluation can be different in these differing endeavours. The second section establishes the widespread existence of evocations and evaluations in the very labelling and description of many historical phenomena, suggesting not just how peculiar works of History would look in their absence of evocations and appraisals, but that their absence would often distort what is being reported. These arguments are key to the distinction made in the third section about rejecting value neutrality as a governing ideal while insisting on truthfulness as a historian’s primary duty. The fourth section highlights the nature of most historical accounts as composites of a range of perspectives as it considers questions of context, agency, outcome, and experience. The composition gives rise to the overall impression, evaluative or evocative, provided by the work. The fifth section brings together a number of the chapter’s themes as it examines an important case of the historian’s judgement—judgement about the legitimacy of power in past worlds where legitimacy could be as contested as often today.

Contemplating Historical Actors in Context

Part 1 Contemplating Historical Actors in Context This Part of the book takes seriously the historian’s imperative to do justice to different ways and circumstances of life in the past. One of the greatest obligations historians bear is not to caricature or traduce the historical objects of their investigations, and this obligation is honoured by care in depicting what one infers about the beliefs, motives, intentions, and situations of historical actors. The same obligation ought to be honoured for any actor under scrutiny, whether from a millennium ago or last year, whether Gulag guard or inmate. The discussion paves the way for greater clarity and consistency in contextual understanding by bringing into focus what the practice of contextualization implies and examining the logics of different sorts of contextualization. It is a guide to what it means to deliver on the commitment to take historical actors on their own terms, and it highlights the unavoidable evaluative implications of the process. It has implications for revising how certain historians have evaluated and how others might yet evaluate, but it is the general fact of evaluation rather than the direction of any particular evaluation that is central.

History, Identity, and the Present

part 4 History, Identity, and the Present Part 4 considers the role of historical consciousness in shaping present-day identity. It is critical of prejudicial ‘Identity History’ while enjoining historians to embrace their roles in historical arguments pertaining to identity. The first section clarifies what falls outside the definition of ‘Identity History’, noting that much excellent scholarship pertains to identity and even serves identity goals without being prejudicial. The second section highlights where historians working on identity matters are likely to fall into conceptual difficulty. Is the relationship between past ‘them’ and present ‘us’ a matter of identity or difference or a bit of both? Identity History is inconsistent here, with different attitudes taken depending on whether that past behaviour was good or bad by present lights. There are consequences for the historian’s engagement with past rights and wrongs, harms and benefits, because claims on these matters constitute stakes in the identity game whose winner gets to decide what is desirable in the here and now. The third section develops such themes and distinguishes between more and less appropriate idioms for characterizing the relationship between contemporary polities and groups on one hand and the deeds of relevant ‘forebears’ on the other hand. It is a mistake to talk of contemporary guilt, or for that matter virtue, in light of what one’s predecessors did, but the language of shame or pride may be appropriate. The fourth section addresses the material legacies of past action, considering matters of compensation and redistribution. The concluding section returns to broader principles.

Justifying Judgement on Things Past

Part 3 Justifying Judgement on Things Past Part 3 moves from describing features of works of history to underwriting a range of judgements that are currently outlawed not just by advocates of neutralism and moral contextualism, but, finally, by the doctrine of moral relativism. This Part of the book legitimates some of the apparently presentist value judgements that many historians already make and establishes criteria according to which other judgements can be formed or criticized. It is the longest section of the work because it has to dig so deep through layers of occidental thought to trace the growth and flaws of an influential though never uncontested cluster of moral theories. The point of the opening three historical sections is to use historical investigation to undermine some of the prevailing standards of the disciple of History, showing that far from being self-evident for a properly scholarly undertaking, those standards emerge from particular, contestable standpoints in theology, strands of philosophy, and even theories of nationalism and raison d’état. Three concluding sections summarize the major issues at stake and address them from a more purely philosophical perspective.

Introduction

Against majority opinion within his profession, Donald Bloxham argues that it is legitimate, often unavoidable, and frequently important for historians to make value judgements about the past. History and Morality draws on a wide range of historical examples, and its author’s insights as a practising historian. Examining concepts like impartiality, neutrality, contextualization, and the use and abuse of the idea of the past as a foreign country, Bloxham’s book investigates how the discipline has got to the point where what is preached can be so inconsistent with what is practised. It illuminates how far tacit moral judgements infuse works of history, and how strange those histories would look if the judgements were removed. Bloxham argues that rather than trying to eradicate all judgemental elements from their work, historians need to think more consistently about how, and with what justification, they make the judgements that they do. The importance of all this lies not just in the responsibilities that historians bear towards the past—responsibilities to take historical actors on those actors’ own terms and to portray the impact of those actors’ deeds—but also in the role of history as a source of identity, pride, and shame in the present. The account of moral thought in History and Morality has ramifications far beyond the activities of vocational historians.