Bob Feller Career

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

I feel like there's a middle ground, one that we used to call 'objectivity' and at least pretended to desire

IMO Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson is both stunningly well done and fairly objective.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

IMO Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson is both stunningly well done and fairly objective.

My only real objection to Caro's work is the selfish one that he is 86 and we still need the final volume 5, 40 years after the first one came out.

I got my undergraduate and masters degrees in History (don't do that kids, pick STEM or business) in the early 2010's. Objectivity was treated with near-universal open contempt as an old-fashioned Germanic idea; the post-modern notion that objectivity is impossible to achieve (probably true in the literal sense) and thus is silly to aim for was taught to and preached by the students instead. The role of the Historian, as it was taught, was to shape moral opinion and to advance the correct interpretations of the past, that always coincidentally suit certain agendas and worldviews. Got myself into a fair bit of social trouble for declining to accept that the historian as propagandist is the proper way, and that one should withhold moral judgement and simply stick to the facts, the what, and the questions of the why things happened.

I will go flagellate myself now for again drifting with human conversation off the strict OP.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

My only real objection to Caro's work is the selfish one that he is 86 and we still need the final volume 5, 40 years after the first one came out.

I got my undergraduate and masters degrees in History (don't do that kids, pick STEM or business) in the early 2010's. Objectivity was treated with near-universal open contempt as an old-fashioned Germanic idea; the post-modern notion that objectivity is impossible to achieve (probably true in the literal sense) and thus is silly to aim for was taught to and preached by the students instead. The role of the Historian, as it was taught, was to shape moral opinion and to advance the correct interpretations of the past, that always coincidentally suit certain agendas and worldviews. Got myself into a fair bit of social trouble for declining to accept that the historian as propagandist is the proper way, and that one should withhold moral judgement and simply stick to the facts, the what, and the questions of the why things happened.

I will go flagellate myself now for again drifting with human conversation off the strict OP.

Yes but even when you're sticking to facts, value judgments invariably come into play on which ones you deem important, how and in what sequence you portray them, and so forth. And once you hit they why questions, I don't see how one can do that fully objectively.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yes but even when you're sticking to facts, value judgments invariably come into play on which ones you deem important, how and in what sequence you portray them, and so forth. And once you hit they why questions, I don't see how one can do that fully objectively.

It may not be entirely achievable, one may not be fully able to remove themselves from what they see, but one should strive for objectivity, and take a step back. Otherwise, one is doing no more than preaching propaganda, and has strayed away from truth.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

It may not be entirely achievable, one may not be fully able to remove themselves from what they see, but one should strive for objectivity, and take a step back. Otherwise, one is doing no more than preaching propaganda, and has strayed away from truth.

Another reason it's hard to write history is that the writer always knows how things turned out, and there's a huge hindsight bias. In other words a tendency to see events over time as some inevitable progression. I once had a brilliant teacher who asked, what if the 1933 German election wasn't some inevitable step in the rise of Nazism, but at the time was just the product of normal electoral forces?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Another reason it's hard to write history is that the writer always knows how things turned out, and there's a huge hindsight bias. In other words a tendency to see events over time as some inevitable progression. I once had a brilliant teacher who asked, what if the 1933 German election wasn't some inevitable step in the rise of Nazism, but at the time was just the product of normal electoral forces?

Very much agreed. This frustrates me every so slightly in so many works. 'That which happened was that which was inevitable'.

I know better than to comment on your teachers query, around an outrage mob

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

Very much agreed. This frustrates me every so slightly in so many works. 'That which happened was that which was inevitable'.

I know better than to comment on your teachers query, around an outrage mob

It sort of ties in since we're talking about WW II and FELLER.