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The Forum > Article Comments > The science of history > Comments

The science of history : Comments

By David Long, published 14/9/2007

John Howard’s new history curriculum attacks the message not the methodology.

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EQUITY Questioning the Science of Government?

"...ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything. Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldnÕt get rewarded for merit, and people who couldnÕt get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office."

Sourced from Charles Dickens - Little Dorrit - Chapter 10

http://www.miacat.com/Little_Dorrit.asp

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR OWN HISTORY?

http://www.miacat.com/

 
 
Posted by miacat, Friday, 14 September 2007 9:53:22 AM
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This reminds me of something I came cross a few years ago.

For whatever reason an American academic did an extensive research project on the various local histories throughout the USA.
He found that most of the supposedly factual happenings which were celebrated, and which even had concrete memorials/statues too, just didnt happen. Were plain and simply not true.

I forget the author and the title of the book.
Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 14 September 2007 10:27:30 AM
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Ho Hum, that is brilliant.

(And on a rather different note) criticisms of so-called moral relativism are easy to find -- so easy that they have become cliches --
but have you ever found one that persuaded you its author had actually understood the sorts of ideas that s/he was criticising?

Long's article has not advanced us any closer to that starting point.
Posted by Tom Clark, Friday, 14 September 2007 11:22:42 AM
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Long jibes "historicism" with a diatribe tainting the liberal, literary education which universities strive to impart with the "moral relativist" brush.

However objective one wishes to be, one approaches objectivity from an inherently subjective viewpoint. In reading literature -- from Plato to Hayek -- with an acknowledgement of the writers' position, we asymptotically, dialectically, improve our approach to truth. Absolute truth exists, in that events truly occurred, but our understanding is never perfect. Trees falling in uninhabited forests cannot become part of our history. The physical sciences accept the Heisenberg principle; why should history pretend an authority which cannot exist?

Moral relativism is easy to criticise by reductio ad absurdum, reducing it to a moral vacuum. In the same way, faith-based religions, especially those with holy books, are easy to criticise by reducing them to the basest anti-intellectual fundamentalism.

In my experience the students of social sciences who subscribe to some form of moral or cultural relativism (in that they are willing to contemplate the potential validity of other peoples' positions) are very far from being personally amoral. On the other hand anti-intellectual religious fundamentalists are common and scary.

The article seeks to justify paternalism towards Australian Aborigines by association with Rousseau's noble savage. Unfortunately for this argument and for the place of Rousseau in the history of ideas, the speechless, individualistic, asocial and "free" human animal from which Rousseau derived his moral thinking never existed. Rousseau's idea is about as realistic a model of human moral development as the story of Cain and Abel and their inexplicable wives.

Rousseau's error is not his fault -- it was a thought-experiment, like Schrödinger's cat. Rousseau had no understanding of the mechanisms or time-scale of evolution. Before Darwin and Wallace, no-one did. That's historicism.

1752 saw the British adopt the Gregorian calendar and Franklin conduct lightning. *Otherwise* it was relatively unremarkable :-)

David, do you believe an absolute truth and morality exist? Or is it the role of the sciences to discern what truth it can, and of conscience and philosophy to define morality in the light of scientific knowledge?
Posted by xoddam, Friday, 14 September 2007 2:17:42 PM
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Xoddam

Doesn't accepting moral relativism remove any base upon which to claim a science of the study of society and politics.?

Physical sciences entirely rely upon concrete truths which deny the possibility of differing points of view. This is not the case with our current understanding of history, where the viewpoint is all important.

Following moral relativism down its logical path presents us with a world without morals. Yes I know you predicted it but that doesn’t make it any less true. Surely some things are moral for everyone no matter their point of observation.

Long, it seems to me, pointedly denied that ‘a liberal education’ was available at Australian universities. “Unfortunately, a liberal education has never been available in this country whose universities are dominated by the positivistic social sciences and, to a lesser extent, the value-relative science of history, historicism.”

I would argue that Long was not using Rosseau to justify paternalism at all. In fact the opposite. He is arguing the primacy of reason/philosophy over history.

To play along with your philosophical trap, we can not pretend that the tree never fell, if in fact it did.
Posted by Paul.L, Friday, 14 September 2007 10:56:56 PM
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Open Letter:Mr Howard PM, Mr Rudd Federal ALP Leader and, ALL of Australia.

We are spending MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Dollars and the people who are administrating our business are burdened with the party policies and politics which have been blocking our "whole" nations pathway regional - AUSTRALIA.

I don't care how stupid my NAIF- sounds, nor for negative judgement in party politics. What I care about is the EMOTIONAL LIFE of our NATION, along side the people of the ASIAN PACIFIC, AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA and Europe....

Unlike yourselves ... I have LIVED being near homeless most of my life. I have had little tutored education and wandered the world curious "as a youth kid", working wherever I can - paid or not.

My life is a SUCCESSFUL OUT COME because of the post WWII MARSHALL PLAN. I am here in this country because the world came together to do something constructive for worn-torn “Europe”... a place that is only called this because "Others" named it... A world that decided to HARD talk without GUNS + BOMBS.

My point is my heart is looking for shared (combining) policies... and I am extremely apprehensive about the way this present election is panning out. I do not want more of the same.

I write because of the MILLIONS of DOLLARS resource possible with Government - Business Groups and Foreign Investments working together. I feel that the Broadband issue, the ALLIED Health issue, the APEC issues like the Community Service and Future Development National issues are ALL inter-connected. What ever we DO... I am honestly asking you Mr Howard PM and your LIBERAL Government to really listen.

Listen to Kevin Rudd - his civic advisors and to little people like ME.

This is a letter to Mr Howard PM and the Opposition Leader Mr Rudd, and the Australian public.

It can be found on www.miacat.com

(as soon as I finish this part.)
.
Posted by miacat, Saturday, 15 September 2007 5:08:54 AM
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