Five Points Primary Sources:
What instantly resonated with me, in regards to these sources, was the way that each of the 3 authors looked at the causes, effects and possible solutions (or lack thereof) to the situation in the Five Points Neighborhood.
Foster, in the first document, is astonishingly cavalier in his approach to the neighborhood. He deems the situation a "poison" of "moral insanity" where salvation is seldom seen. This poison flows from the inhabitants of the slums and thus, the world is of their own making. The individuals are responsible for their own suffering. The "Irish women", "Jew and Jewess", and the "Negro" are to blame. In this way, Foster promotes the social racism of the time. Despite the fact that those of Irish descent are of close relation to the Anglo-Saxon founders, that the Jews have a similar religious tradition, that "Negroes" are more free in the liberal north, these groups are vilified and blamed for the social conditions thrust upon them by prejudice and circumstance. While certainly racist, and maybe even horrifying to our standards, such ethnocentrism was the norm in the past. America is not known for it's complete understanding and tolerance, but rather it's bouts of conflict between groups, and eventual reconciliation. Such commentary could be compared to one of a Texas border city now where the Latin Kings reign supreme. What is disappointing however is that he offers no solution to the situation other than to warn fathers and such to keep their daughters away from the "damning drought of ambition". It seems almost as though he finds their squalid conditions a personal affront (almost like an old fashioned royal who gets annoyed at the peasant who had the gall to be run over by their carriage). It's for this reason that I find his commentary less useful in diagnosing the problem discussed, despite its lengthy description of the symptoms.
The article written by the Ladies of the Mission on the other hand care less about the specifics of the problem as a whole, and give a call to action to cure the disease. It is important to note that the source is most likely from a Catholic Nunnery. Women especially are well known for leading different social movements throughout American history. The temperance movement, women's suffrage, emancipation, even the equal rights movement of the 1960s and 70s have been categorized by woman instigation, if not leadership. The Ladies of the Mission make an emotional plea to the citizens of New York, with "tears of regret and shame", to help "the children!". The thing that I find interesting though is that the sisters don't care so much for the problem as a whole, but specifically for the next generation, that they would not have to live in the same deplorable conditions of their parents (or lack thereof).
The final article, written by Charles Dickens, is notable because it tells the story of Five Points through allegory. The men of the slums are "pigs" and "dogs" who either fight each other to survive or have already given up to live in their miserable existence. The thing about Dickens' writing however is that it invokes sympathy for the people he's writing about, rather than disgust in Foster or the Ladies who've given up on most of the inhabitants. It seems as if the situation has created the people, rather than the people creating the situation, and so they cannot be blamed for the conditions. This then leads to the question of "who is to blame?" which Dickens hints at answering as well. As with much of his work, Dickens calls attention to the "high society" part of the public to become accountable for their actions (or lack thereof, which is my new favorite phrase if no one's noticed yet) which helped to create the conditions in the first place.
My question to you is then, who is to blame for the situation at Five Points? Is it the inhabitants? The "Aristocrats" of New York? The Police? Someone else entirely? I hesitate to ask what a solution could be since history has already provided us with an answer, but given the context of the time, what could be done, and by whom?
Adios,
Jon
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Some General Thoughts on Studying History
Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts:
Wineburg's main argument deals with the nature of studying history; from why study it at all to how to study it properly once you've decided to do so. Wineburg spends a great deal of time discussing the balance that one needs to establish between the familiarity of "known" history and the strangeness of "the distant past". On both sides we run the risk of misinterpreting the content of a document. If we feel too familiar with the work we can "contort the past to fit the predetermined meanings we ave already assigned it". On the other hand, if something is too foreign to us we can become "detached" and turn the work into "a kind of esoteric exoticism". I agree wholeheartedly with Wineburg and thus agree with his conclusion that "historical thinking [...] is neither a natural process" but that it is an "achievement", or a goal to be reached. Unfortunately for us Wineburg, nor any other historian that I know of, has given us a the perfect ratio, or a mathematical formula if you will, of how to mix the two extremes. We must simply learn to find equilibrium between the uncertainty of new (to us) historical events and the familiarity of our presumptions.
"Simply" however, turns out to not be so simple after all. Historians across the ages have argued on the best way to approach historical thought and the best ways to develop the skills needed to comprehend history. The Bradley Commission for example says that a student must "suspend [their] knowledge" and throw away any perceived connection they had before study to attain the "sense of empathy" needed for historical study. Despite this, the example that Wineburg gives of the high school student Derek shows that he needed his "existing beliefs" to "[shape] the information he encountered". It is for this reason that I especially adhere to the belief that history is a "foreign country, not a foreign planet". While it is strange and exotic and may be completely different from the society that we know today, human history is still human. The figures of the past may be alien and obscure to our paradigms and society, but they are still governed by the very same things that make us human today. They are just as prone to greed, ambition, love, pain, envy, wistfulness, sorrow, joy as we are today. This emotional connection is our bridge to the past, the thing that most allows us to try and understand not only what happened, but why.
Of course we're limited in our knowledge not only because we don't have completely unbiased, factual reports of what happened, but because the past is so foreign to us that we cannot hope to fully comprehend it. We can't study the past like we can study geology or biology because everything that is from the past exists in the present (At least until we get time travel, come on engineers!). Any historical evidence that exists today is no longer something in the past, but something that come from before and exists in the here and now. Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars may have been penned long ago but we read it in the present, changing it's meaning to fit our culture today. Wineburg comments on this as well when he states that "we must consider the possibility that they drew [Egyptian Hieroglyphics] differently because they saw them differently". Our interpretations will always differ from those of the ancient Egyptians because they interpreted things in the past as part of their present and we will interpret things in the past as part of our present.
So why should we study history at all? If merely trying to understand what happened in the past is so difficult, let alone why it happened, why bother at all? Anyone can say "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it", but what does that really mean? I have no definitive answer for you. I have my own opinions an speculations of course, but I would truly like to hear what someone else has to say. Wineburg touches on the idea and Professor Belanger discussed it on the first day as well, but why does everyone else care about history? Or why don't you? Is this class a waste of time, and we just need to take it because Stonehill's administration is insane? Please leave your thoughts below or let me know f you have a full response on your own blogs.
Adieu,
Jon
Wineburg's main argument deals with the nature of studying history; from why study it at all to how to study it properly once you've decided to do so. Wineburg spends a great deal of time discussing the balance that one needs to establish between the familiarity of "known" history and the strangeness of "the distant past". On both sides we run the risk of misinterpreting the content of a document. If we feel too familiar with the work we can "contort the past to fit the predetermined meanings we ave already assigned it". On the other hand, if something is too foreign to us we can become "detached" and turn the work into "a kind of esoteric exoticism". I agree wholeheartedly with Wineburg and thus agree with his conclusion that "historical thinking [...] is neither a natural process" but that it is an "achievement", or a goal to be reached. Unfortunately for us Wineburg, nor any other historian that I know of, has given us a the perfect ratio, or a mathematical formula if you will, of how to mix the two extremes. We must simply learn to find equilibrium between the uncertainty of new (to us) historical events and the familiarity of our presumptions.
"Simply" however, turns out to not be so simple after all. Historians across the ages have argued on the best way to approach historical thought and the best ways to develop the skills needed to comprehend history. The Bradley Commission for example says that a student must "suspend [their] knowledge" and throw away any perceived connection they had before study to attain the "sense of empathy" needed for historical study. Despite this, the example that Wineburg gives of the high school student Derek shows that he needed his "existing beliefs" to "[shape] the information he encountered". It is for this reason that I especially adhere to the belief that history is a "foreign country, not a foreign planet". While it is strange and exotic and may be completely different from the society that we know today, human history is still human. The figures of the past may be alien and obscure to our paradigms and society, but they are still governed by the very same things that make us human today. They are just as prone to greed, ambition, love, pain, envy, wistfulness, sorrow, joy as we are today. This emotional connection is our bridge to the past, the thing that most allows us to try and understand not only what happened, but why.
Of course we're limited in our knowledge not only because we don't have completely unbiased, factual reports of what happened, but because the past is so foreign to us that we cannot hope to fully comprehend it. We can't study the past like we can study geology or biology because everything that is from the past exists in the present (At least until we get time travel, come on engineers!). Any historical evidence that exists today is no longer something in the past, but something that come from before and exists in the here and now. Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars may have been penned long ago but we read it in the present, changing it's meaning to fit our culture today. Wineburg comments on this as well when he states that "we must consider the possibility that they drew [Egyptian Hieroglyphics] differently because they saw them differently". Our interpretations will always differ from those of the ancient Egyptians because they interpreted things in the past as part of their present and we will interpret things in the past as part of our present.
So why should we study history at all? If merely trying to understand what happened in the past is so difficult, let alone why it happened, why bother at all? Anyone can say "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it", but what does that really mean? I have no definitive answer for you. I have my own opinions an speculations of course, but I would truly like to hear what someone else has to say. Wineburg touches on the idea and Professor Belanger discussed it on the first day as well, but why does everyone else care about history? Or why don't you? Is this class a waste of time, and we just need to take it because Stonehill's administration is insane? Please leave your thoughts below or let me know f you have a full response on your own blogs.
Adieu,
Jon
Failures of Textbooks
Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts:
While reading the Continuity and Change section of the passage I was immediately drawn to Wineburg's critique of modern historical textbooks. He first starts out with the three main failures of textbooks today; their editorial elimination of "metadiscourse" or the arguments or stances made by Historians in their professional work, which are later taken out. Secondly, he first states and then further rebukes the lack of primary source documents, or their belittlement "so as not to interfere with the main text". Finally he remarks on the "omniscient third person" narration of the works, which tie back into the elimination of metadiscourse. His thoughts on the failures of textbooks line up exactly with mine. This editorial process seems to turn our schoolbooks into little more than specialized encyclopedias, blindly thrusting "knowledge" onto the reader with little thought or interpretation necessary. The unintended side effect of textbooks is the effectual shutdown of learning. Textbook reading becomes boring because the student can put their brain into shut down and attempt to internalize the information via osmosis. Modern textbooks thus become collections of dry information that does little to develop the students own thought processes.
Furthermore, the narration of the works give a sense of "knowledge from on high", giving an authoritative stance on the knowledge provided. This is not only distracting in my opinion, but dangerous as it removes any contention or divergence in the claims supplied by the editors. It makes History appear as a flat landscape, devoid of the conflict of ideas and paradigms that riddle the mountainous terrain of time. One may go so far as to say as such transient positions given ruin the student's individual thought, compressing all ideas into one unified code, and striking the others that disagree from the record.
I'd like to note however that I am not completely against the idea of a textbook, and promote their burnings in the streets (Though I could warrant such a response when dealing with The American Pageant, which was perhaps the worst task heaped upon me by the IB program). Textbooks are a great source for preliminary knowledge and inarguable facts such as dates. The main thing to remember is the limitations of such works. Most textbooks cover a vast expanse of time, and not everything can be adequately expressed or addressed. For specifics and true historical understanding through conflicting ideas one must turn to modern historians' professional work, complete with metadiscourse, or even better, to primary sources. It is from these documents that one can develop a true sense of the events studied. Though of course, these sources are not without their own values and limitations (Which I will get to in my next posting)
As per the task, I must leave anyone who chooses to read my rambling thoughts with a question. I suppose the most fair question could be, "Are Wineburg and I wrong in our critique?". Please note that while I'm adding Wineburg's name to my stance (It's a nasty little trick to make you agree with me) I can by no means speak for him or say that he speaks for mean entirely. Please leave a comment or if you think a response will really merit an entire posting, by all means go ahead.
Ciao,
Jon
While reading the Continuity and Change section of the passage I was immediately drawn to Wineburg's critique of modern historical textbooks. He first starts out with the three main failures of textbooks today; their editorial elimination of "metadiscourse" or the arguments or stances made by Historians in their professional work, which are later taken out. Secondly, he first states and then further rebukes the lack of primary source documents, or their belittlement "so as not to interfere with the main text". Finally he remarks on the "omniscient third person" narration of the works, which tie back into the elimination of metadiscourse. His thoughts on the failures of textbooks line up exactly with mine. This editorial process seems to turn our schoolbooks into little more than specialized encyclopedias, blindly thrusting "knowledge" onto the reader with little thought or interpretation necessary. The unintended side effect of textbooks is the effectual shutdown of learning. Textbook reading becomes boring because the student can put their brain into shut down and attempt to internalize the information via osmosis. Modern textbooks thus become collections of dry information that does little to develop the students own thought processes.
Furthermore, the narration of the works give a sense of "knowledge from on high", giving an authoritative stance on the knowledge provided. This is not only distracting in my opinion, but dangerous as it removes any contention or divergence in the claims supplied by the editors. It makes History appear as a flat landscape, devoid of the conflict of ideas and paradigms that riddle the mountainous terrain of time. One may go so far as to say as such transient positions given ruin the student's individual thought, compressing all ideas into one unified code, and striking the others that disagree from the record.
I'd like to note however that I am not completely against the idea of a textbook, and promote their burnings in the streets (Though I could warrant such a response when dealing with The American Pageant, which was perhaps the worst task heaped upon me by the IB program). Textbooks are a great source for preliminary knowledge and inarguable facts such as dates. The main thing to remember is the limitations of such works. Most textbooks cover a vast expanse of time, and not everything can be adequately expressed or addressed. For specifics and true historical understanding through conflicting ideas one must turn to modern historians' professional work, complete with metadiscourse, or even better, to primary sources. It is from these documents that one can develop a true sense of the events studied. Though of course, these sources are not without their own values and limitations (Which I will get to in my next posting)
As per the task, I must leave anyone who chooses to read my rambling thoughts with a question. I suppose the most fair question could be, "Are Wineburg and I wrong in our critique?". Please note that while I'm adding Wineburg's name to my stance (It's a nasty little trick to make you agree with me) I can by no means speak for him or say that he speaks for mean entirely. Please leave a comment or if you think a response will really merit an entire posting, by all means go ahead.
Ciao,
Jon
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