‘Our’ History: A Problem of Definition

?“I won’t apologise for Britain or who we are as a nation and will stand up to people who talk down our country, our history and our values. I reject dehumanising identity politics, cancel culture and the voices of decline.”

Liz Truss????21 July 2022??

The reaction from Government ministers towards those promoting views contrary to the perceived national narrative – portrayed as ‘our history’ - have been hardening since the end of lockdown. The suggestion that showing aspects of British history that present the country in an unfavourable light are either woke or disloyal has become a common mantra with the best response to such movements as ‘Black Lives Matter' and ‘White Privilege’ or to such ideas and movements as ‘Critical Race Theory,' 'Gender Equality'?and 'Women's Empowerment',?being to ignore them.

This backlash to challenges to the status quo, led by conservative politicians and historians, claims that history is being held to ransom by non-partisan left-leaning academics has, in turn, placed pressure on schools and universities who are charged with delivering a curriculum determined by their paymasters. Historians, so often caught in the middle, have struggled to protect their subject from being subsumed to fulfil a social or reactionary role or becoming marginalised, bobbing about on an ideological ocean.?

All of which has left schools struggling with how to respond to the new ideas and interpretations, within the wriggle room of the national curriculum.??The challenge to see history not just from one limited perspective, but from that of other perspectives, other cultures, other methodologies, is not new, but seldom addresses the fact that there are other places to start from when it comes to??defining, researching and interpreting knowledge than just our western model. Indigenous historians, for instance would see ‘decolonisation’??quite differently to the colonisers from those who were (and are still) colonised: in one history, decolonisation is talked about in the past tense while in another, it is very much about the present and the future.?

The government’s argument is that the national curriculum provides the flexibility for history to be approached and interpreted in different contexts and across a wide range of topics, albeit more notable for what isn’t included than what is, especially with the absence of any mandating. The curriculum remains a safe place to be, for teachers (and government), guarding a carefully crafted narrative, but that is not what History should be about.?

The fear, tacitly encouraged, is that History, as a subject, is ready to implode into meaningless and divisive rhetoric, or worse still, disappear from our classrooms, an idea which seems as nonsensical as any of the theories that challenge it.

History might need to re-examine itself, but contrary to some scaremongering, that process does not have to threaten the national fabric or lead to hand wringing on behalf of the general populace. What it does require is an adult debate, freed from attempts to personify the subject and from political interference: simply,??an answer to the question: what skills, processes, content should we be teaching our children under the banner of history.?

It is the concern about the subject being hi-jacked that should worry us, and the failure of the subject to keep abreast with the latest research. For instance, to ignore the failings of positivism and the unconscious bias of language and content in so much we teach, we are failing our children, as we assume that new courses are the way to keeping history relevant. Yet it is not the content of the current curriculum that is caught in a sand-trap, but the skills and attitudes that students bring to each and every topic they study, so they can deal with ‘intruder’ knowledge and learn to see history from a better vantage. Even the nations favourite historical showcase, the Chalke Valley History Festival, is delivered almost exclusively in accordance with traditional western scholarship, methodology and research, with its obsession on war, (usually victories), adding to a national narrative wrapped round lineage and the maintenance of power, extolling travelers' tales and combining observation and opinion with a potpourri of mythology, religion, capitalism and consumerism the latter two sitting alongside other better known??–isms such as imperialism and colonialism), as well as legality and authority. When venturing offshore, there is a reluctance to explain the implicit power evident in our narrative / scholarship, by ignoring the polarity of language, faith, culture and social norms. Words like ‘discovery’, ‘post-colonial’, ‘decolonization’, ‘tribe’ ‘primitive’ ‘self-determination’ are used freely in our histories, as well as our interpretation of benefits bestowed, based on our western definitions of time and space, gender and land. All of this is supported by our positivist research, implying that there is only way that history can be presented. History has always been about power and the ownership of the story which is why its representation is disproportionately white and male. While we are mindful to try and??tell both sides of History, the reality is we are telling both sides of our History, our story, which is not the same thing at all.??It seems we accept that much of our History was something we did to others and our success in doing so was justification enough for owning the story and the methodology used to argue it.?

But, to return to the main argument, it is not an insurmountable problem to address; nor will making students better informed to make their own judgements??threaten national unity or seed division. If children are taught to see history as a moveable feast of facts from which we select and can understand the concept of contested knowledge, and to know that we present only one view, one history amongst many others, then we are half-way there.

E. H. Carr's acclaimed and influential book ‘What is History’?which became a key text in the study of historiography for the past sixty years first?made the case that the facts of history are simply those which the historian selects for scrutiny. His fluent and wide-ranging account of the nature of history and the role of the historian argued that all history is to some degree subjective, written by individuals who are above all people of their own time.?His attack on positivism, the idea that?facts would simply “speak for themselves” and that gathering information is not influenced by the issues of language and translation, had a significant impact on how we look at history. His criticism of our dependence on ‘facts’??which had to be sifted, interpreted and analysed for their relevance and value in relation to the prevailing historical knowledge, reinforced his view that history could never be neutral, that historical facts were essentially?created?by the historian and not merely?discovered. Although time has moved on and there have been many counter-arguments, much of what Carr expounded upon remains relevant today.

History has a number of roles, some complementary, some divergent. History can be used to provide a basis for national self-justification, to inform, to explain, to promote thought and discussion, to make us aware of differences and similarities etc. It is to inform us about the past and to do that, we need to first challenge a number of presumptions that existed at various times in our history and, indeed, in some instances, are still prevalent. As an introduction to the idea of history as contested knowledge, these 'presumptions' can form the basis of discussion in which differences and bias are acknowledged resulting in a more balanced view of history

It is worth starting with some of the arguments presented by E H Carr when he first suggested a paradigm shift in the way we see history:

+ History is ultimately a subjective enterprise simply because the historian will always be limited by his subjective worldview.?

+ Historical facts are never neutral nor objective. Students of history must study the historian before the historical facts

+ History is never neutral

+Historians pick and decide which facts deserved to be shown, the order they are shown, and their context. Since the past is itself filled with facts, these facts must therefore be sifted, interpreted and analysed for their relevance and value in relation to the prevailing historical knowledge

+Historical facts are thus seen as being essentially?created?by the historian and not merely?discovered

+Nineteenth century historians believed that the meaning of history was implicit and self-evident and that everything will just fall in their proper places once the facts have been ascertained. Positivism is the philosophy behind this approach to History

In an article a decade or more ago, I suggested that we should challenge our students with a series of presumptions common to western scholarship:

These presumptions include:

1.???????An inherent belief that it is right to convert other peoples to a particular religion and that other faiths, especially polytheistic faiths, or simple belief systems are inferior to the Christian faith or other major world religion.?

2.????????A belief in capitalism with GDP as its measure and the accumulation of wealth, both as a society and personally, through the private acquisition and ownership of land and property

3.?????????A belief in the broad principles of Social Darwinism, particularly in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

4.?????????A belief in the superiority of one race over another, of the cultures, habits, traits, behaviours of one race or culture over another, the use of the English (or other) language over other languages. Note Cecil Rhodes and Churchill on the subject.

5.???????An implicit master / servant, teacher / pupil, Britain / colony attitude to other countries often manifesting itself in cultural or racial language and actions.

6.???????A belief that technological superiority and the accumulation of wealth is a measure of civilization

7.????????A belief that the western attitude to land ownership overrides the lifestyles of nomadic, shared ownership and common land (ie Australian Aborigines, American Indian)

8. An acceptance of our written history, based on western research and scholarship, is the definitive history. We need to ask who wrote it, why and for what audience, to differentiate between myth, national narrative and history, and to consider other methodologies, especially those of indigenous peoples.

9.????That our value judgements, based on our own experience and learning, are somehow superior to other interpretations of history.

10.???That our definitions of taste, fashion, smell, culture, manners, cleanliness have primacy.

11.???That our sense of decency, courtesies and moral code are a standard by which to make judgements.

?Process:?That we teach history by teaching understanding, by creating objective viewpoints, by getting children to question their own attitudes and ways they look at the world by using?The Atticus Principle, even at a very young age

?First of all,"???he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."?Atticus talking to Scout in?To Kill a Mockingbird

‘Our’ History: A Problem of Definition