The Value of What I Don't Know

“A new generation of would-be scholars, raised on the shifting sands of the Internet and global media culture, reads history from a fundamentally different perspective than prior generations.  The hard-won understanding that history is not and cannot be an impartial record of facts and events is, for such students, a commonplace.  They understand that history is a complex and contested act of cultural memory.  What they don’t know is what to do about it.” (Bial and Magelssen 2 from Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions)

This particular statement hits home for me.  I was born in 1987.  As a member of Generation Y—a Millennial—I grew up in the waves of post modernism, structuralism, post structuralism, the relativity of truth and the recognition that history was not a single error-proof story waiting to be discovered.  When I encountered the idea that history was flexible, written by the victors, incomplete etc, I did not balk.  Of course! I responded.  And the question then arose, as articulated above, “What do we do about it?” 

How do I respond and make assertions about something that is just as tricky and multidimensional as contemporary life?  The question seems to me to be reflected in the title of my blog. 

In regards to the uncertainty of meaning in writing, Della Pollack recommends to keep writing.  For her it almost seems to function as a rallying call.  My academic and written discourses have been a study in continuing to write—not as a statement but as a matter of course because I could not stop.  Writing and having opinions, continuing to voice them does not seem to be as pressing an issue as how to be accepted into the conversation. 

Bial & Magelssen’s quote brings up an interesting dynamic: that of the established to the up-and-coming, the experienced to the youthful, the ivory tower and the young novice. That relationship inspires an amount of fear.  I have a fear that someone has already said what I have thought.  I have a fear that the relativity that I take for granted will be used to discredit my own ideas.  Some scholars have represented the academy to me as an unforgiving and stringent group of people.  I am afraid that the only way to join the discussion is to be the best—but the set of rules are unknown.  The discoveries about the shifting, constructed nature of worldview seem to be easily weaponized to keep out riff-raff (by whatever definition of riff-raff happens to have at present). 

However, I also recognize that my experience has been quite the opposite in many ways.  I have presented papers—thus entering the conversation—I have contributed to discussions about ideas and been responded to and received by professors, thinkers, writers, and classmates. 

To answer: “What do we do about it?” I will side with Della Pollock and say that we keep writing.  Though the examples in Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions, are open ended with more questions than statements.  While the questions they asked and proliferated where helpful questions and the articles were very interesting, I couldn’t help but feel that the emphasis on more and more questions left the articles feeling breezy and light.  I have to ask myself if it’s a hang-over from the old ivory tower club.  If I am on the train to keep writing, I feel that I have to recognize that no amount of knowledge will ever be complete and then write what I have discovered.  With a proliferation of questions in the articles, I feel that the authors aren’t comfortable with the fact that their texts will always be incomplete.  They seem to be including the questions to prove to the new ivory tower that they recognize the questions.  That idea brings me back to the Bial and Magelssen quote: because, yes, I do understand that the questions can and should proliferate, but I also recognize that if I only ask questions, it will not be enough.  I have to have faith that my observations and ideas will be enough.  That someone else will come along and correct me or fill in the empty places.  That my hypothesis are valuable as hypothesis—not thesis.  They are valuable as suggestions/theories.  That those incompletions are not only weaknesses but also strengths because they are breathing room for exploration and ideas. 

Perhaps that is the change that should be made in regards to the historiographic and historical essay: no longer thesis, but hypothesis. 

And so I continue, writing about the more I don’t know.

Questions

I have a question: Why should there be a cohesive school of Historiography?

I ask in response to Peter Burke's frustrations with “the New History.” He writes, “in this expanding and fragmenting universe, there is an increasing need for orientation” (2), and so spends the piece trying to understand the new movement of attitudes and style of researching and writing History.  As I ask the question, immediately, I see the value of one united school—easily followed, easily learned, universally understood.  Additionally, just because there is one method, does not mean that there’s only one opinion.  However, I also become uncomfortable.  I agree with Thomas Postlewait, historical events exist in “a complex and dynamic interrelationship among… historical locations of meaning.  History happens and rehappens, as we continue to reconstitute the past every time we comprehend it.  We are always rewriting and rereading history” (178).  Understanding history is a shifting, complex, recursive process.  If we were to have only one way—one unified way to understand it—we would lose the wealth of ideas and understanding that conflicting and complimentary methods can produce. 

So I ask again: Why should there be a cohesive school of Historiography? 

I think I may be asking the wrong question.

It seems that each of the readings for this week—Thomas Postlewait, Peter Burke, and Bruce McConachie—are caught in between two sides somehow.  New History and Traditional History, Narrative and Essay, Objective History and Subjective History.  While none of the authors actually say that one of the ways is wrong/right, each author is concerned that their fellow historians think carefully about which technique they use.  Each article contains a warning about how to proceed: do not forget how complex and interrelated history is, do not forget that the new history is incomplete, do not forget that the essay loses something without narrative. 

So I change my question: Why are these authors so concerned about matters of form, process, and orientation?

Robert Scholes’ observation about producing texts comes to mind: “The ability to be “creative,” whether in the discourse of criticism or in the discourse of poetry, is not given to the novice but is earned by mastering the conventions to the point where improvisation becomes possible and power finally is exchangeable for freedom once again” (6).

While there have been/and are geniuses that seem to create without knowing the conventions, there is a cultural sense that one should know the rules in order to break them.  The ten thousand hours research supports this idea.  Learning the conventions or the rules is what makes improvisation and creativity meaningful.  Breaking the rules works, essentially because when someone is a master of the rules, they know why the rules work/what need the rules are addressing.

So both rules and creativity are important: they function together with a (product)ive, process tension.  It seems to me that the value that these writers are afraid to lose is respect for the techniques that balance out and generate creativity. 

At the moderated discussion re: Einstein on the Beach, Robert Wilson and Phillip Glass both talked about how much work they did on the project before they came to rehearsals or even started putting things together—but when they began rehearsals, Wilson said he came in without a plan, ready to react and work with what was there—rather than what he expected.  Glass mentioned that if he “knew” what he was trying to do, it was an indication that it wasn’t going to work.  The technique, they said, was what allowed them to be creative in the moment.

To answer the question: Why are these authors so concerned with form, process, and orientation?  I believe that they are afraid that their colleagues will forget what is important about certain forms/processes/orientations, thereby allowing the reasons for those forms to be lost and losing valuable tools—thereby inhibiting the (product)ivity of their historical research and conclusions. 

While my view of history is not exactly in line with anyone of these authors, I think that understanding the structures/forms/orientations/techniques that come before, mastering them, spending the 10,000 hours is how we create, how we learn to do something new and meaningful, how we study history—as they knew it, as we know it, and then as it might be.  

Works Cited

"Historiography and the Theatrical Event: A Primer with Twelve Cruxes" Thomas Postlewait (1991)

"Overture: the New History, its Past and its Future" Peter Burke (1992)

"Narrative Possibilities for U.S. Theatre Histories" Bruce McConachie (2004)

Semiotics and Interpretation "Chapter 1" Robert Scholes.  New Haven: Yale UP (1983)

Moderated Conversation Re: Einstein on the Beach. Ann Bogart, Phillip Glass, Robert Wilson. 15 Jan 2012. Ann Arbor