Welcome to Overeducated and Underemployed, I'm
Fedden. Today I am going to talk to you about
the role of historians and how I think it's different
between different fields. And a lot of it you
really can't talk about without talking about
recent developments, and when I say recent, not
in the last hundred years or so, developments
in the way history is conducted, the way we study
history. Some of this is going back and looking
at the historical record with a new lens. Some
of this is the way we started gathering information
and historical evidence in the current modern
time to preserve for the future. So we'll be
talking about some of those differences, the
ways that history as a field has changed. And
then we're going to talk about what I think the
role of a historian is in different kind of settings.
And we can dive into that. So a lot of listeners
probably associate history mostly with military
history. Because for a long time, that's really
all that history classes and a lot of history
and historians talked about. That's what they
viewed as important. That doesn't mean that we
didn't have a record of other people, but largely
shifts in power and dominating governments. And
the way that came about was usually the dominant
narrative when it came to the historical record.
Now, I think there's a number of reasons for
this. For one, we're talking about a male -dominated
field until the 20th century. until today really
even we're talking about a field there's an old
saying history is always written by the winners
I think that started to change in the 20th century
and we'll talk about how that changed here in
a few minutes but when you look at your world
history classes that are taught even in college
today they primarily focus on government and
military history and that misses a whole complete
part of the picture. And I think parts of that
are captured by artistic expression from the
time. If you look at Charles Dickens, it's a
classic example of what Victorian lifestyle was
like at times. If you look at Mark Twain, sometimes
he can be viewed as telling a real story, the
story of real people in the American South. during
and after the civil war yet these are what you
would call historical fiction right or at the
time just fiction but now if you view them through
our current lens they're they they require a
certain context to really understand what is
being portrayed in these books and what happens
in the 20th century is ironically enough the
product of one of the largest war wars in our
world's history obviously world war ii oral history
started to emerge as a field when interviewing
holocaust survivors so in interviewing holocaust
survivors they realized that there's a whole
side of history that isn't being told and there's
a great highlight of this method of gathering
stories from the quote -unquote common people
at the Chicago History Museum, where they took
it beyond just interviewing Holocaust survivors.
That's where it started, but it evolved into
just really gathering the stories of everyday
people, usually in an interview form, to try
and understand history from a different perspective.
When you talk about military history, that's
just like a part of the story. And I think...
Throughout the 20th century, you started to see
different fields of history emerge, whether it
be the way history was conducted, such as social
and oral history, or focusing on specific fields
of study like art history or history of science.
And I think when you start to look at these emerging
fields like art history and history of science,
They really, not only do they not only focus
on military history, in fact, military history
is usually, I don't want to say not mentioned,
but it's certainly not the focus of the backdrop.
But the backdrop provided in art and in history
of science, art history and history of science,
is really an all -encompassing one. And I think
that happens for a few reasons. You start to
see... History of science taking into account
everything going on, whether it's conflict and
economics and war or thought progression and
advancements in population expansion or even
just other fields of thought like sociology,
geology, all being taken into account. When studying
the way a certain scientific theory came into
being. And in the 20th century you start to have
something called constructivism emerge. If you've
ever seen the movie Adaptation with Nicolas Cage.
That would be like the prime example of a constructivist
writing a movie. The idea that you can't separate
what's being written from the writer. And you
start to see... criticisms of science in the
20th century and criticisms of art in the 20th
century in a similar way, I think, where a deeper
examination of the person, the scientist or the
artist, can give a deeper understanding to the
art itself or the scientific discovery itself,
right? A really famous case of this is Linnaeus
being reinterpreted. in a constructivist view,
as someone who was very obsessed with mammary
glands and wet nursing, and he was against wet
nursing. And Linnaeus, of course, invented our
taxonomy system that we still use today. And
the reasons he developed that system are separate
from the reasons that system is still used in
a loose way to this day. There's a great paper
called Why Are Mammals Called Mammals, or something
along those lines, and I can't remember who it
was written by. But it dives into this, and it's
impossible to separate the theory from the person
and their obsessions in this case. But what you
can separate is how useful the taxonomic system
he developed, for whatever reason, was from a
heuristic standpoint. He may have called mammals
mammals based on the mammary gland because he
was obsessed with mammary glands. But mammary
glands also happen to be something that if an
animal has, it usually has all of these other
traits. And I say usually because there's things
like the platypus that is an exception. But if
you have mammary glands, you typically are warm
-blooded. You have fur. You give live birth.
all of these things. And whether Linnaeus saw
that or not, his reason for focusing on the mammary
gland in the first place was not necessarily
a scientific one. Right. So as I talked about
in my episode about the scientific method and
how it was constructed, the same thing goes for
the taxonomic classification system of animals,
because if it hadn't been super useful, and accurate
in a lot of ways, it would have fallen out of
use. The scientific community would have abandoned
it for something different. Science wasn't even
really a thing in Linnaeus. It was called natural
philosophy back then. It wasn't even really,
it certainly didn't have the standards and peer
review that it has today. But certain things
fell out of use and fell into use because of
how useful they were, or not. And the taxonomic
system that Linnaeus developed, despite his sort
of weird reasonings for developing it in the
first place, were very much useful and have stood
the test of time in a lot of ways. And not only
that, as we've discovered way more species than
Linnaeus ever had any idea existed, it has continued
to... Of course, we've updated it and changed
it over time, but... At its foundation, the system
we use is the Linnaean system. So I think one
role of a historian is to really re -examine
the stories that we tell with the information
that we have, whether it be personal journals
or... Another great example is there's a lot
of debate as to what caused Charles Darwin's
sickness, whether he got some tropical disease
while he was on the Beagle, whether it was anxiety.
because of his theory and what the implications
of it were, or once his wife's cookbook was published
and examined deeply, and you tied it to the times
when he was home and the times when he would
go to these baths to do a cleanse and eat a raw
diet, but the moment he would come home, he would
start eating his wife's cooking again, and he
loved his wife's cooking, but... If you look
at her cookbook, it was full of dairy. Butter,
cream, milk, all this cheese, all this dairy.
And one theory is that Darwin was lactose intolerant.
And that, along with, I'm sure, some anxiety
and possible illnesses of other kinds, too, certainly
played a role. So that's one role, is to re -examine
the stories that we already tell. Another role
of a historian is, I think, to inform the current
field of people. But I think that can vary as
to how important that is, how much the current
practitioners of that field should listen. For
instance, I don't know how useful an art historian
is to an artist. I don't know how... good a music
historian is to a musician who's trying to create
something new and original if anything it could
be a hindrance if they worry about too much about
trying to be original and not creating just whatever
comes out of them but with a historian of science
i think you really need to inform scientists
of things that have already been done for instance
for the same reason that you know They say those
who don't know their history are bound to repeat
it. And of course, you know, that cliche is true
for a reason. But I think what's more true and
what's more kind of revealing is if you don't
know where you've been, then you don't know where
you are and you don't know where you're going.
And if you are an artist trying to create something
free, that might be good. We've talked about
constraint being a good thing before. But, and
you've heard my... interview with with sloan
simpson if you haven't listened yet check it
out but sometimes he would try and get out of
this idea of creating something specific or not
repeating something that's already been done
and sometimes with other artists like roddy like
they don't care about that at all they just want
to let everything in that they've ever listened
to in to the stew if you will but when it comes
to historians of science i think It's more important
for those practicing science to understand the
history in the same way that, and I think this
goes back to the beginning of the episode, where
I think it's really important for military people,
whatever you want to call them, generals, to
know military history. There's strategy there.
In the same way that I think it's important for
a musician to... know the history of music to
a degree of whatever it is they're trying to
do. If anything, just to understand all the tools
they have available to them and to think about
music in ways that maybe they aren't thinking
about it yet. But I think the idea of an artist
being a historian can be detrimental because
they could get caught in this trap of trying
not to repeat something that's already been done.
Whereas if they're just their authentic self,
it's already not going to be something that's
already been done. With scientists, they really
do need to learn from the past mistakes in the
same way that a military historian might need
to teach a general. A military historian of science
really needs to inform scientists of past mistakes,
past strategies, including all of the other things
like the tools available to them, what's already
been discovered. One thing I see a lot in science
right now is a compartmentalization of ideas
and where we have people who might be an expert
on like 12 different spiders or a certain kind
of horse or a colony of bats or primates of some
sort. But they know very little. And these are
biologists, right? Who might end up knowing very
little about... anything else in there in the
field of science in the field of biology except
their one little thing and i think this is the
role of historians of science is to help build
those bridges bridge those gaps of knowledge
between the different scientists and they really
should be part of the community in a way i think
when we're talking about art historians When
it comes to capitalism, there's a certain value
that art historians have because they can help
appraise art and things like that. But if you're
talking about the more documentarian style, think
about somebody like Alan Lomax, who was really
just trying to capture music before the people
that made it died. Or even certain producers
like Steve Albini, who passed away recently,
who wasn't really trying to be involved, but
really just trying to capture what the band was
doing in the room at the time. These people are,
or even honestly, in the interviews that I'm
conducting on this, I think I'm applying oral
history, philosophy, social history to art and
to musicians and to artists and comedians. And
you'll see more of what I mean in the next few
episodes. But I'm very much trying to get the
stories of these people, whether they're big
stars or not. Because I think those stories matter.
I think documenting what artists are doing is
much more important of a role for a historian
of art or music than trying to reinterpret the
stories of the past when it comes to... I think
that has its place. I do think understanding
who an artist was can help you have insight into
what their art meant. Understanding why a piece
was commissioned can give you insight. Those
are all important things, don't get me wrong.
And understanding that can have a pivotal part
of understanding the art itself. But we live
in an age now where there's so much information
that it can be lost in the shuffle. And without
intentionally trying to document some things,
like stories, I think there's a chance that there's
some of this stuff that could get lost forever.
And so... I think the role of an art historian,
music historian, and I do have a postgraduate
degree in history, I think that our role is really
to document these stories, to document what's
happening, more than it is to try and inform
artists of, oh, you've already done, that's already
been done, or, oh, that's similar to this motif.
I think that's unimportant, I think. That can
actually get in the way of artistic expression.
I think what's a lot more important is documenting
what these artists are doing. And maybe understanding
how certain things are influenced by others.
One important way that we can look at historians
of science informing current scientists is with
the emerging field of historical ecology. Historical
ecology takes regular historical record. and
uses it to extrapolate ecological information
about the past. There's a professor named Lauren
McClenahan, Dr. Lauren McClenahan, who did her
postdoc while I was in school, where I was attending
school, who took the photo records of the biggest
catch of the day at a fishing charter boat in
Key West. there were 50 years of daily photos
of the biggest catch of the day. And using these
photos, over time, she was able to show not only
that the species themselves were getting smaller,
so the biggest catch of the day went from being
bigger species to smaller species, but also,
over time, members within those species were
smaller. The specimens that were caught. I say
specimens because she was using them as a scientific
document from the historical record. I bring
this up because it's a very real way that historians
can inform scientists that I don't think applies
to art. I think about military tactics and understanding
those. and informing current military tactics
as being very akin to historians of science,
where I feel like historians of art and music
are more like public historians. Now, public
historians are historians that, as the title
suggests, their main audience is the public.
So museum curators, monument developers, people
who write for... popular history media like the
History Channel, or even Ken Burns is a public
historian through and through. This isn't someone
who ignores the historical record, but is someone
who digests the historical record for public
consumption. It can be a very tight rope to walk,
especially when you're dealing with public memory,
things, events that took place during the public's
lifetime or even when there were relatives of
theirs alive. And I view the role of art historians
and music historians to be more like that than
I do a military historian or historian of science.
We really want to focus on documenting the stories,
the music, the influence, the tracks of influence
of different artists. Rather than try and inform
the artists of what has already been done. I
think having a solid foundation in the history
of whatever type of music you're trying to make
is important. But beyond that, everything else
should be recreational. Whereas with a scientist,
I think having a firm understanding of your field
is crucial to being successful as a scientist.
And keeping up to date with new discoveries.
Whereas... I've talked to plenty of musicians
who don't even listen to music when they're writing
music. I've talked to musicians who listen to
a lot of a certain kind of music because they're
trying to recreate a certain kind of sound but
add something in or almost create like a time
capsule piece. I've talked to comedians who are
trying to do something original so much so that
they get in their own way. And I'm not talking
about comedians on this podcast, for the record.
But I've talked to comedians just in everyday
life where they're so concerned with being original
that they shut out the world around them and
fail to then have a dialogue with other comedians
in their performances or with society for that
matter. I think it's much more important for
an artist to understand what's going on in the
world around them. The current events. And that
might not be in the news. That might be in their
life. But being present in the everyday life
is much more important than understanding the
history of their field or their craft. Whereas
I think a scientist needs to walk the balance
of both very carefully. Now where does this leave
historians in all this? And I'm ignoring the
elephant in the room. People are very concerned
that we're repeating history right now and I'm
not trying to get political. It would be amiss
to talk about historians' role and not talk about
the current administration and what a lot of
historians, including myself, are saying is very
similar in a lot of very substantial ways to
the administration that was in Germany in 1939.
And that kind of brings this whole story full
circle. And so it really leaves me in kind of
a despondent... discouraged place where I don't
understand necessarily what good historians are
if nobody's listening to them. I don't really
know what else to say about that. It seems like
we are dealing with two parallel situations where
scientists and historians alike are screaming
about signs of impending doom, whether it be
with authoritarian oligarchies Or climate change.
I don't know what to do when people won't listen
to the experts when it comes to public policy.
The Catholic Church just elected a new pope.
Religious people used to trust their own experts.
And we even see that shifting a little bit now.
But I don't understand how we can combat false
information. And how we can regain the trust
of anyone when they won't even trust their own
authorities anymore. I'm beginning to ramble,
but the point that I'm trying to make is that
our appeal to expertise has crumbled not only
in science and in history, but we're even starting
to see it crumble in religion as well. So I think
we're at a crossroads here where... To quote
the drive -by truckers, we trust science just
as long as it tells us what we want to hear.
And we want our truths all fair and balanced,
long as our notions lie within it. And the problem
with all of that is that everyone thinks they're
a scientist now. Everyone thinks that they're
an expert in whatever it is they're talking about.
And when everybody thinks they're an expert,
and everybody gets treated like an expert, and
everybody has a platform, I say this as a random
dude with a platform, it really can elevate...
some of these dissident voices in a way that
can be really damaging to our society. And I've
talked before about how creationism has been
around for as long as creationism as a reaction
to revolution has been around, as long as the
theory of evolution has been. But I do think
that we're seeing something new, and maybe we're
not. Maybe the great joke of all of this is that
No matter what, people won't end up listening
to the historians. History will repeat itself.
And that's why historians won't shut the fuck
up about how history is going to repeat itself.
This is Fettin. I don't really know what the
point of this episode was when it's all said
and done. But I hope you understand at least
what I think my role here is. And that's mainly
to capture the stories of these people and have
a conversation about... their processes and what
makes them unique. I'm not strictly doing oral
history. I'm doing a podcast, but it's certainly
inspired by social and oral history. And while
I think my role as a historian is to inform the
public about the history of certain ideas, I
also think my role as a historian is to just
document the stories of some of these people.
And I hope you enjoy it. On the next episode,
we're going to have Sloane Simpson. from the
Sloan Brothers. He's going to talk to us about
all sorts of things, from why he doesn't play
live to how he got into recording music in the
first place. And I'll also talk about his latest
project with Jay Gonzalez. It was a split EP,
and he's already working on a new project with
musicians from all over Athens, Georgia, and
I'll talk about that a little bit later on. Next
week, we've got Jay Gonzalez. I'm not really
sure what I'm going to talk about. Next week,
I might just release that episode and let it
simmer. This is Fedden, and you've been listening
to Overeducated and Underemployed.