WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.899 Everyone knows the story, right? You can probably 00:00:01.899 --> 00:00:04.139 picture it in your head right now. A six -year 00:00:04.139 --> 00:00:06.700 -old George Washington, a shiny new hatchet, 00:00:07.219 --> 00:00:09.720 and his father's prized cherry tree just lying 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:12.099 there in ruins in the garden. Yeah, the classic 00:00:12.099 --> 00:00:15.900 American origin story. The secular saint. Exactly. 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:19.739 The furious father demands answers, and the boy 00:00:19.739 --> 00:00:21.960 looks up and delivers that famous line that has 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.260 been printed in school books for two centuries. 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:29.489 I cannot tell a lie. I did it. Which is... Ironically, 00:00:29.910 --> 00:00:32.469 a complete lie. Right. It's a great story. It 00:00:32.469 --> 00:00:35.350 sets the moral tone for a whole nation. But here's 00:00:35.350 --> 00:00:37.890 the problem. Most of us know by now that that 00:00:37.890 --> 00:00:40.090 event almost certainly never happened. It was 00:00:40.090 --> 00:00:42.850 invented. A biographer named Mason Locke Weems 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:45.149 just, well, he made it up shortly after Washington 00:00:45.149 --> 00:00:47.030 died. Parson Weems, yeah. Right, Parson Weems. 00:00:47.149 --> 00:00:49.109 He wanted to humanize the legend, you know, so 00:00:49.109 --> 00:00:51.210 he basically fabricated a childhood for him. 00:00:51.390 --> 00:00:53.170 But here is why we are starting with this today. 00:00:53.469 --> 00:00:55.750 We aren't here to debunk the cherry tree story. 00:00:55.929 --> 00:00:58.649 We are doing a deep dive into a much harder question. 00:00:58.969 --> 00:01:02.350 See, we know Washington was a real flesh and 00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:04.750 blood human being, but we also know the cherry 00:01:04.750 --> 00:01:08.290 tree story is a fabrication. And in that space 00:01:08.290 --> 00:01:11.290 between those two things, the real man and the 00:01:11.290 --> 00:01:15.450 fake story, lies a massive complex concept that 00:01:15.450 --> 00:01:18.310 really defines how we understand reality. We 00:01:18.310 --> 00:01:21.140 are talking about historicity. which I'll admit 00:01:21.140 --> 00:01:24.079 is a term that sounds incredibly dry. Oh, totally. 00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:25.560 It sounds like something you read on a dusty 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:27.640 university syllabus and just immediately fall 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:29.340 asleep. I thought the exact same thing when we 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:31.599 were prepping for this. I thought, isn't historicity 00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:35.379 just, well, history? But it's not, is it? No, 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:39.299 it's not. And that distinction is crucial. History 00:01:39.299 --> 00:01:41.219 is the narrative. It's the books we write, the 00:01:41.219 --> 00:01:43.659 museums we build, the stories we tell each other. 00:01:44.199 --> 00:01:46.840 Historicity is the quality of historical actuality. 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:49.040 Historical actuality. It is the status of being 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:52.260 real. The hard, unmovable fact of existence that 00:01:52.260 --> 00:01:55.180 stands completely apart from myth or legend or 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:57.519 fiction. So if history is the map that we draw, 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.359 historicity is the actual physical terrain. That 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:02.659 is a really helpful way to view it. But it goes 00:02:02.659 --> 00:02:05.379 deeper than just a map. Historicity isn't just 00:02:05.379 --> 00:02:07.599 a binary switch where something is either true 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:11.300 or false. It is also about the human condition 00:02:11.300 --> 00:02:14.389 of existing in time. The human condition. Yeah, 00:02:14.490 --> 00:02:16.870 it's a philosophical stance as much as a historical 00:02:16.870 --> 00:02:19.270 one. Okay, that's where the water gets deep. 00:02:19.449 --> 00:02:22.729 The human condition of existing in time. Because 00:02:22.729 --> 00:02:25.229 we aren't just floating in a void, we are pinned 00:02:25.229 --> 00:02:28.930 to a very specific moment. Exactly. And to really 00:02:28.930 --> 00:02:31.150 get our heads around this, we have to look at 00:02:31.150 --> 00:02:34.650 the two distinct layers of historicity that are 00:02:34.650 --> 00:02:36.930 outlined in the source material. Because when 00:02:36.930 --> 00:02:39.389 a historian sits down and asks, does this have 00:02:39.389 --> 00:02:42.879 historicity? They're actually asking two very 00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:45.620 different questions at the exact same time. Okay, 00:02:45.620 --> 00:02:47.719 let's break this down. What is the first layer? 00:02:47.939 --> 00:02:49.840 The first layer is the ontological question. 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:52.219 It basically asks what really happened. Like 00:02:52.219 --> 00:02:55.379 the CSI aspect. Exactly like CSI. Did the event 00:02:55.379 --> 00:02:58.219 physically occur? Did a person named George Washington 00:02:58.219 --> 00:03:01.900 literally exist on this planet? This focus is 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:04.439 strictly on the factual status of the past. That 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:06.020 seems like the straightforward part. I mean, 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:08.740 either the tree fell or it didn't fall. You would 00:03:08.740 --> 00:03:11.210 think so. But that leads immediately into the 00:03:11.210 --> 00:03:13.449 second layer, which is the epistemological question. 00:03:13.810 --> 00:03:16.150 And epistemology is about how we know things. 00:03:16.550 --> 00:03:19.610 Right. So the second question asks, how can a 00:03:19.610 --> 00:03:22.389 modern observer possibly know what really happened? 00:03:22.620 --> 00:03:24.659 Because we don't have a time machine, we can't 00:03:24.659 --> 00:03:26.740 just go back and watch Washington standing in 00:03:26.740 --> 00:03:30.099 the garden with an axe. We are stuck here centuries 00:03:30.099 --> 00:03:33.199 later. We are stuck with traces. Traces. Yeah, 00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:36.659 traces. Letters, pottery shards, ruins, old texts. 00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:39.120 And the fundamental problem is that those traces 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:41.879 are not the event itself. They're just the leftovers. 00:03:42.139 --> 00:03:44.520 Exactly. They're the debris left behind by the 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:47.580 event. So the real work of historicity involves 00:03:47.580 --> 00:03:50.020 bridging that gap, taking the debris and trying 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:52.580 to reconstruct the reality. It reminds me of 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:55.020 that idea that we are always looking at the past 00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:58.139 through a tiny keyhole. We can see a sliver of 00:03:58.139 --> 00:04:00.979 the room, but we have to infer what the rest 00:04:00.979 --> 00:04:03.560 of the room looks like. And that inference is 00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:06.319 where the heavy philosophy comes in. The Blackwell 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:09.340 Dictionary of Western Philosophy actually defines 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:12.800 historicity as the feature of our human situation, 00:04:13.180 --> 00:04:16.579 where we are located in specific concrete temporal 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:19.079 circumstances. Meaning we are not outside of 00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:21.550 time. We are trapped in it. Precisely. Which 00:04:21.550 --> 00:04:23.629 brings up Wilhelm Dilthe. He's a pretty heavy 00:04:23.629 --> 00:04:25.449 hitter in this field. Right. The sources mentioned 00:04:25.449 --> 00:04:27.529 him. He argued that historicity is actually the 00:04:27.529 --> 00:04:29.370 thing that makes us human, didn't he? He did. 00:04:29.689 --> 00:04:31.870 Dilthe wanted to move the conversation away from 00:04:31.870 --> 00:04:34.910 just memorizing dates and battles. He argued 00:04:34.910 --> 00:04:37.730 that we are unique and concrete historical beings. 00:04:38.230 --> 00:04:40.209 How so? Well, think about the difference between 00:04:40.209 --> 00:04:44.269 a human and, say, a wolf in the forest. A wolf 00:04:44.269 --> 00:04:47.189 basically lives in the continuous present. Its 00:04:47.189 --> 00:04:49.629 whole life is dictated by biology and instinct. 00:04:49.870 --> 00:04:51.529 It doesn't care about what its grandfather did. 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:54.949 Exactly. But a human, we are entirely shaped 00:04:54.949 --> 00:04:57.949 by the accumulated weight of the past. You listening 00:04:57.949 --> 00:04:59.750 to this right now, you aren't just a biological 00:04:59.750 --> 00:05:02.689 organism. You are a product of the 21st century, 00:05:03.050 --> 00:05:05.730 which was shaped by the 20th century. You understand 00:05:05.730 --> 00:05:08.790 yourself through a timeline. So my identity isn't 00:05:08.790 --> 00:05:12.329 just my DNA. My identity is literally my place 00:05:12.329 --> 00:05:14.870 in the story. That's a great way to put it. And 00:05:14.870 --> 00:05:17.069 this is where another philosopher, Herbert Marquis, 00:05:17.370 --> 00:05:19.790 steps in. He makes a distinction between history 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:22.569 and nature, which is a vital concept if you want 00:05:22.569 --> 00:05:24.790 to understand historicity. I've always kind of 00:05:24.790 --> 00:05:26.790 thought of history and nature as similar things, 00:05:26.889 --> 00:05:29.209 just stuff that happens in the world. But Marquis 00:05:29.209 --> 00:05:32.269 says they are fundamentally different. Completely 00:05:32.269 --> 00:05:34.689 different. Think about the natural world. It 00:05:34.689 --> 00:05:37.459 is inherently cyclical. Like the seasons? Right. 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:39.579 The seasons turn. The tides go in and out. The 00:05:39.579 --> 00:05:42.740 sun rises and sets. It is a realm of endless 00:05:42.740 --> 00:05:45.220 repetition. Nature doesn't really go anywhere. 00:05:45.420 --> 00:05:48.459 It just is. But history? History is linear. It 00:05:48.459 --> 00:05:50.800 is irreversible. The French Revolution happened 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:53.480 exactly once. It will never ever happen again 00:05:53.480 --> 00:05:55.519 in that exact same way. Wow. That's a really 00:05:55.519 --> 00:05:58.560 powerful distinction. Nature repeats, but history 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:01.600 moves. Marquis argued that historicity signifies 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:04.519 the specific meaning we intend when we say something 00:06:04.519 --> 00:06:07.420 is historical. It implies that human events have 00:06:07.420 --> 00:06:10.240 an intentionality and a uniqueness to them that 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:12.180 a thunderstorm or a blooming flower just does 00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:15.480 not have. Okay, so when we look for the historicity 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:18.399 of an event, we are looking for that unique, 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:22.620 unrepeatable human imprint. Which, I guess, brings 00:06:22.620 --> 00:06:24.879 us back to the practical side of this deep dive. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:27.800 The methodology. Yeah. If historicity is this 00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:31.180 quality of being real and unique, how do we actually 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:33.560 measure it? Because some things feel historically 00:06:33.560 --> 00:06:36.180 true, but we know they aren't. Right. We're dealing 00:06:36.180 --> 00:06:39.560 with a spectrum of truth. As humans, we often 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:42.720 want history to be a very simple yes or no, but 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.720 historicity is almost never that clean. Let's 00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:47.459 go back to George Washington for a second. The 00:06:47.459 --> 00:06:50.720 man versus the myth. Exactly. There is zero doubt. 00:06:50.889 --> 00:06:53.089 regarding the historicity of George Washington, 00:06:53.350 --> 00:06:56.110 the person, the volume of evidence, the primary 00:06:56.110 --> 00:06:59.089 sources, physical artifacts, corroborating accounts 00:06:59.089 --> 00:07:02.209 from allies and enemies. It's overwhelming. His 00:07:02.209 --> 00:07:05.110 historicity as a person is incredibly high. But 00:07:05.110 --> 00:07:07.230 the reported event of the cherry tree has been 00:07:07.230 --> 00:07:09.430 completely found lacking. Correct. So we have 00:07:09.430 --> 00:07:12.149 a highly historical person participating in a 00:07:12.149 --> 00:07:14.449 completely non -historical event. Which happens 00:07:14.449 --> 00:07:16.629 constantly. All the time. But let's look at a 00:07:16.629 --> 00:07:18.899 much harder example from the sources. the Iliad. 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:22.500 Oh, now we are going way back. Homer's epic poem 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:27.420 about the Trojan War, Achilles, Hector, the giant 00:07:27.420 --> 00:07:30.040 wooden horse. For a long time, this was just 00:07:30.040 --> 00:07:32.000 considered literature, wasn't it? Just a really 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:34.779 cool ancient story. Yeah, for centuries it was 00:07:34.779 --> 00:07:37.220 treated purely as mythology. But then in the 00:07:37.220 --> 00:07:39.899 19th century, archaeologists like Heinrich Schleiman 00:07:39.899 --> 00:07:42.259 started digging in modern day Turkey. And they 00:07:42.259 --> 00:07:44.420 found something. They found a city. They found 00:07:44.420 --> 00:07:47.120 massive stone walls that showed clear evidence 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:49.740 of having been burned. They found evidence of 00:07:49.740 --> 00:07:52.319 a massive conflict that aligns almost perfectly 00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:55.720 with the timeline of the Trojan War. That's wild. 00:07:55.839 --> 00:07:59.319 So does the Iliad have historicity? It has what 00:07:59.319 --> 00:08:02.220 historians call a kernel of historicity, the 00:08:02.220 --> 00:08:05.540 broad backdrop, the city of Troy, a massive war 00:08:05.540 --> 00:08:07.660 between Greeks and Trojans that appears to be 00:08:07.660 --> 00:08:10.220 historical actuality. But the specific conversations 00:08:10.220 --> 00:08:13.209 between Achilles and his mother. or the Greek 00:08:13.209 --> 00:08:15.490 gods physically intervening in the fight. That 00:08:15.490 --> 00:08:18.329 is pure poetic license. It really is a spectrum. 00:08:18.509 --> 00:08:20.509 It's not just a box you check for fact or fiction. 00:08:20.810 --> 00:08:22.649 It's this complex mix where you basically have 00:08:22.649 --> 00:08:25.529 to pan for gold. You have to sift the historicity 00:08:25.529 --> 00:08:28.629 out of the mythology. And that sifting process 00:08:28.629 --> 00:08:31.490 is incredibly difficult because we, the sifters, 00:08:31.709 --> 00:08:34.190 are inherently biased. We come to the table with 00:08:34.190 --> 00:08:36.429 our own modern ideas about how the world is supposed 00:08:36.429 --> 00:08:38.669 to work. Which brings us to this fascinating 00:08:38.669 --> 00:08:41.509 concept by the historiographer, Cronsois Hartog. 00:08:41.870 --> 00:08:44.529 He talks about regimes of historicity. Yes. I 00:08:44.529 --> 00:08:47.470 love this term. Regimes of historicity. It sounds 00:08:47.470 --> 00:08:49.710 almost authoritarian, but he means something 00:08:49.710 --> 00:08:52.529 much more structural, doesn't he? He does. A 00:08:52.529 --> 00:08:55.450 regime in this context is simply the way a specific 00:08:55.450 --> 00:08:58.690 society relates to time. It's the overarching 00:08:58.690 --> 00:09:00.850 framework through which a culture understands 00:09:00.850 --> 00:09:04.320 its past, its present and its future. Okay, so 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:06.580 an ancient Roman citizen would have a completely 00:09:06.580 --> 00:09:10.059 different regime of historicity than a Silicon 00:09:10.059 --> 00:09:12.759 Valley tech CEO today. Fundamentally different. 00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:14.940 In a lot of ancient societies, the regime was 00:09:14.940 --> 00:09:17.059 heavily retrospective. Being looking backward. 00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:19.620 Right. The past was viewed as the Golden Age. 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:22.720 The ancestors always knew best. So to validate 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:24.940 something, to prove it was good or true, you 00:09:24.940 --> 00:09:27.419 had to show it was old. History was seen as a 00:09:27.419 --> 00:09:29.860 teacher, and the ultimate goal was to emulate 00:09:29.860 --> 00:09:33.210 the great models of the past. Versus today, where 00:09:33.210 --> 00:09:36.070 if you tell a tech CEO, we should do this because 00:09:36.070 --> 00:09:38.529 we did it 100 years ago, they'd laugh you right 00:09:38.529 --> 00:09:41.629 out of the boardroom. Exactly. Our modern regime, 00:09:41.889 --> 00:09:44.210 generally speaking, since the Enlightenment is 00:09:44.210 --> 00:09:47.309 highly prospective, we look forward. We view 00:09:47.309 --> 00:09:50.330 time as synonymous with progress. The past is 00:09:50.330 --> 00:09:52.429 often seen as something broken that we need to 00:09:52.429 --> 00:09:55.450 overcome or improve upon. That is fascinating. 00:09:56.070 --> 00:09:58.549 Because it means that historicity isn't just 00:09:58.549 --> 00:10:01.190 about the raw facts we dig up, it's about the 00:10:01.190 --> 00:10:03.490 lens we use to look for those facts in the first 00:10:03.490 --> 00:10:06.070 place. Our regime literally determines what we 00:10:06.070 --> 00:10:08.330 value as true. It dictates what we choose to 00:10:08.330 --> 00:10:10.789 preserve, what we bother to record, and how we 00:10:10.789 --> 00:10:13.809 interpret the evidence we find. Hartog describes 00:10:13.809 --> 00:10:16.029 this as a method of self -awareness in a human 00:10:16.029 --> 00:10:18.500 community. We literally define who we are by 00:10:18.500 --> 00:10:20.659 how we treat our own timeline. But wait, if our 00:10:20.659 --> 00:10:23.220 regime totally colors our view, how do we ever 00:10:23.220 --> 00:10:25.960 get to the objective truth? If I'm looking at 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:28.080 ancient history through 21st century glasses, 00:10:28.580 --> 00:10:30.840 aren't I just projecting my own modern values 00:10:30.840 --> 00:10:34.220 backward? That is exactly the trap of historicism. 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:37.720 There is a very deep concern in the field that 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:40.940 our methodologies are subject to what they call 00:10:40.940 --> 00:10:43.779 submerged value commitments. Submerged value 00:10:43.779 --> 00:10:46.000 commitment. That sounds like a very polite academic 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.820 way of saying hidden agendas. It's actually more 00:10:48.820 --> 00:10:51.559 subtle than an agenda. An agenda implies you 00:10:51.559 --> 00:10:54.820 are actively trying to trick someone. A submerged 00:10:54.820 --> 00:10:57.340 value is something you believe so deeply, so 00:10:57.340 --> 00:10:59.480 fundamentally, that you don't even realize it's 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:01.860 biasing your work. It's the water you swim in. 00:11:02.039 --> 00:11:04.139 Right. And nowhere is this water hotter than 00:11:04.139 --> 00:11:06.620 in religious studies. The source material specifically 00:11:06.620 --> 00:11:09.039 highlights this as the arena where historicity 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:11.740 is most fiercely debated. Absolutely. When you 00:11:11.740 --> 00:11:14.710 are dealing with major figures or texts, and 00:11:14.710 --> 00:11:16.730 the sources mentioned several here. Right, the 00:11:16.730 --> 00:11:19.190 debates around the Bible, the historical Jesus, 00:11:19.490 --> 00:11:21.830 the canonical Gospels, Muhammad, Rama, the Book 00:11:21.830 --> 00:11:24.230 of Mormon. And I want to pause here and be incredibly 00:11:24.230 --> 00:11:26.850 clear to you listening. We are absolutely not 00:11:26.850 --> 00:11:29.029 taking a side on the existence or the accuracy 00:11:29.029 --> 00:11:31.870 of any of these figures or texts. No, not at 00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:33.950 all. That's not our role here. We are strictly 00:11:33.950 --> 00:11:36.399 looking at the mechanics of the debate. Exactly. 00:11:36.820 --> 00:11:38.840 We are just reporting that these are the high 00:11:38.840 --> 00:11:42.200 -stakes arenas where historicity is most intensely 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:45.700 scrutinized. Because asking, did this actually 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:48.879 happen about a religious text isn't just an academic 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:52.220 exercise. It's existential for millions of people. 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:56.220 Precisely. And in these specific fields, a researcher's 00:11:56.220 --> 00:11:59.159 value commitments can heavily, heavily influence 00:11:59.159 --> 00:12:01.559 which methodology they choose to use. How so? 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:04.639 Well, if you are a devoted believer in a tradition, 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:07.620 you might naturally privilege the internal consistency 00:12:07.620 --> 00:12:10.580 of the sacred text. But if you are a strict skeptic, 00:12:10.919 --> 00:12:13.039 you might demand external archaeological proof 00:12:13.039 --> 00:12:15.360 for every detail proof that might not have even 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:18.019 survived the centuries. So if bias is completely 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:20.440 inevitable and the traces of the past are mostly 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:23.759 fragmentary, do historians have any actual tools 00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:26.559 to figure this out? Or is it all just educated 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:28.700 guessing? No, we aren't helpless. Over the last 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:30.460 couple of centuries, historians have developed 00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:33.519 a really rigorous toolkit of criteria to test 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:36.120 for historicity. Like stress tests for a story. 00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:37.840 Exactly like stress tests. Okay, let's run through 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:40.299 this toolkit. What is the first tool historians 00:12:40.299 --> 00:12:43.519 pull out? The first one is contextual credibility. 00:12:45.179 --> 00:12:48.120 This basically asks, does the story actually 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:51.080 fit the furniture of the time period? Give me 00:12:51.080 --> 00:12:53.610 an example of how that works in practice. Okay, 00:12:53.950 --> 00:12:56.610 let's say you find a thrilling ancient document 00:12:56.610 --> 00:12:59.669 that claims to be from the first century describing 00:12:59.669 --> 00:13:02.789 a great Roman battle. But halfway through the 00:13:02.789 --> 00:13:05.629 text, it mentions the commanding general using 00:13:05.629 --> 00:13:08.690 a stirrup on his horse. A stirrup, okay. Well, 00:13:08.690 --> 00:13:10.610 historians know the stirrup wasn't widely used 00:13:10.610 --> 00:13:13.029 in that specific region until centuries later. 00:13:13.450 --> 00:13:16.409 So that one tiny detail destroys the contextual 00:13:16.409 --> 00:13:19.080 credibility of the whole document. It's an anachronism. 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:20.960 It proves the story was written much later by 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:22.740 someone who didn't know the proper details of 00:13:22.740 --> 00:13:24.960 the era. Right. It's like watching a movie set 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:27.679 in the 1980s and seeing a character casually 00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:29.860 checking an iPhone. Yeah. It immediately breaks 00:13:29.860 --> 00:13:31.759 the reality. OK. That makes sense. What's the 00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:33.960 next tool? The next tool is the criterion of 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:36.639 dissimilarity. Now, this one is a bit more intellectually 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:39.480 tricky. It asks, is the story different enough 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:42.200 from the author's known agenda to be likely true? 00:13:42.820 --> 00:13:45.299 Walk me through that one. Imagine an early religious 00:13:45.299 --> 00:13:48.929 writer. Their obvious agenda is to promote their 00:13:48.929 --> 00:13:51.429 new movement and separate it from older traditions. 00:13:52.549 --> 00:13:55.509 If that writer includes a story or a teaching 00:13:55.509 --> 00:13:58.429 from their founder, that sounds very traditional 00:13:58.429 --> 00:14:00.970 and aligns closely with the older traditions 00:14:00.970 --> 00:14:03.649 they are trying to break away from. It is likely 00:14:03.649 --> 00:14:07.289 authentic. Yes, because why on earth would they 00:14:07.289 --> 00:14:10.009 invent a detail that actively hurts their new 00:14:10.009 --> 00:14:12.490 marketing pitch? Right. If it goes against the 00:14:12.490 --> 00:14:14.870 grain of their own bias, it's probably a stubborn 00:14:14.870 --> 00:14:17.549 historical fact that they just couldn't ignore 00:14:17.549 --> 00:14:20.049 or erase. Exactly. But I can see a flaw there. 00:14:20.269 --> 00:14:22.970 Couldn't a really clever writer include dissimilar 00:14:22.970 --> 00:14:25.289 things on purpose just to sound more authentic? 00:14:25.529 --> 00:14:27.570 You have hit on the main problem. These tools 00:14:27.570 --> 00:14:30.250 are heuristic. They are rules of thumb, not laws 00:14:30.250 --> 00:14:33.330 of physics. They deal in probability, not absolute 00:14:33.330 --> 00:14:36.090 certainty. And that applies heavily to the next 00:14:36.090 --> 00:14:38.230 tool as well, which is perhaps the most famous 00:14:38.230 --> 00:14:41.279 one. the criterion of embarrassment. I've heard 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:43.799 of this one. The basic idea is that people don't 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:45.440 usually make up stories that make themselves 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:48.720 look terrible. Correct. The classic example often 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.539 cited in historiography is the crucifixion of 00:14:51.539 --> 00:14:55.919 Jesus. In the first century Roman context, a 00:14:55.919 --> 00:14:58.379 claimed messiah being executed like a common 00:14:58.379 --> 00:15:01.659 criminal was a massive stumbling block. It was 00:15:01.659 --> 00:15:03.879 incredibly embarrassing for the early movement. 00:15:04.019 --> 00:15:06.500 Highly embarrassing. It required a tremendous 00:15:06.500 --> 00:15:09.200 amount of theological explanation. So the historian's 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:12.500 logic here is if they were just inventing a messiah 00:15:12.500 --> 00:15:14.360 completely from scratch, they would have had 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:17.980 him heroically defeat the Romans, not get humiliatingly 00:15:17.980 --> 00:15:21.080 executed by them. Exactly. Since the event was 00:15:21.080 --> 00:15:23.820 profoundly embarrassing to the cause, it is highly 00:15:23.820 --> 00:15:27.460 likely to have historical actuality. Nobody invents 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:29.500 a story that makes their job that much harder. 00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:31.399 You see this with military history too, right? 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.379 Oh, all the time. If a famous Roman general's 00:15:34.379 --> 00:15:36.960 memoir admits to a massive tactical blunder that 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:39.759 cost him thousands of troops, you can bet your 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:42.039 life that blunder actually happened. But again, 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:44.360 just to play devil's advocate, sometimes admitting 00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:46.539 a small fault makes you seem more honest, which 00:15:46.539 --> 00:15:49.279 helps you sell a much bigger lie later on. And 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:51.940 that is the limitation of the tool. We can never 00:15:51.940 --> 00:15:54.340 be 100 % inside the head of an ancient author. 00:15:54.460 --> 00:15:57.460 But generally speaking, the criterion of embarrassment 00:15:57.460 --> 00:16:00.379 helps historians cut through purely propagandistic 00:16:00.379 --> 00:16:03.360 praise. OK, what about checking different sources 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:05.139 against each other? Is there a tool for that? 00:16:05.340 --> 00:16:08.279 Yes, that is multiple attestation. If you have 00:16:08.279 --> 00:16:10.700 three completely independent sources, let's say 00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:13.879 a Roman tax record, a private Greek letter and 00:16:13.879 --> 00:16:16.480 a local Jewish history. and they all casually 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:19.440 mention the exact same event, the probability 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:22.360 of its historicity skyrockets. The key word there 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:24.460 being independent, right? If they all just copied 00:16:24.460 --> 00:16:26.860 from the exact same older book, it doesn't count. 00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:29.100 Exactly. That's just the echo chamber effect. 00:16:29.460 --> 00:16:31.440 Ten people retweeting the same lie doesn't make 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:34.320 it true. But three people witnessing an accident 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:36.320 from three completely different street corners, 00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:39.309 that creates a verified historical event. So 00:16:39.309 --> 00:16:42.309 we have contextual credibility, dissimilarity, 00:16:42.610 --> 00:16:45.129 embarrassment, and multiple attestation. It's 00:16:45.129 --> 00:16:47.870 a pretty rigorous toolkit, even if it's not completely 00:16:47.870 --> 00:16:50.429 bulletproof. It's the best we have. It allows 00:16:50.429 --> 00:16:52.789 us to move away from once upon a time and get 00:16:52.789 --> 00:16:55.210 to it is highly probable that. Which brings us 00:16:55.210 --> 00:16:57.750 all the way back to where we started today. Why 00:16:57.750 --> 00:17:00.070 does any of this matter to you listening right 00:17:00.070 --> 00:17:02.350 now? I mean, we aren't all historians. Most of 00:17:02.350 --> 00:17:03.629 us are just trying to get through the work week. 00:17:03.769 --> 00:17:06.289 It matters deeply because we are currently living 00:17:06.289 --> 00:17:10.250 through a massive shift in our regime of historicity. 00:17:10.809 --> 00:17:12.369 Just think about the information environment 00:17:12.369 --> 00:17:14.910 we live in today. It's incredibly fast, it's 00:17:14.910 --> 00:17:17.509 totally digital, and it's wildly fragmented. 00:17:17.549 --> 00:17:20.769 As it is ephemeral. We are generating more data 00:17:20.769 --> 00:17:23.529 right now than any civilization in human history. 00:17:24.289 --> 00:17:26.410 But you have to ask, how much of it actually 00:17:26.410 --> 00:17:29.299 has historicity? Wow. How much of our digital 00:17:29.299 --> 00:17:32.200 footprint is verified actuality? And how much 00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:34.759 is just the cherry tree myth operating on a massive 00:17:34.759 --> 00:17:37.640 global scale? That is a genuinely haunting thought. 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:40.380 We are absolutely drowning in content, but we 00:17:40.380 --> 00:17:42.980 might be starving for actual historicity. And 00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:45.720 if Francois Hartog is right that our regime of 00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:48.039 historicity defines our cultural self -awareness, 00:17:48.509 --> 00:17:50.809 What does it say about us as a society if we 00:17:50.809 --> 00:17:52.849 just stop caring about the distinction between 00:17:52.849 --> 00:17:55.849 the viral story and the actual event? It says 00:17:55.849 --> 00:17:58.849 we might be losing our grip on reality. Or at 00:17:58.849 --> 00:18:01.970 the very least, we are happily trading truth 00:18:01.970 --> 00:18:04.940 for an entertaining narrative. So the big takeaway 00:18:04.940 --> 00:18:07.440 here is really a call to action. It's about being 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:10.920 your own historian, being your own sifter. When 00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:13.299 you see that viral headline or hear that story 00:18:13.299 --> 00:18:15.539 that perfectly confirms everything you hate about 00:18:15.539 --> 00:18:17.859 your political opponents or everything you love 00:18:17.859 --> 00:18:20.599 about your heroes, pause. Apply the toolkit we 00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:23.480 just talked about. Right. Ask yourself, is this 00:18:23.480 --> 00:18:25.640 contextually credible? Is this just confirming 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:28.160 my own bias? Where is the embarrassment in this 00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:30.500 story? Where is the resistance? Because if it 00:18:30.500 --> 00:18:33.079 feels too perfect, too neat and tidy, it's probably 00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:35.960 a cherry tree. And real history is rarely perfect. 00:18:36.099 --> 00:18:38.660 It's messy, it's deeply contradictory, and it's 00:18:38.660 --> 00:18:40.759 real. Which is what makes it so fascinating. 00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:43.519 A really powerful reminder to keep our critical 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:46.279 faculties sharp. We have covered the philosophy, 00:18:46.619 --> 00:18:48.880 the spectrum of truth, the cultural regimes, 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:52.180 and the actual toolkit historians use. Hopefully 00:18:52.180 --> 00:18:54.119 the next time you hear a historical fact, you 00:18:54.119 --> 00:18:56.019 will listen to it with a slightly different ear. 00:18:56.619 --> 00:19:00.319 And here's a final thought to mull over. If historicity 00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:03.039 is how a community becomes self -aware, are we 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:05.299 currently building a history that future generations 00:19:05.299 --> 00:19:08.380 can actually verify? Or are we just creating 00:19:08.380 --> 00:19:10.920 a future full of digital myths? Something to 00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:13.799 definitely think about. Stay curious and keep 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:15.740 digging. Thanks for joining us on the Deep Dive. 00:19:15.859 --> 00:19:16.519 We'll see you next time.