Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 13:18:55 -0500 From: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers Reply to: H-NET List on German History To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN Subject: Postmodernism: Reply to Sperber Submitted by: Thomas Schmitz I am rather embarrassed to bother H-German readers with yet another e-mail from me, but I just want to reply to Jonathan Sperber's comments, especially since he took pains to criticize postmodern methodologies not with the help of mere polemic, but rather used good arguments - as it always should be. To point one, concerning postmodernists' attributing to themselves ideas and practices long common in the profession: If that were so, there would not be so much fuss about the whole issue. It is true, there might be, at first sight, a similarity between Rankean historicism and some forms of postmodernism, especially so since the influential Berkeley school around Stephen Greenblatt is labelled as the "New Historicism". But already a second glance will uncover the enormous differences between these two schools - I would put them each at the opposite ends of the historiographical spectrum. It is not only that the late Nipperdey, a stern defender of Rankean (neo)historicism, polemicized vehemently against all things postmodern (cp. HZ 253 (1991), esp. pp. 16-20). But he also used several key concepts that postmodernists of all sorts really avoid using, e.g. assuming that there was one single uniform past that has to be unearthed and then narrated and structured according to one single possible way of reasoning; an enterprise that would finally result - if only all historians showed the same degree of eagerness as he himself did - in one single uniform and coherent history, a history that claimed to demonstrate "objectively", "wie es eigentlich gewesen" ist. Now I do not think there is much room for anything perspectivist nor subjectivist nor multicultural, let alone for multiple interpretations (all keywords that are associated with postmodern thinking) in that kind of approach. When I said that the adherents of the linguistic turn attempt to recapture (as much as it is possible) (!) the original meanings of old vocabulary, then I had not in mind Rankean Quellenkritik but rather an altogether different enterprise that usually focuses on a single word or notion and then attempts to trace its changing meanings in the course of time and in between different cultures, and by so doing tries to indirectly shed light on those past cultures. This is done not in the way of Koselleck's rather intellectual Begriffsgeschichte (on the difference between the Geschichtl. Grundbegriffe and linguistic turn see T. Childers in: CEH 22 (1989), pp. 381-2), but rather attempts to focus on everyday texts and actual discursive practice, with the intent of tracking down slight (and not so slight) shifts in the meanings of text parts and other symbols with special emphasis on their respective boundaries. To give you an example: When a Rankean historian is writing the history of the human being, s/he thinks in terms of world history; when a postmodern historian sits down to write a history of the human being, then s/he also skims through the available texts, however, not in order to write a textbook-style world history, but rather to focus on how past and present cultures have defined the term "human being", focusing exclusively on the differences and shifts in meanings, and not bothering at all with recounting hard historical facts and other going-ons. By so doing s/he might find out, for instance, how some groups (barbarians, women, "colored" people, etc.) were in- and excluded in/from the notion of "human being", that even today, when hardly any scholar would bother consulting dictionaries or lexica when faced with the term "human being" in the present West European context, there are still enormous life-and-death issues involved on how to define that seemingly obvious and clear notion: An embryo is not regarded as a human being in the Netherlands, in Ireland it is; not much will happen to you if you participate in an abortion in the Low Countries - however, you might be sentenced to death in the Republic of Ireland! So you see, it might be quite interesting and indeed telling to write a history of those linguistic shifts, a project that Derrida calls "differance" (with accent aigue). How can we hope ever to be able to connect to those self-referential forms of past discourse, since they are, as is maintained, self-referential? Good question, albeit not very fair to me: I am very well aware of the impossibility of the "Horizontverschmelzung", and so I very deliberately added two parentheses by saying: they "attempt to recapture (as much as it is possible) the original meanings of old vocabulary and to apply (as much as it is possible) the values...of former times - parentheses you very neatly replaced twice with dots. I also concluded that the postmodern historian does not claim to present to the reader the final interpretation (of past interpretations) to end all further interpretations, but rather adds yet another interpretation to previous - and I may add - future ones. The second point, being more or less the well-known question concerning the representation of the Holocaust in postmodern studies. Well, judging from Jenninger's abortive attempt to historicize National Socialism in the Bundestag back in 1988, the postmodernists are not the only ones to have a problem in how to deal with that issue. There have been previous hints and answers to that sore point in this debate, it is true. If, as you quite understandably ask me, "(t)here are an infinite number of interpretations of the past" (or, as I would rather say: an infinite number of interpretations of interpretations), "so why should we privilege this particular one, over, for instance, the one proposed by the neo-Nazis...?" - Now, you have made it easy for me, since you obviously do not only have an argument with postmodernists, but also with all Weberians and, most notably, with Carl L. Becker, who back in 1931 held his seminal AHA-address "Everyman his own Historian", a statement which radicals and extremists of all sorts could have seen as an invitation for writing irresponsible historical accounts, including those versions that deny the Holocaust. - I do not think, so my humble interpretation of how American historians have interpreted past interpretations in the bygone 64 years (or at least until the first postmodernists appeared on the scene), that US historiography has suffered very much from Becker's influential perspectivism, but rather profited from him, since his essay indirectly gave rise to classical social history and other non-Rankean forms of historical writing. Surely, there are a few neo-nazi interpretations of the historical record, but there are also many, many more interpretations that provide the potential reader with a representation of the Holocaust which is favored by the very large majority of the public. How then to privilege the latter group of interpretations over the former ones? - Only by each consumer of historical books deciding (each for her/himself) to read this textbook instead of that one and by accepting this interpretation (of interpretations) to that one; there is, I fear, apart from this very subjective mechanism no objective way to endow certain readings of past texts with a privilege over other interpretations - at least not in a democracy. (When LaCapra talks of "misreadings", he is probably using a rhetorical strategy or has forgotten the lessons taught by Carl L. Becker). Well, you are really facing the democratic dilemma here: True, we might call the German police and deny, as it was done until three days ago, extremist opinion-holders the right to become teachers, ban their organizations, and force them to read our textbooks at school. But that will only shift the democratic dilemma onto another level by making them go underground and become neurotic martyrs; and at the final showdown, which always takes place at the ballot-box, they will cast their vote secretely according to their political opinion, an opinion that is conditioned also by their own interpretation of history. And here, I am afraid, the vote of the most eccentric neo-nazi carries exactly the same weight as that of the most brilliant and responsible scholar. So, I would suggest, let those neo-nazi historians have their say and face them in open battle (as we have already done it here in H-German; I am rather happy that the right-wing "Junge Freiheit" exists - a bonanza for all those who look for logical flaws in neo-nationalist thinking). Due to the lack of time-machines we can only confront them with our own interpretations of historical text-corpora (and also subjective memories); however, we might throw into battle our good knowledge of the historical record and our personal good judgements, so as to uncover logical flaws in their interpretations and to confront the potential reader with our well-researched and documented interpretations so that he/she will finally interpret our histories to be far more representative, conclusive, and convincing than the interpretations done by neo-nazi historians. That is why we historians are so important, why we should be eager to write good history books, since we should all know that there are other people who write very different accounts and that there is no final single objective arbiter who will put things right (nor left, nor in the middle). Thomas Schmitz .