Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 11:39:36 -0500 From: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers Reply to: H-NET List on German History To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN Subject: PoMo Submitted by: Jeremy Telman Jonathan Sperber seems determined to reduce all of postmodern theory to the claim that there can be no authoritative interpretation of a text or of history. This is indeed a claim that some postmodern theorists have made, but the claim is neither unique to pomo nor a point about which all who claim some indebtedness to pomo agree. For all of the sophistication of Hayden White's argument in _Metahistory_, that work makes its critique of claims to historical objectivity without the aid of postmodern theory. In fact, White is influenced by many of the authorities to whom critics of post-modernism appeal. It is nice to participate in a discussion of the question of how we historians justify our claims of knowledge about the past and our reconstructions of historical narratives, but it is not as if these questions arise only because of the challenges of postmodernism. We therefore cannot blame postmodernists for not presenting solutions to the ethical problems raised by pomo theory; as I understand the history of German historiography, earlier historical theorists came up against similar problems during the "Crisis of Historicism," and they too did not find a clear way out of the problem. Post-war German historiography has turned away from the entire tradition of Historicism as the profession has sought to distance itself from the nationalist excesses associated with that tradition, but the issues raised by the "crisis" were not resolved. Pomo theory forces us to confront these issues anew. But there is no one pomo position on the relation of texts to contexts, on the existence of an objective reality, or on the abilities of our words to signify consistently over time. The most radical pomo theory engages in a degree of skepticism that I cannot imagine any historian finding very useful as a basis for historical research. Jonathan Sperber assumes that Dominick LaCapra is a postmodernist and that LaCapra therefore *must* believe that it is impossible to appeal to some objective standard as the basis for the interpretation of a text. But, as far as I know, this is not LaCapra's position. In fact, LaCapra argued forcefully in the early 80's that historians need to interpret texts in relationship to certain historical contexts. Different contexts help historians interpret texts differently, and there may be an infinity of relevant contexts and therefore an infinity of strong readings. Still, there is also an infinity of weak readings -- readings that cannot be adequately grounded in text or context. A case in point is Sperber's rendering of Derrida's "celebrated remark," which Sperber renders as "there is nothing outside the text." I have been unable to locate the original (so I hope someone will correct me if I have this wrong), but as I recall, Derrida wrote, "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte," a phrase more accurately translated as "there is no outside-the-text." The point is not that there is no reality to which texts variously refer but that reality is itself a text subject to interpretation. Derrida certainly thinks that texts can be misinterpreted and mistranslated. Those of you who read his bullying letters regarding what he emphatically called "my writings" (so much for the death of the author!) in the NYRoB a few years ago already know this. But it seems to me Derrida is a pretty weak example for the impact of pomo theory on historiography since his impact has been quite localized. Historians like LaCapra who make use of Derrida usually make use of some specific reading or argument Derrida has made without necessarily agreeing with Derrida's views on the relationship of texts and contexts. There are also many other views of historical reality within pomo. Frederic Jameson, for example, writes in _The Political Unconscious_ that history "is _not_ a text, for it is fundamentally non-narrative and nonrepresentational," but he adds that history is only accessible to us in a textual form (Cornell Paperback Edition, p. 82). This does not strike me as particularly offensive or daring. There are other things in Jameson's writings, however, that are far more interesting. If pomo is not about skepticism regarding the stable relationship of signs to their referents, what is it about? I think it is about a lot of things to a lot of people. I have found Thomas Schmitz' and Michael Geyer's contributions to this discussion extremely intreresting and thought- provoking, but when they invoke pomo, they are clearly doing something very different from what I do when I invoke it. This may be a problem with pomo, or it may be that we are being very sloppy by lumping together things that don't belong together. The part of pomo that interests me most is the post-structuralist critique of binary oppositions. Although historians have long been aware of the dangers such binary opposition pose to our attempts to accurately render historical relationships, I still find most historical research dependent upon oppositions between structures and agency that I simply do not find out there in the "real world" in which I very much believe. This pomo critique of structuralism has helped me most in trying to write about the past in a way that makes sense and yet does not produce an overly simplistic model of interactions among human actors and institutional factors. Many historians have raised questions about the implications of dissolving the barriers between structures and human agency, and this question is often raised in connection with the Holocaust. Studying the Holocaust was, however, one of the experiences that led me to question the binary opposition between structures and agents. I found a tendency in historical literature to attempt to separate human beings into the categories of victims and perpetrators. But when I read detailed accounts of the institutions of genocide and the memoirs of survivors, I found that those human beings felt themselves shifting across borders between structures and agency. Many victims suffered terrible pangs of guilt because they believed that they survived at the expense of others -- e.g., Primo Levi's chapter on "The Drowned and the Saved," Elie Wiesel's feelings of responsibility for his father's death, the shocking statement of Art Spiegelman's psychiatrist in _Maus_ that "the worst survived" -- this from a man who was himself a survivor. In conclusion, I suppose I am trying to make two points: First, there is much more to pomo theory than this question of the existence of objective reality. In fact, historians influenced by pomo seem largely uninterested in what pomo has to say on that particular issue. Moreover, Jonathan Sperber is right to say that on that issue pomo is not saying anything new. Second, if pomo does not come to terms with the ethical issues it raises, it is not really because pomo theorists are blind to the implications of their theories. One reason for the tortured prose produced by such theorists is that they are wrestling with extremely important and complex problems and there seems to be a lot at stake. On the other hand, some pomo theorists are also pretentious, and I don't want to excuse all pomo practices. I wrote my dissertation on Historicism, and I think Ranke was right to try not to judge history but to show "wie es eigentlich gewesen." I take that claim to be less about historical objectivity than it is about not judging the past and not shying away from revealing uncomfortable truths about the past. I think it is our job to try to reconstruct past events, but our training does not prepare us to come to terms with the consequences that might derive from a shocking reconstruction of past events. As Peter Fritzsche said, the real world is not terribly manageable. I have found that pomo theory helps me write about history in a way that reflects the unruliness of history. If I am then left teatering on the edge of a moral abyss, I will try to use what resources I have to come to grips with my situation, but I don't think those resources will come from my training in historical research. TELMAND@COFC.EDU (D.A. JEREMY TELMAN) COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON HISTORY DEPARTMENT CHARLESTON, SC 29424 803-953-8102 .