You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train

Posted on by Josh Nudell

In honor of my historiography class in which we read That Noble Dream, and in memory of Howard Zinn, who passed away on Wednesday, I thought I would say a few words on the concepts of Relativity and Objectivity.

I am a relativist.

I do not say this because I intend to speak politically in class, or blatantly misrepresent history for personal or public gain, but because relativism is perhaps the best way to represent my own life philosophy. Before I dive too deeply into what relativism means for how I address history and life, let me first define objectivity and its realms for historians. There are three:

1) Teaching: This is the education ethics of history, calling into question what is being taught and why. Teaching history should teach how to research, how to think, how argue and how to write, as much as it should teach what happened in the past. Teaching should not be relative and the teacher should at least attempt to be objective.
2) Metholodogy: This is how research is conducted. Objectivity should be evident here, but people across the borders of philosophies will often appear objective in their methodology because that is the defining factor of a professional historian. If someone has a problem with someone else’s method they will call it into question, and if enough people agree, then that work can and will be discredited.
3) Philosophy: Here is where the real debate about Objectivity and Relativity come in, and refer to whether or not there is one universal truth in history that the profession is collectively working towards. The example of this that I keep using is Hegel and the universal truth that all of history is the work of God.

I am not objective because I inherently believe that true objectivity is only possible by a hypothetical, truly unbiased third-party, but that any form of consciousness inherently provides some bias. True objectivity is impossible, and for humans any sort is pretty much out of the question. I also believe Collingwood’s theory that the past does not exist and history is the past as relived by a mind in the present. Historians serve to build a collective body of historical work that supplements and builds on documents and mementos from the past which provide a framework for people of all stripes present and future to relive it for themselves. Since history is intensely personal, it is inevitably relative.

Let me be clear, there is a past that actually happened, but it is no longer real, rather an image or remembrance of that past occurs. For particular instances it is more accurate and close to the actual events, but it is impossible to be perfect.

If, however, a historian feels justified looking for a higher truth, or believes strongly in it or does so for any other reason, then I find no cause for anger on my part. If their work is good and methodology sound, then I have no issue with it. And if they find a higher truth in my work, though it will not be intentionally included by me, then I see no reason to dissuade them of it.

This spills over into the rest of my life philosophy, especially spirituality and religion, where each person has their own outlook and no two will be exactly alike. This is not atheist, since I do not necessarily believe that no god exists, nor agnostic, since it is not that we can not know about God, nor ignostic that the concept of God assumes too much, nor even really polytheist. The best descriptor I have is relativist
In honor of my historiography class in which we read That Noble Dream, and in memory of Howard Zinn, who passed away on Wednesday, I thought I would say a few words on the concepts of Relativity and Objectivity.

I am a relativist.

I do not say this because I intend to speak politically in class, or blatantly misrepresent history for personal or public gain, but because relativism is perhaps the best way to represent my own life philosophy. Before I dive too deeply into what relativism means for how I address history and life, let me first define objectivity and its realms for historians. There are three:

1) Teaching: This is the education ethics of history, calling into question what is being taught and why. Teaching history should teach how to research, how to think, how argue and how to write, as much as it should teach what happened in the past. Teaching should not be relative and the teacher should at least attempt to be objective.
2) Metholodogy: This is how research is conducted. Objectivity should be evident here, but people across the borders of philosophies will often appear objective in their methodology because that is the defining factor of a professional historian. If someone has a problem with someone else’s method they will call it into question, and if enough people agree, then that work can and will be discredited.
3) Philosophy: Here is where the real debate about Objectivity and Relativity come in, and refer to whether or not there is one universal truth in history that the profession is collectively working towards. The example of this that I keep using is Hegel and the universal truth that all of history is the work of God.

I am not objective because I inherently believe that true objectivity is only possible by a hypothetical, truly unbiased third-party, but that any form of consciousness inherently provides some bias. True objectivity is impossible, and for humans any sort is pretty much out of the question. I also believe Collingwood’s theory that the past does not exist and history is the past as relived by a mind in the present. Historians serve to build a collective body of historical work that supplements and builds on documents and mementos from the past which provide a framework for people of all stripes present and future to relive it for themselves. Since history is intensely personal, it is inevitably relative.

Let me be clear, there is a past that actually happened, but it is no longer real, rather an image or remembrance of that past occurs. For particular instances it is more accurate and close to the actual events, but it is impossible to be perfect.

If, however, a historian feels justified looking for a higher truth, or believes strongly in it, or does so for any other reason, then I find no cause for anger on my part. If their work is good and methodology sound, then I have no issue with it. And if they find a higher truth in my work, though it will not be intentionally included by me, then I see no reason to dissuade them of it.

This spills over into the rest of my life philosophy, especially spirituality and religion, where each person has their own outlook and no two will be exactly alike. This is not atheist, since I do not necessarily believe that no god exists, nor agnostic, since it is not that we can not know about God, nor ignostic that the concept of God assumes too much, nor even really polytheist. The best descriptor I have is relativist

Antigonos the One-eyed and Seleukos Nikator (Ptolemy Soter can go cry in the corner)

Posted on by Josh Nudell

In his conclusions about Antigonos the One-eyed, Richard Billows throws out some highly subjective, albeit reasoned claims. In some ways this is what the conclusion is for. Throughout the book he portrays Antigonos as the larger than life figure he was, as well as the general, diplomat and administrator that he probably was, but which we have no documentation for. In short, the claim is that Antigonos was the greatest of the successors because he was the lynch-pin that bound Argead Monarchy with the Hellenistic age, both as the epitome of a Hellenistic king and the progenitor of the institutions.

Antigonos was essential for the early Hellenistic period and implemented a fairly typical Hellenistic monarchy, not so much because he developed it, but because the Hellenistic monarchy was effectively the same as the Macedonian one and the most notable changes made were those of necessity, not design. As for his generalship, he was better than most, but Seleukos also has a claim to that standing since he was the architect of the Battle of Gaza in 312, defeated all attempts to remove him from Babylon and then commanded at Ipsos where he defeated Antigonos. If that is not a claim to being the superior general, I am not sure what is, but I digress.

As an aside in the conclusion, Billows mentions that the Seleukid Empire overextended into the east, separating it from the Mediterranean and allowing Asia Minor to splinter off. This, he claims, brought about its fall as it was unable to suitably respond to Rome and to the Parthians of Iran. He is both right and wrong. It is true that the Seleukid Empire over-extended, and fell to those two new powers almost two hundred years later, but neglects to mention that Seleukos founded his kingdom more than any other Hellenistic successor on the use of native troops, and his levy was from Babylon eastward. At Ipsos Seleukos led a varied force of heavy and light cavalry from Iran and Media, elephants from India, and infantry of a disparate background. Yes, over-extension became an issue, and yes, Seleukos was a Macedonian1, but his power base was the eastern satrapies. Later he and subsequent rulers attempted to reassert the empire as Mediterranean in nature, but it really was not. The struggle between that perception and the reality led to the over-extension, though it clearly did not result in immediate implosion.

1 Or an Epirote, if you believe Strabo about the ethnicity of Orestians, and Grainger about Seleukos’ family origin (citing the appearance of the name Antiochos attested only in that royal family). He probably was somehow related to the royal family of Orestis, though likely settled in northern Lower Macedonia during the time of Philip, so Seleukos would have grown up Lower Macedonian, but still had close ties westward.

Standardized Tests and Exit Exams

Posted on by Josh Nudell

Early in the ’03-’04 school year I was a senior in high school, class president and somewhere along the line I heard that I was supposed to attend student council meetings among my ‘duties’. I recall going to just one meeting: I sat on a table at the rear of the room as we were joined by members of the school board. The topic that day was standardized tests as Hazen Union had performed unacceptably and was close to losing funding under No Child Left Behind. We talked about the testing and ways to improve the scores, though I mostly railed against standardized tests at all, citing their ludicrous nature and how abysmally set up they were, especially in teaching to the test rather than teaching how to learn. In retrospect, I was really not helpful that afternoon.

The verdict was that students had no conception of why they were taking the tests, just that they were. Since early in elementary school the teachers had emphasized that the tests did not matter, which is not the same thing as not receiving a grade.1 Long story short, a group from the council was to have a discussion with each class about trying hard on the test, and I was volunteered to lead it.2 Thankfully it never actually happened, and now the high school is on some list of best high schools in the country, so ‘crisis’ averted. Now I am sure there are great teachers there, but considering the number of great teachers who have since retired or left for other reasons, I find it hard to fathom that the school went from the chopping block to highly esteemed in so few years.3

It seems odd to reminisce about this episode six years down the line and half a continent away, but today I read an article on the New York Times website about the continued proliferation of high school exit exams in the face of criticism–and more to come. Find the article here.

While I do not believe that decisions are made arbitrarily or maliciously on a large scale, they may still be misguided. Really three issues emerge: first the value of standardized tests, second the value of standardized exit exams, third the purpose of schools.

1) Standardized tests are made to ensure that every student is learning a certain amount, which is an enviable goal, but ultimately restricts teachers from teaching. Instead there is a situation where the powers that be decide what needs to be learned. In the humanities this is even more exaggerated since it often falls to rote memorization or simple narrative to make sure that the kids know what they need to know to perform on demand. Naturally funding is tied to these tests.

Of course the most gain to be had in those fields where testing names, dates, etc, is taking place is inherently in their flexibility. The chance for teachers to deviate from merely a time-line and engage students, or go beyond the novels deemed useful, but not too controversial, to engage the students, expose them to something new and teach them to think–rather the opposite from brainwashing, or nap-time.

This is just the current gripe, and while they are also a waste of time, the list could keep going on and on.

2) As bad as standardized tests are, exit exams are worse, and this is the focus of the article. A common effect of these exams is that dropout rates increase as students are held back by the district. Now at some level it may be good, and any system of grades that includes an ‘F’ equivalent and yet forces the students to be there until a certain age will hold some back, but exit exams increase that percentage as a second filter beyond the classes grades appears. The first problem here is that it inherently assumes that the teachers are unable to deal with students who do not keep up. The assumption adds to that of other standardized tests, only is an across the board assessment of those teachers, every year, soon to be kindergarten through high school.4

The more pressing issue in all of this is that exit exams are being simplified to make sure that most students can pass the tests. This defeats the purpose of the tests.

If, as claimed, these tests will ensure that high schoolers are ready for college, and that the powers that be decided that kids need to know a certain amount of information before graduating, then that is what they need to know. Reducing the standards because the education system did not rise to the expectations makes the test a waste of time and money, while keeping the standards and holding more students back admits failure of the education. In either situation the tests make no sense at all.

Either there needs to be continued evaluation of coursework, participation, and the rest of the traditional barometers of grading in each individual subject, or a single test at the end. Doubling them up makes the traditional grades moot, unless the students must first jump through those hoops to even take the exit examination.

3) In their work Who Killed Homer?, classicist John Heath and historian Victor Davis Hanson suggested that modern education pounds people into one broad mold, which continually restricts as people fall away until a select few academic masochists with no perceivable teaching skills emerge with PhD’s, everyone else choosing a point of this road to stop. Their suggestion, much in line with vocational schools and some college programs is that schools must teach skills, not just books. Traditional education usually consisted of skill training for most of the population, while only a select group even did academic work up through high school.

A re-division of society along those lines is too extreme and entirely infeasible, but merits thought. The goal of public high school education is college preparation, a rounded course of education that will enable students to succeed in college. Yet not all of those students will go to college, so the school must also teach this rounded skill set to those students, averaging out what curriculum is expected.

Everyone should know basic history, be able to read, write and do arithmetic, but academics is not for everyone. Once beyond the capacity to perform those functions, the more important task is to engage the students,5 push creativity and interest, which is only inhibited by making these students jump through ever increasing hoops.

As a quick aside, standardized tests basically ensure that schools cannot reasonably teach history to its fullest. A good teacher can still get students excited by the topic, but the beauty of it is how versatile history is towards promoting thinking. Anyone who knows how to research can learn that the Declaration of Independence was July 4, 1776, or that Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, but without reading too much into the situations, both mark times and situations when people stood up and threw down tyranny and government overreach.

If only it were that easy for school reform.

1 Though I have heard some stories from my mother about my early schooling that make this oversight look quite good in comparison.
2 Yes, someone else volunteered me.
3 Those distinctions were based somewhat on different criteria, but not wholly.
4 Please, can someone tell me what exactly we are testing kindergartners on to let them move to first grade? I remember playing with blocks and going to time-out for throwing clay…I am not seeing much of an exit exam in all of that.
5 Incidents in middle and high school where I know I was not engaged (all during class): taping a friend to a door, napping outside in the sun, witnessing someone stapling his pants to his leg, reading kosher dietary regulations…to the class, singing little bunny foo-foo as a class to the freshmen in the next classroom, and ditching group projects to calculate how many dimples there were on a basketball (somewhere around 23,000, if I recall correctly).

Semester in Review – Fall 2009

Posted on by Josh Nudell

The first semester of graduate school is over. I made friends, broke hearts and took names, or something like that. More to the point I learned a lot about departmental and academic politics, nuances to writing and methodology, a good bit about Greek, and even a little bit about history.

Most of all, the lesson that Grad school is a marathon and not a sprint, has been hammered home. I put in the work and enjoyed some of it, but much of the time it was slogging through.

Not having been in any other graduate program, I cannot speak for how it is elsewhere, but on the whole the class-work was disappointing. I learned a lot, at least for Greek and Greek history, but in the latter case it was the product of extensive reading on my own in preparation for class, rather than class discussion that was the genesis of this learning. Both of my history courses required a term paper, the Greek history seminar being the more intensive of the two and an actual progression and leap from work I did at Brandeis, but the Roman history paper was not really any different from something I could or would have done there.

During the classes themselves, I felt that the language was useful, but the other two were superficial and really beneficial. Roman history this was a product of an undergraduate focus, where many issues I would have loved to discuss outside of class came up, but were only touched upon. In Greek history there was the potential to delve deeper, but more than once I was told by the professor that an issue I wanted to raise or discuss would result in just the two of us talking, and thus defeated the purpose of a discussion based seminar. I have not yet gotten everything I can out of this program (which is well, since I am just a semester in), and Ian Worthington is one of the best in the field, but it is this type of isolation amidst literary classicists, and non-ancient historians that makes me wonder if I would be better off milking it for everything I can, but then changing schools for the PhD to somewhere where I would have colleagues—both positive and negative implications of that word intended.

But that is for the future. What matters in the present is that I am back studying what I love, and have successfully completed my first semester of graduate school.