[dmvdoug]

In order to become a history teacher, I had to get a master’s degree in education. I was required to take a minimum of five graduate-level history classes in the history department as part of it. I was transitioning from being a lawyer. Professors would talk about checking citations (although not systematically) but it was more for the purpose of finding useful material you want to use, not to check how they are being used by authors. Ok, whatever. I was used to reading cited sources for the purpose of evaluating the argument they were purportedly supporting. But every single time I raised in a seminar that some citation did not bear the weight placed on it, or even simply failed to logically support what it purported to support, it was explained to me that I was missing the point.

After the second seminar of this happening, the chairperson of the history department called me into his office. He said he understood that I used to be a lawyer and thus was likely to be more drawn to or interested in arguing about things. He understood I was going to become a teacher, not a professional historian. But my approach to sources and citations was being complained about by history graduate students and the professors agreed. I was told that when reading secondary sources in seminars I should spend more time thinking about what is valuable about them and how they might be used in further research than scrutinizing the evidence and logic underpinning them. Anyway, it was a little insulting for me to think that I could legitimately critique such things in a useful way when I had not spent the years of work in the archives that the authors of those works did. He had called this meeting with me in order to be frank with me about the problems that the history department was having with me and to give me a “second chance” before talking to the education department where my degree would come from.

Suffice to say, I got the message: I obediently complied and shut my mouth in the remaining seminars. I got my degree and was certified and am now a history teacher at an urban public high school. I’m happy with my life. And I’ll never think about professional history/historians with the same fundamental deference to expertise as I did before I got a glimpse of it up close.

[defrost]

As a degree mathematician who has done a little contract work for both historians and lawyers and may have occasionally regarded law as the study of first order logic and theatrics (fun sledge, amusement rather than disrespect intended) I have to ask whether the history crowd had a valid point wrt to strength of reference in supporting an argument.

If five decades onwards one were to write a History of Our Times (the Central North American Edition) it would be correct to, say, point out that claims were made in the media and courts regarding a stolen election and to then cite court filings, articles in prominent newspapers, and perhaps videos from both network and youtube archives.

It's fair to say that such claims formed the zeitgeist of our recent times for a substantial portion of the population affected and that any citation failed to logically support what it purported to support.

This is the "History is what happened" argument not the "History makes sense" position.

I freely acknowledge I've slid past the arguments made in this thread source, that current history isn't being rigourous with open access to sources and annoted commentary of primary material - but I note that the crafting of alternative histories can be coincident with primary events.

[sdwr]

The election is something that distance makes clearer, although 50 years might not be enough time. Think of the history of the roman senate. Truth is barely talked about, the narrative revolves around factions, power, and outcomes.

Call it post-truth, call it machiavellian, but being on top is a social game, not a practical one.

[dmvdoug]

> If five decades onwards one were to write a History of Our Times (the Central North American Edition) it would be correct to, say, point out that claims were made in the media and courts regarding a stolen election and to then cite court filings, articles in prominent newspapers, and perhaps videos from both network and youtube archives. It's fair to say that such claims formed the zeitgeist of our recent times for a substantial portion of the population affected and that any citation failed to logically support what it purported to support.

If you argued claims were made in the media regarding a stolen election and cited a variety of newspapers and blogs where people talk about how DT thought he won the election because of 10,000 dead people voting in GA or whatever, so he should be President not Biden, how would those citations fail to logically support your argument that claims were made in the media regarding a stolen election?

[defrost]

We're doomed to be in agreement, I'm afraid I have a hard time avoiding passive indirect citing of "factoids" ..

it's absolutely correct to state that "On <some date> the New York Post reported that aliens landed in Washington [1]"

it's deceptive (whether with delibrate intent to mislead others or just self deceptive) to state that "Aliens landed in Washington on <some date> [1]"

which is one of the root causes of the proliferation of "alternative facts".

It's not just that something is cited, it also matters how it is cited.

[1] link to New York Post article of <some date> reporting the landing of aliens.

[dmvdoug]

> It's not just that something is cited, it also matters how it is cited.

You called it: I couldn’t agree more!

[alsetmusic]

About five years ago I asked myself whether I wanted to pursue a career change out of tech. I’m always excited by history and I’m sad that more people don’t feel the same way. I considered becoming a history professor or teacher and it was the credentials required that stopped me.

I’ve never had the patience for school even though I love to learn. I make a good living in my field despite not having a CS degree like many of my peers. I commend you for taking it upon yourself to do what I did not. I hope you have a very successful teaching career, by which I mean that I hope you have at least one student discover the joy in learning history.

[aidenn0]

> Suffice to say, I got the message

And this is at least part of why I don't do well in academia (and, tbf, many other settings); I refuse to get the message.

[dmvdoug]

I had a different objective: get my MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching), get certified in my state and get a job at a secondary school. They were threatening to throw a monkey-wrench at me. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

Had I been a history graduate student, on the other hand, I very well have fought that fight, because it represents a significant problem in the field of academic history.