Benjamin and the Proletariat

In reading the Benjamin text, the aspect that stood out to me the most was (no surprises here) how he wrote about the working class. I really enjoyed this reading, and I didn’t find it as difficult as Ben had made it out to be. I also really liked Benjamin’s depiction of the working class and his discussions about labor. I thought that it was, unlike many other texts I have read, empowering to the proletariat, but not in a condescending way. The way he writes make me believe that he is actually part of the working class (even if he isn’t), instead of attempting to be an outside savior. In this blog post, “we” refers to the working class, and the “Hitler”, the dangerous force, is the ruling class. The thesis that stood out most to me was number seven: “Not man or men but the struggling, oppressed class itself is the depository of historical knowledge.” (260). The point that Benjamin makes in this thesis is that, through a historicist perspective, the role of the proletariat in the overthrow of the bourgeoisie has not changed necessarily, but the reasons, the cause for revolution, has shifted. Previously, in a Marxist perspective, “[the proletariat] appears as the last enslaved class, as the avenger that completes the downtrodden task of liberation in the name of generations of the downtrodden.” (260). But from the view of the Social Democrats in Germany, a view that is historicist, the working class must complete its mission in order to redeem the future for future generations. Benjamin points out that this effectively takes away the greatest strength that the proletariat holds: “its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice… nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors.” (260). Instead, historicism has retrained the working class to act for its “liberated grandchildren”. By looking to the future, instead of the past, the proletariat has lost its roots. How are we to rally the masses behind a call for a brighter future, when we don’t know what that will necessarily be? But if we look to the past, and keep our roots in the past, the images of the downtrodden masses could reignite the “hatred and spirit of sacrifice”. We must look to the past to remember all who lost their lives at the hands of capitalism, not to a future that seems bleak. We can change the future, but without a memory of past exploitation on the part of the ruling class, we will have no perspective and no fuel for which to complete the mission of the working class. We are in danger of continuing to be in a place where “the ruling class gives the commands” (261), which according to Benjamin is moving forward in the name of “progress”. “Nothing has corrupted the German working class so much as the notion that it was moving with the current.” (258).

I see this issue play out today in the labor movement. The big unions, and indeed many working people, have forgotten their past. We take certain things for granted today, such as workplace safety regulations, but we also assume that these laws are the result of a benevolent government looking out for the safety of all people in the country. But this is just not true. It took the force of a united working class to bring about these changes. Wisconsin, a once-exciting and revolutionary place just two months ago, is now stagnant, and unions and working people are relying on the system to solve their issues. They forget that nothing of merit has ever been solved purely through the bureaucratic system. It takes the strength of masses to make mass change. Perhaps if we were more grounded in our past struggles, things would be different. How many working people in Minneapolis are aware of the 1934 Teamster strike that effectively shut down the entire city? The knowledge and memory of events like these would make more people believe in the power of direct action, instead of dismissing it in favor of going through the legal system of the ruling class. I don't know how this will change, however, since it is in the best interest of the bourgeoisie to keep the status quo.

Does Benjamin try to be puzzling on purpose? :(

""It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness (Marx)." That being said... Benjamin was one (if not) of the hardest readings we have read in this class in my opinion. He keeps moving from topic to topic...very confusing. I haven't been so frustrated in my life until I read Benjamin's text. The quote above was one of Carl Marx's quotes which was said to be the sentence to describe historical materialism which comes up frequently in Benjamin's text. In the beginning of the text, Benjamin brings up a problem with Historians and how some history is lost. This takes us back to Fasolt's text where he states that historians rather take the easy way out and only account for recorded history and history that actually has evidence (at least to my understanding of the text).

On p. 257, Benjamin brings up a point on one of Ben's questions on what could be done; in this case, he states what the problem is against Fascism. "Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism." This quote stands out because according to recorded history (one in which students were taught by TEXTBOOKS) is that many countries did take a stance against Fascism in WWII. Benjamin then goes on explaining a reason why Fascism was successful at one point and states that it is because its opponents treat it as a historical norm.

What I understood from this passage is that the people are the problem thinking that it is normal. Benjamin also discusses an important point in which the Germans did not progress and the reason he gives is that "they moved with the current" meaning they went with the flow... didn't question Hitler and did not complain. This is actually very interesting because I learned in the past that prior to WWI, the Germans were deep in debt, unemployment was at an all-time high, inflation, etc. So Hitler was their only resort to freedom; though this sounds ironic. A similar story we see in the news today is Libya... even though Al-Qadafi is known among Libyans as a corrupt leader, some still want him in power.... my conclusion from that and this may sound weird, but I have hear many discussing this point. Libyans would rather have their own native leader lead the country then an outside western world leading it.

Libyans do not want to see another Iraq. Every Arab country on earth knows that the US is running Iraq and not the Iraqi gov't.... the Iraqi gov't is just for show...puppets. So the Libyans do not want western people running their country. This isn't just my opinion, I hear many talk about this issue. Americans think that most of Libyans oppose Gadhafi which is false. Western media only shows one side of the story; they only show the opposition in intention to show the world the most of the Libyans want Gadhafi out... which isn't true. That was my experience... now back to the article. I however failed to see Benjamin position himself with the text... maybe because of the phrasing he uses. Benjamin also brings up a good point in the text where he states that if we really want to make sense of a time period in history (the Holocaust for example) then we must forget about all the history that follows it.

Posting assignment #10 (due Sunday 5/1, 11:59 P.M.): Can we break out of the iron cage?

In a lot of the reading we've done this semester -- including Fasolt, Weber, Schmitt, Arendt, Adorno, and Ranke -- we've been working toward an understanding of the "iron cage" in which we find ourselves, as we experience, read, write, and make in the United States in 2011.  This iron cage, as we have seen, is made up of a whole lot of interrelated and interlocking parts, such as the lonely isolated self-conscious ego, the state of exception, the manipulation of past and present in the media, and the capitalistic ethos of obsessive self-betterment (or as Charlie Sheen would say:  "Winning!"). 

In "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (better translated as "On the Concept/Idea of History"), Walter Benjamin considers how we might break out of this cage. 

He does not have The Answer.  You'll note how short, and how fragmented, this text is.  What he presents are thoughts, ideas, sketches, and beginnings of strategic possibilities.  And -- as you'll find out when you do some context research on him -- he wasn't writing these things while idling about in his study:  he had just watched his whole life-work, toward creating a world in which workers could have better lives and a better government, get consumed by the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party -- a negative dialectic indeed.  He wrote this text while on the run from the Nazis.  He would not make it out alive.

In this final blog post -- which I intentionally leave a little more open than previous posts -- I want you to

(1) reflect on some the things you find most striking and important in this text, including answers to some (not necessarily all) of the following questions:

-- Why has "historicism" (Benjamin's term for the iron cage) been so harmful?  What damage has it done?  How, and to whom?
-- What is "historical materialism," and how and why does Benjamin think it can defeat "historicism"?
-- How does Benjamin position himself in relation to people such as Weber, Schmitt, and Ranke (who are all directly quoted in the text), and why?
-- What is to be done?  How, in the most concrete and immediate sense, can "we" make history differently, and use that new history to fight Hitler?  And all the other Hitlers in our midst?  (And who is "we"?)

and,

(2) connect your reflections on Benjamin's text to one or two things in your life/experience -- personal stories, news stories, work stories, etc.  How might Benjamin's understanding of history help you both understand these things better and, perhaps more importantly, do something about the problems you have faced there?  You may want to think about your final projects here:  how can Benjamin help us strategize effective ways to make history, charismatically?  You may also want to think about experiences from this class, and things people have said, and stuff you're taking away with you; remember that this is (*tear*) your last required blog post.

As always, be as specific as you can -- cite relevant moments from Benjamin, and from whatever other texts or experiences you're connecting to -- and as thorough as you can, thinking ideas through as opposed to just mentioning them and moving on.  Benjamin's theses, especially, encourage us to make the unexpected, unconventional, untraditional moves and connections -- so do it!  Everything (and everyone!) in this class, and in the wider world, is fair game.  As I once heard the German military historian Michael Geyer say, in his gravelly old staid German voice:  "When you study history, you've got to be ready to go wild."

CSCL Reading History Protocol

Today’s CSCL Reading History class started at 11:15 am. The date is Tuesday, April the twenty-eight of two thousand and eleven. The instructor, Ben Fink, writes the program on the white board of the room. The desks in the classroom are assembled in a circle as it always is. Ben takes attendance rather quietly and gives the difficultators the ok to difficultate. Difficultators go up to the front of classroom. Ben looks rather sick or maybe is acting?

Program:
1. Difficultation, Teil Zwei: a man walks into a bar…
2. Fasolt’s negative dialectic: big (Hitler) and little (loneliness)
3. WTF indeed: putting it together
4. Housekeeping: blog posts, final projects, external writings

Class separates to the two groups they were on Tuesday, which were Junker and Hegel.
We will be discussing the dangers of history today, state the difficultators. Go through notes last time and see what we can refute to each other. Ben goes out of room and Mandy goes to the board and writes, “OUCH!” at the end of the first thing on the program. Ben comes back acting rather drunk, holding a brown lunch bag while also carrying big white sheets of paper, which seems to be the class’s works last week. He has on a multi-colored flannel shirt and cap. It is obvious that he’s not in his usual attire.

The difficulation continues. The other group, Junker, speaks with Sophie. Hallie speaks; you’re stuck in one place. History is supposed to progress. You can’t be sovereign under U.S. history. You’re bound by tradition so you can’t change.

Ben speaks up asking what you mean by enlightenment. The class is quiet. Ben talks about the enlightenment.

Ben is playing Nick Lennon? Lindsey plays Adolf Elizabeth Hitler? Lindsey speaks out to Junker and Hegel. She claimed Junker and Hegel as parents. The discussion goes back and forth between the Junker and Hegel group. It was revealed that the difficultators didn’t explain they were in a bar, which made is confusing for the class to interpret the scene that was portrayed.
Ben says let’s condense. Students start moving the desks closer together. We discuss about the difficulation. Ben asks for thumbs up or down on the understanding. I was the only one with a thumbs up and I had to explain to the class why the Junker will side with Hegel more than the emperor. I said that Hegel gave the Junker more freedom than the emperor. I was partially right. Mandy says that everyone is probably really tired from staying up to finish their paper that’s why they are so quiet today. Ben goes on explaining the freedom of space and time like what was discussed on Tuesday. We’re going to break with traditions. If you read the bible in a post historical revolt way, yes it’s good, but it was written back then and doesn’t make sense now. There’s no distinction. We see a lot in the constitution. They say that this constitution is alive and we should be thinking about the law. This is illegitimate. Yes, it’s important but you have to interpret it b/c it was written in a different time. It’s not controlling every aspect of your life. Take the declaration of independence for example. They use the word men a lot, but men back then meant something different to men now. Men don’t mean that for example, Ben and Ahmed are created equal and every lady in the room was not. Men back then meant human kind.

Ben writes on board:

Negative dialectic (Adorno)
thesisantithesissynthesis this is the positive dialectic, which leads to higher freedom.

Adorno though, came up with a negative dialectic.
The thesis and antithesis arrow are facing each other downwards; t=medieval, pre-historical revolt time and A = Hegel/Ranke/historical revolt

This leads to Hitler in the middle where the arrows meet. The t always remain inside of a. Ben says in what way did t + a lead to Hitler? The reference is in Fasolt. The guiding pages are: 28, 31, 42, and 25.

Five minutes pass by. Class comes back at noon to discuss. As long as people had enemies, there was a clear knowledge and purpose for a battle. Once it was destroyed, there was nothing else to fight. At that moment on page 26, history became objective in a novel sense. History doesn’t need to stand for something. It got bureaucratize. We read from course packet page 62; what do you make of this and what does this have to do with that (on the board), which is the negative dialectic?

If you are going to be an individual you have to be separated from the world. Then comes caring and not caring. Ben asks the question, does it speak to you? Do you identify with it? Avoidance of boredom drives our lives; you create things to do to not be bored. This relates to Fukuyama; history is going to be boring and that will be the end of history; maybe we’ll create history again.

Fasolt talks about life after the end of history or historical revolt; the idea that I can listen to something bad and go about my life without giving it much thought; this is the base of this class. It has everything to do with the loneliness. On page five, the distinction between past and present does more than merely set aside a piece of reality for historical inspection. With this, class concludes with a few notes: Ben needs emails before midnight about final projects. Also, put external writing number three into the folder that is laying on the desk for Ben.

Class ends at 12:31 pm.

Protokoll- 26/04/11

Ben goes on about persevering through all things, even illness….Adorno reference to the infatiguability (?) device!

We will be talking about Fasolt today, three questions on the board at the start of class:
1. Why divide past and present?
2. What does history have to d with freedom?
3. What makes all this dangerous?

Essays are due on Friday. Make them look nice, and keep in mind who your audience will be! Name, date, and title should be on the top of the paper, do NOT have “External writing #3” as a title! You can use Chicago style footnotes if you know how, otherwise use MLA. Essays must brought to class as a HARD COPY on Thursday. Ben will read, annotate, and write down what scores he thinks we deserve. He will then bring the papers back on Tuesday, with a self-evaluation for each of us to fill out. We must grade ourselves. Ben will meet with each of us, and we will figure out the scores. It’s a collaborative grading assignment. Come with good arguments to defend the paper. We signed up in class today, for which days we can meet with Ben (next week).

Emails to Ben are due Thursday night, mentioning the members of our final projects groups, and our basic ideas on what we want to do.

Now lets talk about Fasolt…

Why divide the past and the present?
Maryka (?)- We want to begin with a clean slate. We don’t want to be “tied” to the past. On the first page of Fasolt, it says, “our knowledge of the past seems to sadly incomplete”. It doesn’t make sense to be angry about things in the past, because it may or not even be true. Everyone has a different truth.

Ben- look at page 39, middle paragraph
Ben used me as an example to illustrate this point. I (Elissa) write with authority, because I am the only one writing a Protokoll today. Other people can say what they heard, but it wasn’t written, so it is not as legitimate. There is a representation of the class, but people are going to have different opinions on what actually happened. “You can not speak for me, you don’t have that experience!” But that is what history is. One problem is, is that we don’t have all the evidence. Fasolt agrees that there is a problem with not having all the evidence, but there is a deeper problem!

Brittney- segue into question two. Page 7
The past is what has already happened, but with present and future, there is a chance to not let what happened in the past, happen again.

Ahmed has a problem with the clean slate. What happens in the past, that is what the present and the future are based upon. For example, the problem with racism. One cannot just write off the past and say that it didn’t happen.

Hallie mentioned the idea of personal histories of people in society. There is a danger of just taking into account written history.

Ben explains Konjunkiv II. Fasolt uses it in the paper, and this has potential to cause confusion. He (Fasolt) doesn’t neccesarily BELIEVE things himself, but because of the English translation of the German Konjunktiv II, it can come across that way.

Anyways…there is a danger of saying “the past is over”.

Kate talked about how things that happen even a few minutes ago are a sort of “history”. Written sources are not the only valid point, are they?

Ben talks about legitimating of history. A lot of blogs talked about how history can be anything, and on a level, this is true. But on another level, not so much. Legitimate history takes very specific forms for very specific reasons.

Fasolt writes a bit about the history of history…Humanists! The medieval conception of history talked about the four world empires, and we are in the last period of history. This started at year zero, and the birth of Christ. The world would end with the coming of Christ. We still measure our years in relation to Christ (2011= 2011 years after the birth of JC). But the humanists brought in the modern view of history. It still starts in the year zero, but it extends into “forever”.
“Historical revolt”: past/present/future or ancient/medieval/modern.
Fasolt says that history is a fundamentally political act.

Rachel- page 19: the pope and emperor (Holy Roman Empire: the “entirety” of the Christian world) claimed to rule until the end of the world, but the humanists destroyed this view.

Ben- pg 7
Difference between freedom in time and freedom in space?
Freedom in time: one can make a clean break, revolt, or make a different choice than in the past. This stands in opposition to the medieval view of history: the same era, united under the same pope in the same empire.
Freedom in space: we don’t have to conform to the “limits” of the HRE. One can go establish a nation or pursue a destiny outside the church. The future is OPEN! This is a very different idea compared to medieval thought.

American conduct manuals in the 1850s- we don’t pick them up and believe that we have to do what the book says. It is no longer “legitimate” knowledge. However, we pick up the Bible (Christians) but view it as legitimate?? The Bible has a sort of authority.

Culture wars have a lot to do with religion and its legitimacy. Many moderns don’t believe the Bible is legitimate. But many still believe in its legitimacy!

Mandi talked about how the Bible has aged a little bit- we don’t go along with EVERYTHING in it any more. Should the Bible be taken literally?

Brittney- page 8 “unlike history and nature…”
Many believe that the Bible was/is outside of time.

Ben talks about how history is inherently political because it was used as a weapon in a political battle. Used as a weapon by kings, princes, and territorial rulers AGAINST the pope/empire. “These texts you (pope and emperor) are using are not legitimate because they took place in the past”. But there was a CHANGE- the battle of Jena, where Napoleon DESTORYED the HRE! There is no one to fight with anymore.

Brittney
Pg,. 26 middle of page- “…history became objective in a novel sense. “
History became the new sovereign.
Pg. 27- bottom of the page
There is a new mentalite.

Ben
There isn’t a war any more, after the HRE was destroyed. History was no longer the tool used to advance the cause of the HRE… (middle of page. 27). There is a BREAK in the past.
Why is this understanding of history dangerous???

START OF DIFFICULTATION
We all numbered off as ones and twos. My group is playing the role of the Junker, the other group plays the role of Hegel. Junker describes why Hegels view of history is dangerous, Hegel describes how the Junker describes the role of history and why it is dangerous.


Junker against Hegel
In our group, we talked about how Hegel believes that we are progressing. Why is it dangerous? It moves away from the bindings of the church. But this ultimately becomes a political tool used by authorities.

Hegel against Junker (Brittney)
There is no progression in the Junker’s view of history, rather, there is a stagnation. The medieval people are always “stuck” in the end times (a Christian idea of the end of the world). It can’t be a sovereign state if there is no way to move past. They can’t enlighten themselves if they are bound by tradition and there is no chance to change.

Junker against Hegel (Sophie)
Under the HRE, people are unified, and to give the individual power would take away from the unity. There is an abandonment of the authority of God.

We will continue to talk about this during next class. Each group will come up with a sort of response to the other group’s accusations. Ben says to look over the Fasolt stuff and be ready to keep talking about it for Thursday.

What/where is the past?

Since I spent the weekend with no internet connection so I didn’t have a class contact sheet, so I convinced my brother to skim through the chapter so we could at least have a decent discussion. A quote we both thought was interesting and true was, “I mean history in the sense of knowledge of the past, not the past itself.” That quote alone tells me a lot about Fasolts thoughts on history alone. Just like how we write protocols in class, there have never been two identical accounts of how class went on, they might be close or share a few things but they’ve never been identical because everyone has a different take on how things actually happen. History in my opinion comes from everyone and anyone who gives an account of what happened in their life previously. But I think the most important question is who makes history, which is actually two questions when you think about it. From the way history is told, it would appear that those who take extreme initiative make history and become legends, but who actually knows if they were a legend? There were lots and lots of people involved in the civil rights movement, but only very few names are remembered. The other way I look at the question is, who’s actually deciding/creating the presently known history, which is also a part of politics. Those who pay to make the text books decide what goes in them. I read the paper a while back and found out that they were trying to remove slavery from the textbooks in a school district in Texas. A lot of people aren’t happy about it, but it seems like a major problem with our society is that those in higher power, make a lot of decisions for those in lower power or no power without taking their thoughts into consideration. I think fasolts ideas in general are common sense, or at least common to me.

Past, Present, and Conceptualizations

So some people wrote in their posts that they really enjoyed this reading and that it was fairly easy to understand. I am not in the same boat. I had a difficult time with this reading. There were some really complicated ideas that I just couldn’t wrap my head around. At times, it felt like I was having a conversation with a co-worker of mine who is a former deadhead and has taken a few too many hallucinogens in his life. Apparently, I am far too trapped within my mentalité to fully comprehend Fasolt’s ideas about the distinctions between the past and present, maannn… Sorry, that joke would probably be funnier if I said it out loud. Anyway, Hillary and I talked for about an hour about the reading, and it was really fun! We talked about some really interesting things and had some thought-provoking points.

Hillary started out by making the claim that this reading is a piece of history itself, and I totally agree with her. Fasolt writes about people and events in the past, but it is rarely cited or backed up by sources. As a piece of historical knowledge, it totally sucks. And Fasolt is making his argument about distinctions between past and present and the need to view history in alternative ways, but whenever he discusses history, he is all about distinctions between past and present. We got back to this idea when discussing Descartes, the concept of Cartesian doubt (from Wikipedia: “Cartesian doubt is a systematic process of being skeptical about or doubting the truth of one's beliefs”), and perspectives and conceptualizations of our world. These concepts deal specifically with the ideas of objectivity and subjectivity that Fasolt describes. We talked about how someone could be writing their autobiography with no evidence or sources other than their own memories, and the history would be completely subjective, but factually true. And a historian could make his or her best attempt at writing a completely objective history from only evidence and primary sources, but because of missing or forgotten pieces, the history would be factually false (see “triceratops never existed”: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20012471-501465.html). But then the ideas of Cartesian doubt, conceptualization, and perspective come into play. The completely subjective autobiographer could indeed write a book about his or her life and believe that it was indeed factually true, because they were present for the events presented in the book. But how are they or we to know that the way they perceived those events was actually the way that they occurred? Say you were at an Obama rally in 2008. He was there, you saw and heard him speak, there was a huge crowd holding signs, and then you wrote everything down right after you got home so you could subjectively document the experience. But maybe from where you were standing you did not see a significant portion of the crowd, and thus wrote down that there were 1,000 people there instead of 30,000. Also, as a normal, everyday citizen, you only got to hear Obama during the speech, but you did not get to hear what he said when the microphone was off. And maybe, just maybe, you are actually completely institutionally insane, and the rally never actually happened. You imagined the entire thing: rally, campaign, election and all. Didn’t you know? McCain actually won. Duh. (Sorry, it’s been a long week.)

The point of this though, is that whether history is written subjectively or objectively, there are always going to be issues with how it was written, and there is no way to tell if what we think of as history actually happened that way or not. But really, if history is to be a tool to guide us in the present, as “a means of orientation” (3) to help us to “seek a future better than the present, and definitely better than the past” (7), then does it really need to be precisely factually accurate for it to be useful? If history is viewed in this way, it seems to me to be more of a moral code than a chronology of past events. More “traditional” cultures have had these ideas in place for a long time; folklore, mythology, and fables, often transmitted orally through generations, generally serve as moral codes to guide individuals, families, and political and social institutions. If we have no way to truly know if “history” is factually accurate (other than by Ranke’s ideals, who I am slowing coming to believe is full of total BS), where is the separation between history and myth, between “traditional” and “modern” cultures, and (I kind of hate that I am saying this) between past and present.

Perhaps I am a bit closer to understanding what Fasolt is saying in this reading. Perhaps I am way off base. Hillary and I talked about a lot more really, really cool stuff, and I would love to write more about it, but this blog post is already extremely long. If you got to the bottom of this rant, congratulations.

History

Hallie and I talked on the phone and discussed a number of things related to the text. In reading the text, what struck me the most was that the text itself is a piece of poorly written Rankian history because it has very few cited sources. Why should I believe this historical rendering of history when I cannot verify that any of the historical events that Fasolt talks about actually happened? Why do I believe Fasolt anyway? We deduced that history is, by its very nature, political because in order to construct historical knowledge, one must distinguish between past and present. “To study history is to take a stand, to stake a claim and to oppose real enemies,” (31). My conversation with Hallie also led us to think about subjectivity versus objectivity and of taking a historical position. I related this to my own life in that I am currently getting paid by the University to write a piece of objective history about dating and courtship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in relation to the automobile. In reviewing both primary and secondary sources, I have found that many of them are somewhat, if not blatantly contradictory and that “how it actually happened” is incredibly complex and is realistically beyond my (and anyone else’s) comprehension.

It is impossible to tell the story of what happened at any given time because even in the present, you are confined to your own perspective and positionality. You must rely on subjective sources of information in order to construct objective knowledge, and this pulls into question the validity of objective knowledge in the first place. In order to produce historical knowledge, I need to take a position and support that position with my sources and as a result my paper will be political whether I want it to be or not. Writing history forces me to draw a line between the present, future and past and it forces me to mention some things at the expense of others in order to construct my argument. Both Hallie and I found this to be a dense and somewhat confusing text, but it certainly led us to both explore and reflect on objectivity versus subjectivity and the nature of producing history.

CSCL 1501W in a nutshell

I had a lovely conversation with the one and only Mandi Selvey tonight about our thoughts on the Fasolt text, and the connections we made from the reading with outer sources. We both agreed that there is an undeniable relation between the entirety of our course and the article itself. Certain overlying themes that were hugely prominent would be the following ideas: firstly, "wie es eigentlich gewesen"- what Mandi called the FRENCH saying that our class has worked to uncover (sorry, Mandi. I had to. 'Twas hilarious), secondly, history cannot be told objectively, and finally, our knowledge of the past is incomplete (p3). Mandi emphasized that she feels as though our entire work done in this class has been toward comprehending this very article. I agreed that much of what we have referenced in outer sources relate heavily to what Fasolt argues. History is undoubtedly recorded subjectively as well as incompletely as demonstrated by: our diverse protocols and the biased versions of what actually happened ie. the tea partiers videos, Glenn Beck's existence, the Fort Snelling article, etc...

I touched on the idea of the anachronisms that occur when the line between past and present is fuzzed. As Fasolt states on page 10 of the article (in referring to the line drawn between past and present), "And a moment's reflection shows that none is likely ever to be found. Where could that line be drawn? A second ago? A millisecond? Last year? The birth of Christ? The creation of the universe?" This concept that the distinction between past and present never being fully defined is intriguing to me, and we could both see the validity behind such an argument.

Mandi highlighted a moment from the article on page 15, "There is a whole series of conceptual pairs on which one could relay to make the difference between the two sides of history intelligible. Just now I used the distinction between theory and practice. I could as well have called it the difference between the objective and the subjective sides of history." Our very course title is based upon what Fasolt speaks of; in referencing the theory and practice of history, he acknowledges the essence of what Ben drills in our heads every class. There is much to be discovered about history and furthermore, historiography.

Course description?

soooooooo heidi and I got together to talk about this.. Stop rolling your eyes Ben! You should be happy you created such a beautiful friendship between two people because of your skit. It did take some effort though to stay on topic of discussing the reading because we kept getting side tracked as we updated each other on our weekends. Anyways, we both realized as we were reading that this could be a (VERY) long, in-depth course description for our class. It shows the distinction between theory and practice on page 14- very useful to describe the course title, and also mentions the running theme of our class on page 27, "wie es eigentlich gewesen" While reading I had many aha moments where I realized how Ben got all of the ideas for our class, and that all semester it seems like we have been working ourselves up for this piece. Very Climactic. We also found it interesting Fasolt's distinction between present and past and how you can't really draw a firm line to separate them because it is constantly changing from moment to moment. We thought that a lot of what he was saying sort of seemed like common sense to us, but I made the point that it probably wouldn't have made as much sense if we read this at the beginning of class instead of towards the end, which I attribute to Ben's master plan that all of our work is building on each other.

Fasolt Discussion

Today I met with Rachel and Mariana to talk about Fasolt. We discovered after talking for just a few minutes that we all basically got the same messages from the text and compared the same topics and points. The point that we mainly talked about and stuck out to us was the distinction between past and present and where the line is drawn. Fasolt seems to have his own opinions on where this line resides throughout the timeline of our world and he notes that different people have different ideas of what that means for them. Our group discussed how depending on your background knowledge on history and politics or what we have learned through the years in school and other places, can help shape where you may see the distinction. . "The past, if it is anything at all, is a dimension of the present and changes along with it" (16). Fasolt also brings up how the past is something that "exists" but is not concrete or universal in its definition and at one point it was the "present" it just changes and adapts, so at what point do these changes cause it to become the past? “I was already well aware that history only scrapes the surface of the past.” (18). When something is set in the past it loses its sense of present. Present is a whole entity, a being, an attainable place that one may be engrossed by and survive. The past, especailly in history, are stories that are told about certain instances that are surrounded around politics.

Another thing that we discussed was the idea that to understand the present that was, or history, we have to observe and take into count many different perspectives. In my opinion, when one views something they automatically have their own way of interperting it and understanding based on their prior knowledge and possibly politics. In turn this causes a personal opinion or added perspective on every situation and when something is reported it is not safe from these subconscious opinions. This is also one of the reasons that we have two protocols and they are never exactly the same. Even something as innocent as a record or report of what happened in a hour and a half period are not subject to being safe from bias or a persons way of viewing any situation.

Also, we noted that Hegel could be found in this text. Once again Hegel can be anywhere and everywhere! "No state could be sovereign if its inhabitants lacked the ability to change a course of action adopted by their forefathers in the past" (7). Rachel noted this quote in her book because it stuck out to her as Hegel and I can see her point. To me it all ties back to the idea that there is always a thesis and then for that thesis there is an antithesis and together these two will team up to lead to another antithesis until the end of history!

Since our meeting I have had time to think about what we talked about and I also met with Gina and Emily about Fasolt. They had another perspective about the same ideas (point made from above I'd say) What stuck out to them most was the idea of the Historian as a self and The Shadow of an Emperor. Also which we did not discuss earlier was the question Why history is dangerous form of knowledge. We will talk WAY more about this in our difficultation but I just thought it was very interesting how this is a clear example of different people's different ways of understanding the same situation based off of several different things.

More to History

I talked with a few intellectual friends of mine about what I read in the course packet about Fasolt and history. They were very open to the new found knowledge about history and Fasolt’s view on it. So, what is history? Well, I will quote what history isn’t according to Fasolt. He states that to study history, is to not “take a stand, to stake a claim, and oppose real enemies (Fasolt, 31). History is more than that. More than taking a side and making your point. Also, towards the beginning of the book, Fasolt distinguishes the past, which is history, and the present, which is now. There is no fine line that can distinguish it because the present becomes the past and the past was once the present. Fasolt utilized the term immutable for history. However, I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, that Fasolt believes history is more than immutable. On page 16, he states, “the pursuit of objectivity is only half the point. Historians who miss the other half mistake the meaning of their work. They exclude the unrecordable from recognition and cut the past in two: one documented, known, and dead; the other undocumented, unknown, and undead. History then concerns itself only with the past abroad and scorns the past at home-the home from where historians take off, leaving behind what they need the most for history to flourish: knowledge of self.” To me this quote is very powerful. It tells the other side of the story of which few historians do when they write about or study history. History is not just the dead and gone, it is also the here and now that can be studied. I believe most of us, including most of my colleagues, have been brought up to understand history and study it the wrong and biased way. In reference back to Loewen, he wrote about how biased the school textbooks are and how it is so narrow minded. Historians have also been narrow minded in the sense that they refer back to the past by physical evidence. There’s a passage from Fasolt that I really liked because I can apply it to history as well as my life. On page 32, “It never occurs to us that no one can possibly know where they came from, much less where they are going, unless they know already where they are. Whoever is familiar with the experience of getting lost in a strange place knows that a map is useless unless you know where on the map you are. Yet where it comes to history, we think that all we need is better maps.” This is how I think history should be viewed from. The lens of a person or evidence of the present now. Start where we are now and go back step by step to the past of history.

Fasolt...History is Knowledge!

So spoke with Tam and we discussed the many points, such as how we see history as fasolt says, “history expands our horizons beyond the narrow confines of the present” (page 3) That very quote makes me think of how far we’ve come as human race from all kinds of eras to now, ever changing times. A lot of the times I think back and I’m like did that actually happen? Did people realty build the Pyramids in Egypt did pharos live, are these real mummies. I find history so intriguing! At times all these historical events don’t seem real like it was a dream. The Evidence of the past is what shows us that these events surely happened. Which are amazing!!!

We also discussed the other side of history the incomplete side. Biased truths and countless errors that occur over time. “No wonder that we spare no effort in the pursuit of a complete and well documented history of everything”. This reminds me of the reenactment of the JFK killing we had done in the beginning of the semester. With the unheard story of Lee Harvey Oswald people never think to even write or talk about the “not so important person” which I found interesting, the motive and the connection of why it happened the way it has is important. This means getting it from all point of views, not just the general sense of the fact.

Which is what history is all about, what happened, where it happened and who the people were that it happened to. Since history is knowledge how we can miss the main component of capturing all of the angles and corners that we tend to miss. That in reality give us the different kind of thinking we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

As time goes by its like gravity, something you can’t catch just a distant memory that we have to take the time to work out within your mind. As Fasolt said himself (page 5) “The task of recovering something,somehow,from the silent depths of that immutable absence that is the past, so that it will not be gone forever but will remain alive in memories and images and, best of all, perhaps scholarly knowledge”. He couldn’t have put it any better if we didn’t have these things that remind us of what occurred wouldn’t history just be bedtime stories and all incomplete stories.

Protocol from 4/21, and a cool movie I watched!

No one who is writing protocol is here, and my protocol from Tuesday was late, so I volunteered to do today’s as penance for being late. Mandy is here! Ben feels like shit. Ahmed suggests we ajourn class. But Ben will persevere, since he has charismatic authority and will continue on. Is Mandy ready to talk about finance? In a second. Finance has been revived. We had a Marxist analysis on Tuesday. External writings #2 will be done soon, they are about half done. Shukri is here now. Really good things in external writings. Biggest mistake is that people aren’t following the assignment. Read it, and do what Ben says. Ben likes how we bring out our own voices in our writing. We shouldn’t lose that for external writing #3. Ben will show a paper written by someone in the class for a different class about history and sexuality. Ben is trying to get it up, but he is not the best with technology. The paper is an example of what NOT to do. Ben finally got the projector to work. “Sexualities Change, Class Stays the Same”. What are some issues? Paige says there are too many ideas and run-on sentences. It shows a lack of focus. Ahmed says that the writer needs to be more clear about the focus. Kate says that this is an example of what she tells her 18 eyar old brother when she proofreads his papers. Instead of using big, fancy soudning words, use words that sound like you. Alyssa says that it needs to be more to the point in terms of word usage and not try to sound “more intelligent”. Ben says it is everything that is wrong with the way that writing is taught in high schools. There is information that doesn’t relate, it is too vague. Ben shows us the actual writer of the paper, and it is……. Ben! He wrote it when he was an undergrad. Start the paper, be clear, and be yourself. Ben is kind of old, but doesn’t seem like it, says the protocol writer. Mandy, a finance major, will now tell us all about finance! Ben: This presentation is both a primary source and a secondary source. It is a primary source because it is embodied in Mandy, a living, breathing finance major.

If you miss work, you are down $3. Accountants don’t recognize this, but finance people do. If you buy some candy, you are down $2 more dollars. So you are now down $5 total. But if you had invested that $5 instead, you could be making more money. Opportunity cost is what you could have made, and what you could have additionally made with that initial amount. Net present value: value of the company presently, and how it will benefit the company right away. In the business world and in everyday life, you constantly make decisions of how things will benefit you now, as well as in the long term. A non-money example could be choosing classes. You have certain electives in your major that you get to chose from, and you have to

The protocol writer says, “isn’t this related to money as well, since you have to pay for credits, and you would choose between classes based on which ones you would be more likely to pass?” Mandy says, “but all credits cost the same.” The writer says, “We are still trapped in the iron cage of capitalism even within the relm of choosing classes.” Ben says, “hold that thought.”

Mandy continues: There are risks involved in finance, which sometimes scares her, but these are necessary parts of finance. You can make a lot of money, or it can go “POOF!”. Words of wisdom from Mandy: DON’T TAKE OUT CREDIT CARDS!! We don’t know enough about personal finances, so they take advantage of us. We must educate ourselves and take control of our personal finances. Finance can work for you, if you are knowlegable. Do research. “If it acts like a used car salesman, and sounds like a used car salesman, it’s probably a scam”. Building credit is good, but pay it off every month. Emily: build credit now, and be smart about it, because you need to have good credit. Marika says that the market is cheap for buying houses right now. So, maybe it is not a good time in our personal lives to buy a home, but it is good in market terms. So that is a decision that we have to make, which is exactly what this presentation is about!

Ben: TANSTAAFL. Time value of money. Money value of time. “Free lunch” last week from the green energy people did not cost us money, but through looking at opportunity cost, we see that it is not actually free. In a pre-capitalist mentalité, there is no opportunity cost, and there is nothing lost. In our capitalist mentalité, any money or time lost is a bad thing. Ben Franklin: “remember that time is money”. If you have the opportunity to earn 5 shillings, and you don’t take that opportunity, it is the same as throwing it into the sea. But what if you only have the opportunity to work half the day? Mandy says you could get a second job. But what if you can’t get another job, the job market sucks these days? Well…

Alyssa quotes Weber on page 18. It’s a reversal. Money being the master versus man being the master. Mandy works more for not only money, but for experience. Mandy is taking an internship solely to increase knowledge.

The writer says that you are actually increasing your marketability to increase your capital value, and perhaps vice versa.

At General Mills, they don’t take people if they haven’t had at least 2 internships and really good grades. Nowadays, you have to fight for these jobs with a lot of other people who are also doing really well.

Jordan: Internship is not only a way to get experience, it is almost like an interview.

Kolhaas could do his business before without any bureaucratic legitimation, nowadays he would have to go to business school. A bureaucratic truth is a charismatic truth that has caught on. M-C-M’-C-M”. Ben wants to move on to Hegel, but we are stalling because we don’t want to. Paige references Franklin vis-à-vis Weber – live according to your means.

Grab Hegel (as slowly as possible):

What do we need to talk about in the next half hour? What is important? How does it relate to what we just talked about?

Sophie: subjectivity. Protestantism is the principle of individual subjectivity.

Luther vs. Catholicism (414) – indulgences.

Lindsay: Holy Roman Empire/Charles V

Heidi: p. 416, individualism , objectivity, truth,

Mandy: p. 422, objective vs. subjective will. Luther gets married, eats meat on Fridays. Helped to understand reformation more. He pretty much started a revolution against the Catholic Church. Only answer to G-d, not church (or state?)

Marika: Went to a really bad church play. And they were in her pocket the whole time!

Ahmed: p. 427-28. Sounded like he was in favor of a non-Monarchical system. In a monarchy, the royal family has sovereign power. Opposed to Hegel’s ideas of individualism and not one person having complete authority (other than God).

Tam: Blind obedience

Shukri: spirit ß -> Christ. How can you be free when there are classes, etc, tying you down?

Kate: Reformation: man is destined to be free. Freedom=thinking.

German (/European) exceptionalism – us vs. them (414)

Salvation through secular world

French revolution: freedom of will vs. existing right (law) (446)

Sophie: Hegel ALMOST has a feminist moment! Faust (who sold his soul to the devil to have knowledge), women were seen as having “the devil within them”Also, Hegel has a big fat crush on Fredrich II. Hegel is mad racist, but you can also read him as a feminist. You can read him in oh so many ways.

The protocol writer reads a passage (page 199), in which Hegel alludes to his belief that the Egyptian people are “half-brute, half-human”.

In Weber’s understanding, Luther plays the role of the beginning into our descent into the iron cage.

In Hegel’s understanding, Luther is the liberator. He brought us into the light! He opposed the Catholic Church, which became exactly what Marika was talking about (taking a lot of money from people). Luther said that none of the other stuff mattered, only your spiritual freedom mattered and your relationship with God alone. What comes out of that is the notion of individual subjectivity. Luther dissociates the spirit (God) from the church. He performs the act that allows the individual to be free.

“Uncle Adolf” comes back in. The Nazis loved Hegel, loved Kolhaas, but definitely not Weber. The Lords loved this idea of freedom and the formation of one’s own destiny. The Protestant religion does not admit two kinds of conciousness. For Weber, this is a coercive thing. But for Hegel, this is fantastic. It means the “world spirit” is with you. There is not a difference, in the Luther sense, between following God and freedom. If you have a state that adheres to that, you must be loyal to it. If you have a state that does not adhere to that, you must rise up, as Kolhaas did.

Freedom=thinking, thought=freedom.

History has to be progressing.

The end of history was reached when the French learned the ideas of Kolhaas, overthrew their government, and embodied the ideas of Hegel: freedom of will, truth, and subjectivity.

Also, on a seperate note, I wanted to tell people about a movie that I watched this week called "The One Percent". It was incredibly fascinating, and incredibly tied to what we are talking about right now. It was just screaming "the spirit of capitalism and the protestant ethic!" The guy who made the film is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, so he had access to many things that other filmmakers would not have had. Also, our dear friend Milton Friedman is in it, and I totally wanted to punch him in the face the entire time, even though he looks like a cute little old man.

the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV34oF2EEvA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent

“Fatso”… History Triggers Thinking

I talk with Ahmed this morning about the blog post and Fasolt.

Just a funny part: Because we talk on the phone and my accent is silly, Ahmed has a hard time figuring out what I said and I have trouble hearing him as well. When I first say Fasolt name, Ahmed couldn’t figure out what I said but when I say “fatso” Ahmed is fine with it… So during the meeting, I keep saying “fatso” this, “fatso” that.

Now, let’s get some serious business done. First, I point out the last paragraph, “The difference between evidence… Their function is the same”, on page 5 (course packet 64), Fasolt simply says that evidence/sources are not needed. I disagree with this. I connect with a small myth of Vietnam. In the myth, a “great man” fight against an army (army is not 20 people group, I mean army) for the village alone and died in the golden bamboo forest. That’s absolutely not real, but actually the evidence that the “great man” existed is there. Near the town_ which used to be that village, there was a bamboo forest and further in (near a hill or something), the bamboos are more gold (or brown), and in that area, the “great man” tomb is there. The town people also make a small temple to worship him… Which means this myth is partly true. Without these evident, I can totally disregard this myth as a make-up story. The problem with history without source/evidence is that people can exaggerate the details to make the story interesting or benefit them.

Next, we discuss page 40 (course packet 82), “But it cannot be grasped by reason…. No new form of history here offered here.” In here, Fasolt simply says that history is about the understanding of the past so the future can be improved, not just a Rankean bunch of facts without analysis, and asking history to be absolutely the same as the past is asking for too much. I have to agree with this. My most painful experience so far is with history (up until now) because the history textbook is just one way history_ recorded, analyzed, and present by one side of history. That kind of history doesn’t help us (people of now) improve the future. And as Ahmed points out, history textbooks are very bias (Ben says at the beginning of the semester, something about history textbooks are the tertiary source, edited by people who don’t even have any idea about history). Like how U.S. history textbooks would say about the Vietnam War in a different way than Vietnamese textbooks. My knowledge about the WWII is ‘Nazi, Hitler, burning Jews, pure evil’ (I know, it was that bad and pathetic), and I gave no thought about it because it’s over. Now, I see the whole ‘Hitler thing’ (still very pathetic but much better now) an evil to serve a purpose, like facts to serve a theory with position, and I did not think so before.

Toward the end of the discussion, I make fun of “fatso” a little bit. I point out that even though Fatsolt is so against the idea of evidence/source, there are six pages p. 234-239 (or three pages of course packet, p 85-87) all source cites. Which, even though kind of against what he was saying, serve the purpose of proving his theory and what he said are bureaucratic legitimate.

Histoy History History!

Today Lindsey, Rachel, and I met up at Expresso Royale to discuss Fasolt. We pretty much all came with the same concept in mind of what Fasolt was trying to say. in our every day life we take our own perspective into things. Everyone has a different way of viewing their own history and how they tell it. We (people) look at history in many different views because you can't help but to put your own opinions into things/events. "none can claim to represent the line diving the present from the past. if the present could really be divided from the past at all, it would have to be divided by as many lines as there are present moments: not one line between one present and one past, but an infinity of lines between an infinity of presents and an infinity of past, one for each incremental movement into the future." (67) So now that you know what past and present is where do you draw the line? well the line is drawn different by everyone. like Fosalt is trying to say there wouldn't be a specific line drawn because there is just so much information and history that a line can be drawn through. " The present is the source; we live in it. and as the present is experienced, it changes." (65) which that makes history, but our own kind of history. " No state could be sovereign if its inhabitants lacked the ability to change a course of action adopted by their forefathers in the past, or even one to which they once committed themselves." (65) Lindsey, Rachel, and I agreed that this relates to Hegel and how one event/idea or whatever it is moves us/ the world towards freedom and what distinguishes between past and present is politics, who governs who. " What changes is not merely what we think, or how we think, or what we mean by thinking, but that faculty itself by means of which we think that we think." (84)

Past, Present, and some Hegel.

Lindsey, Mariana and I met at Espresso Royale today to discuss the Fasolt reading. We found it really interesting to think about history and past, present and future. We all agreed with the fact that in order to understand history we must look at many different perspectives in order to gain understanding of what really happened. Fasolt says you must look at multiple sources. We found this true in everything we have done in class so far. For example look at our protocols, we have two people write each class so we can get different points of view. When reading history we should do so in the same way.

We found it interesting in how to draw the line of past to present. When discussing we realized it is difficult to place a line to determine what is past to what is present since they are both intertwined. We cannot change the past, it cannot un-happen, however the way we view the past can always change in the present. "The past, if it is anything at all, is a dimension of the present and changes along with it" (16). The past is still alive since it is attached to the present. The line can also not be drawn since people do not live the same lives they do not always have the same past. "historians can actually place things past into the context of 'their' time and place" (12). We feel that this stands true for everyone. Since everyone is different, the line would be in different places depending on the background of each person.

We also found it funny on how we see Hegel everywhere. Fasolt stated, "No state could be sovereign if its inhabitants lacked the ability to change a course of action adopted by their forefathers in the past" (7). We saw Hegel within this quote. It demonstrates the diagram we did in class with history leading towards truth and freedom. It shows the idea of the antithesis colliding with the thesis. The inhabitants need to have the world spirit in them in order to make the synthesis. We found it interesting that this idea has repeatedly came up.

After I left Lindsey and Mariana I was thinking of how the past has made me who I am today. Not that I dwell on the past all the time but I have learned so much from my past experiences that it has made me grow so much. I honestly have not realized how often I make decisions by using my past experiences. Which makes my past very much alive.

History is what you make it!

I talked with Tam today over the phone (because we really didn't have time to meet) and we discussed major quotes in the text to see what sense we can make out of it. Tam and I both agree that historians would disagree with this quote according to Fasolt. They would mainly disagree because Historians mostly record history with evidence. So no one can make history without proper evidence. Tam and I discussed how Fasolt disagrees with this phenomenon. We found a quote on p. 68 of the text which states "But history is not the study of reality, much less the study of the reality of time. History is the study of evidence... and evidence is not reality". I found this quote to be very powerful because it brings up a major issue in our society. We tried to break it down and comprehend the last part of it where it states that history is the study of evidence and evidence is not reality. We finally came to a conclusion that because historians only study history based on evidence, there is a lot of history left out. It is left out because there is no proper evidence to legitimate it. This view makes history seem kind of crooked because the history that is being taught to us in the textbooks may not necessarily be true according to Loewen in "watching big brother," which also connects to Fasolt's point of view. Tom brought up a great point in which she said that history is just facts that are based on evidence which means there is no analyzing; people don't stop, think, and analyze what their being taught, they just store the facts in their mind. We also discussed an issue that may not be relevant to the text in which we said that history is very biased. For example, if you learn about the Iraq war, Vietnam war, or even WWI, I guarantee it would be different than if you would learn it overseas. Every country teaches history from its point of view, which is why some history gets lost along the way. We came to an agreement that history is the written evidence that historians find and present it to the general public. Towards the end, there was a powerful quote in the "solution" section where it says "Expecting history to reach the reality of the past is to allow oneself to be seduced by a mirage arising not from the past but from a historical imagination run amok" p. 82. Now this quote is pretty loaded and is difficult to comprehend. what I understood from it however that no one will ever learn history as it happened in reality.

Hegel lives! (even on the remote North Shore!)

I found this last night, on the wall of a bathroom in a bar in Grand Marais, up on the north shore of Lake Superior -- and as you can imagine, I just about lost it:

And here's the more artistic / metacritical / Fasolt-friendly version (which may become a new Facebook profile picture):

Subjectivities [ : negotiations]

Yesterday I sat down with my friend David to talk about Fasolt's Limits of History. None of you know David, so I will introduce him briefly: he was my very first college professor, and he was egomaniacal, profane, brilliant, and always -- it seemed -- on the verge of death. He could be a real bitch, you know, but I loved him fiercely -- and he taught me well, in return.

I haven't actually spoken to David in a long time, but we converse almost daily, anyway. He finds me in bookstores, disguised as T.S. Eliot. Sometimes he speaks to me in my own writing.

On my very first day of college, in my very first class, I sat down nervously and excitedly in a small room with four long tables (arranged in a rectangle), a chalkboard, a dry erase board, and a giant whale skeleton. David walked in wearing khaki shorts and one gold earring, a long-sleeved t-shirt tied around his waist, and began ranting about how much he hated the beach. He gave a long, well-rehearsed speech, designed to provoke -- grasping at the wide expanse of the sea, swimming in its depths, and then spitting it impertinently back out. I took hardly any notes. In fact, apart from the list of texts we were supposed to purchase, I wrote only one thing: dead reckoning.

It is a navigational term. Dictionary.com will tell you that it is the "calculation of one's position on the basis of distance run on various headings since the last precisely observed position". David simplified it for us. He merely said it was figuring out where you had been, so you could know where you are, and determine where you are going.

So when I read Fasolt's third principle of the past, "you cannot tell where you are going unless you know where you are coming from, " I knew that this was going to be a conversation I had with David (ix).

The concept I am most drawn to is that of the subject, the self which interrupts time and sits forever in the present, dividing what has happened from what is yet to come. Not only is our conception of history constructed; so is our definition of self. It is a place we have made. What intrigues me even more is that "history performs a special role in linking freedom to subjectivity" (9). David and I have discussed Self and Other ad nauseam over the years; I have read as much Descartes as I could stomach (which, admittedly, isn't much), and David has tortured me with as much Lacan as he pleased/dared. The question we circle back to is, how do we destabilize the notion of self, and to what end? In Michael Taussig's Mimesis and Alterity, we read about how two cultures encountered each other, as Selves and Others, and mimicked each other until they were mutually inextricable. The edges were crossed over so many times they became the center -- much like in Hegel's dialectic...or?

David never answers my questions, you know. He thinks I should figure out everything for myself. So when I ask him what he thinks -- what happens to history, when we blur the boundaries of the self? -- he just smiles, faintly. He tells me a story about the Hmong, and raises his eyebrows, as if that explains everything.

I think it is David's fault that for years, now, I have already been cynical about history. "Wie es eigentlich gewesen" is clearly a myth, I think. I don't tell David that, though, because he'll play devil's advocate and I don't want to have to think through it all again. Instead, glancing at his chewed-up, painful-looking fingernails, I point out that he's been living on coffee, cigarettes, and chocolate for the past two weeks. David's body is full of stories. He seems to approach his own history as one would an ancient myth; he has written and told different versions, each vague and dark and dramatic, and illustrating some deep cosmic truth. His fingernails tell the story of the time he was captured, in Thailand, and tortured. His bald head betrays his secret blood illness, his cancer: leukemia. And I've never seen it, but he says there is a scar where they cut him open to fix his heart, which was full of holes.

Sometimes I become frustrated with David. I feel like I want a timeline. I want to know in which year he flew to Thailand, and in which year his first wife died. I want to know how many years he spent reading Foucault and Derrida, reaching in the strangest places for sanity. I want a picture of him before he was sick, when he still had hair on his head, when he smiled without the slightest hint of irony. But David protects his own history; he avoids all questions. I have learned to take him for what he is. I have learned that to write another's history can be a form of violence; "[t]o be subject to that authority is to be violated.... Not because the examiner failed in his responsibility, but because he executed it" (39).

Dead reckoning. Fasolt says that we must know where we are already, to know where we have been. I might modify this a little, and not necessarily to disagree: by looking back to where we have been, we create where we are.

Dove Chocolate

Kate, Paige and I decided to meet at Panera today to discuss Fasolt’s book The Limits of History. We started by all agreeing that this has been one of our favorites reading so far. It was not only interesting but it really made you think about what you believe history, the past, the present and the future really are. We then moved to what our thoughts on what history was after reading Fasolt. The quote that we found at the end of our discussion really encompassed the answer to that question for me, page 32 “It never occurs to us that no one can possibly know where they came from, much less where they are going, unless they know already where they are. “ While that seems like a quote that would be on the inside of a Dove chocolate wrapper we also thought of it as meaning that everyone has their own view or idea on what history is, or where it came from. Depending on your culture, your lifestyle, your upbringing, religion, and many other factors history is going to differ from each person. Someone here in the US is not going to have the same view or story of history as someone who lives on the other side of the world.

The next major idea that we discussed was the line that is drawn to separate the present from the past. When was the past? Was it a second ago? Or was it 100 years ago? And when does the past become history? Those were all questions that were floating around in our heads. After our conversation I realized that before we read Fasolt I thought of history as something that happened hundreds of years ago, and the past was something that happened within my lifetime. Now I know that history can be something that happened yesterday, and the past is always changing. That is one of the differences between the past and history. I now think of history as something that is set and stone something that doesn’t really constantly change like the past does. As Fasolt says “change in the present must surely change the past in ways that we may very well not understand only because we never stop to ponder them” (10). To me this says that the past is constantly changing since events in present time can affect the way we look at the past. But in my mind history is still the same it is wie es eigentlich gewesen.

The last quote that we pondered was on page 16 “..cut the past in two: one documented, known, and dead; the other undocumented, unknown, and undead”. This one really threw me through a loop and when we discussed it in the group we brought it back to the discussion we had on the very first day of class, we asked the question: how long does someone/something have to be dead in order for it to be history? Or for it to be written about? Now that I am sitting here writing this, another thought has come to mind. If some parts of the past aren’t dead then that means they are alive, and to me if something is alive then it is still in the present time. So there really is no clear-cut line between the past and the present since some of the past still lives in the present.

This article has thrown my mind through a loop…to say the least.