JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  July 1996

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION July 1996

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

Re: bias and the history of religion

From:

"Dennis D. Martin" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask]

Date:

Sat, 27 Jul 1996 14:28:53 -0500 (CDT)

Content-Type:

TEXT/PLAIN

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

TEXT/PLAIN (175 lines)



On Sat, 27 Jul 1996, JH Arnold wrote:

>  From the historical bits you have 
> included in your last few posts,  it would seem that you see yourself 
> engaged in recreating how medieval people "really thought" [as opposed to 
> Richard,  as the "modern scholar",  imposing new ideas].  But what you 
> think they thought [!] surprisingly enough underpins your own 
> "conservative" position [nb i don't claim to know your party politics 
> here,  i'm just picking a word to describe your view of history],  and 
> "naturalizes" it.  You suggest in the 
> post i have partly quoted above that terms of *struggle* were unknown to 
> medieval people,  and that the sources do not reflect the kind of 
> sociocultural tensions we historians like to ascribe ... This is,  to be 
> frank,  rubbish. 

First of all, I did not say that I thought I could recreate what medieval 
people "really thought" any more than anyone else making claims on this 
list about "understanding" the past, or "knowing" the past think they can 
recreate what medieval people "really thought."  Some degree of that 
claim is implicit in all claims to do history but I fully recognize the 
impossiblity of that task as I hope everyone else does.

Second, I did not say that "terms of `struggle'" were unknown to medieval 
people.  I did intend to say and think my comments can be read to have 
said that modern understandings of "struggle" are not necessarily 
medieval understandings of "struggle."  If my post was imprecise in this 
regard I apologize and make this clarification now.

I do believe that modern understandings of revolution and "struggle" are 
different from medieval understandings of struggle.  I do not find any 
evidence in ancient or medieval sources of a concept of revolution as 
totally overturning the "tradited" (to avoid confusion arising from 
"traditional") past.  Where commoners struggled against oppression from 
elites, they normally appealed to a golden age in which justice reigned 
and contrasted the present oppression with past justice.  A concept of 
the past, the tradited, as necessarily primitive and therefore worse than 
our present enlightenedness and future greater Progress, is unknown until 
the modern era.  Thus the very word "primitive" means something quite 
different to ancient and modern people.  Nor do I see in medieval sources 
evidence of a fundamental notion of conflict as the key to history and 
society, as it is in any number of modern philosophers and as it has 
become common in the populace in more recent times (the New 
Historicism and Deconstruction both place the notion of conflict at the 
heart of reality).  For ancient and medieval thinkers and, I would argue, 
for most people, the presence of conflict is largely a reminder of 
declension from the harmony that should obtain between rich and poor, 
powerful and powerless etc.

I did not claim that this is what people "really thought."  I simply said 
that, if one begins with different assumptions about society (traditional 
rather than revolutionary, harmony rather than irreducible conflict), one 
will read the same sources and see different things there.  I freely 
admitted my commitments and perspectives.  You now scold me for being 
blind to the way they influence the way I read medieval sources.  I said 
from the start that I know they influence the way I read medieval 
sources.  I was asking someone else, who quickly saw "hostility" as the 
key to explaining the denouement of the Waldenses, to consider whether 
the hostility he saw (a hostility/conflict that he and others have 
frequently found in various aspects of medieval culture in posts to the 
list) might in part reflect his own assumptions about social and cultural 
patterns.

Having said all of this, I hope that list members will not now say, "Aha" 
that means that because we all read into medieval sources some of our own 
presuppositions and commitments, one should give up on the search to find 
out what "people really thought."  I recognize the difficulty but refuse 
to give up on the search.  The first step in the search is to admit one's 
own biases and commitments.  I admitted mine from the outset.  I asked my 
interlocuter to consider whether a certain presupposition might operative 
in his interpretation.  His response was (paraphrased) "yes, but I don't 
really have `commitments'--i.e., I'm a bit biased but you're more 
biased because you have commitments but I don't.  I stand higher above 
the fray than you do."  Frankly, I'm tired of certain commitments (e.g., 
religious ideologies and "conservative" commitments to use your 
phrase--i.e., politically incorrect commitments, in today's Academy) 
being considered ipso facto more biased than other ideological 
commitments that are politically correct.

 There is a vast amount of work on the cultural 
> divisions between the litterati and the illiterati,  and the earlier 
> discussion on Walter Map's comments about Waldensian translations 
> illustrate that struggle beautifully. I do not comment on Map's discourse 
> in order to condemn him ["Bad,  naughty Walter"] but to analyse what is 
> going on in that historical context ["Why was Waldes pushed towards 
> heresy?  What were the nuances in the cultural understanding of 
> literacy at this point?  What was at stake in the whole issue?"]  It seems 
> to me that you *are* "defending" Map's position,  
> and trying to naturalise the forces of power at play there [which 
> incidentally,  as you no doubt already know,  places you in a long line 
> of Catholic commentators on heresy and inquisition,  lined up against 
> Protestants commentators seeking to represent heresy as the roots of 
> Luther].

I did not defend Map.  Map has an elitist perspective.  I did not say 
that all opinions expressed by elites in the Middle Ages are just, 
judicious, accurate assessments of "commoners" just because they are made 
by elites.  I simply protested that a blanket pro-commoner bias
(hence blanket anti-elitism) such as was expressed in Richard Landes' 
post would distort one's reading of the events.  Walter Map had no 
authority in the situation, hence could speak as irresponsibly as he 
wished.  His description must be weighed with all the other evidence and 
all the weighing must be done in awareness of one's own standpoint.

This is the classic Enlightenment critical method, except that 
Enlightenment types themselves seldom really took account of their own 
commitments; they were quite skilled at pointing out the commitments of 
medieval churchmen or aristocrats but failed to see their own 
precommitments.  Nor did they realize that an earlier _criti_cal method 
functioned in medieval culture, based on the principle of discretio 
(derived from _krisis_), about which I have published a few pieces. 
In our postmodern present, we gleefully point out how biased the 
Enlightenment types were, without realizing that postmodern pluralism, 
New Historicism, or Deconstruction give a priority, a bias to disorder 
over order, which necessarily will make it difficult to understand a 
period in history where Order and Harmony were assumed to be the ideals.  
(We, of course, in our hyperenlightened Postmodernity, know that all 
their talk of Order was either a naive or utterly clever way to rape and 
dispossess the Other, the marginalized, the Victims--but that is what 
bothers me about most PoMo interpretations: they too claim to tell us 
what "people really thought"--they replace the Hegemony of belief in 
Order with the Hegemony of belief in Disorder/Otherness/Decentering.  I 
can think of nothing more arrogant than to tell me that all those 
medieval people who talked incessantly about plurality within an 
overarching, greater Order didn't realize that the _real_ clue to reality 
is Decentering, Disorder, Deconstruction, Pluralism.
  The comments I made about evaluating and controlling preaching 
and vernacular translations had to do with those who held authoritative 
positions in the Church and society.  And I gave no blanket approval to 
their decisions, merely said that seen from the perspective of one 
holding responsibility for government, the phenomenon of the Poor Men of 
Lyons may appear different than if one sees it from the perspective of 
one who does not hold responsibility for government.  And I intended to 
imply that the dominant anti-institutionalism of the last 30 years in the 
West, with roots reaching back much further, colors the way we perceive 
the exercise of authority in the past and we ought to be honest about it.

Each scholar is entitled to her commitments and biases.  We do not 
agree.  Our situation is pluralist.  But when we extend that situation 
either to Reality as a whole (by decrying the Other who still 
naively believes in an ordered reality) or to the people of the past (by 
decrying those who read history from anOther perspective of Order/Harmony 
despite aberrant disorderly phenomena that are clearly observable), the 
we are extending the Hegemony of disorder over the Other (the Other who 
believes in Order).  Which means that the advocates of 
Deconstruction/Disorder/Pluralist Otherness are actually as hegemonic as 
any of the people in the present or past they criticize.

Now, true-blue PoMo folk may come back and say, that this only proves 
that their deconstructionist perspective is all we have, that I have 
conceded their point.  Fine, but then they are in fact making a hegemonic 
claim for their position.  The only way they can be truly pluralist is to 
truly admit the possibility of my claims for Order and authority and 
objective truth.  But that is to recognize that one or the other 
hegemonies must in fact dominate, that true Deconstruction and Pluralism 
is impossible.  The only issue is which one.  That is not the same as 
saying that interminable Struggle and Decentering is all we can have.

If one truly believes in the interminable clash of ideologies, of 
perspectives, of commitments, one would have to shut up and make no 
claims at all, because even to claim the interminable clash of ideologies 
as our "real" situation, is to make a hegemonic claim.  It is to move 
beyond mere pluralism or decentering.  And if all we can do is make 
_hegemonic_ claims, even if the hegemonic claim is the claim for 
Decentering struggle, then all of us are in fact claiming to know at 
least a bit more about "what they really thought" or about "what reality 
really is like" than the Other Guy.

Dennis Martin



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
September 1999
August 1999
July 1999
June 1999
May 1999
April 1999
March 1999
February 1999
January 1999
December 1998
November 1998
October 1998
September 1998
August 1998
July 1998
June 1998
May 1998
April 1998
March 1998
February 1998
January 1998
December 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
May 1997
April 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997
December 1996
November 1996
October 1996
September 1996
August 1996
July 1996
June 1996
May 1996
April 1996


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager