On Tue, 16 Nov 1999 17:29:22 +0000, William Kilbride wrote:
> ..... I don't want a Nintendo school of history. But I do think that the
> eventual, in some cases, imminent arrival of digital archives and the
> accessibility of these primary source materials not just to the academy,
> but to any informed lay user, may well be the biggest democratiser of
> historical knowledge since the invention of printed texts. And many of
> the formal hierarchies dividing "professional" and "amateur" history -
> between the world within the academy and the world beyond, might crumble
> ....
> Is this an accurate analysis? Are we interested in democratizing the
> past in the way he suggests, or will this undermine our positions as
> (self selecting?) arbiters of the past and result in chaos? If he's
> right, and we do want to bring about the democratization mentioned, how
> can we best achieve it?
It already is chaotic; we'll get used to it. I dont
see it as democracy so much as dialogue. No one will
pretend that the fool should not be put in the twit
filter. It aint a matter of voting for what the
'truth' is; that will require logical analysis as
well, and those who dont get it, dont get it.
-- Arachne V1.50;beta, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://home.arachne.cz/
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