To: <anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com>
References: <20040306002331.66763.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] agreement and disagreement
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 16:04:14 -0500

Daniel wrote:
"Why attempting to be objective about Steiner would be "an abdication of responsibility." (Unless, of course, you deny the very existence of "objectivity").

Peter Staudenmaier:
I don't deny the existence of objectivity, but I do think you and I have very different ideas about what objectivity means and what role it can and should play in historiography. If you're saying that objectivity is the opposite of bias and that bias is a bad thing for a historian to have, then I disagree with you. Bias is often a very good thing for a historian to have. Affecting a posture of neutrality is the wrong approach, in my view. But perhaps you can explain more what you mean by objectivity. Thanks,


Daniel:
Pulling Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2002 Edition) to aid again:

ob·jec·tive , n.
5. not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.
—Syn. 5. impartial, fair, impersonal, disinterested.

I think that the problem with objectivity in history is similar to the problem of objectivity in journalism. Everyone agrees that objectivity is the aim, but it has also been shown that objectivity is not technically possible. So what do we do with this paradox? One response is to celebrate the inability to be fully objective by not even trying. If we can't achieve the goal, then why make the effort? The other response is to say, well, we may never be perfect, but that won't stop us from trying! What we would desire from our journalists is that they strive for objectivity, in full knowledge of the fact that it is technically impossible to ever be fully objective. I would argue that the same effort makes a good historian.

Bias is not directly the opposite of objectivity. But a bias is a hindrance to objectivity. If it is a known bias, then it is good to acknowledge it up front. If it is an unconscious bias, well, then you'll have to wait for your readers to point it out to you. But to indulge your biases to their fullest is to abandon any pretense of writing history (or journalism). Instead, you are simply writing polemic (or a polemical editorial, if you are a journalist). It may be historical polemic, but it remains polemic. Yellow journalism was deplorable, and "yellow" historicism would be equally so.

So no, I don't believe that a bias is a good thing for a historian to have. It may be inevitable, but it is not good.

Affecting a posture of neutrality is no more desirable (emphasis on the word affecting). I should point out, however, that a posture of neutrality is precisely what you project in your articles. Since you subsequently claim that you are "only" writing polemic, the designation "affecting" applies to you in these instances.

Daniel Hindes

The entire entry for objective:
ob·jec·tive , n.
1. something that one's efforts or actions are intended to attain or accomplish; purpose; goal; target: the objective of a military attack; the objective of a fund-raising drive.
2. Gram.
a. Also called objective case. (in English and some other languages) a case specialized for the use of a form as the object of a transitive verb or of a preposition, as him in The boy hit him, or me in He comes to me with his troubles.
b. a word in that case.
3. Also called object glass, object lens, objective lens. Optics. (in a telescope, microscope, camera, or other optical system) the lens or combination of lenses that first receives the rays from the object and forms the image in the focal plane of the eyepiece, as in a microscope, or on a plate or screen, as in a camera. See diag. under microscope.
–adj.
4. being the object or goal of one's efforts or actions.
5. not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.
6. intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.
7. being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject (opposed to subjective).
8. of or pertaining to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.
9. Gram.
a. pertaining to the use of a form as the object of a transitive verb or of a preposition.
b. (in English and some other languages) noting the objective case.
c. similar to such a case in meaning.
d. (in case grammar) pertaining to the semantic role of a noun phrase that denotes something undergoing a change of state or bearing a neutral relation to the verb, as the rock in The rock moved or in The child threw the rock.
10. being part of or pertaining to an object to be drawn: an objective plane.
11. Med. (of a symptom) discernible to others as well as the patient.
[1610–20; < ML object#vus, equiv. to L object(us) (see OBJECT) + -#vus -IVE]
—ob·jecÆtive·ly, adv.
—ob·jecÆtive·ness, n.
—Syn. 1. object, destination, aim. 5. impartial, fair, impersonal, disinterested.
—Ant. 5. personal.

Peter Staudenmaier did not respond to this post.