Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 21, 1973, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free july 1973 historians so called social scientists have for too Long pretended that they Are immune to vulgar abuses of historical they like to claim that the exploitation of history for polemical purposes is confined to the undereducated and the Overly Ambi that it is Only the multitude and their leaders who find in the past what they but Martin a historian takes his colleagues to task in this article claiming the profession has not earned the right to those vaunted claims Fob Jec Ivity that the eve ready for has been so Quick to by Martin Duberman the Way we View past events will always hinge on two Basic components the data itself and the individual who interprets the former is never sufficiently the latter never sufficiently Neu like All professional focus 1 think its Essen tial to try to increase the amount of data through Basic research and to try to con Tain our biases when interpreting the but unlike Many of my i dont think we sufficiently admit the biases were Al ready aware nor show sufficient interest in uncover ing those we May not be aware no one can pretend to know How far the probe must go How deep and specific the revelations must become before we clarify the ways in which we influence the presentation of historical but i do feel sure that the profession has not earned the right to those vaunted claims to objectivity that the eve ready for has been so Quick to historians come in various sizes and the Range of personality is not As wide As that of the population As a since like All tends to attract and to extend its invitations Only to certain kinds of people until for to very few women or Blacks and even to Only a marginal still if i can Trust my per Sonal the Guild contains a fairly generous spectrum of Hothead and child lovers and dog authoritarians and sex pots and the trouble youd hardly know it from their which have become homogenized to a remarkable de g r e e the More modest members of the profession would explain this As a mat Ter of necessity a function of limited literary the More self satisfied in the Guild would insist that uniform the mity of product is itself proof that history has become a de personalized and capable of infinite replica in response to the first explanation i would argue though cannot prove that far More imaginative Talent is available than is being in response to the Sec i would suggest that homogenization should not be confused with neutrality no More than a conforming society can be said to have transcended the need to hold though the notion gained currency that an absence of stylistic Idi syn Cracy is tantamount to proof that historians Are in no sense present in their own i believe a More accurate accounting would make reference to the fact that in our society generally these Days it is More bearable to be seen As an interchangeable than to be the pretence of nonexistence might be thought anachronistic to a culture that has Long prided itself on individual Ity until one remembers that the Gap Between our rhetoric and our practice has been at least As and the Gap is being per the monograph literally translated As one freely paraphrased As no has become the Model for graduate and even for undergraduate remember my horror when i once blacked out the names on a Batch undergraduate essays and Man As ghost found that the papers were so interchangeable that i w a s wholly unable to guess which student had written which paper though i knew them Well As and How interestingly different one was from the we teach our Young to Mouth the sacred slogans of All the while inculcating in them the habits of machine surprising though the news May be to those who make a habit of Reading each historical is a unique per i tried to demonstrate in my recent my belief that if the elements of that uniqueness were made Avail we would All be better and in several we might be better Able to separate the component parts that make up every historical account the and the person writing about we might also better see How inescapably an episode in the and the present recording of merge into a single per we would better the process by which one usually ends up finding in the past what he or she already knows to be True in the i am in no sense Advocat ing the superimposition of the present on the past though my argument has often been conveniently reduced to that to the in arguing that if there is to be any Hope of keeping the two Dis we must acknowledge that both exist that contemporary individual the historian is in conversation with certain source materials from the this Model would require that the Histo Rian reveal More about who he is probe the self in con Junction with the and report the no one can say How much per Sonal testimony is enough nor the appropriate Quality and kind would become Clear As each projects As the his Torian keeps himself open and us abreast of his advancing trained in the use of evidence possess ing an advanced Are somehow thought to be exempt from the common ten Dency to equate a personal perspective with absolute truth and from the univer Sal need for Sel Confirma but As Well As interventionist have claimed to have Learned from their study of the past the absolute Neces sity of taking a firm stand against foreign As Well As corporate have found ample proof that our free Enterprise system has been the chief Factor in producing National abundance just As other As Well As the socialist workers have blamed that same sys tem for the Gross Maldeis Tributino of National contrary to their preferred historians do not stand apart from the popular habit of Reading contemporary needs into past events though they May Well stand apart in their Lack of consciousness about the in their refusal to see that Are teach ing Are involved in the opinions would be easier to evaluate if they were clearly labelled As and we were told something of the life experiences that contributed to their and that might Well have to include emotional ingredients a far More frightening i than the Mere revelation of social scientists like to As sume that Only their minds Are involved in their whereas in fact no one has yet successfully demonstrated that mind can Ever be separated from needs and the at tempt to exercise so called pure reason May indeed be one manifestation of opinion is also less feared than emotion because works of history have always been loaded with however disguised by the third person indeed if the opinions have been original the Bias sufficiently Provo a there has been Little discomfort i n discovering their historians have frequently challenged the accuracy of Charles beards interpretation of the but have rarely censured his right to have made that in the social sciences As tends to carry its own to be readily accorded the Privi lege of setting its own rules or publicly exposing their the growing disinterest of this College generation in historical study has often been commented As is usually the Case these the Gen e r a t i p n itself is held to blame it will not accept the discipline needed to master detail it will not curtail impulse and passion in the name of gaining critical Dis the reverse Side of the Coin strikes me with More i see this Gener a t i o n rejecting historical study to the degree that it seeks personal the Best of the generation rejects disguise it wants to know who is responsible it prefers the personal to the computerized response i values the distinctive above the the Academy has not ignored the question is history possible but it has tried to make it so by concentrating on the accumulation of additional data and on clarifying the standards for evaluating All to the but the historian is inescapably part of the evidence he attempts to Martin author of Black Mountain an Experiment in is distinguished service professor of history it Lehman with a View towards assessing of facts by Jacques Ellul France t h e phenomenal develop ment of the mass Media has revolutionized not simply because propaganda and biased news can be so simply and widely Dis Semi but by the very fact of the availability of so much every via to and print the Citi zen is flooded with thousands of we will not complicate the argument by trying to figure out the Dif prestige off the Assembly line by Melvin Maddocks it was the crusty old patriarch of Thorstein who nearly 75 years ago coined the phrase conspicuous consumption a term that has seemed to explain its fair share of going son in the United states Ever those natives and outsiders who still think of americans As practical people Bent Only on lives of Sim ple Utility dont understand the half of looking about him at the gilded Veblen pronounced the great american Paradox the less a posses Sion is actually the More it is one goes without eating to buy the car one cant Why to prove one can afford who needs illustrations in a land where prestige itself seems to come on the install ment plan one wishes that Veblen were Here today to explain in his slightly baroque but witty prose the phenomenon of the Cartier tank once upon a Many wars ago it was the first world in fact Louis Cartier designed a watch to present to the american expeditionary forces tank corps officers for their help in defending France against the the Square 18karat Gold Case was de signed to show at least a geometrical resemblance to 1917 the face is White with dark Blue roman the Stem involves a the strap is baby As elegantly Snappy As a French military the Cartier tank watch seemed perfectly in style for what it then at some mysterious for some mysterious the Cartier tank watch changed from a gesture of National gratitude to a gesture of International what do sir Winston King Truman Hermann and Jackie Onassis have in common they have at one time or owned at least one Cartier tank capote has confessed to owning eight at the weekly paper of women Wear quotes Helen Gurley Brown As saying buying this watch was and unequivocal status Symboline on my i dont think status symbols Are bad if they Are As Beautiful and Well made As the tank i really dont Wear it to Tell half the time i dont even wind old Thorstein would have had a Field trip with that Andy on the other has decided that the Tan watch elite is turning into a crowd in embarrassed there Are so Many had mine a Long but i also own a the Avant Garde ticks but the Cartier tank watch has suffered worse than a Host of late the Kenton which owns the Cartier stores in the has horror of horrors manufactured a tank watch copy that costs Only or less than the strap alone on the Model imitate prestige off the Assembly will the elite follow Andy Warhol to assuming that a Man who could make a Campbell soup can a collectors item deserves watching or will the Ingersoll Buck watch so named for its Price return As the connoisseurs timepiece perhaps the Grandfather watch is due for re if the clothing Industry can afford the there is no telling what turns snobbery or nostalgia will take maybe even scuba divers with a depth gauge built wrote George haunts those who Are not reconciled with the quote will do for those who cant or wont afford a Cartier tank or even the lest subtler snobs take Comfort a snob hides some where in the Best of us there is the Story told by Arthur Koestler about a Young lady and her when she believed it was a limited edition she Hung the prize above her when she was told it was just an Ordinary she took it Down hastily and exiled it to a Thorstein Veblen would have laughed himself silly on that Story Ferencek in the ways the three Media affect we have to realize that the individual retains Only a Small proportion of these european analysts have found that the average newspaper Reader retains about 10 per cent of the Polit ical news he that is probably fortunate if he remembered it he would go of raises questions if the Reader retains 10 per cent of the Politi Cal what is political news what is the filtering system by which he retains certain parts of the news Why does he remember this rather than that this is not a series prob Lem for the average he remembers what touches him closely local news will interest him More than inter National news news that directly relates to his for the imposition of new interests him More than a discussion of general economic policy based on Remote decisions made Long in we know that the More Distant and general the Issue so much More will the average citizens viewpoint and opinions be based on vague feel and impressions rather than on facts and hard info precise information Only nourishes and confirms his in the citizen possesses adequate information about matters that touch his interests and concern him he judges and evaluates other issues by Cri by David Abrahamsen overcome by the Complex Ity of insanity As a defence in the administration has As a part of a new criminal to solve it by abolishing insanity Al instead of allowing the psychiatrist to examine the defendant in order to de Termine his mental condition at the time of his it has suggested that he Only shall determine whether the defendant had criminal in the reason for abolish ing insanity in the words of president to curb unconscionable abuse of the insanity defence by Crim or to use the medical a constitutes part of human be it therefore cannot be eradicated by any there and we always will people who Are in sane at the time they com Mit a and hence not legally the nagging increase of the insanity plea used by criminals to the Point of exploitation is not people in All walks of life try to get out of their particularly when faced with transgressions of the what is easier than to plead insanity in order to avoid their responsibility it is and it preserves the dignity and self esteem of the in my work on the Side of the state and the Federal Teria that have nothing to do with his choices his retention of certain news items rest to tally on irrational ideas and in each of these two mindsets operate on entirely different i am hypothesizing the Best of that the newspaper performs its function Well and really furnishes the Reader honest information without biased commen this condition is not very serious in the Case of the Ordinary citizen who exerts Little influence Over political but there is another consideration that is very import in a democracy a Politi Cian must put himself on the voters wave other he will not be reelect if we stick with the traditional definition of politics the Conquest and use of Power without considering Aims and Ideal object we have to realize that the politicians first questions about information Are How has the citizen been in formed what does he re member among All the thousands of International has he understood and interpreted correctly How can i put myself into his Point of View How can i put myself on his both in order to get elected and in order to express his desires and will in political action if the politician is he May try to use Power for bringing the mass of citizens with in this he becomes a Model for the he changes its opinions and Ori but this raises the problem of How rigorously we interpret do we always operate democratically what about a govern ment instead of follow ing and expression the will of the seeks to change Public opinion and persuade the majority to Fol Low it How could it be oth with such volumes of information available we dont even have to discuss secret information that the politician May such in formation is generally much less important than is Ima a Good newspaper provides All the information needed for Correct political reflection and decision Mak the difficulty lies else i believe we must distinguish three Levels of events about which political Deci Sions Are the most superficial Are Day today events the accidents which spark interest precisely be cause they have just Hap on a deeper level there Are Long Range trends Struc t u r e s and Phenomena of Power and administrative on the deepest there is the course of worldwide developments for one responds to each of these with a different kind of on the deepest we find the Uto the pub Lic formed and de formed by the stimulus of the latest operates on the most superficial but the politician normally must position himself be tween the he must formulate policy designed to last for an extended whose Content must be open to thorough it must fit action to the Struc Tures of society and not waver in the face of accidental this presents him with two prob lems he is not going to be on the level of his constituents Public opinion he must continually evaluate the information he receives and distinguish Between what decisive political significance and what will be for gotten the hardest problem is exactly that these Day today events tend to overwhelm the journalist has a duty to catalogue and transmit the greatest possible number of but this leads to psychological and intellectual because we Are constantly observing what is going on Here and we become More and More con Vinced that it is important it is increasingly difficult to de Tach ourselves and reflect on the More enduring and Deci Sive when we succeed in doing we May feel that we have retreated from whereas we Are trying to see it from a More profound we also May miss a piece of important it is my constant observation that a Correct Frame of reference is a better basis for accurate interpretation of reality than merely following events Day by let us take two specific sex during the cold while All Europe was Quak ing with fear of being invaded by the a few individuals calmly affirmed that this was absolutely out of the question on the basis of careful analysis of stains thinking and of his policies since the soviet Ger Man on the other would have been predictable on the basis of similar Analy France in 968 furnishes a second while Al most everyone was declaring that the revolution of 1968 had changed and that nothing would Ever again be the a few of not limiting thefil selves to the daily events or the daily pronouncements of politicians and revolutionary predicted As it has turned out that nothing would their judgment was based on anal Ysis of two realities the direction in which the French communist party and the confederation Generale do Travail the largest French labor led by communists had been evolving Over the pre Vious ten years and the drive toward centralization and executive control that is characteristic of the French these could Only be not re by what took place in this is How it has turned but to under stand it one had to be detached from what was work ing everybody up and see what was going on in its real context As part of a logical sequence of in undigested upon the minute information is not we have to know what to do with it and How to utilize above one must avoid the passion and enthusiasm aroused by passing Here we must be very de manding of our we must choose those who can Rise above the who do not react without re who can judge and events against the background of a Broad Range of they must he Strong enough la to resist the immediate pressures of pub Lic which May very Well change in a month when another sensation conies failure to recognize this can be because Public opinion considers what is most spectacular to be most and views what has just happened As forgetting what happened a or ten the very mechanism of the dissemination of news leads necessarily to a Gap Between the political leaders judg ment and the impressions of the average citizen by the same Between the whole political apparatus and the body of the Here we Are in the pres ence of the most serious problem that faces a demo it cannot be resolved by institutions but Only by a new Jacques Ellul is professor of social history at the University of Bor Deaux and author of the political translation by Leonard insanity in criminal behaviour government and on the Side of the i have observed that when serious crimes resulting in Long Pris on sentences have been com the tendency to claim insanity is multiplied on an increasingly shaky most illuminating of the exploitation of insanity As a defence in his crime was the skyjacker who since 1956 had apparently committed a number of serious among other Bank Rob and who after each crime had claimed resulting i his admission to mental with a diagnosis of paranoid Sci instead of being sent to he had been for a Short time in 17 different mental hospitals and had escaped four with his of and having studied psychiatry and Psychol he had been Able to fool during those Many years 40 several As Well As Law yers and judges about the True nature of his mental the end of his Crimi Nal career and his deceptive insanity came in january 1972 when he skyjacker a plane while in route from los Angeles to new after an eight hour he was subdued and brought to Beu Evue based upon my study of the transcript of what occurred on the and observed by which revealed the skyjacker Coher ent and controlled and through my own psychiatric examinations of i very quickly came to the conclusion that the skyjacker was not insane at the time of his air but that in fact he was feigning he was a to my and had been perpetrating one of the greatest hoaxes in the annals of he was found during my five years of work As a member of nor Rockefeller state com Mission to study Legal in consisting of one Law District two lawyers and three no one Ever thought of abolishing in we and the state enacted later followed by other states and Federal courts the present Law that a person is legally insane if the time of criminal conduct he lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his act or is unable to conform his con duct to the requirements of abuses of the insanity plea can be curtailed if the defendant is examined very carefully by a Well trained paying careful attention to the crime Situa Tion itself How did the Cul Prit behave during and after he had committed his deed if this method had been in All probability the skyjacker never would have been Able to get away with his undaunted criminal behaviour by feign ing judge Cordozo said 40 years ago if insanity is to be a let us say frankly and even brutal but let us not mock our selves with a definition that Walters with such a method is neither Good morals nor Good nor Good if psychiatry is so is abolishing the of insanity from the Law is the same As depriving the individual Evn when psycho Lotic the go Given right to be a human David a new York is author of murdering ;