That Noble Dream?

Another busy day--and long. As I write this it's a bit after midnight. I meant to knock out this post three hours ago, when it was still November 1, only to fall sound asleep in front of the laptop.

Among my tasks today--or rather, yesterday--was a trip to campus for my first appointment with a personal trainer at Ohio State's RPAC (Recreation and Physical Education Center). I'd scheduled the appointment for 1 pm, so that en route I could catch the first half hour of The Rush Limbaugh Show.

In stark contrast to yesterday, El Rushbo was in in fine feather today, chiefly because Trump has announced his attention to shift his legal residence from New York to Florida, a move Rush himself had made many years before. He reminisced happily about how he'd left New York and its high income tax (8.82 percent) to relocate to Florida (no income tax at all--nor, for that matter, any property tax). To hear him tell it he had royally screwed over the Empire State, and the fact the President was now emulating him delighted Rush no end.

But that's all I can tell you about today's broadcast, because I had that appointment to meet. And anyway I promised that today's post would focus on placating the notional visitor to the OSU history department's Facebook page, complaining that in reprinting my posts the department was guilty of partisanship, because *I* was guilty of partisanship.

Well, notional visitor, you know not whereof you speak.

Oh, I get it: you think I should be nonpartisan, and discussing the rise of conservative media is somehow intrinsically partisan. But consider what you're thinking. I mean, at some point historians will analyze the subject precisely for the reason I'm doing--it's an important development in the recent history of the United States. So at what point will enough time have passed before it becomes possible to treat this phenomenon objectively?

Never.

Never ever will it be possible to treat this--or *any* historical phenomenon--objectively.

Because objectivity is a will o' the wisp, what one historian has termed, in a famous phrase, "that noble dream."

Oh sure, you can *try* to be objective, but in the nature of the case you have to make choices about the selection and weighting of evidence, and you will make them based on a number of subjective factors: your basic beliefs about how the world works, the influence of contemporary events on how you interpret historical events that seem analogous, and a dozen other factors, all adding up to the fact that you will inevitably approach historical events subjectively.

The best you can do is strive for objectivity, but that striving will be both futile and kind of naïve. What you're really trying for is "the God trick," also known as "the view from nowhere."

No, you can't be objective, but you can be honest. You can confess to your readers that your analysis is inherently going to be subjective. But that doesn't mean partisan or polemical. You can operate from a stance of intellectual curiosity. Sure, you might be a lifelong Democrat dismayed by, say, the Reagan Revolution. But you can still choose to view it as a major historical development and set aside your personal views in favor of understanding it on its own terms. Or, to put it more eloquently:

"Concerning issues of objectivity and partisanship, I firmly believe that it is possible for a historian to lay aside personal views, commitments, and earlier judgments when writing about the recent past--including events in which he or she has had a small hand. Judging the past scrupulously requires a willing suspension of one's own beliefs. No historian is perfect at it; it is an elusive, even impossible goal but also an essential one if history itself is to be more than propaganda, more than a reaffirmation of one's own prejudices. Indeed, one of the most satisfying if humbling aspects of writing history is to find one's prejudices and expectations challenged by the historical record and sometimes undone, as has happened to me repeatedly in writing every chapter of this book." [Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (New York, HarperCollins, 2008), 10-11), 10-11.]

OK. Whatever. But why are you talking about yourself driving down a highway listening to Rush Limbaugh?

Because I'm employing a literary technique called placing oneself in the narrative.

Now shut up and let me get on with the story.