"Pure objectivity" is a myth

[neilgodfrey]

It [the past] really happened, and we real­ly can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it did and reach some tenable conclusions about what it all meant.

"It really happened" seems as blunt a statement of ontological objectivity as one could wish. No purity myths there.

You got it. And as you rightly went on to say, it is in the meaning of events that we have the variables of interpretation.

For the historian, wartime cemeteries and newspaper archives can be fairly convincing evidence that a major war really did factually happen at a certain place and time.

If detectives are searching for a serial killer I hope they can interpret the clues in a way that will lead to the capture of the right person and that the court will treat the evidence appropriately.

There are different kinds of historical inquiry, however. It is easy to kid ourselves that we are "just seeking the facts, ma'am" when the fact-seeking is in service of an ideology or is simply a frame-of-reference that we fail to recognize is passing, temporary, "one-sided" to the disadvantage of others.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Interestingly enough however is the well known fact that Ayn Rand herself always claimed to have voted exclusively Democrat.

OK, so there's a fact claim about the human past (Ayn Rand's actually said this self-description of her voting record) and an implicit factual question (was her self-description accurate?). I would rate both the claim and the question as "objective" in character. Such things really happened as stated or else they did not.

I confess that I didn't know the well-known fact about Ayn Rand's self-description. As to the implicit question, of course, there is no durable trace of how any American votes, at least not in Rand's lifetime or since (unless she was speaking of her participation in Democratic party primaries, which would be a matter of public record, ... for the purposes of this post, I'll set that aside - I don't know the context of a remark which I don't know she made).

I can offer evidence against the accuracy of her self-descripton. In October 1972, she gave a talk ("A Nation's Unity") at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston Massachusetts which very strongly urged rejection of the Democrats' candidate for president that year (George McGovern). Although she ackowledged her lack of enthusiasm for Nixon (the Republicans' candidate), she clearly expressed her preference for him to McGovern. It doesn't follow that she voted for Nixon (perhaps she wrote in the Libertarians' John Hospers), but based on her speech a few weeks ahead of the election, there is a strong foundation for doubt that she voted for the Democrat McGovern and no foundation for her not having voted at all.

It could be that she made her autobiographical statement before 1972, and that it was accurate at the time she made it. That might be of interest, since there are some who would say that the Nixon-McGovern race marked the emergence of strong left-right "ideological" partisanship in the national elections of the United States.

That has some relevance for whether Rand's possible earlier embrace of the Democrats was "hypocritical." That question strikes me as a subjective matter. I don't propose to resolve it here, but only to point out that its resolution calls for more than even the most confident resolution of the fact questions about what she said about her voting record and when she said it. At a minimum, the analyst would need information about what the Democrats were "like" when (before 1972?) and where (California and then New York?) Rand enjoyed the franchise. Even to compile a "factual" summary of such information would require considerable subjective judgment in my view.

I suspect that you (Isayre) reject the proposition that Rand was hypocritical even as you were the one to bring up the (apparent) anomaly of her voting in her time for the major party which in our time is more widely associated with the left. Not to be cutesy, but you do see that even to reject the hypocrisy charge requires you to traffic in subjective discourse about Objectivist history?

[Chrissy Hansen]

Interestingly enough however is the well known fact that Ayn Rand herself always claimed to have voted exclusively Democrat.

OK, so there's a fact claim about the human past (Ayn Rand's actually said this self-description of her voting record) and an implicit factual question (was her self-description accurate?). I would rate both the claim and the question as "objective" in character. Such things really happened as stated or else they did not.

I confess that I didn't know the well-known fact about Ayn Rand's self-description. As to the implicit question, of course, there is no durable trace of how any American votes, at least not in Rand's lifetime or since (unless she was speaking of her participation in Democratic party primaries, which would be a matter of public record, ... for the purposes of this post, I'll set that aside - I don't know the context of a remark which I don't know she made).

I can offer evidence against the accuracy of her self-descripton. In October 1972, she gave a talk ("A Nation's Unity") at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston Massachusetts which very strongly urged rejection of the Democrats' candidate for president that year (George McGovern). Although she ackowledged her lack of enthusiasm for Nixon (the Republicans' candidate), she clearly expressed her preference for him to McGovern. It doesn't follow that she voted for Nixon (perhaps she wrote in the Libertarians' John Hospers), but based on her speech a few weeks ahead of the election, there is a strong foundation for doubt that she voted for the Democrat McGovern and no foundation for her not having voted at all.

It could be that she made her autobiographical statement before 1972, and that it was accurate at the time she made it. That might be of interest, since there are some who would say that the Nixon-McGovern race marked the emergence of strong left-right "ideological" partisanship in the national elections of the United States.

That has some relevance for whether Rand's possible earlier embrace of the Democrats was "hypocritical." That question strikes me as a subjective matter. I don't propose to resolve it here, but only to point out that its resolution calls for more than even the most confident resolution of the fact questions about what she said about her voting record and when she said it. At a minimum, the analyst would need information about what the Democrats were "like" when (before 1972?) and where (California and then New York?) Rand enjoyed the franchise. Even to compile a "factual" summary of such information would require considerable subjective judgment in my view.

I suspect that you (Isayre) reject the proposition that Rand was hypocritical even as you were the one to bring up the (apparent) anomaly of her voting in her time for the major party which in our time is more widely associated with the left. Not to be cutesy, but you do see that even to reject the hypocrisy charge requires you to traffic in subjective discourse about Objectivist history?

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily characterize the questions as objective (all questions and claims come loaded with biases for their asking or assertion). But even more so, I think as you noted this rather readily demonstrates just how subjective the practice of history can be with these loose claims. We have to pick and choose how to deal with this claim, where to apply it in history and to what context, we have to realize the claim itself may be rooted in some subjective goals of the author Ayn Rand (if Ayn Rand ever even said this or acknowledged it at all, I can't find proof that she did), and then on top of this it kinda demonstrates just how subjective Ayn Rand as a person was... since she didn't follow her own tenets of Objectivity and pro-Capitalism.

[Paul the Uncertain]

(if Ayn Rand ever even said this or acknowledged it at all, I can't find proof that she did)

Me neither. Anne Heller, a biographer (Ayn Rand and the World She Made), was cited as saying that Rand supported Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign for his first term (apparently running as the low-tax, anti-war candidate), but in 1940 worked for the campaign of Roosevelt's Republican opponent, Wendell Wilkie.

Perhaps the time has come for @Isayre to cite a source for the remark.

[Leucius Charinus]

LC's arguments have forced me to go back and examine where I am coming from.

My view is that there are circumstances when even late manuscripts can be justified as evidence for much earlier times. I think it is necessary to carefully study those manuscripts to see if they are the kinds of writings that we would expect to find if they were forged in the fourth century.

I agree about the careful study however I'd further propose that it is necessary to classify the manuscripts on the basis of different authorships and chronologies. That is why I have proposed a simple classification:

1. NTC - NT Canonical literature
2. NTA - NT Apocryphal literature
3. EH - Ecclesiastical History

I can understand that everyone is highly interested in the NTC while fewer people are interested in all three. IMO the three classes are highly related but they are not written by the same "school of thought". Those who ended up preserving the NTC referred to the authors of the NTA as heretics. We learn this from a third group who, after or while, the NTC and the NTA were competing for circulation, authored the Christian "Ecclesiastical Histories" of Eusebius and his 5th century continuators. EH preserves many of the writings of the Ante Nicene, Nicene and Post Nicene "Fathers of the Church".

So if we were to "carefully study those manuscripts to see if they are the kinds of writings that we would expect to find if they were forged in the fourth century" we must be aware we have to ask this question about each of these three different classes.

Does this make sense?

I do not believe that we would expect a forger to write copious volumes that invent the minute details of opposing factions that were lost from view before the fourth century

My response is to put forward the notion that the opposing factions certainly existed but just not before the NTC was elevated to the purple. The Arian controversy was all about the books of the NTA (written by the Hellenistic / Graeco-Roman / "pagan" resistance) 325-336 CE as diverse responses to the NTC.

The details of the conflict was retrojected by those who prepared the history of the conflict as we now find it in the EH literature. They did not need to invent the diverse detail of opposing factions. They wanted to bury the opposition from history. They know that books like the Gospel of Judas (or any other of the hundreds of NTA books) could turn up and they would have to explain it. They did not want to report that this book was written in opposition to the emperor's agenda with the NTC. So they instead fabricated (within the EH) the literary source they called "Irenaeus" to attest to the existence of the Gospel of Judas more than a century earlier.

, or that forgers would write to each other contradictory theological views,

Again this question is to be applied to the three classes. Is this directed at the NTC or the NTA or the EH literature? All or all three?

or that they would redact each others' works as part of theological differences,

This sounds like the NTC but could also be applied to the authors of the NTA borrowing from other NTA books. Or it could refer to the apparent redaction between the NTC and Marcion and issues similar to this. Again class by class approach can clarify things.

or that some of their work would so closely align with specific historical conditions of the times of the Jewish wars.

Historical fiction may be the genre of all three classes NTC, NTA and EH. If you look at the NTA the historical fiction is set prior to the Roman genocide of Judea following the Bar Kochba Revolt . It is further set prior to 70 CE. The gospels are designed and fully intended to be eyewitnesses. Paul started churches after his vision. Acts is the Heroic Age of the Apostles.

The NTA are set all over the place in times. We know that many of the NTA are post Nicene. The EH of Eusebius was designed to provide a link between the Heroic Age in Acts and the Nicene Council (with its own historical, military and political conditions).

All of that kind of literature would not be expected from a forgery mill of the fourth century.

Again the literature should be faced class by class.

1. NTC: supposedly stopped at the close of the canon in the later 4th century but the church added bits and pieces probably for many centuries through to the Johnanine Comma. But it theoretically was "CLOSED" and stopped.

2. NTA: We already know alot of these books were authored in the 4th century. We need to examine the NHL more closely, But the NTA basically ceased authorship in the 4th century. It did not continue/

3. EH: This was supposedly written by Eusebius around the time of Constantine's ascendancy and supposedly Eusebius preserved legitimate sources except Josephus, Agbar's Letter, and another whole host of forged material some of which is listed in the thread "Non Christian witnesses to the historicity of Early Christians".

But the key point about 3.EH is that it continued to be written when NTC and NTA stopped. EH was continued in the 5th century and the church preserved all the sources so as to the legitimacy of the sources we can only guess. Stuff got added to the documents cited, quoted and mentioned by EH for centuries and centuries. This is a known fact.

A body of literature like that is best explained, in my view, as being a genuine product of a time of factional debates and evolving narratives that pre-date the fourth century.

To do the study justice it is my opinion that the Christian literature must be separated out into mutually exclusive classes as I have proposed. There will be some overlap which can be defined by a small set of texts. Unless these classes are approached as separate strands of an investigation everything becomes very unclear very quickly.


I have provided a post about this here:
viewtopic.php?p=144019#p144019