Joan W. Scott's essay "The Evidence of Experience" throws into question the foundational nature of experience in the context of history. She argues that what may at first seem a straightforward cause-and-effect type relationship between evidence and history--a pre-constructed historical subject experiences an event and documents it, then a historian collects a broad body of these experiences into an overarching historical narrative--is really more complex; the experience of a historical subject is actually constructed by the subject just as the subject is constructed by his or her experience as well as a broader social discourse. Subjects are created when they are defined and restricted by social categories, and thus a woman's (substitute any social category you'd like here: working class mother, gay black man, etc.) experience is always already affected by the social discourse through which she defines herself and at the same time contributes to and redefines the discourse by which it is affected. Scott suggests that the traditional concept of history--a series of empirical facts linked together in a causal narrative--can never be empirical, then, as it assumes experience is objective (which it isn't); she argues then for the study of a type of metahistory, or the history of the construction and interpretation of the relationship between identity, experience, and social discourse: she argues that "historians [should] take as their project not the reproduction and transmission of knowledge said to be arrived at through experience, but the analysis of the production of that knowledge itself. Such an analysis would constitute a genuinely nonfoundational history" (412).
This mode of historiography--analyzing the production of knowledge and identity rather than seemingly empirical facts themselves--provides an interesting lens through which to read Ruth Brandon's Governess. Brandon presents the stories of her chosen governesses through a combination of primary sources (direct transcriptions of letters, diaries, etc.) and her own paraphrased narration of these sources. This style of writing presents a unique juxtaposition of both historical and contemporary conceptions of class, femininity, and proper social relations in general.
For example, Brandon directly quotes Caroline Norton, a feminist legal activist of sorts who was still strongly indoctrinated in the idea of male superiority: "'The wild and stupid theories advanced by a few women of "equal rights" and "equal intelligence", are not the opinions of their sex. I for one (I, with millions more), beliece in the natural superiority of man as I do in the existence of God'" (183). This is prefaced by Brandon's own emotionally loaded narration--"women had trule to believe that they could never be men's equal. Even that doughty political operator Caroline Norton, whose suffering at the hands of her vindictive husband was known to all the world..." (183, emphasis mine)--that clearly suggests she 1.) believes in the possible equality of men and women and 2.) looks down on Norton in a sense for her masochistic complicity in patriarchal oppression. We can see a clear progression in conceptions of femininity and "proper" gender politics from Norton to Brandon in the space of a few lines; this, I think, represents the metahistorical analysis of identity formation for which Scott argues to an extent.
To conclude this post, I'd just like to bring up one issue that I have with Scott's argument. Although metahistory may very well represent the only form of objective historical narrative, how could a history of history (here I mean the general social and ideological structures and convictions of a given time period) exist without some sort of foundational assumption? To create a system of ideological assumptions about identity to begin with, one must base categories of identity on an empirical (or seemingly empirical) foundation (i.e. social categories can only be generated on the basis of something, traditionally experience); the analysis of the progression of these systems is all well and good, but it presupposes the existence of these systems, which have to come from somewhere. Scott's call for the creation of an objective history in this sense is like calling for the creation of an objective brand of literary theory without acknowledging the existence of literary texts. Thus Scott's super-abstraction of history--the history of a history based on experience--still relies on subjective experience, and therefore any logical abstractions based on subjective experience (even an interpretation of an interpretation of experience) must still be subjective.
Hi Patrick,
ReplyDeleteVery thoughtful post here (and throughout your blogging history). I like your analysis of the Brandon/Norton interaction, and I do think it provides some insight into Scott's ideas about evidence/experience. I wonder, too, if Scott's work provides a way for us to think more critically about our own tendencies to view history progressively (as in--those older women weren't "good" feminists because they weren't enlightened about gender equality as we are). For instance, if Brandon is really able to point out the ways in which patriarchal authority/oppression functioned differently in Norton's time, this would ask us to think through her words differently (historically contextually) and not ahistorically, right? It seems that in this way, we are able to work with many more perspectives historically without fear that we must discount them based on their inability to live up to certain theoretical/gender ideals that we hold today.
As regards your final paragraph: I'm not sure Scott's argument presupposes the existence of social systems that construct individual identity as much as it considers identity as a fluid space that is always in conversation with and impacted by social systems (a la someone like Foucault). To me, this doesn't say that we're relying (problematically) on subjectivity. Instead, her ideas seem to me to point out that what we term "subjective" is always in fact a process of complicated interaction (and often inextricable interaction) between subject and context that does not exist in a self and self alone vacuum. Does this make sense? That is, I don't think that it matters to Scott that history is subjective--what matters to her, I think, is that we call something objective or individual when in fact it is social and relational.
In this sense, I see Scott calling for a kind of literary theory that does not ignore literary texts, nor does it think of literary texts coming in tact BEFORE theory. Rather, it would call for a kind of literary theory that recognizes the ways in which literature has enabled certain theoretical ideas and how theoretical ideas have enabled certain literary pieces, and so on and so on.
Hope this helps! Keep up the excellent work!
Best,
Dr. Renzi
I definitely find your analogy of literary theory useful, and I think that it gestures toward an entire tradition of Foucauldian thought to which Scott is heavily indebted for her ideas on identity multiplicity and the "historical sense" (Nietzsche's words) as a mode of deconstructive metacriticism. This still leaves an unresolved question for me in her work, however--one that I tried to articulate in my post but mangled horribly in the attempt.
ReplyDeleteI was looking at my own personal notes on Scott's article rather than the text itself as I wrote this post (I know--shame, shame) and mistakenly thought she used the term "objective" to describe her reconceptualization of history. She rather uses the phrase "nonfoundational history," implying that her methods of historical analysis and construction transcend a restrictive narrative framework. I still find this problematic: what is Foucault's conception of unintegrated identity or his belief in the motivation of history by violent confrontation and chance--"What Nietzsche calls the Entstehungsherd...is not specifically the energy of the strong or the reaction of the weak, but precisely this scene where they are displayed superimposed or face-to-face" ("Nietzsche, Genealogy, History", pg. 84 in The Foucault Reader ed. by Paul Rabinow)--but a structural paradigm through which to view the world? Even this assumption of the interrelatedness of discourse and experience constitutes a type of structure, whether philosophical, historical, literary, and sociopolitical.
Hey Patrick--so if I'm understanding correctly, you're taking issue w/ the notion that what Scott proposes (or Foucault, etc) is "nonfoundational history" because it relies of a type of structure (whether that be JUST experience vs. experience/discourse intermixing, etc), right? (If not, correct me...). In this sense, I think you're pointing out something valuable--that the structure that folks like Scott and Foucault is just as evident/supportive as evidence alone. Which is absolutely right. Where I think there might be confusion (and sorry I didn't catch this earlier) is that when Scott invokes nonfoundationalism, she's (I think) referencing a particular category of philosophical thought with which folks like Foucault and Nietzsche are both affiliated. So, for philosophers, to be a "foundationalist" is to believe in the justification of certain beliefs that we understand as basic and foundational so that when we're talking about what we know, we don't constantly have to defend (justify) WHY we know these things. It's basically to avoid having to constantly respond to the two year old in the room who keeps asking "why?" after each answer. For foundationalists, a basic belief would likely have to do w/ 1. mental thoughts (a la rationalism) or 2. sensory experience/empiricism (hence where Scott's critique of calling experience "evidence" comes in) that are supposed to be self-evidently justified and thus not in need of defense. Folks like F and N both would argue that that two year old is, annoyingly, right to keep asking why, as there are no "assumed" beliefs we can take for granted as self-justifying (or without need of justification) on the basis of their self-evidence or origin in bodily experience. So I think that your own notion that Scott is pointing to a structure w/i nonfoundationalism is quite right, but not necessarily a contradiction to the adjective "nonfoundational". F/N/S would, I think, all argue that their paradigms have structures, just not ones that have self-evident beliefs at the core (unless you count the lack of a self-evident belief as a self-evident belief, but then I think we're mired endlessly...)
DeleteAgain, let me know if I'm still not quite getting at your issue here or if it would be helpful to talk this out in person. Actually, talking might make more sense than writing. It often does...that's what makes theory such a challenge!
Best,
Dr. Renzi
The "endless miring" is really more what I was focusing on-- that even a refusal of axiom-based reasoning is itself axiomatic in its assumption of the invalidity of axioms. But this is probably getting a little outside of the scope of Scott's essay in the context of ENG 482 and more into the realm of my personal struggles with the paradoxes of postmodern philosophy/literary theory/historiography/etc. in general. So I'd be happy to leave this conversation where it is, but I'd also be happy to talk to you after class/in office hours some time if I'm totally missing the mark with my interpretations here.
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