WEBVTT NOTE Subjective Value Theory and the Problems of Public History 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.640 The subtitle for my paper, or the title is Subjective Value in Public History, the subtitle 2 00:00:05.640 --> 00:00:12.520 is How Private is Public History? And I'll start by describing what public history is. 3 00:00:12.520 --> 00:00:18.160 It's a discipline concerned with preserving and presenting the physical, visual and oral 4 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:23.280 memory of the past. And those who work in this field are ultimately concerned with determining 5 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:29.100 what has value, what of the past is worth saving. So to inform their decisions, people 6 00:00:29.100 --> 00:00:34.900 People like preservationists, museum workers, historic site managers, oral historians, archivists, 7 00:00:34.900 --> 00:00:35.900 etc. 8 00:00:35.900 --> 00:00:40.660 They gather the dispersed knowledge in society, interpret the values of culture, and shape 9 00:00:40.660 --> 00:00:43.340 the discourse about its continuation. 10 00:00:43.340 --> 00:00:48.600 Now, the goal of the public historian has always been to facilitate learning outside 11 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:50.100 of the classroom. 12 00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:54.300 The public history movement arose in the 1960s and 70s, it was born out of this academic 13 00:00:54.300 --> 00:01:01.740 job crisis, this lack of interest in the humanities, and it was hoped that public historians could 14 00:01:01.740 --> 00:01:06.060 become useful in public policies, in urban planning. 15 00:01:06.060 --> 00:01:08.540 This is why it was sometimes called applied history. 16 00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:14.220 They wanted to be like the social sciences, relevant and useful, unlike the humanities, 17 00:01:14.220 --> 00:01:15.980 according to them. 18 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:21.340 But in focusing on being useful, public historians all too often forgot to ask themselves if 19 00:01:21.340 --> 00:01:23.860 what they were doing was valuable. 20 00:01:23.860 --> 00:01:27.900 That is, they focus on the means to the end, the growth of their own field rather than 21 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:31.180 the end in itself, the value of the undertaking. 22 00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:36.060 And there's a great quote from 1982, a public historian who writes, one must, I think, be 23 00:01:36.060 --> 00:01:39.180 careful about how much we claim for history. 24 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:43.580 Oftentimes it is not relevant, not useful at all, at least in the narrow sense. 25 00:01:43.580 --> 00:01:47.220 History does have a place in business and urban planning and public works and policy 26 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:48.660 analysis, et cetera. 27 00:01:48.660 --> 00:01:52.920 Indeed, history has a place in everything, but we must not create a place for it that's 28 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:57.620 that's larger than it deserves just because we want a job, right? 29 00:01:57.620 --> 00:02:03.040 So he makes a strong point that at any time, any given time, society requires only so many 30 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:06.960 professional historians, and I know this is a hit for us professional historians, we professional 31 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:12.160 historians, and although I don't think we've reached this point yet, it is entirely possible 32 00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:18.240 to have too much history, right, to save too much, to forget that history is not the entirety 33 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:19.860 of culture. 34 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:26.380 So how then do we determine what knowledge of the past is worth saving? Free individuals 35 00:02:26.380 --> 00:02:30.860 working through the market will preserve only certain kinds of knowledge about the past. 36 00:02:30.860 --> 00:02:35.800 Certain powerful groups or persons may receive more attention at the expense of others. Public 37 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:41.220 historians, though, believe that when societies fail to produce inclusive history, the state 38 00:02:41.220 --> 00:02:47.460 should fund institutions to compensate. Armed with mantras about the common ownership of 39 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:52.660 of the Past. Public historians try to survey the values of all segments of society when 40 00:02:52.660 --> 00:02:58.180 determining how to create the best type of history. So this new discipline reversed the 41 00:02:58.180 --> 00:03:02.940 roles that existed in academia, where historical knowledge flowed from the historian, where 42 00:03:02.940 --> 00:03:08.320 you read the book or went home. Rather, in public history, the idea is to take the values 43 00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:15.800 of the public, interpret them through a public historian and then present it back, essentially 44 00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:21.800 Getting the Values of the People Reflected Through the Public Historians Work. 45 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:28.160 So questions of value are essential in public history, but this discipline presents an almost 46 00:03:28.160 --> 00:03:31.100 complete neglect of value theory. 47 00:03:31.100 --> 00:03:36.200 That is, public historians often discuss the value of objects, but they seldom inquire 48 00:03:36.200 --> 00:03:40.460 into what value is, the nature of value itself. 49 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:44.920 And my argument is that public historians should understand that value is subjective, 50 00:03:44.920 --> 00:03:49.680 that it derives from individuals, that it can be determined only through action. This 51 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:54.400 understanding will help them, to aid them in recognizing the origins of conflict in 52 00:03:54.400 --> 00:04:00.200 the field. So in what I will be presenting here, I will demonstrate how a few sub-fields 53 00:04:00.200 --> 00:04:05.440 of public history such as historic preservation, museum curation and archive management all 54 00:04:05.440 --> 00:04:12.500 face their own peculiar problems in determining value. In making public history responsible 55 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:18.300 to Human Valuations, successful public historians will be those that can properly judge the 56 00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:24.780 value society places on the past. But there is a deeper, more systematic level in which 57 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:32.980 the nature of value in public history is misunderstood. Public history has changed the rules of the 58 00:04:32.980 --> 00:04:38.020 game when it comes to how we preserve the past, but can the discipline actually claim 59 00:04:38.020 --> 00:04:42.820 seem to have produced valuable results. I argue that the effects of public history are 60 00:04:42.820 --> 00:04:48.380 at best complementary to what already takes place in the market, likely redundant and 61 00:04:48.380 --> 00:04:55.300 at worst an unnecessary taxpayer expense. Public history does not and indeed cannot 62 00:04:55.300 --> 00:04:59.980 create an all-inclusive story of the past in which the values of each person in society 63 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:06.940 are taken into account and represented. Rather, state-funded history benefits particular people 64 00:05:06.940 --> 00:05:09.860 and Interpretations at the Expense of Others. 65 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:11.380 This, of course, should not be surprising, 66 00:05:11.380 --> 00:05:14.720 especially to someone in, say, public choice economics, 67 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:17.740 since public historians like private historians 68 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:21.220 respond to incentives and have private motivations. 69 00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:25.660 In short, public historians are self-interested 70 00:05:25.660 --> 00:05:28.280 and private players expressing their own values 71 00:05:28.280 --> 00:05:30.900 in those of politically privileged groups 72 00:05:30.900 --> 00:05:33.240 in a publicly funded enterprise. 73 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:45.240 For some background in this, we have to look and understand subjective value theory and realize that its application goes further into all categories of human action. 74 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:55.240 The theory implies, for example, that historical objects and knowledge are preserved not for their own sake, but for their importance to human beings based on our value scales. 75 00:05:55.240 --> 00:06:08.240 and that conflicts arise because public historians are incapable of satisfying everyone, they are unable to know the value scales of every individual in society and how these change through time. Every person has unique values. 76 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:22.240 So in a world of limited resources where objects are valued subjectively, it is impossible to satisfy everyone. Some people may prefer preserving building A, others building B. 77 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:28.240 And if funds are only available for preserving one of the two buildings, one group will be upset. 78 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:35.240 So instead of having citizens vote on what is to be saved, public historians work for the government 79 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:43.240 and are informed by private and public interests to serve as arbiters in making decisions about what is valuable for the public. 80 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:49.240 This is a powerful role and one that I think requires a certain type of training. 81 00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:55.240 And I'll start by explaining a little bit of the problem of subjective value in historic preservation, 82 00:06:55.240 --> 00:07:01.240 a field that I think is the farthest from realizing the importance of subjective values, 83 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:08.240 because it's filled with poor incentives, unequal distribution of public funding, and relatively high costs. 84 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:12.240 There's also the indivisibility of the objects to be saved. 85 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:19.240 Incentives in the field encourage preservationists to save as much as possible without concern for other values. 86 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:29.240 Preservationists gain funding and prestige by saving more, not less, by encouraging tax dollars to come into their hands at the expense of other possible uses. 87 00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:35.240 The result is a discipline which all too often fails to compromise with the values of society, 88 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:39.240 in which it therefore has been incapable of fully gaining the confidence of the public. 89 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:46.240 It seems unfair to criticize practicing public historians for their desire to save the past at all costs, 90 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:50.240 especially since the field is new and there's lots of work yet to be done. 91 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:54.240 But the failure to recognize the necessity of compromise is glaring. 92 00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:03.240 And when I was here three years ago as a fellow in the summer at the Mises Institute, I presented a short story of this, and I think it still holds. 93 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:21.240 I was a graduate student in Florida and every year I would go down to the State Capitol building and witness the tourism public funding bonanza in which all the historic preservationists from around the state would come and fight for the state's money by presenting their best plan. 94 00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:27.240 Well, historic preservation of course is very important to Florida because it's tied into this tourism industry. 95 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:28.240 History. 96 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:33.680 And there's a state pamphlet from 2002 which concludes, of course written by the state, 97 00:08:33.680 --> 00:08:38.440 that historic preservation creates huge dividends for the Florida economy. 98 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:44.680 For each dollar generated, it says in Florida's historic preservation grants, $2 return to 99 00:08:44.680 --> 00:08:46.480 the state in direct revenue. 100 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:51.000 A dollar directed to the Florida Main Street Program modeled after the National Main Street 101 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:54.440 Program shows a tenfold return. 102 00:08:54.440 --> 00:09:00.220 So if the statistics are true, and the logic is sound, the conclusion valid, one wonders 103 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:03.920 if not all the resources of the state of Florida should be channeled through the Main Street 104 00:09:03.920 --> 00:09:12.160 program. The authors claim that historic preservation in Florida creates a direct impact of $350 105 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:18.400 million, and that spending through the multiplier effect creates $4.2 billion. Well, what the 106 00:09:18.400 --> 00:09:23.040 study fails to mention is that each dollar generated in the program is also taxed away 107 00:09:23.040 --> 00:09:50.040 The problem for the state's program is that there is no absolute measure of value, independent of the subjective preferences of its constituents, so each dollar spent in historic preservation might have been spent in health care or education. 108 00:09:50.040 --> 00:09:55.960 And when funds are directed towards preservation, who is to say that one dollar spent in preserving 109 00:09:55.960 --> 00:10:02.320 a bridge in Tampa is more valuable than preserving a school in a rural county? 110 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:07.760 So the difficulty here is determining how to come about the best way to measure this. 111 00:10:07.760 --> 00:10:11.600 You can measure it through surveys, you can measure it through democratic elections, but 112 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:17.200 it still doesn't meet and match the market. 113 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:21.240 One particular way is the contingent value method where you go and you survey people 114 00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:23.600 and you create rankings and preferences. 115 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:27.280 Of course, we can criticize this because we know the difference between cardinal and ordinal 116 00:10:27.280 --> 00:10:32.280 values, the impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons, and that all of this 117 00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:38.480 falls apart when you try to say, you know, how much does one person enjoy preserving 118 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:39.680 this building and how much does another? 119 00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:42.880 We can't compare these two things. 120 00:10:42.880 --> 00:10:49.720 Well, similar problems in subjective value occur at museums. If museums are to reflect 121 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:54.960 the desires of the audiences, they will operate much like a business in the market. However, 122 00:10:54.960 --> 00:11:00.840 we realize that museums aren't entirely profit, right? Some are for non-profit, some are funded 123 00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:06.500 by grants. And those that would exist in the market would only be run by either those which 124 00:11:06.500 --> 00:11:12.240 are grant funded or by those who are willing to pay. Now, public history proposes that 125 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:19.240 Public museums can get rid of conflict, can present a common past. Well, this we've seen 126 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:25.640 time and time again is not the case. The examples of conflict in museums, public museums are 127 00:11:25.640 --> 00:11:32.320 manifold. One example is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1960s in which they tried 128 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:38.920 to create an exhibit on Harlem and it presented the history of the Jews in Harlem. Well, the 129 00:11:38.920 --> 00:12:03.600 Conflict of course cannot be removed from museums entirely, regardless of who's at work there. 130 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:08.360 Lastly I want to talk quickly about archives, and I believe that archivists best understands 131 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:11.600 to the problems of subjective value, because they're constantly making small decisions 132 00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:15.840 about what to keep and what to value. But there's a few problems here with public archives 133 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:20.340 as well. First of all, we have private archives, institutional archives, which already provide 134 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:25.900 open access and allow people in the public to place things in their collections. Public 135 00:12:25.900 --> 00:12:31.880 archives can be run with political bias. We see states, former Soviet Union states that 136 00:12:31.880 --> 00:12:36.680 you can't access the collections, etc. And the questions about value in archives are 137 00:12:36.680 --> 00:12:41.640 are still made by individuals. So even if it's publicly funded, you still have bias 138 00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:54.880 in who is creating and controlling the archives. Well, let me go towards closer to my conclusion, 139 00:12:54.880 --> 00:13:00.840 not quite yet. But in valuing the past, in determining the value of an object, whether 140 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:06.540 Here it's a museum artifact, a collection of newspapers. We have to realize that these 141 00:13:06.540 --> 00:13:11.600 values change from individuals, that they can move and fall, that these are economic 142 00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:17.180 goods characterized as both valuable and scarce, and that historic economic, historic objects 143 00:13:17.180 --> 00:13:22.520 are economic goods because they have this trait of being historic. This is, this is 144 00:13:22.520 --> 00:13:28.200 their value. So this question of who owns the past is both loaded and ambiguous. First 145 00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:32.360 Most it assumes that history can be owned, or that somebody already owns it. But it is 146 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:36.920 an important distinction here to be made between physical property which can be owned and intangible 147 00:13:36.920 --> 00:13:44.240 ideas which nobody can claim ultimate authority over. So all these talks about who owns the 148 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:51.280 past and who controls it, I think, are misled. The end goal of presenting the past is in 149 00:13:51.280 --> 00:13:56.560 relating knowledge to the audience. So public historians have to recognize that they can't 150 00:13:56.560 --> 00:14:03.360 Save Everything, there's trade-offs, and in the end, what we believe is important, what we value is what should be saved. 151 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:07.920 I think the folklorist Henry Glassi put it best, he's a hero of mine, he says, 152 00:14:07.920 --> 00:14:10.140 The reason that we study people 153 00:14:10.140 --> 00:14:13.880 is not to produce more entries for the central file, 154 00:14:13.880 --> 00:14:17.340 or more trinkets from a lord's cabinet of curiosities. 155 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:21.720 It is to stimulate thought, to assure us that there are things that we do not know, 156 00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:23.740 things that we must know, things 157 00:14:23.740 --> 00:14:27.380 capable of unsettling the world we inhabit. 158 00:14:27.380 --> 00:14:30.980 So to conclude, publicly funded public history 159 00:14:30.980 --> 00:14:32.900 cannot create a common past. 160 00:14:32.900 --> 00:14:36.220 It does not remove conflict over historical interpretation. 161 00:14:36.220 --> 00:14:39.060 Instead, it shifts decision making from the market 162 00:14:39.060 --> 00:14:40.740 to the political sphere. 163 00:14:40.740 --> 00:14:43.980 Public historians are not unself-interested players 164 00:14:43.980 --> 00:14:45.020 in this game. 165 00:14:45.020 --> 00:14:46.740 They seek advantages for themselves 166 00:14:46.740 --> 00:14:48.700 and for their constituent groups. 167 00:14:48.700 --> 00:14:50.860 A misunderstanding of the nature of value 168 00:14:50.860 --> 00:14:52.700 undergirds this framework. 169 00:14:52.700 --> 00:14:58.900 Public history does not represent the people after all, but the subjective values of particular 170 00:14:58.900 --> 00:15:03.140 public historians whose views are acceptable in the public sphere. 171 00:15:03.140 --> 00:15:04.020 Thanks for your patience.