Patahistory Manifesto
(Here's the first draft for the Patahistory Manifesto. Please argue, quibble, question, reject, contradict, agree, enhance, comment or recreate as you see fit in the comments. Look for the next iteration in January. Thank you.)
Patahistory:
A Positive Manifesto for Time Travel, Immersive History and Synchronic Societies
1. The Beginning of History
Patahistory is the beginning of history.
Today's historical works are written for contemporary consumers, Patahistorical works are created for future Patahistorians. The Patahistorian expects his or her work to be changed, to be altered, reworked, and revised. The Patahistorian expects an open and democratic editing of raw history. Patahistory celebrates open-source archives and creative commons works.
Patahistory rejects all "post" categories. Post-colonialism, -modernism, -feminism, -masculinism, -romanticism, -structuralism, -etceteraism, while not dead, are weary and should be allowed to rest. Patahistory, however, does not suggest ignoring the Posties. Patahistory cheerfully embraces post categories, just as it good-naturedly works with rationalism, romanticism, science, reason, faith, magic and other ways of knowing. Patahistory rejects either/or distinctions for both/and inclusion.
Patahistory is a history of imaginary solutions and creative acts.
Historians don't think big enough or small enough. Billion year histories are just as important as histories of this morning.
Historians are bound up in the present. Patahistorians are bound up in the long duree (but in both the Braudelian sense, and the Stewart Brandian "long now" sense).
Historians do not work for future historians. They see that as the job of the archivist. Patahistorians work today for the Patahistorians of tomorrow. Since it is impossible to know what will be important to tomorrow's Patahistorian, EVERYTHING is important to today's Patahistorian, not just the histories that help explain how we got into this mess.
Patahistory is a team sport, more interested in wikis than tomes. How is Patahistory done? By pata-analysis of wikiarchives, and the creation of immersive historical environments. The Patahistorian is blazing new trails through the participatory panopticon.
Patahistory cannot be complete without considering its own dark side. Patahistory demands new anxieties – pata-anxieties. The anxieties of previous historians are not those of the Patahistorian. Patahistorians are less concerned about truth, tenure and publishing, than they are about collaboration, synchronic cultures and making bank.
For the Patahistorian, conversations revolve around the beginning of history instead of the end of history. The future is plural, and our teleologies are manifold. If there is currently an end to history it is that the discipline as we know it is ending. The next generation of historians will have to find new ways of dealing with avalanches of information. Archival material will take on a whole new meaning, as will veracity. We are entering a period when everything is documented and time-stamped. This time-stamped society is what is meant by the Synchronic Society. How will future historians deal with this overabundance of information?
Patahistory is a ludic history. College textbooks do not arouse interest in history. People, stories and freakish behavior attract interest. Moral tales attract interest. Syllabi and textbook intros are littered with historian’s hopes that their writing and teaching will somehow transform the learning of history into something fun! They then proceed to write and talk about war, disease, starvation and oppression. Only perverse and idiosyncratic minds (the current state of the historian) want to learn more about this miserable past. Where are the jokes? The songs? The dancing? Where is the can-do spirit of enthusiasm? Must every optimism be overshadowed by the evil humanity commits? Isn't play also part of the human condition?
History as it is currently produced is boring. Genealogy is the single most popular historical pursuit, yet historians neglect it and then wonder why people have no interest in history. Historians simultaneously disdain popular histories and yearn for popular success. Patahistory is the reverse. It disdains success and yearns for popular histories.
Patahistory is abderitic. The trajectory of Patahistory is not up or down, but both simultaneously. Taking a cue from the Abderitic philosopher Democritus, Patahistory is the laughing history.
In 1896 Alfred Jarry coined the word 'pataphysics to describe a whimsical "science of imaginary solutions." From that, Patahistory was created to describe the history of imaginary solutions. Secret histories lead to secret futures. Patahistory exists to make these invisible secret futures visible by revealing invisible secret pasts.
We are not at the end of history, but at its beginning.
2. The Assassination of Jacques Derrida Considered as a Hijacked Plane Deconstructed Into His Soulless Text
Patahistorians create immersive environments as a way of experiencing history. Hermeneutic arguments over texts are finished. Derrida is dead.
3. The Invention of Time Travel: Historicizing the Environment & the Ethics of Patahistory
Patahistory has a quotidian relationship with time. The Patahistorian's most damning accusation against practitioners of history is that they have failed to invent time travel! This is appalling.
It is reasonable to think that the issue of time travel is a joke, but it is not. Time travel is the cornerstone of Patahistory. The invention of time travel will not help us see into the past that has already past. The Patahistorian will turn today's participatory panopticon into an immersive environment available to tomorrow's Patahistorians. Time travel is possible and Patahistorians will create it.
Naysayers should keep in mind that telepathy was once considered a ludicrous impossibility. But, electronic telepathy is now an undeniable fact.
Patahistory recognizes a world becoming increasingly transparent. This creates profound ethical questions. How would the discipline of history change if a time-viewer, or immersive historical environment, were invented? If all of the past could be revealed? This is the Patahistorians' thought experiment. Patahistorians grapple anew with problems of ethics and privacy. Suppose we had a time viewer and could watch every moment of the past on every inch of the globe. Are there some topics we should refrain from writing about? What about people who are still alive? What about our own embarrassing moments? Should history be restricted to that time before anyone now living was born?
What are the ethical rules if we invent a time viewer capable of viewing every past moment? How close to the present can we watch? Do certain classes of viewers have special access to recent moments? What are the penalties for misuse? What if this time viewer is open source and all privacy vanishes?
Patahistory embraces all of time and thinking about time. Patahistory utilizes theories of time as instruments of its philosophical inquiry.
4. Patahistory and the Synchronic Society, or Making Bank (The Monetization of History)
Our developing synchronic society is riddled with bits of technological material chronicling its own existence. Tracking and interpreting this wealth of information will be the role of the Synchronic Historian, a practitioner of Patahistory. A Synchronic Historian creates histories of current things. A Synchronic Historian is a new category of professional historian. Synchronic Historians develop ways to track histories as they're happening.
Our world is increasingly digitally recorded. What is/will be the effect of cheap digital recording on the discipline of history? It is the responsibility of the future Patahistorian to sort through this overwhelming amount of material. How do you do history when everything is recorded? The problems of source abundance demand creative solutions only Patahistorians can provide.
When every person is truly his and her own historian, what will that mean? What will it look like when history is open and transparent and available to all? The casual consumer of history will want to sort past experiences, both their own and the experiences of others. These new consumers of history will want search functions, export capabilities and privacy screens.
These are the sort of issues the Synchronic Historian will grapple with. This conflation of synchronic societies and Patahistory will be the road to riches for some.
5. Patahistory and Current Situationism – The Patahistorical Responsibility for Creating Cultural Metanarratives
Historians suffer from a critical failure of imagination.
The works of History are saturated with failures of imagination. These histories in turn become the metanarrative for our current age.
Patahistorians are deliberately aware of creating the future. Students look to historians for their cultural metanarrative. They accept or reject current events based on the history they are taught. Creativity and imagination are primary tools of the Patahistorian. The Patahistorian of today helps create the metahistory of tomorrow.
Among the many histories created by Patahistory, it also creates histories that do not directly address any current situation. The future is difficult to predict and there is little way of knowing what histories it might want to draw on. Patahistory works to enhance the metanarratives of tomorrow by creating as robust a history as possible. It is difficult to discuss 10,000 year futures when we don't teach and write 10,000 year histories. By creating histories that only reach into the relatively recent past, we are creating metanarratives that can only see into the relatively near future.
Patahistory signals the end of history as we know it.
Welcome to the beginning of history!
A Positive Manifesto for Time Travel, Immersive History and Synchronic Societies
1. The Beginning of History
Patahistory is the beginning of history.
Today's historical works are written for contemporary consumers, Patahistorical works are created for future Patahistorians. The Patahistorian expects his or her work to be changed, to be altered, reworked, and revised. The Patahistorian expects an open and democratic editing of raw history. Patahistory celebrates open-source archives and creative commons works.
Patahistory rejects all "post" categories. Post-colonialism, -modernism, -feminism, -masculinism, -romanticism, -structuralism, -etceteraism, while not dead, are weary and should be allowed to rest. Patahistory, however, does not suggest ignoring the Posties. Patahistory cheerfully embraces post categories, just as it good-naturedly works with rationalism, romanticism, science, reason, faith, magic and other ways of knowing. Patahistory rejects either/or distinctions for both/and inclusion.
Patahistory is a history of imaginary solutions and creative acts.
Historians don't think big enough or small enough. Billion year histories are just as important as histories of this morning.
Historians are bound up in the present. Patahistorians are bound up in the long duree (but in both the Braudelian sense, and the Stewart Brandian "long now" sense).
Historians do not work for future historians. They see that as the job of the archivist. Patahistorians work today for the Patahistorians of tomorrow. Since it is impossible to know what will be important to tomorrow's Patahistorian, EVERYTHING is important to today's Patahistorian, not just the histories that help explain how we got into this mess.
Patahistory is a team sport, more interested in wikis than tomes. How is Patahistory done? By pata-analysis of wikiarchives, and the creation of immersive historical environments. The Patahistorian is blazing new trails through the participatory panopticon.
Patahistory cannot be complete without considering its own dark side. Patahistory demands new anxieties – pata-anxieties. The anxieties of previous historians are not those of the Patahistorian. Patahistorians are less concerned about truth, tenure and publishing, than they are about collaboration, synchronic cultures and making bank.
For the Patahistorian, conversations revolve around the beginning of history instead of the end of history. The future is plural, and our teleologies are manifold. If there is currently an end to history it is that the discipline as we know it is ending. The next generation of historians will have to find new ways of dealing with avalanches of information. Archival material will take on a whole new meaning, as will veracity. We are entering a period when everything is documented and time-stamped. This time-stamped society is what is meant by the Synchronic Society. How will future historians deal with this overabundance of information?
Patahistory is a ludic history. College textbooks do not arouse interest in history. People, stories and freakish behavior attract interest. Moral tales attract interest. Syllabi and textbook intros are littered with historian’s hopes that their writing and teaching will somehow transform the learning of history into something fun! They then proceed to write and talk about war, disease, starvation and oppression. Only perverse and idiosyncratic minds (the current state of the historian) want to learn more about this miserable past. Where are the jokes? The songs? The dancing? Where is the can-do spirit of enthusiasm? Must every optimism be overshadowed by the evil humanity commits? Isn't play also part of the human condition?
History as it is currently produced is boring. Genealogy is the single most popular historical pursuit, yet historians neglect it and then wonder why people have no interest in history. Historians simultaneously disdain popular histories and yearn for popular success. Patahistory is the reverse. It disdains success and yearns for popular histories.
Patahistory is abderitic. The trajectory of Patahistory is not up or down, but both simultaneously. Taking a cue from the Abderitic philosopher Democritus, Patahistory is the laughing history.
In 1896 Alfred Jarry coined the word 'pataphysics to describe a whimsical "science of imaginary solutions." From that, Patahistory was created to describe the history of imaginary solutions. Secret histories lead to secret futures. Patahistory exists to make these invisible secret futures visible by revealing invisible secret pasts.
We are not at the end of history, but at its beginning.
2. The Assassination of Jacques Derrida Considered as a Hijacked Plane Deconstructed Into His Soulless Text
Patahistorians create immersive environments as a way of experiencing history. Hermeneutic arguments over texts are finished. Derrida is dead.
3. The Invention of Time Travel: Historicizing the Environment & the Ethics of Patahistory
Patahistory has a quotidian relationship with time. The Patahistorian's most damning accusation against practitioners of history is that they have failed to invent time travel! This is appalling.
It is reasonable to think that the issue of time travel is a joke, but it is not. Time travel is the cornerstone of Patahistory. The invention of time travel will not help us see into the past that has already past. The Patahistorian will turn today's participatory panopticon into an immersive environment available to tomorrow's Patahistorians. Time travel is possible and Patahistorians will create it.
Naysayers should keep in mind that telepathy was once considered a ludicrous impossibility. But, electronic telepathy is now an undeniable fact.
Patahistory recognizes a world becoming increasingly transparent. This creates profound ethical questions. How would the discipline of history change if a time-viewer, or immersive historical environment, were invented? If all of the past could be revealed? This is the Patahistorians' thought experiment. Patahistorians grapple anew with problems of ethics and privacy. Suppose we had a time viewer and could watch every moment of the past on every inch of the globe. Are there some topics we should refrain from writing about? What about people who are still alive? What about our own embarrassing moments? Should history be restricted to that time before anyone now living was born?
What are the ethical rules if we invent a time viewer capable of viewing every past moment? How close to the present can we watch? Do certain classes of viewers have special access to recent moments? What are the penalties for misuse? What if this time viewer is open source and all privacy vanishes?
Patahistory embraces all of time and thinking about time. Patahistory utilizes theories of time as instruments of its philosophical inquiry.
4. Patahistory and the Synchronic Society, or Making Bank (The Monetization of History)
Our developing synchronic society is riddled with bits of technological material chronicling its own existence. Tracking and interpreting this wealth of information will be the role of the Synchronic Historian, a practitioner of Patahistory. A Synchronic Historian creates histories of current things. A Synchronic Historian is a new category of professional historian. Synchronic Historians develop ways to track histories as they're happening.
Our world is increasingly digitally recorded. What is/will be the effect of cheap digital recording on the discipline of history? It is the responsibility of the future Patahistorian to sort through this overwhelming amount of material. How do you do history when everything is recorded? The problems of source abundance demand creative solutions only Patahistorians can provide.
When every person is truly his and her own historian, what will that mean? What will it look like when history is open and transparent and available to all? The casual consumer of history will want to sort past experiences, both their own and the experiences of others. These new consumers of history will want search functions, export capabilities and privacy screens.
These are the sort of issues the Synchronic Historian will grapple with. This conflation of synchronic societies and Patahistory will be the road to riches for some.
5. Patahistory and Current Situationism – The Patahistorical Responsibility for Creating Cultural Metanarratives
Historians suffer from a critical failure of imagination.
The works of History are saturated with failures of imagination. These histories in turn become the metanarrative for our current age.
Patahistorians are deliberately aware of creating the future. Students look to historians for their cultural metanarrative. They accept or reject current events based on the history they are taught. Creativity and imagination are primary tools of the Patahistorian. The Patahistorian of today helps create the metahistory of tomorrow.
Among the many histories created by Patahistory, it also creates histories that do not directly address any current situation. The future is difficult to predict and there is little way of knowing what histories it might want to draw on. Patahistory works to enhance the metanarratives of tomorrow by creating as robust a history as possible. It is difficult to discuss 10,000 year futures when we don't teach and write 10,000 year histories. By creating histories that only reach into the relatively recent past, we are creating metanarratives that can only see into the relatively near future.
Patahistory signals the end of history as we know it.
Welcome to the beginning of history!
posted by Dave at 10:08 AM
11 Comments:
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
(Seriously, I like this a lot. Especially because I can't quite tell where you're serious and where you're having me on. More feedback later, I hope.)
I'm having trouble distinguishing between the serious and fun myself!
All of the responses I've received have been excellent, and I think the next iteration will be much more clear.
(Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment. Almost every criticism was spot on.)
I'll post a more clear version this weekend.
And then there will be a more serious version after the end of this semester, which I hope will mix in a little more seriousness (but, not too much!)
For example, I need to define more clearly what a "time machine/time viewer" would look like, and I want to distinguish the patahistorical responsibilities to the past/present/future.
Patahistorians will end history conferences as we now know them.
Facinating! I am trying to understand: I assume
you are not intentionally changing history or fabricating it, but acknowledging that it is dynamic and multiple perspectives are needed for a clearer picture. Am I close? Also, please explain the "pata" in patahistory.
Dynamic and multiple perspectives are excellent characterizations of what I'm aiming toward. And it's also accurate to say that there is a pragmatic concern with truth. While acknowledging the slipperiness of the term viewed close-up, there is a truth that we can all agree can be found in cookbooks and engineering manuals.
Pata - is a tough prefix to pin down, which makes it so attractive. I first became aware of it through Alfred Jarry's term "'pataphysics," which he defines as a science of imaginary solutions.
The "pata" prefix is also found in Patagonia, the meaning of which is disputed (though "big foot/feet" is a common interpretation). It seems reasonable to me that "pata" and "pedi" share a similar root.
I am sorry writing it, but you are not the first to think of 'patahistory. It has quite a long tradition in Europe, though there is little about it in the net.
"La patahistoire est a l’histoire ce que la pataphysique est a la physique, le petit patapon au petit pont de bois, le pataques a la caisse de patates." (see: http://www.passion-histoire.net).
Moreover, your understanding of 'patahistory (according to the manifesto) is not compatible with Alfred Jarry "'pata-" (and with the ideas of his followers).
But, maybe there is a place for 'PATAHISTORY and for PATAHISTORY of yours.
Thanks, Kuzerka! You're absolutely correct.
An early post, way back at the beginning of this blog, explained how I came to be inspired by Jarry. I am aware of the long and exalted place his thought holds in the European imagination. I am also aware that my humble offerings are not in alignment with much of 20th century 'pataphysical thought.
For my defense let me recommend re-reading Dr. Faustroll. I believe there is a lot of sympathy between that work and the Patahistory manifesto.
Thanks again for commenting!
If you have not, you should read a short story called "The Teosinte War" by Paul Melko. It is available in a collection called FutureShocks published by Roc. It is in relation to what you said about the affect time travel would have on the work of an historian. You will enjoy it I'm sure.
excellent! thanks. I'll look for it at the library tomorrow.
Are We going with 'patahistory or Patahistory? Or should we leave that up to the future historians?
That is an excellent question!
I think that instead of an either/or kind of situation, we should embrace them both.
I'm not sure exactly what the distinction is between the two, but I bet someone else does. Or at least someone other than me can conjure up a distinction.
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