A brief thought on this . . . . When people of my generation told the lords of our profession that we wanted to go into labor history, we were regularly told that what we proposed could not be done. History, the old-timers would say, required two written sources to prove that something had happened. Like two witnesses in a court of a law, get it? (For the present, I'm going to set aside the problems with written sources . . . .)
The legitimacy of sources should be understood in terms of the sources your subject is likely to generate and be preserved. Obviously, the further down the social pyramid one ventures--the more marginal your subjects to the concerns of the dominant classes--the slimmer the documentary record is going to be. Also the further back in time you go or the less settled and developed the society you're examining. (Maybe we have to get an understanding of the big picture based on archaeological or genetic evidence.) Or if you're looking into something for which the dominant institutions didn't want to leave a clear documentary record. And, yes, the whole thing always remains open to reconsideration if more information crops up. Considering this, it's obvious that you're not going to find much if you're looking at the underclass of a conquered population of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. Or what becomes a mass following disproportionately consisting of slaves, women and plebs generally. Maybe you're going to be left with songs and stories and never able to produce Simon Peter's Blockbuster video rental card. That doesn't mean that it's all a fluffy hallucination. Cheers, Mark L. PS: Like Mike, I remember finding Kautsky's ruminations very interesting.l -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#4791): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/4791 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/79204595/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
