As the title amply explains, this is a follow-up to my most recent post, where I posed the question of whether or not the public controversy over black Confederates was beginning to distract historians from other issues or topics they hoped to raise about our Civil War history during the sesquicentennial. In this sense, I wondered if responding to this controversy was yielding diminishing returns for academic historians. This question fortunately spurred a long debate over at Civil War Memory and Crossroads. The resulting debate, as it spooled out initially in the comments section on Civil War Memory, seemed equal parts fruitful and contentious. It began with Kevin Levin's response to the question I posed, in which he argued that my question missed the mark, for it was important to respond to black Confederate claims on the web in order to create a vibrant counter-narrative or argument online that would redress the problem of digital illiteracy, where credulous readers assume a relatively high degree of authority and veracity in information they find on the internet, such as those sites that promote the black Confederate myth. He made a compelling case that educators and historians should seriously engage this problem of digital illiteracy.
Kevin's point is a valuable one, and one that caused me to clarify that what had brought me to this question was not the effectiveness of the ongoing response to the black Confederate myth by educators like him and learned Civil War enthusiasts and intellectuals. Rather, as this controversy has begun to come to the attention of "mainstream" digital and print media, how should historians respond to it, how should they handle it? Having heard from only a couple of historians who had misgivings about media requests to address this topic, I felt prompted to ask if "undue" media attention to this one topic stymie historians who wish to steer our public discussion of the Civil War toward other issues or larger themes. As I said in my initial post, I have not come to a conclusion about this, for the black Confederate controversy, if handled deftly, could just as well function as a starting point for just such an enlarged discussion. In other words, I guess I am asking just how historians might be able to acknowledge this controversy and respond to it without being trapped in a potentially endless debate over it.
As I said, I have not made up my own mind on this and do not have a strong sense of how even to evaluate the effectiveness of historians' engagement with this issue. Instead, I had hoped to generate a discussion about this issue, but I had had no inkling that it would lead to such a lengthy, thoughtful, serious, incisive, and even heated debate. Kevin Levin of course argued that engaging this topic online serves as a valuable and necessary contribution to public education. Especially with the proliferation of ever-changing online media and networking platforms, it is important for educators to develop their own digital literacy and learn how to use digital tools to engage varied audiences. I should add that this would be a valuable exercise whether historians wish to use these platforms to engage popular controversies or not. Matt Gallman also weighed in with a thoughtful question about the "audience" that historians reach through their blogs. Noting that we do not have good measures of who are reading these blogs, he suggested that it was possible that the black Confederate controversy was neither as public, nor as popular, as we might think. Rather, it might be an unending debate carried on by a small, but vocal, group whose voluminous blogs posts and comments belied their numbers and their larger impact. At the risk of any unintentional misrepresentation of their positions, Kevin and Brooks Simpson did not necessarily agree with this characterization, and both acknowledged that blogging itself is only one digital tool or platform through which to pursue our educative mission.
To me, Matt's question and Kevin and Brooks' responses actually dovetailed nicely with another theme that popped up later in the thread in a comment from Tim Orr: is there any way to assess what people think about this and other Civil War-related issues and what they learn from the online forums that engage such questions? I think this is an interesting question, in that new web formats likely will come with improving metric tools for assessing one's audience demographics. Brooks, however, also accurately pointed out that such an assessment of audience and "teaching effectiveness," need not be the only way to gauge the usefulness of historians' online intellectual endeavors. If one thinks of the web as a vast archive, simply by providing counter-arguments and opposing narratives to inaccurate and mythologizing online "history" sites, one is helping to build a store of knowledge that could teach web users how to read such sites with an appropriate skepticism and discrimination. This question led to yet another debate, at times spirited and other times tedious, which I don't need to get into here.
Overall, the discussion that emerged out of the initial question was, I think, immensely instructive, at least for me. Though Matt, Kevin, Brooks, and I came at this question from different angles and at times took opposing positions, one need not come down firmly on one side or another to gain something substantial from this debate. Though at times the discussion grew heated, it generally showcased the best that digital communication can offer: a lively exchange of serious and well-considered ideas and perspectives. Ultimately, I think these kinds of discussions are vital for helping historians crystallize their own ideas and strategies on how best to utilize online tools and participate in online communities animated by a sincere interest in history. It still will take me much time to become competent in using the ever-evolving digital tools that will have an increasing impact on education in the future; however, discussions such as these, where committed scholars and educators share their perspectives on digital strategies and their utility help to speed that process along for me and hopefully for others too.
Kevin's point is a valuable one, and one that caused me to clarify that what had brought me to this question was not the effectiveness of the ongoing response to the black Confederate myth by educators like him and learned Civil War enthusiasts and intellectuals. Rather, as this controversy has begun to come to the attention of "mainstream" digital and print media, how should historians respond to it, how should they handle it? Having heard from only a couple of historians who had misgivings about media requests to address this topic, I felt prompted to ask if "undue" media attention to this one topic stymie historians who wish to steer our public discussion of the Civil War toward other issues or larger themes. As I said in my initial post, I have not come to a conclusion about this, for the black Confederate controversy, if handled deftly, could just as well function as a starting point for just such an enlarged discussion. In other words, I guess I am asking just how historians might be able to acknowledge this controversy and respond to it without being trapped in a potentially endless debate over it.
As I said, I have not made up my own mind on this and do not have a strong sense of how even to evaluate the effectiveness of historians' engagement with this issue. Instead, I had hoped to generate a discussion about this issue, but I had had no inkling that it would lead to such a lengthy, thoughtful, serious, incisive, and even heated debate. Kevin Levin of course argued that engaging this topic online serves as a valuable and necessary contribution to public education. Especially with the proliferation of ever-changing online media and networking platforms, it is important for educators to develop their own digital literacy and learn how to use digital tools to engage varied audiences. I should add that this would be a valuable exercise whether historians wish to use these platforms to engage popular controversies or not. Matt Gallman also weighed in with a thoughtful question about the "audience" that historians reach through their blogs. Noting that we do not have good measures of who are reading these blogs, he suggested that it was possible that the black Confederate controversy was neither as public, nor as popular, as we might think. Rather, it might be an unending debate carried on by a small, but vocal, group whose voluminous blogs posts and comments belied their numbers and their larger impact. At the risk of any unintentional misrepresentation of their positions, Kevin and Brooks Simpson did not necessarily agree with this characterization, and both acknowledged that blogging itself is only one digital tool or platform through which to pursue our educative mission.
To me, Matt's question and Kevin and Brooks' responses actually dovetailed nicely with another theme that popped up later in the thread in a comment from Tim Orr: is there any way to assess what people think about this and other Civil War-related issues and what they learn from the online forums that engage such questions? I think this is an interesting question, in that new web formats likely will come with improving metric tools for assessing one's audience demographics. Brooks, however, also accurately pointed out that such an assessment of audience and "teaching effectiveness," need not be the only way to gauge the usefulness of historians' online intellectual endeavors. If one thinks of the web as a vast archive, simply by providing counter-arguments and opposing narratives to inaccurate and mythologizing online "history" sites, one is helping to build a store of knowledge that could teach web users how to read such sites with an appropriate skepticism and discrimination. This question led to yet another debate, at times spirited and other times tedious, which I don't need to get into here.
Overall, the discussion that emerged out of the initial question was, I think, immensely instructive, at least for me. Though Matt, Kevin, Brooks, and I came at this question from different angles and at times took opposing positions, one need not come down firmly on one side or another to gain something substantial from this debate. Though at times the discussion grew heated, it generally showcased the best that digital communication can offer: a lively exchange of serious and well-considered ideas and perspectives. Ultimately, I think these kinds of discussions are vital for helping historians crystallize their own ideas and strategies on how best to utilize online tools and participate in online communities animated by a sincere interest in history. It still will take me much time to become competent in using the ever-evolving digital tools that will have an increasing impact on education in the future; however, discussions such as these, where committed scholars and educators share their perspectives on digital strategies and their utility help to speed that process along for me and hopefully for others too.
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