Historical science does not aim for “truth”, if by that we mean an integral, unanimous and definitive interpretation of the past, attested in multiple ways. However, it seeks objectivity and accuracy. However, as soon as we want to give meaning to a phenomenon of a certain scope, complexity and disagreements arise. Here is an example.
Two theses on the inferiority of French Canadians
Several clues confirm the economic and social inferiority of French Canadians before the Quiet Revolution. This subject is unanimous among specialists. However, for decades, the explanation of this phenomenon has remained a place of deep division.
Two interpretations clash. According to a first current identified with what is called the Montreal School, the main cause lies with British imperialism, its extensions in the Confederation of 1867 and beyond. Attention is then focused on the harmful effects of the Conquest and all the manifestations of colonialism which followed at the expense of French-speakers.
The thesis blames monopolies on industry, commerce and finance, barriers to social mobility, unequal access to public resources, English-only business networks and other forms of discrimination. To this we add the very negative image that the dominants have conceived of French Canadians (and which they would have ended up internalizing).
The second current is usually associated with the Historical School of Quebec to which François-Olivier Dorais has just devoted a solid study (Boréal). This trend opens a very different path: French Canadians would themselves be responsible for their ills by virtue of the bad collective choices they made: the place given to an overly conservative and authoritarian Church, the support for poorly enlightened elites. , adherence to an archaic nationalism, attachment to ruralism, too little literacy, a culture little focused on material values.
These factors would have combined with overly rigid customs, myths or obsolete values (the chosen people, the pure race, the revenge of the cradles, etc.), a very strict conception of the social hierarchy, or an entire unadapted imagination, at the door -at odds with the challenges of the times focused on industry, technology, knowledge, individualism, competition and change. In short, the French Canadians would have doomed themselves to a fate of losers. The thesis of colonialism would have provided them with a convenient alibi to hide their faults by making the Englishman a scapegoat.
One might believe that this disagreement is remediable. It would be enough to reduce the ideological part of the debate which hardens the arguments present. We would thus purify it of an influence which does not accord well with the spirit of science. We would only retain from each thesis the best established elements, we would remove the doubtful empirical bases and the misleading sequences. We could then design bridges, compromises leading to a merger of the two paths.
Social roots
Such arbitration is illusory. We are talking here about important collective episodes which have left deep scars. Inevitably, this type of research remains dependent on ideological and political divides within society itself and not only in the opinions of researchers. In investigations of this type, the postulates, hypotheses and demonstrations involve important socio-political issues, convictions and feelings welded to personal commitments.
The limits of historical science
However, it would be wrong to conclude from this that history is not a science. The nature of the object under study must be taken into account. The historian does not work on a matter governed by laws like that of gravity. Human behavior is not predictable like the movements of the planets. And except for the economy and demography, they are difficult to quantify and do not always lend themselves to the establishment of causal chains.
Human beings are a place of complexity, of contradiction, of apparently non-rational choices obeying forces that are often indecipherable.
The researcher’s work is therefore condemned to a degree of uncertainty with which he must deal and which he compensates for through interpretations in which ideology is inserted.
The difficulty increases when it comes to a question of great significance, like the one I gave as an example. We could devote a lifetime to it with immense resources without being able to fully illuminate it. Here, knowledge adds up, but not the choices that inform it.
From then on, we could stick to what is incontestable: the characters, the events, the places, the dates. But only superficial knowledge would emerge, incapable of answering the big questions that a society addresses to the past. We expect history to provide interpretations, to produce meaning. This is what makes it a school of modesty.
The nevertheless essential story
The story remains; I would even say: essential. First, it exposes the falsifications of the past carried out by social actors in positions of power, falsifications which feed the stereotypes which enter into memory and collective identity.
Secondly, by showing opposing interpretations on a given subject, it provides citizens with material for reflection and refines their perception of society. It shows them the complexity of societal life and helps to raise citizen awareness. Finally, it encourages an individual to take a critical look at their own beliefs and those of others.
These functions are crucial. Because, ultimately, it is up to readers to choose with prudence and lucidity between competing proposals.
To conclude, let us not lose sight of what, for the general public, remains essential: the power of seduction that the story possesses and which is specific to historical science. I have taken a very complex question as an example here, but the subjects are not all that complex. Let’s think about the field of biographies, remarkable acts, histories of institutions, cities and others.