How do I love Wikipedia? Let me count the ways.
Wikipedia is the epitome of open access – the democratization of human knowledge, or what the early ‘net dubbed “dot communism.” Free; accessible. Malleable - yet corruptible.
Despite the number of hours I’ve spent on Wikipedia, I’ve never made an edit before – even when I’ve seen articles that could benefit from a change or added point of view. This week, after learning more about the startling lack of diversity among Wikipedia authors, I lent my voice.
Predictably, I hopped over to the Environmental History page. The "encyclopedic" entry is fairly complex for a new(er) discipline, with fourteen sections in its Contents. Scroll through the sections, though, and you’ll notice they are all fairly short, most consisting of 1-2 paragraphs. I won’t hold Wikipedia’s brevity against it – after all, the site’s fairly concise nature is what makes it so appealing to casual learners, the key audience. But the “Advocacy” section was just sad. It has been changed only twice since its addition to the page in February 2010 by user Granitethighs, its only contributor. A mere 75 words, it takes a neutral stance on whether environmental history should include advocacy at all, suggesting that it is potentially too emotional, risking the loss of professionalism and objectivity.
While I respect the prior author’s attempt to maintain a neutral point of view, I object to the argument that in becoming advocative, environmental history becomes too emotional to retain impartiality. The author fails to cite any sources that would support that claim. I further reject the notion that history is any more “political” or “emotional” than science. Solid research, in whatever field, presents a compelling argument from an objective analysis of sources and evidence. Why does the author believe that environmental history is different? This, I believe, reflects a lack of understanding the field on the author’s part.
In my addition to the article, I cited evidence of the social components that environmental history involves, including advocative arguments from notable environmental historian Andrew Hurley and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. To ignore the historical links between environmental and social injustice – or to reduce the implications of these to mere politicking – belittles the meaning of historical research and the mission of historians themselves. Historians should not be expected to simply lay out their research for others to do with what they will, as Granitethighs suggests. I argued in my post that holistic environmental history is inherently advocative because it encompasses analyses of important social justice dynamics.
All fields of history are interdisciplinary, but environmental history has more of a scientific component than most other histories. This makes it particularly unique in that environmental historians are forced to look forward and sideways as well as backward. I think the original Wiki author is not alone in thinking that historians must keep their focus in the rearview mirror to “stay in their lane,” so to speak. But he also happens to be wrong. Objectivity is not sacrificed at the altar of professional advocacy. Historians in every subfield must inform the direction of history – remain active, not passive. Indeed, public history as a discipline demands it! As professionals who examine past and current events from a wide-angle lens, we are equipped to offer analysis on the trajectory of social, economic, cultural, political, and – yes – environmental trends. Environmental history, like any other history, is happening as we speak. Good environmental history will impart an understanding of how stratifications in economic and sociopolitical power have shaped, and are continuing to shape, the trajectory of the human environmental experience. If this is not advocative, I don’t quite know what is.
I didn’t delete Granitethighs’ original paragraph out of respect for his contribution – he did, after all, add the Advocacy section to begin with, along with a number of other sections on the page. He was very busy for about two weeks in February 2010, and then again for a few days in August of the same year. I wondered, after adding to his section, if he’d come back and change it, but there have been no signs of life so far. A cursory review of his profile reveals he hasn’t posted any edits since 2017. But I find myself endeared toward Granitethighs, despite our differing academic assessments. His user profile quips: “Nice to think that we can do something worthwhile without being paid for it – ‘the sowing and planting of ideas into an orderly series, as opposed to just living off the careless ideas one finds in daily experience, is pleasurable in itself’—Thomas Hobbes.”[1]
Dot communism, indeed.
[1]"User:Granitethighs." Wikipedia. April 28, 2014. Accessed September 18, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Granitethighs.