Defining an educational focus

My interest in politics has waned as my interest in political science has waxed. Political discourse, including my own, is largely sophomoric and short-sighted. Everyday partisanship rarely reflects sound political theory. For me, disgust with the puerility of American politics began with the polarization over Iraq; neither the "Saddam is evil" nor the "Bush wants oil" arguments gave me much faith in the sophistication of the commentariat, and I have found my own contributions to the debate to be decreasingly insightful. Disillusionment in other areas of debate followed. Yet there is something futile in a political scientist who tires of politicians, pundits, and voters in general. This has forced me to reconsider my educational priorities.

The one area of political science that really interests me is international relations. It offers the most opportunity to develop new models and effect radical change for good. At the international level, theory still means something and the fundamental forms of government are still being defined. I have recently become convinced, however, that professional involvement in international affairs is not for me. This recognition has been painful and disorienting.

So I have begun turning back toward the field of history. Specifically, I am interested in history as it relates to other social sciences as well as literature. I view history as a sort of unifying academic discipline. History encompasses all of human thought, as well as all of recorded divine intervention and revelation. This is leading me toward a specialization in historiography.

Historiography is the study of the study of history. It is the theory behind the practice. Historiography examines the rules of evidence, the motivations of the historian, and the validity of metanarrative. When the historian writes, "Jill stole Harry's lunch money," the historiographer shakes his head and points out that the only documentation for the story comes from a bitter enemy of Jill, and that this account was first written down forty years after the theft supposedly took place. (A somewhat more realistic example of historiography can be found in my review of Big Fish and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)

Historiography is a gatekeeper to political science, sociology, and literature. It has the added attraction of being an arcane and boring field. Unlike political science, in which everyone seems to have a very strong opinion, historiography rarely forces me to disagree with strangers. I have never had to smile and nod while a new acquaintance espoused a maddeningly uninformed opinion concerning R. G. Collingwood or Giambattista Vico, as I have had to do when discussing topics such as economics or states' rights.

This shift in priorities will have no short-term effect on my formal education. It may do interesting things to my extracurricular reading habits, however. I think it's worth a shot.