In Search of Values

The presidential article for the Oral History Review presents both a burden and an opportunity. It is an opportunity to say something of significance to the membership; but as time passes, it becomes more and more difficult to say something helpful about oral history that has not been said already, more cogently, by someone else. What keeps one at it, however, is the repeated ingenuousness of students and scholars with respect to oral history. There are reasons for this naivete, and the reasons are not reassuring. One of my correspondents recently wrote we oral historians make our activity far too abstruse, that the process of inquiry is really a very simple one, and that sophisticated techniques of question-asking and stage-setting to produce maximum responsiveness from narrators really add very little to the basic process. I would agree that most of our analysis of the process of interviewing is retrospective and that little of it can be taught successfully to those who do not already have a good liberal education, who are not already articulate and inquisitive, and who lack the self-confidence to engage in exciting conversations with other people. But, what happens in an oral history interview is not a simple thing, any more than what happens when a painter puts his brush to canvas is a simple thing. Underlying the simple direct question or brush stroke is a profound understanding of the world and human nature, gained only by intensive study and experience, and manifested by mastery of the discipline. The great artist can convey meaning by a few swift brush strokes because he has mastered craft and discipline, and because he understands. The poor artist conveys little meaning because he lacks broad understanding and mastery of the conventions of communication. Even revolutionary artists are effective because they understand the craft and discipline and the world, and they can put things together in different, startling ways, that answer questions not yet asked. There are few great artists in the scholarly world at large, fewer still in oral history. Several assumptions prevalent in scholarly circles militate against developing the general mastery and understanding required to elevate any activity to the level of art. Success-recognition, status, approbation of peers, and a comfortable income-lies in specialization. Even those who complain of abstruseness accept arcane terminology or complex descriptions of processes as legitimizing specialization. Under such circumstances it is tempting to make the simple complex, a formula the tyros emulate so they may achieve success. Self-justifying specialization does not lead to the training of master craftsmen, disciplined scholars or

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Interview · Oral history · Process (computing) · Simple (philosophy) · Sociology · Computer Science · Medicine · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology