Rain Pruul Communication (MA) Writing assignment for Methodology in the Human Sciences

The Great Cat Massacreby Robert Darnton

For the current assignment I chose to discuss The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural Historyby historian Robert Darnton. My aim is to analyze the book from its methodological perspective; how theory and methodology come together and even cross each other; how Darnton justifies his deviation from the theoretical and methodological paths favored by other historians; which different methodological tools does the author take use of and how these tools are related to each other. In The Great Cat Massacre, Darnton deals with the problem of history of mentalities. His research concentrates on subjects from a western culture, namely the habitants of eighteenth-century France. According to author himself, The Great Cat Massacre is his attempt to write history in the spirit of anthropological history, which cites to the circumstance that he treats our own western society as if it were an alien culture. Specifically the history of mentalities tries to explain attitudes, stances, values and ideas of social groups from the past their worldview. It could be that the latter concept oversimplifies and forcefully directs the researcher to examine the mentalities of the people living on one territory with certain boundaries as a coherent whole instead of binding the mentalities with specific groups of those people. Still, we have to take into account the coherence between the estates generated by religious views; the aspects and beliefs that dictated the order of life and tied the estates together. Darnton`s most important question is as follows: What were the simple people from the Ancien Rgime really thinking (about) and how they thought about it?

Good definition. But is a worldview too coherentcan it be contradictory? Does Darnton allow for that?

It is self-evident that at present time those people of the Old regime cannot be interviewed or observed firsthand for that kind of research. Darnton, rather than attempting to give some comprehensive and statistically supported view of French culture at that epoch, dives into the archives of the Old Regime, using reading as his main tool for understanding the mentalities of the French more than 200 years ago. He builds his research on texts written or told by people who represented various estates characteristic to France at that era: a former printing shop apprentice of a reminiscing about the funniest incident that happened at the printing district; a police inspector of the book trade; an anonymous middle-class writer describing his hometown Montpellier; a Rousseauloving book merchant from La Rochelle and other readers who sent letters to Rousseau. Their stories come to life in the old documents found from the archives. Furthermore, Darnton analyses Denis Diderot`s Tree of Knowledge (specifically theology`s position in it) and the folklore of the French peasants and the background of these tales. He interprets the texts and searches for a meaning inscribed in them, if necessary, linking the historical context with the text found from the archive. Darnton explains that this is the way to get a glimpse of their vision of the world. Darnton`s research is founded on an argument that Europeans didn`t think and feel just as way we do today: Other people are other. It is also essential to mention that, the author puts emphasis on the interpretive nature of history and isn`t afraid to be fragmented in his researches. Yet he stresses the open-endedness in History`s nature which according to Darnton does not mean that anything goes or that an interpretation cannot be wrong (XVII). But what exactly is Darnton`s method for uncovering the way ordinary people thought about and learned to cope with the world that through their eyes seemed unjust and rigorous? To put it bluntly, Darnton hints that actually he hasn`t got a persistent method at all at least not one,

that is suitably framed, considerably complicated and in accordance with other renowned historical research methods. Rather it`s a stroll around in the archives and analyzing any texts or documents that seem fairly related to the subject. He clearly does not aim for some abstract objectivity, his only distinctive feature of choosing these particular texts following the anthropologists` example - being the opaque factor in them. By opaque, Darnton means something that is particularly meaningful to the natives but possesses a meaning very unclear to us (by us he means the people of modernity). It is quite obvious that things which seem opaque to one man, don`t have the same effect on another, and that applies even without the determinant of time. Which means we largely have to trust the authors gut feeling in this subject...but! We could also turn the last-mentioned criticism towards Darnton upside-down, saying that a researcher doesn`t need to research things that are clearly understandable and univocal to him. It would also be reasonable to suggest that the researchers choose texts which truly possess cases or instances and reactions that seem distant to the modern society. Secondly there exists a problem of representativeness. A few handpicked texts written or told by individuals clearly aren`t enough to make some general conclusions about the whole estates of a realm. Also, Darntonhe refers to his nonsystematism id est. the absence of a system. So how could there exist a method without a structure of elements which help to observe and draw conclusions on the issue under investigation? I`m not quite sure this approach would get an approval from the MA Thesis committee... As random as Darnton`s method seems at first sight, he is actually really careful when extracting and separating facts from his interpretations of texts. The historical data is still useful for the reference frame, the context. Furthermore, he is completely aware that his method of gaining knowledge of peoples mentalities is an easy target to criticism (as I have shown above). So why does he still choose his own path instead of others?

The most prestigious group working in the field of history of mentalities is The Annales School of Thought. In the 1970s mentalities was originally conceived as a quantitative social science that concentrated on analyzing mass data. It is fair to say they inventory for research in this field of humanities. This does not satisfy Darnton, who brings out the shortcomings of Annales school of Thought and its notion of mentalits, the mental structure of whole societies. Namely he is disturbed by the fact that Annales historians attempt to measure attitudes by counting, because researchers can decipher the statistics in very different ways, hence come to very different conclusions. Darnton criticizes that numbers as fascinating as they can be are only symptoms produced by the historian himself and therefore can be wildly interpreted. But let`s take a glimpse on the methods used by two exemplary scholars of Annales School, whom Darnton mentions in his text: Michel Vovelle and Daniel Roche. Historian and expert on French Revolution Michel Vovelle is known for his historical works on death. Vovelle concentrates on the demographic facts and the quantitative values hidden in documents and deeds. Using quantitative measurements he investigates the discourse in texts.. For example, he made a famous statistical study of meaningful variations in the language of wills to trace the process of dechristianization in eighteenth-century Provence, examining quantitative differences in such language not only over time but by social category, gender and geographical location as well. (lacking a reference to WH Sewell.) French social and cultural historian Daniel Roche is focused on the cultural history of France, especially in the years of Ancien Rgime. In his study The People of Paris (Le Peuple de Paris) but also in one of his most famous works The Culture of Clothing (La Culture des Apparances), Roche implements quantitative methods to his research. As we can see, both historians sympathized an approach, which insists that by measuring and enumerating objects, words, names etc. we can tell significant things and make truthful arguments about the views of people who lived in the past. Alas it opposes Darnton`s view on how mentalities

should be explored: They need to be read, not counted because one can read a ritual or a city just as one can read a folk tale or a philosophic text. Instead, in the opinion of Darnton, historians like Roche and Vovelle create the symptoms and diagnose the mental condition of the people of the Old regime; symptoms, that actually can be interpreted in very different ways. The approach selected by Rob Darnton is largely influenced by the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz, the author`s recognized colleague, whom Darnton thanks in the acknowledgements section of The Cat Massacre. We can sense the obvious similarity between The Great Massacre of Cats and Geertz`s influential essay Deep Play: Notes on The Balinese Cockfight, the message being that the slaughter of cats in eighteenth-century France or a blood sport between cocks in Bali contain much more important information about the societys attitudes and values than what meets the eye. The account of the slaughter of cats initiated one night by apprentices in the eighteenth-century Paris printing district was not just an atrocious revenge on an arrogant and churlish master, his cat-loving wife and the unhelpful journeymen, but also an insult, a provocation, an amusement, a sorcery or neutralizing it, an act of balancing the power structures etc. just as cockfights in Bali described by Geertz were not just a bloody act for local entertainment, but a symbol of masculinity, a lesson for the Balinese on their culture, a power struggle and an expression of hatred against everything bestial in a man. Darnton takes his point of departureemanates from Geertz`s

recommendation to see the culture of a people as an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to whom they properly belong" (Geertz 1973a:452). He is the supporter of symbolic anthropology, an approach endorsed by Geertz which acknowledges the symbols importance in constructing public meaning. But most significantly they share the same or partly the same method in their research. On both accounts the emphasis is put on the interpretation of their subjects behavior and actions. What they are

saying is that there is a meaning behind an action and that specifically should be the researchers object of interest. But there is no better way to reach a meaning than to look for connections between the society`s essence and the actions for which they hold a special place in their minds. As Geertz, Darnton too adopts the so-called thick description to explain the behavior of apprentices: the cats were the victims because of their grave symbolic role in the Old regime society. They were the symbols of witchcraft and diseases, but also sexuality and power. Therefore slaughtering the mistress`es favorite cat was actually a rape, an attack on her not her favorite puss la grise. The second example of Darnton`s thick description is his explanation of why apprentices had an extra reason to be bitter towards their masters. The large printing houses and a handful of masters took over the printing industry which meant that journeymen had only slight chances to someday rise at the master`s level. In turn journeymen hampered the apprentices who were at the end of the printing industrys food chain - rise to the next level, because they did not want to lose their spots. As shown above, Darnton always provides a thorough explanation for the chain of events. IOn some cases the author interestingly combines the quantitative social science favored by the criticized Annales school with his own interpretative cultural history, but that is just one sign of interdisciplinary passing through the whole Cat Massacre. Interdisciplinarity is understood as an attempt to not limit with oneself to a traditional academic field, but to combines several disciplines in one Darnton`s work which is characterized by linking the elements of history and ethnography with semiotics. His eclecticism distinguishes the most in his sources of research and the way he interprets them. A collection of texts very different in their nature: a folklore of peasants, an inspectors documents about the literary world in Paris, the fan mail sent to Jacques Rousseau...It is easy for Darnton to take liberties in combining various sources and disciplines because a) he breaks away from the burden to be objective at any cost (which doesn`t mean that the data or texts he uses aren`t truthful) b) his studys purpose isn`t to be representative but

enlightening. As an ancient philosopher he doesn`t attach himself to a concrete system, but selects the sources that seem most reasonable to him. There is also the difference in methodologies id est. ways Darnton`s explores the meanings behind the archival documents. It`s true that it is possible to regard Darnton`s on and only method as reading, but he also implements somewhat of a content analysis when observing the folk tales of peasants; when analyzing the massacre of cats or the letters sent to Rousseau we can sense the hints of discourse analysis in the background. It`s possible to relate articles written by other historians to Robert Darnton`s The Great Cat Massacre and find their intersections. I personally have chosen The Death of Luigi Trastulli, an interpretation of oral history by an Italian scholar Alessandro Portelli. Secondly, in the light of Darnton`s work, I will observe The Value of Narrativity in The Representation of Reality written by literary historian Hayden White, who analyzes the relation between narrative and the so-called real events. In the article Hayden White suggests that historians have the need for narrativity because of its attached value that lets real events look coherent, intact, complete and have a closure although they really can be only imaginary. White cites Barthes who explains that between our experience of the world and our efforts to describe that experience in language, narrative ceaselessly substitutes meaning for the straightforward copy of the events recounted. From that White elicits that the absence of narrative capacity or a refusal of narrative indicates an absence or refusal of meaning itself. We can link some of White`sHaydens thoughts to Darnton`s research on the documents kept by Joseph d`Hemery, an inspector of book trade in 18th century Paris. It`s a fact that part of d`Hemery`s job was to keep files on the literary population on Paris. And so he did. The written and from time-to-time enhanced profiles of writers helped the inspector to pursue a kind of historical representation; he probably was even conscious about it, when he put the reports in the register under the title Historique de auterus,

history of authors, and was evidently familiar with historical currents of that time. Two questions derive from these circumstances. First, As we know from White`s article, the modern historiographical establishment acknowledges three basic kinds of historical representations: the annals, the chronicle, the history proper. Two of them fail to attain full narrativity of the events which they treat. So which kind is represented in d`Hemerys documents? Secondly, besides narrativity there are other qualities judicious handling of evidence, chronological order of the occurrence, events must possess and order of meaning - that need to be displayed for in order to recognize an account as proper history, as White puts it. So the second question is as follows: are d`Hemery`s reports proper history? It`s evident that in d`Hemery`s case we are not dealing with annals. Although the inspector kept standard forms for recording information on writers, these filled forms definitely contain narrative elements. He perceives the stories behind the forms and possesses the social center to the events in the writers form id est. by having a social center d`Hemery provided meaning to the events that he described in the files. And contrary to annalist of Saint Gall the inspector was much interested in the human morality and lawfulness. Citing Hegel, White argues that the reality which can be narrated, is the conflict between the desire, on the one side, and the law, on the other. In Saint Gall`s case events just happen, the author is totally oblivious to any human law and because of that he can`t put the events into context and conceive the consequences deriving from the Battle of Poitiers or any other kind other occurrences in his list. Contrary to the annalist of Saint Gall, d`Hemery sees the cause-and-effect factor behind events and people. White suggests that narrative in general has to do with authority and the self-consciousness of the writer of historiography equates with his attention the ruling authority and social system and sustaining it. That is something that characterizes d`Hemery`s documents he protects the sovereignty of the church by classifying writers by their religious beliefs. Even Darnton is decisive in this question: (But) He was horrified at atheism and seems to have sincerely believed in the official orthodoxies. Expressions like impetuous talk, speaks of

the holy mysteries with scorn, against religion and good morals etc. don`t leave room to think the opposite. As Darnton writes, d`Hemery was in the position that atheism is a threat to the crown. From this circumstance arose his habit to classify the writers as dangerous or not. In my belief d`Hemery stands for a chronicles representation of history because of his endeavour to narrativity which he fails to achieve to the fullest. According to White, the chronicle represents historical reality as if real events appeared to human consciousness in the form of unfinished stories. So let`s take a look at the part that interested Darnton the most in the inspectors files: histoire (story) which was the most substantial part of the form.... This is a lucidly written and thought-provoking paper. Your use of the White article to provoke your own further thinking on one of Darnton`s examples is very good! You do not need to include the Portelli textthere is plenty to work with in your White example. My only suggestion is that you read the above comments, and think about the relevance of Sewell and the concept of thin coherence to your critique of Darnton`s method.