Moretti vs. Manovich

All the authors this week had something to say, but as has been commonplace for me in this class none of the readings spoke to me.  The excitement of a new history discourse based on broad searches of multitudes of data has not touched my soul.  I will use some current examples to try to explain my lack of enthusiasm.

As the election night passed, I thought the CHNM probably will soon offer a new web site that allows people to register their feelings about the election of Barack Obama.  I don’t think that would be a bad project.  It surely would give us some insights about the movement of college educated voters into the Democratic column.  Hopefully, it could give us some feelings of African Americans about the personal meaning of this election to them.  If the site encouraged participation in Spanish, Latino voters might also give us some ideas about their switch to voting Democratic.  But, I wonder if input from thousands of Americans would give us any insight into the discourse that I think will soon be associated with this election.  During my lifetime, African Americans have been seen as victims–first of slavery and then of racism.  With the election of an African American president, I don’t believe that white America will any longer tolerate the victim narrative.  If my hunch is correct, the narrative will play out in many different arenas that will require a skilled historian to show the changing discourse.  My point is that masses of data may not always answer the right question.  How do you feel about the election of Barack Obama will get thousands of responses.  How did the election change your perception of African Americans will not receive as many responses and such a query would not necessarily get an honest response.

I was also thinking about the 9-11 CHNM input.  I believe one of the big narratives that evolved from 9-11 is a discussion of what it means to be American.  I am sure that with a creative query, the responses to the CHNM request for input about 9-11 would give us some useful information.  I also feel that the Virginia Tech shooting responses might also give us some insights.  After all, both incidents were instigated by oriental terrorists.  But, do we have similar sites to give us insights when we have had occidental terrorists such as in the Oklahoma City bombings, the Columbine shootings, or the Amish shootings?  Would the reaction from Americans about the perpetrator be the same if he was a Westerner versus an Asian?  Do our feelings about the Americaness of the perpetrator affect the way we mourn?  For me, the point is that a lot of data does not necessarily mean that we will get answers to important questions.

I see other problems with the use of massive amounts of data.  Summaries of the data are only as good as the selection of the baseline data to analyze.  In other words, someone will have to make a judgement about the importance of various possible data sources.  If the data base is huge, the historian will be forced to rely on statistical sampling to review the data.  Such sampling may or may not allow for a good analysis of outliers.  Finally, the definitions of the variables are a key for getting good information.  How many historians are skilled in defining all the possible ways people communicate in order to get good information about changing racial attitudes or definitions of what it means to be an American or an outsider.

I do not object if Moretti wants to graph all novels written in England.  More power to him, but I am skeptical that his findings are worthy of the work required because ultimately the data may not yield answers to the most important trends in English literature.