I don't have access any longer to the article this message is
referring to but I think we can understand the point of the message anyway. This came across the ALHFAM list serv.
"Can we ever grasp, or convey to others, the full scope of what we DON'T know, and probably never can know, about the people and
activities of other times and other cultures? I suspect not. That's no reason to stop trying, but it's a cause for profound humility, regardless of how much time and effort we and our institutions may have invested in research. The boom boxes, cutoff trash bags and '70s cassette tapes that Chuck describes in his "first-person interpretation" of seed corn cultivation would not be likely to appear on anyone's list, or in any museum's collection, of "Agricultural T&E," yet they obviously had a role to play in daily farming lives and activities. One can only wonder how many equally pertinent objects and understandings are missing, and were never documented, from times prior to the late 20th century and from cultures farther removed from our own personal experience."
referring to but I think we can understand the point of the message anyway. This came across the ALHFAM list serv.
"Can we ever grasp, or convey to others, the full scope of what we DON'T know, and probably never can know, about the people and
activities of other times and other cultures? I suspect not. That's no reason to stop trying, but it's a cause for profound humility, regardless of how much time and effort we and our institutions may have invested in research. The boom boxes, cutoff trash bags and '70s cassette tapes that Chuck describes in his "first-person interpretation" of seed corn cultivation would not be likely to appear on anyone's list, or in any museum's collection, of "Agricultural T&E," yet they obviously had a role to play in daily farming lives and activities. One can only wonder how many equally pertinent objects and understandings are missing, and were never documented, from times prior to the late 20th century and from cultures farther removed from our own personal experience."
