Upton Sinclair disrupted and documented his era (2015)
americanswhotellthetruth.org
americanswhotellthetruth.org
"Mary had a little lamb
and when she saw it sicken
she sent it off to packingtown
and now it's labeled chicken."
By writing novels. The "reality" of a novel adjusts the facts to fit the narrative. A factual narrative would not be a novel and would cite sources.
Surely you're able to entertain that notion, without the expectation of adopting it in your own life, and let other people pursue their epistemologies without devaluing them?
> By writing a novel, there's no way to determine what the truth was, and no way to challenge it.
What I think the truth of the matter is here, is that you do not personally know how to challenge it and how to divine truth from it (or that these aren't skills as well developed as other kinds of analysis you prefer to engage in - your preferences being entirely legitimate, and meaning no slight against the skillset you've chosen to cultivate). You can interpret and analyze fiction and compare it to your experience. There's a whole field of literary analysis. You can challenge historical fiction through historical scholarship. There are actually innumerable approaches here.
I think part of what you mean is there's no objective way, and that reasonable people will come to different conclusions about what a novel means. I can see how you might interpret that as a problem; but other people see that as a strength, that by providing different value to different people, it's providing more value overall.
I object to people citing fictions as fact. I've enjoyed reading historical novels, and enjoy watching historical movies. But when I know something about the history behind them, it's often clear that the facts are distorted, sometimes egregiously, to suit the creator's agenda or to make it more entertaining.
> you do not personally know how to challenge it and how to divine truth from it
That's rather presumptious, don't you think?
I would too, I don't see anyone defending the quote you highlighted though. (Though perhaps they'll show up in time, hadn't been very long).
It's no more presumptuous than saying novels can't be learned from. It was meant in good faith; take as much or as little from it as you care to, and if it bothered you, I apologize.
It does? There seems to be only one, which I've posted twice now, and is an easy read. Cite that one.
> "some books bad => all books bad"
My actual words were fictions are not citeable as historical fact.
Watch the hollywood version of "Memphis Belle". Then watch the documentary "Memphis Belle" which was filmed by cameramen going on actual B-17 missions and getting shot at. All the footage is real, there are no actors. You can see the fear in their faces, the bravery, the hurt, the relief when they return. It's all terribly real.
My dad few 32 missions in B-17. He said the documentary nailed what it was actually like. The hollywood version, nope.
I don't know why you keep repeating this incorrect notion that fiction cannot depict things in a historically accurate manner.
Some fiction is trash. Some documentaries are also very misleading and have their own narrative. One should reference multiple sources when possible.
This is a misunderstanding of what I wrote. I didn't say that fiction cannot do this. I said it is wrong to cite it as the truth. If you've got evidence of the truth, cite the evidence.
> He said the documentary nailed what it was actually like. The hollywood version, nope.
Here you are comparing a fictional film with a documentary and dismissing the ability for fictional film to accurately portray the experience. This is not the case with all fictional films, and not all documentaries are actually superior or free from fiction/embellishment themselves.
I never said "cannot contain facts". You're arguing with your strawman.
> I don't think anyone is saying you should cite fiction alone
Just about everyone arguing with me is trying to justify citing "The Jungle" as valid source all by itself. It's a work of fiction.
Then I don't get the point of your exercise which seemed focused on dismissing the power of film to portray historically accurate situations.
>Just about everyone arguing with me is trying to justify citing "The Jungle" as valid source all by itself. It's a work of fiction.
Speaking of strawmen...
I don't know that I'll find time to do that (I'm not sure if that's on my streaming services, and I don't like war dramas but the documentary does sound interesting) but I appreciate the creative suggestion. I do think you may be missing the point; it's not that fiction is necessarily (or even ever) a better way to learn history or to understand the subjective experience of people in a historical moment, but that there are kinds of truth you can address with a novel that are difficult to address in any other way. Was the primary goal of the fictional film to "put you in the boots" of a solider - or was it to be a thrilling action movie? (Of course I haven't seen it, so I just don't know.)
Documentary is also a weird genre because it's a blend between fiction and nonfiction, and the seams can be difficult to detect. My understanding is that the sound design in nature documentaries is often artificial for example, to deliver the experience of hearing something - not to convey the literal sound that was picked up by a mic in situ.
I'll share with you that my favorite novel currently is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. I think about it often; I think there is immense wisdom about adapting to a changing world, bearing hardship, and maintaining a certain kind of hope (not per say that things will get better, but that you will get better at responding to them regardless) in that book. Understanding that that particular kind of hope was possible, that hope could be something other than a naive optimism, reconfigured my conception of hope from something I had long ago discarded as useless into a tool of thought I use every day; that alone has had a profound effect on my life and outlook. (Here's a 12m summary if you care to see it https://youtu.be/6iVGuMyKFgA)
I imagine it would have been possible, in the abstract, for someone to write a book with that same wisdom as a how-to guide or self help book. But it wouldn't have been Butler who wrote it, because Butler was a science fiction author and Sower was a science fiction project. It's a kernel of her unique perspective, from a life different from my own in virtually every way, and for that reason it teaches me things that nothing else can teach me. And being a portion of her genius rendered in print, no one else could have produced it, so in practical terms this self help book is impossible (except, I suppose, as a derivative work).
Other times I understand things that have happened to me because they've happened to characters in novels I've read. In high school we read Catcher in the Rye, and I despised it because it seemed to be a book about absolutely nothing. I couldn't fathom the decisions the character made or his general misanthropy. As I got older and became familiar with depression in myself and others, the book clicked, and I find myself compelled to reread it. It helped me contextualize what I was experiencing and observing.
I've yet to find any historian's account that verifies any of it.
> Atlas Shrugged
I've never read it, and never refer to it.
> it really depends on the aims of the author
Sinclair beats one over the head with his agenda. Do you think that might color his version of the "truth"?
Surely the contemporous Neill-Reynolds report of 1906, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt, confirmed Uptons depictions and resulted in the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906.
But hey, I'm just an Australian and you clearly know better.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/06/05/101...
If you want to cite the report, that's great. Citing a novel with no references, nope. People can be educated just fine using facts instead of novels.
Rarely noted is TR commissioned two reports, because he didn't like the first one. The NR report was the second. I've never been able to find what the first one said.
Do you have the names of the authors of the first one?
A lazy google search didn't mention the commission of two reports
--- "The Bully Pulpit" pg 461 by Kearns
You maybe. Parable and story has been used in humanity’s entire history because humans listen and grok better that way. Story is just .. human. It touches hearts in a way scientific report won’t.
In fact, this very book proves that! It touched public opinion in a way that obscure and dense reports did not. That's just how people work.
Heck, are you a Christian? You might be familiar with a certain 1st-century apocalyptic preacher who liked to speak in parables...
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/06/05/101...
is a short and easy read.
> are you a Christian?
I find it ironic that you compare the Bible to "The Jungle". Socialists regard TJ as their sacred text. I know some who have read it so many times they have it practically memorized. The scale of the umbrage when I disrespect it betrays the tale.
But to answer your question, I am not a Christian. I do not cite the Bible as fact, although parts of it have been verified by archaeology.
You are free to learn history from movies and novels. But how are you going to know what parts are true, and what parts are propaganda? Do you really want to base your worldview on fiction?
Historians don't have a monopoly on truth, nor are they "agenda free", both of which you imply in your many comments. Historians are humans who, try as they might to be "objective", are ultimately still very very subjective. You can read the past spun in entirely different ways depending upon which historian you read.
Historians can write fiction by what truths they cherry pick, or by interpretation that is presented as fact. Fiction writers can write deep truths about the human experience through a made up story. They can transport you out of your shoes into another's.
Upton Sinclair famously said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
It is also difficult to get a person to understand something when their self-image, their identity and the world view they identify with depend on their not understanding it. Is it possible that you are anti-Sinclair, that you feel he is "beat[ing you] over the head with his agenda" because you just don't like it, because it threatens your version of the truth.
This is certainly true, which is why professional historians cite their sources, preferably original sources (not the opinions of other historians).
> Fiction writers can write deep truths
Yes, they can. How can you tell if they're writing the truth, though?
You're right, I don't like Sinclair's obvious and heavy-handed socialist agenda. But do you ever see me citing fictional works that promote freedom?
> it threatens your version of the truth
My version of the truth is based on reading verifiable historical examples of what happens under socialism, and what happens under freedom. Not novels of either.
> My version of the truth is based on reading verifiable historical examples of what happens under socialism, and what happens under freedom. Not novels of either.
Here you fail not only in fact, but also in logic: Your defining socialism as the opposite of freedom begs the question. Who's the one being "heavy-handed"? You've clearly got your finger on the scales as you weigh your "truths".
We've never had real socialism; we've had totalitarianism that tries to look nice by pretending to be socialism. We've also seen what happens under capitalism: slavery, exploitation, a different kind of caste system, a rape of the environment, and an every soulless materialistic and selfist culture. Also, these days everyone says, "Look at all that capitalism as given us!" That's just another self-serving assumption, not fact. Why does capitalism get the credit, when the real causes were science and The Enlightenment, democracy and democratic rule of law (relatively speaking, as I think we are far from a true democracy), the evolution of human rights, and more... but I gotta get back to work.
You're welcome to have the last word as I think I have said plenty.
I'm very biased towards things that have a proven track record of success.
> Your defining socialism as the opposite of freedom
Because it is. Socialism takes away your right to the fruits of your labor. I'm very much biased in favor of human rights, whether you want them or not.
> We've never had real socialism
And we never will, because real socialism will never actually work. Even the Soviets had to allow farmers to farm their own plots of land and keep the results to keep the country from famine.
Free markets, however, have delivered the highest standard of living in the world, and the richest poor people in history.
BTW, the Southern slave economy did very poorly compared to the Northern free one. That's why they wanted to secede.
Keep in mind that Sinclair lived in time when information traveled slowly, so employing sensationalism to raise awareness was a good thing. However, nowadays, raising awareness is the only thing that anyone seems to be capable of doing these days in politics. The passage of the Food and Drug Act would be completely unthinkable today by our current do-nothing Congress. Both sides of the political spectrum have expressed interest doing something to regulate social media, and they've wasted multiple hearings with the CEOs of tech giants to collect juicy sound bites.
I think part of it is that in history class, we learn about Sinclair, Rosa Parks, and MLK, and how they lead to all these great reforms, but meanwhile the lobbyists and Congressman busy pushing legislation through. As a result, we elect politicians that larp as activists than actually write policy.
So he says. Has anyone verified what he wrote?