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Tuatha de Brighid - Consider the Source
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CONSIDER THE
SOURCE by Cynndara
Morgan Evaluating
information is a fundamental part of everyday life. When a friend tells us
a scurrilous piece of gossip, our critical faculties automatically swing into
operation. We consider our friend's sources of information, whether they
were revealed or not; his or her general powers of observation, ability to
understand and communicate without muddling what has been heard, and likely
personal biases. We question whether or not they are trying to
"sell" us something, whether tangible or intangible. We weigh
his or her expertise in technical fields. Almost
subconsciously, we analyze the probable truth, level of certainty, and potential
sources of error in everything that we are told. Unfortunately,
we don't always exercise the same skills when _reading_ information. For a
variety of reasons, written communications in our society carry a subconscious
aura of certainty. We are taught to respect the written word; and
historically, the written word has been produced by people of higher status and
therefore implicit credibility than everyday verbal communications. As a
result, we often approach written materials with a less critical attitude.
It is important for us to remember that writers are simply _people_ -- people
who have chosen to talk to us in one-sided conversation from a printed page.
Since we usually can't ask them questions about these lectures directly,
we must use our own critical abilities to evaluate the accuracy, certainty, and
potential sources of bias in what we read. In so doing, we change reading
from a passive absorption of information into an active exercise of our
abilities as intelligent _readers_ to sort out facts from what is often a mass
of error, fallacy, and speculation. Evaluating
References The first step
in evaluating our friend, the writer, has nothing to do with his or her personal
insight and intelligence, but rather with who he relies on to define that most
difficult of terms, "fact". Elementary
teachers of research have long divided resources into three broad categories;
i.e., primary, secondary, and tertiary sources; however in reality all of these
present a continuum from higher to lower quality. For comparison, consider
a percentile scale, where the percent represents both a relative value between
two sources, and the progressive loss of original information due to editing,
corruption, translation and interpretation by successive hands: PRIMARY
SECONDARY
TERTIARY
As can be
easily seen, the usefulness of the best sources is limited by the abilities of
the reader. A researcher who is unable to read materials in their original
form or language is forced to rely on the interpretations of others, which
automatically involves the loss of some contextual value. Even a fairly
sophisticated reader who lacks foreign language skills will be unable to use
historical materials from which less than roughly 25% of the original
information has been removed by successive handlings. Lack of knowledge regarding the original culture, the use of
words and ideas at that time, and relevant social, political, or theological
constructs and controversies will reduce understanding of even well-translated
material even further. At this point,
original sources may even be misleading to the unprepared reader. This
holds both for us, and for the authors of the texts we rely on for our
information. A journalist familiar with Celtic triads, for instance, but
not with Church history, can easily make the mistake of imputing Celtic
background to the Trinity, a concept which is in fact rooted deeply in
Greco-Roman philosophy of the early Christian era. It is very easy to jump
to inaccurate conclusions when we lack detailed knowledge of a field; both for
ourselves and for our gossipy friend, the writer. Missing
context can be re-established by reading original sources with the assistance of
scholarly notes, summaries, and biographical information on the author.
Such additional information should not be considered to substitute for reading
at least a good translation of an original text, but they can supplement our
lack of prior expertise. A bonus feature of good scholarly translations of
important works is that they usually include commentary and supplemental notes
by recognized experts on the original material.
Just as we would seek these sources for ourselves, we should also look
for them in the bibliography of a good reference book. Evaluating the
Writer The term
"recognized expert" brings up another important issue in research: the
qualifications of the source itself. Ancient writers may be good, poor, or
indifferent, precise as modern scholars or wildly inaccurate; original thinkers
or blatant plagiarists. Nevertheless,
a writer commenting in 100 BCE always represents documentation
of a pre-Christian thinker. We may not agree with Plato, but we must
recognize that he was accepted in his community of 400 BCE Hellas as a
legitimate teacher of what Christians would call "theology".
Caesar may have been writing propaganda against the Celts and Tacitus suffering
from Noble Savage Syndrome, making them both somewhat questionable on matters
regarding their northern neighbors, but both were pagan Roman gentlemen, and to
the extent their writings reflect not their enemies, but themselves, they are
primary sources. A more recent
neopagan source can be, according to the topic covered, as much a Primary
Reference as Pliny, or as poor a reference as a Star Trek episode. When
Bonewits writes as the Founding Father of ADF about his own life history and the
original program leading up to ADF's genesis, he is the first and only
authoritative primary source. When he writes on the relationships between
Modern Science and Modern Magic, however, he writes as an undergraduate magician
with a BS from Berkeley who once took a physics course. Gerald Gardner,
Doreen Valiente, Aleister Crowley, AE Waite and others must be similarly
regarded. In reference to the history of the immediate neopagan past, they
are invaluable sources, the equivalent to modern pagans of the Christian
Apostles. This does not mean that
everything they say is The Word of God. However,
they most definitely were "there" at the Beginning Of It All. With secondary
and tertiary sources, the quality of the writer must be weighed as one of the
most important factors in the credence we choose to give his or her material.
This quality can be determined by several methods, including credentials,
experience, internal consistency of the work itself, and documentation of
sources. While academic
standing is neither the exclusive outward sign of good scholarship nor even a
perfect guarantee, it does provide an unambiguous marker to assist us as readers
in evaluating sources. A Ph.D. in the humanities represents between five
and ten years of concerted effort to master the material, with mentoring from
acknowledged experts, access to rare sources, and hands-on opportunities, as
well as enforced minimal competence in the broad knowledge necessary to support
specialization in an area. A faculty appointment means that in addition to this
long period of study, this person has been recognized by others in the same
field of study as being qualified to teach it. A full professorship or
position as Chair of an academic department means that this person is one of the
hundred top experts in his general field in the world. Certainly, not even
all the department chairs at Harvard or Oxford are broadminded, insightful, open
to new ideas or sympathetic to neopaganism, but they are tested and proven to be
brilliant intellects with a masterful command of their subjects. Their opinions
and writings should not be ignored without good reasons. A second
manner in which qualification can be established is by long experience in a
field. In general, this claim can be made by some few neopagan
researchers, 19th century clergymen, and many professional writers and
journalists. Expertise as expressed by this group of writers usually
consists of having read much source material, usually of the lower
"primary" and higher "secondary" categories, but not having
produced independent work such as is considered "publishable" in
academia. Experienced journalists approach the competence of young Ph.D.'s
and older graduate students; their backgrounds tend to be wider, but not as
deep. From this, they may provide
insightful commentary on broad comparisons, which academics may miss or be too
cautious to attempt. They may also make mistakes in interpretation that are
glaring to the academic, due to their lack of understanding basic materials. Even without
any biographical information or credentials, some information concerning an
author's reliability can be discerned from the work itself. This
information comes in two forms: 1) the sources referred to, and the
professionalism with which they are documented, and 2) the quality of
argumentation used by the writer. Use of
Resources Documentation
is the heart and soul of scholarship. Its purpose is to provide a clear
chain of "custody" for each thought and unit of information, allowing
any reader to either replicate the original work, or to double-check it for
errors. The underlying assumption of scholarship is that Truth does exist,
can be demonstrated, and can be verified by anyone with the necessary training.
Documentation allows this to be done, thereby making it unnecessary for scholars
to actually do so in the vast majority of cases. The fact that scholarship
requires complete transparency of input reduces the probability of fraud.
In academic research, a secret, lost, stolen, or unexaminable reference is
automatically suspect. If sources cannot be produced upon demand, they
must be assumed not to exist. Everyone knows
that a good research paper is supposed to have footnotes and bibliography, but
few people who have not received scholarly training know exactly what statements
require a footnote or what sources should be considered good bibliographic
references. Those who are trying to
impress, therefore, may attempt to shower their readership with unnecessary
references to sources of poor quality. Under most circumstances, no source
less authoritative than a definitive textbook is worth referencing among
scholars. However, sources for
material supporting an author's argumentation should be referenced; and sources
for major theoretical concepts or organizational schemes, such as the
"functions" of Dumezil, the defining factors of shamanism per Eliade,
or the Switchboard of Bonewits, which are not original to the author, should be
referenced. Typically, a scholar will begin his paper or text by
describing the development of his topic in scholarly work over the last 20 to
100 years, referencing each major step to the original author and paper (not a
secondary source who described it). All quotations must of course be
documented. Academic or equivalent sources (listed 50% and above) can be
recognized by the presence of footnotes following these criteria. Lack of
footnotes, footnotes existing only to express a tangential opinion of the
author, or footnotes referring to articles in Time, Life, or the Washington Post
(except for contemporary historical subjects), reveal a writer's ignorance or
unwillingness to submit his work to academic criteria of documentation. On the other
hand, only resources which were actually used in the preparation of a paper or
text should appear in the bibliography. The
point is to provide full information allowing another scholar to independently
verify statements made in the paper; not to provide "general
background" on a subject. "Padded" bibliographies full of
general titles published by popular presses or "gristmill" writers
(unless, of course, the study is of popular literature) without credentials
should be suspect. Large numbers of out-of-print sources present a problem
in verification; large numbers of older texts suggests that the research on
which the book or article is based may be far behind current developments. Huge
bibliographies unaccompanied by footnotes suggest undisciplined thinking; it is
unlikely that the author remembers where he got any particular piece of
information, and therefore, again, it is unverifiable. Rhetorical
flourishes The substance,
quality, and personal biases of a writer can to a certain extent be judged,
regardless of his credentials or documentation, by the style of writing itself.
A good thinker deals with his material honestly, intelligently, and in an
organized manner. This requires enough skill with words to forego easy
attention-getters such as printing in all caps, use of multiple exclamation
points, and other techniques more appropriate to advertising. It requires
persuasion by solid argument, rather than resorting to personal attacks against
opposing writers; and the use of information, not emotion, as the major thrust
of his work. The good
source -- regardless of academic credentials -- is modest, careful, and
painstaking in attention to detail. When he uses a word (such as magic,
religion, druid, Celt) which represents a complex of difficult, abstract ideas,
he makes no attempt to gloss these over with a quick assertion as to the
"real" meaning; instead he may devote a paragraph, a page or a chapter
to discussing the relevant difficulties of interpretation before settling on his
own choice for the duration of the work. When quoting the work of other
writers, he is sensitive to the differences between their interpretations and
his own. Furthermore, a
good source is aware of the differences in standards of evidence or
"proof" in different fields and of his own competencies. When
David Bohme, the physicist, writes on experimental physics, he recognizes that
the standard of evidence is not "why" something happens, but
"what" happens; for instance, when a particular substance is bombarded
with a particle beam at a particular frequency. When he writes on
theoretical physics, he understands that the standard requires mathematical
rather than physical proof: each step of his deduction must follow inherently
from the initial assumptions, stated as mathematical relationships.
When he speaks on metaphysics, a subdiscipline of philosophy, he
understands that such deductions must not only be internally consistent, but
must be consistent with some kind of overall meaning. Just as each area of
study has a different purpose in the development of human knowledge, so it must
judge whether that purpose is accomplished by a separate strategy. A good
source is aware of the shifting sands involved when crossing interdisciplinary
boundaries and uses them to reveal insights which are unavailable from within
those domains. What's important is not whether a writer accepts evidence
from both a documented archeological dig and a trance working done at the site
of that dig, but that he carefully distinguishes between them, and does not
conflate the two sources in one undifferentiated description of "life in
ancient Camelot". Finally, the
good source "fights fair" in his or her argumentation.
He is careful not to misquote sources out of context in order to make a
point, and grants his opponents the decency of a good hearing by summarizing the
basics of their points of view and supporting details.
He recognizes subtle distinctions, and avoids demonizing persons or ideas
with wide brushstrokes that ignore the fine differences between them. He
also recognizes and admits to his own agendas and biases, and makes efforts to
offer opponents the benefit of the doubt in compensation where appropriate.
He renounces the "easy points" won by cheap shots, personal attacks,
and broad generalizations. Instead
of attacking an opposing viewpoint, he builds his own hypothesis from the ground
up, even exposing his own weaknesses freely. Conclusion The signs of
rhetorical excess, careful thinking, and good scholarship are clear to an
attentive reader. They can be judged independently of the source material,
and regardless of whether we are ourselves expert in the field. If the
writer quotes good sources accurately, takes the trouble to address opposing
viewpoints honestly, builds his hypotheses from a deep array of
carefully-evaluated and organized details, uses words with attention to their
multiple meanings and acknowledges the appropriate standards of evidence for
various fields, then chances are good that even if he does not know what he's
talking about, he will acknowledge his ignorance clearly. If on the other
hand his writing is composed of vague generalities, emotional arguments and
broad concepts unsupported by details or authoritative references, the chances
are even better that this author has not yet exerted enough discipline to make
his thoughts useful to anyone else. By seeking the better and avoiding the
worse of these options, and above all by being aware of the difference, readers
can progress not only in understanding of specific subject matters, but in the
strategies by which to approach them. We become active, rather than
passive, consumers of knowledge by exercising critical judgement in our reading.
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