Is Big History a Movement Culture? William Katerberg History Department Calvin College, Michigan
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Is Big History a Movement Culture? William Katerberg History Department Calvin College, Michigan Abstract: This essay analyzes Big History as a movement, one that has been evolving from individuals and small groups of people working independently to a scholarly community and a set of institutions no longer dependent on founding individuals. The essay uses theoretical models to do so, notably movement cultures in politics and Thomas Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts in science. It compares Big History to movement building in the early modern era, notably the “Republic of Letters” (i.e., Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution) and religious revivals. Finally, it compares Big History to related genres that explore the past on a large scale. The essay’s goals are both empirical and reflexive, to help practitioners of Big History understand what their field is and, in doing so, consider what it should be. The conversion narrative is an autobiographical another book related to world history, the algorithms genre familiar to scholars of religious history. The of Amazon rather than an itinerant Big History genre is characterized by stories of awakening, evangelist telling me that I might be interested enlightenment, and wonder, of being lost and then in the book.2 I was. Maps of Time helped me to now found, and setting on a new path, often with a conceptualize with a new clarity my own loosely mission. The story is a form of witness to others, in held ideas about how human history related to solidarity with others who have seen the light, and evolutionary history and how my own discipline of as inspiration for those who have not yet seen it. The history might relate to disciplines that study the deep road to awakening can be long and gradual or come past. When the International Big History Association in an instant, in a road to Damascus encounter. Such came to Grand Rapids in 2012 for its inaugural stories are essential to the coherence and growth of conference, I decided to explore Big History as movements. Big Historians often tell loosely similar a discipline, a community, and a growing set of kinds of stories of their intellectual awakening institutions. I also started incorporating elements of in discovering Big History, setting them on new Big History into my classes. scholarly or teaching paths or new forms of activism. This essay explores whether the field of Big The IBHA Newsletter, now Origins, has regularly History, as a field of study, is a movement culture. included such narratives.1 The essay is meant to be both impartial, in exploring My own first encounter with Big History was what Big History is, and reflexive, in spurring through David Christian’s book, Maps of Time, practitioners to reflect on what they are doing as which I stumbled across in an Amazon search for 2 Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). There are itinerant Big 1 The idea for this essay goes back to hearing autobiography History evangelists. An example is Michael Dowd, who has stories in presentations and information conversations participated at Big History conferences. His website, The at IBHA conferences in Grand Rapids in 2012 and at Great Story,” describes him as “a Big History evangelist, Dominican University in 2014 and reading autobiographical evolutionary theologian, and bestselling author,” http:// stories like this in the newsletter and Origins. I gave it as a thegreatstory.org/god-in-big-history.html (accessed 22 paper at the IBHA conference in Amsterdam in 2016. November 2017). Journal of Big History Volume II Number 1 Spring 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v2i1.2255 Is Big History a Movement Culture? Big Historians and why. By movement culture, I these revolutionary moments new models of science, mean evolution from individuals and small groups such as Darwin’s theory of natural selection, can of people working independently or in loose win adherents. Science does not evolve as a result of conversation to a self-conscious community and a set steady accumulation of empirical data and ongoing of institutions no longer so dependent on founding refining of theoretical models, Kuhn argued. Normal individuals. The essay also uses Thomas Kuhn’s science resists fundamental change, whether in idea of paradigm shifts and makes comparisons to methodology or metaphysics, and the institutions of political movements and early modern networks of science are designed to replicate existing approaches letter writers. It explores how Big Historians tell and hold off outlying methods and marginal stories, of humanity’s place in the universe and of theoretical perspectives—as was the case with their discovery of Big History. Finally, it compares natural selection and the big bang. As this summary Big History to related genres that explore the past on suggests, part of a scientific revolution is conceptual, a large scale. Big History has matured enough as a a new way of thinking. community and set of institutions where a diversity Equally important, and more important for this of goals and vision in the movement are leading paper, is the battle Kuhn described over institutions to factions and even conflict, tensions familiar to and the creation of new movements and institutions intellectual movements that seek a secure, respected in revolutionary moments in science, as defenders place in the academy and aspire to influence more of prevailing normal science battle with advocates widely in society. of revolution science, and sometimes revolutionary science becomes the new normal. Scholarship in Movement Cultures the history of science confirms this institutional Thomas Kuhn’s “paradigm shift” explanation component. For example, debates over natural for scientific revolutions is best known for the selection in the nineteenth century intersected with epistemological questions it raises. “Kuhn argued conflict between gentlemen amateur scientists that each scientific field is organized around an and scientists who professionalized their work in overarching, or paradigmatic, theory. In normal, new research institutions and universities. The everyday science the social networks and community revolution was not only conceptual—older creation experiences of scientists in laboratories and accounts versus evolutionary ones, or Lamarckian vs professional associations help reinforce the dominant Darwinian forms of evolutionary theory—but over paradigm. Sealed off in their enclaves, scientists who scientists were, how they should be trained, and routinely try to explain away any anomalies that how and where they did their work.4 their research might turn up. Only when forced by What sort of paradigm shift does Big History mounting evidence to confront these anomalies will Chicago, 2004). From Kuhn, of course, see The Structure of some scientists . make a sudden mental shift which Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition (Chicago: 3 permits them to break with normal science.” In University of Chicago, 2012). 4 A useful, reader friendly overview of institutions of 3 Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling knowledge, including a chapter on the modern university and the Truth About History (New York: Norton, 1994), 164. one on the laboratory, is Ian McNeely, with Lisa Wolverton, For a short general introduction to Kuhn’s thought, see Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet Alexander Bird, “Thomas Kuhn”, The Stanford Encyclopedia (New York: Norton, 2008). A useful biographical case of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), study is Adrian Desmond, Huxley: From Devil’s Disciple to http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/thomas- Evolution’s High Priest (New York: Basic Books, 1997). For kuhn/. For an overview of recent discussion in the history the general history, see Peter J. Bowler and John Pickstone, and philosophy of science, see John Zammito, A Nice eds., The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 6, Modern Derangement of Epistemes: Post-positivism in the Study Life and Earth Sciences (Cambridge, UK: University of of Science from Quine to Latour (Chicago: University of Cambridge Press, 2009). Journal of Big History Page 64 William Katerbrg represent, then? It is not a revolution in a specific to Big History—in the IBHA itself, the Big History scientific discipline, as described by Kuhn. It is a project, Chronozoom, and curriculum for schools, narrative and analytical synthesis of the work of books for children, and popular documentary films.7 today’s “normal science” in disciplines across many Big History is not a political movement. Nonetheless, fields, from the natural sciences to the social sciences working toward a sustainable future is a motivation and humanities. Big history’s synthetic impulse is for many of its proponents, as advocates who have counter-cultural in an intellectual world dominated learned from Big History to envision humanity’s by disciplinary specialization and a social culture evolving place on our planet in new ways, and as characterized by fracture.5 But Kuhn’s core idea is responsible citizens who have become determined to still valuable here. What is the appeal of big synthesis care for it.8 today, for some people, and why do disciplinary Two other historical analogies strike me as silos seem unsatisfying to them? Big History is an relevant, both from the early modern era. People intellectual and cultural insurgency in its synthetic rightly look to the print revolution to explain the ambition and in seeking to influence not only impact of the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, academia, but also public discussion of issues related evangelical revivals, and Enlightenment. Historians to science and society and elementary, middle, and have shown that letters played a major role as high school curricula. The next section of the paper well. Civil society first emerged in what historians will explore these issues in more detail. This rest sometimes refer to as the “Republic of Letters,” as of this section briefly focuses on practical side of intellectuals spread word of new books and ideas in Kuhn’s paradigm shift model: how new movements letters meant to be copied and to be read to groups evolve institutionally.