yes and no? Knowledge of the past a) has an intrinsic value analogous to writing a novel b) has potential instrumental value which best bears fruit if not pressed to eventuate, analogous to basic/pure research in the sciences, and c) is the situated/context-specific product of a person in time.
I agree with all three propositions.
My question was prompted by an increasing sense that ancient historians (my field) aren't doing (b) carefully enough. But fleshing that out is way beyond a post on here...
I think in part we are driven to b) because it is politically necessary now in a way it maybe wasn’t in the amorphous ‘before’. I also think it’s one of those things (like Impact) that some people are better at than others and the way academia is going with prioritise those people.
Not because that had more intrinsic (or extrinsic) value, but because it is increasingly politically (and Politically) necessary.
I also think that Classics will, in some ways, be shielded from the worst of it by our ‘reputation’.
I'm a historian of the late 19th and early 20th century US and personally imho my subfield gets the balance of 'we think about the past open endedly' and 'thinking about the past is straightforwardly about the present' basically right but could be tilted just slightly more toward the former (not to
say my subfield is perfect, far from it, I just think we get this in particular alright, there's big issues about limits in geographic scope, lack of comparison, issues of theme/analytical categories, etc)
