FEATURE
“The Complete Interpreter: The Limits of Our Beliefs” by Will LaPage, introduced by Wiwien T. Wiyonoputri
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION:
The Legacy issue with Will LaPage’s article “The Complete Interpreter” published around the same time as the establishment of Interpretasi Indonesia WhatsApp group, whose members consisted of only few Indonesians who are concerned and interested in interpretation then. After travelling almost half the globe, a couple of weeks later the issue arrived at my hands. LaPage's article title directly caught my attention: "”Wow, I need to read this!”
As a non-English speaker, short articles always look appealing to me, but I was immediately struck and provoked by the first line of LaPage’s first paragraph. In a minute I was carried away in his train of thought. In such a short article he addresses many layers of challenges and questions faced by interpreters, from moral to philosophical to practice and to political strategy. Fortunately, LaPage did not leave us without offering his thoughts for dealing with the challenges.
Reading the article for the first time, I, personally, felt many of LaPage’s suggestions greatly reassured me that I was on the right path. Some of those inspired me to look for balance, unheard voices and, therefore, to think with multiple perspectives. Today, his article continues to always be a reminder to me.
The biggest challenge for us is to interpret heritage to those in power in the bigger system in ways that help them to see its significance and, therefore, to support us. This challenge I believe resonates with many of us today. LaPage encourages us to take charge as he quoted Izaak Walton’s wise words, “that which is everybody’s business is nobody’s business” in The Compleat Angler. No one will take ownership or do it effectively except interpreters themselves. We just need an uncompromised belief that our heritage contributes significantly to our well-being.
Therefore, I think this piece of advice from a prominent park professional, who asserted his love for parks and his profession not only through his duties, lectures, and books of essays, but also collections of poetries and novels, deserves to be picked out from the archives to reassure, remind, encourage, and inspire more Legacy readers.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
The Complete Interpreter: The Limits of Our Beliefs
Will LaPage
“That which is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.”
—Izaak Walton 1583–1693
There’s an old saying insisting that every act of interpretation is an act of betrayal. A bit extreme, perhaps, however it does succinctly remind us that it takes a fair amount of hubris to speak for our forebears who can no longer speak for themselves, and for objects that never could. We cannot hope to tell their whole story, and sometimes the story we choose to tell may not be the one they would have chosen. Our stories are, never-the-less, designed to provoke thinking about protecting and preserving a bit of the heritage they passed on to us. And, that is an honorable and noble act—hardly a betrayal. Since the days of our anonymous cynic, we have found a number of ways to approach the act of interpretation that help us avoid doing injustice to our subjects: We try to approach every interpretive assignment with genuine humility.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Will LaPage, an educator, author, mentor, and an NAI Fellow and founder, passed away March 31, 2017. He was an advocate for the profession and for our treasured places.
Isn’t the ideal interpretive event a balance between the thrill of discovery and preserving the mystery of the unknown?
As much as possible, we try to let the subject speak for itself; we seek to be candid about the limits of our knowledge; we open doors to alternative interpretations and speculation; we seek to elevate questions above answers, knowing that questions encourage thought, while answers may not; and, we encourage more research. These are all positive and thoughtful measures. Perhaps we might also think about moving away from thinking of ourselves as engaging in acts of interpretation—or even acts at all having a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Instead, why not think of it entirely as a beginning—the beginning of a dialogue without end, an appetizer with the main course, a thoughtful discussion, to follow later on? Or, if you like to think of interpretation as an act, why not a balancing act between our emotional beliefs and our intellectual beliefs—balancing the known and the unknown and perhaps unknowable? Isn’t the ideal interpretive event a balance between the thrill of discovery and preserving the mystery of the unknown? Isn’t every single act of interpretation also an act of faith—a belief that it will make a difference to someone? That difference may be small and delayed for years, but it will be a positive difference in someone’s life. Or, maybe it’s an act of confession, a forthright admission that we care deeply about something, and that we believe in the importance of something old and possibly irrelevant? It’s not unreasonable to think of every act of interpretation as an act of defiance—a refusal to accept the status quo, the easy belief that it’s “really not all that important in the big scheme of things,” that it doesn’t need more research and more money in the budget for protection. No matter how small or arcane the subject, no matter how distant the past, the importance of our heritage is vital to our future as a great nation of diverse people. Isn’t that what we are silently saying, the message inside the message?
The original cover for "Interpreting Religion," the September/October 2018 issue of Legacy in which this article was featured. Photo courtesy of Paul Caputo.
When I first stumbled upon the notion that we cannot engage in interpretation without somehow betraying the truth, I immediately felt a rush of disbelief. It sounded like some kind of political double speak or intellectual grandstanding. Later, much later, I began to realize that there is, indeed, a message within the message, or there should be if we follow Tilden’s principle of holism. Every single object we interpret has a larger connection. The interpretation of Mesa Verde would be incomplete without some passing reference to the scores of still unprotected Native American sites. The interpretation of a vibrant coral reef can only be enhanced by an appreciation of the extensive dead and dying coral reefs being poisoned daily by pollution of all kinds. The interpretive act is, and should be, a feel-good experience—a learning experience that the subject is important, valuable, being continually studied, and preserved. All interpretation is, almost by definition, an act of joy, of sharing that comfort. And, sharing of the larger picture is every bit as important as is sharing the subject’s story as we know it. The holistic story is often the most difficult part of an interpretive act simply because it may break the positive, relevant, connection we’ve just labored to set up. That is, the holistic connection is, unfortunately, very often negative: “We’ve saved this tiny bit of our heritage, but the remaining more than 90 percent remains at risk.” On the other hand, a gentle reminder that “there’s always more to do, and I can direct you to some links if you’d like me to” gives a positive spin to a negative message. Inductive reasoning, from the specific to the general, is more than a leap of faith. It’s often a biased and blatant assertion that whatever is true in the present case is likely to also be true in thousands of other cases. Outrageous, perhaps, but 100-percent scientifically testable. In short, it’s a hypothesis; and often a pretty darn good one. More than that, it’s a statement of conviction, of belief. Holism is all about connections. The object I’m interpreting may be one of a kind, as far as we currently know. But, even if it is, and even if we cannot explain how it got to be where it was found, those unknowns silently scream at connections yet to be discovered.
Holism is not simply the wider connections of what we do, it is the sum and substance of our influence on all of the connections.
Walton, the avid angler, was one of the first to acknowledge that the “Compleat Angler” must know the ways of nature in order to understand the ways of the salmon (salmon being the only true challenge). In much the same way, the complete interpreter must excel in the game of politics in order to safeguard our heritage. We can be either in the game or out of the game. There are only those two choices. By choosing to be in the game, we not only interpret to those who come to us, we also search out new audiences who might never have thought of visiting the park. If we believe that our heritage is worth preserving, can we really afford to stay out of the game, staying on the sidelines and hoping that others will champion our cause? Years ago, a good friend in the New Hampshire legislature told me that I’d done a great job of interpreting state park system’s needs, but that I just needed to hold off asking for more money. Other, higher-priority needs had to be addressed more urgently. “If I would just hold off for one year, then it would be the parks’ turn.” And, as chairman of the powerful ways and means committee, he promised to lead the fight. I respectfully declined his offer, telling him that my belief in parks was not limited by his priorities. In that very competitive year, our parks got the largest infusion of new money in their 55-year history. And, it was legislated to continue for two more years. Now, in all honesty, I do not know what the limits of my belief are regarding the necessity of parks. What I do know, and what helped to carry the day, is that parks directly contribute to every one of the chairman’s priorities: education, tourism, mental health, and state revenue. I also emphatically believe that if we hope to safeguard the integrity of parks they must be constantly and widely interpreted. Holism is not simply the wider connections of what we do, it is the sum and substance of our influence on all of the connections. It’s more powerful when you look at it in reverse: What would be the loss in tourist revenue without viable parks; or the social costs in diminished education and public health? The limits of belief are not easily compromised!
