Roy C. Schaeffer, “Transcendent Concepts: Power, Appraisal, and the Archivist as ‘Social Outcast’” The American Archivist , Fall, 1992, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Fall, 1992), pp. 608-619
Published by: Society of American Archivists. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40293694
Abstract:
The appropriate application of personal, professional, and societal values in archival appraisal has been the subject of analysis and speculation since the origin of programs of acquisition. The author provides a historical overview of the issue, discusses the principle of accountability in appraisal, and explores the notion of a distinct set of values that are the product of the unique knowledge and experience of the archival practitioner. About the author: Roy C. Schaeffer is a student in the Master of Archival Studies Program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He has worked in a variety of archival institutions and has served as an archives and records management consultant in government, business, education, and the professions.
Editor’s note:
The Theodore Calvin Pease Award is named for the first editor of the American Archivist and is given to the best student paper as judged by the current editor of the American Archivist.and two individuals with expertise in archival research and literature. The 1992 selection committee consisted of Richard J. Cox, Julia Marks Young, and Frank Boles. The award recipient receives a certificate, a cash prize, and publication in the American Archivist. The 1992 award winning essay was prepared in a course taught by Professor Luciana Duranti. Starting from the premise of the importance of appraisal, Roy C. Schaeffer chronicled in his essay the struggle by archivists to determine what the role of appraisal is and the implications of this function for their service to society. He clearly placed archival appraisal in the context of a social mandate and raised a variety of intriguing questions about what values should guide the archivist in appraising records. Schaeffer’s essay is an important review of appraisal theory and practice and, just as important, demonstrates the important contributions that archival students can make to our professional literature.
APPRAISAL HAS LONG BEEN REGARDED as the single most important archival function. The appraisal process determines the fate of our documentary heritage and thereby contains perhaps the only socially significant element of archival power. It is a mark of the significance of appraisal that the skills and knowledge required for its effective performance have been, in North America at least, a keynote in the discussion of the appropriate education of archivists.! It is through this function that members of the profession realize their highest ideals and become, in the eyes of many in the profession, the custodians and defenders of truth and social continuity. They realize “the vital societal need of extracting from the past what gives the present the possibility of lasting and of operating creatively in building the future.”? It is in this awareness of being arbiters of the fabric of history itself that many find their ultimate purpose: “The facts are in our keeping. The whole aim of the archivist’s work is to preserve them....[W]ithout the archivist’s ‘science and research’ the historian will not know either what the facts are or where they can be found.”?
In the United States and Canada, however, this perception of the critical importance of appraisal has not been joined by an analysis of its justification or intellectual content. Instead, discussion has consistently centered upon issues of methodology: criteria and systems for decision making in selection at the micro level or development of coordinated policies or documentation strategies at the macro. This is perhaps a reflection of professional pragmatism, that “‘official philosophy of America,” which has characterized most aspects of archival discussion in this society. It also relates to the fact that distinctly archival, as opposed to historiographical, discussion has occurred only within the last sixty years and since the advent of pressing problems relating to the extent and complexity of modern records.
The demands of effective management of masses of information have resulted in a dearth of analysis of the theoretical and ethical framework within which appraisal occurs. Issues of objectivity and the nature and limits of archival knowledge, professional value systems, and power and ethics in appraisal have only begun to be addressed in the American context.® Assuming that choices must be made, is objectivity possible or indeed desirable? Is the appraisal power held by archivists a real power for which they must be accountable? What is expected of archivists in legitimizing their appraisal choices? What values do archivists bring to the appraisal process and how do these relate to the values of society and the creator of the record? These are some of the questions that have been touched upon by other studies in the field and that will be addressed in this paper. Obviously, they defy categorical responses, but all require the careful consideration of archivists as they endeavor to understand their role in the community and fulfill their promise as a profession.
Appraisal has been something of a theoretical minefield for archivists internationally. It has been suggested that in an ideal universe (or at least one in which documentary practices and procedures were ideally structured), no archival appraisal decisions would be required. Either society would enjoy ease of access to all information or all ethically and politically charged choices would be made outside of the influence and control of the archivist. The extent and complexity of the global “‘information stock’ has probably eliminated the likelihood of the former option.” The latter remains for many a much desired end, for appraisal assumes the application of all of the hazardous elements of nonscientific social and personal evaluation, the application of relative value judgments to the retention of records. It immediately raises questions of what values and whose values, and how they are to be applied. Are they to be the values of the records creator, the user, or the archivist? Are they to be the values of contemporary society or the society which created the records? How are we to ensure that posterity receives a documentary legacy that permits an accurate assessment of the development of our society in all of its dimensions?
These issues arose gradually as the archivist shifted from being the passive recipient of the record to being a dynamic (if somewhat reluctant) actor in the bureaucratic and cultural world. It occurred, not coincidentally, with the advent of principles of open access and impartial service to all users, the increasing variety of research and administrative use of archives, and the unprecedented proliferation of complex masses of documentation that defied easy analysis. A survey of the history of appraisal theory provides some explanation for contemporary angst and confusion.
At the origins of modern archives in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, appraisal issues did not exist. There was but one value inherent in the record, and that was its primary value, its value to the creator of the record for the purposes of administration or for evidence of rights and obligations of the state or person. Records were preserved to protect the interests of the creators, crown, church, individual, or society as collectively represented in democratic society. “The documents considered to have permanent value were those which proved political, jurisdictional, and patrimonial rights.”’® Archivists were the custodians of a documentary heritage deemed in need of preservation by others. Their theoretical tenets and professional skills were connected to arrangement, description, and, to some extent, dissemination of the very small volume of surviving records in order to “preserve our treasures by means of the press from the corrosions of time and the power of accident.” Sir Hilary Jenkinson effectively connected this traditional approach to appraisal and acquisition to an articulate and forward-looking body of archival principles. He took to its logical extreme that respect for provenance and the organic integrity of the record which had become the theoretical basis for modern archivy. He argued that archives, as organic entities, must accumulate in an organic fashion through the application of a “natural selection’ by the administrator/creator. Judging from their own functional criteria, the creators alone possessed the moral authority to determine the fate of the record: The ‘‘administration cannot be criticized for action within its competence.”’1? Jenkinson, rather ahead of his time, recognized that archives taken in their entirety provided evidence of all the activities of society and that their integrity must be preserved in order to reveal truth and permit interpretation by all potential users. The creators might destroy valuable research materials, but the application of their value system in itself formed an ineffable part of the evidence of contemporary social/political/administrative priorities and practices. The very idea of archival appraisal was therefore anathema. It threatened the integrity and the authenticity of the record by imposing an intermediary actor, possessing external values and concerns, between the creator and the archival record: “‘For the Archivist to destroy a document because he thinks it useless is to import into the collection under his charge what we have throughout been most anxious to keep out of it—an element of his personal judgement.”’!! By implication, the archivist could be criticized for appraisal decisions and face the wrath of political superiors and society for subjective errors that, in the nature of the activity, were both inevitable and irretrievable. Such politically directed criticisms could threaten the very survival of archives.
What Jenkinson was forced to contend with in his own generation was the rise of historicism. The appearance of historical scholarship based upon primary materials combined with public access to archives in the nineteenth century presented the archivist with a new and aggressive user and, potentially, a new social purpose for archives. The archivist was now the custodian not just of useful records but of historical records, the documentary heritage of the nation now defined as a sociohistorical concept. The new perception of the character of archives carried with it the obvious contention that records had more than primary value. They now possessed a secondary value, a value for vital historical research purposes of various kinds. Archivists were therefore justified in establishing “the principle that they should be consulted before any files were destroyed and that archivists’ interests were paramount to those of administrators in the selection process.”*? The values that began to be applied were those of the most valued user, the historian, and the skills and values of the archivist became those of the modern historian. It thus came to pass that historical training and historical understanding were the requirements for effective appraisal, the societal “verstehen [intuitive understanding)” of the German professional archivist! The archivist was assessing and selecting the record of the progress of society, its achievements, and its epic events. ‘“Archivists, in their selection, description, and interpretation of historical records, must employ all the best qualities of the historian.”1* Appraisal became the great intellectual stimulus and challenge of the profession and it made the archivist the active cultural intermediary between administration and research, much to the dismay of Jenkinson and others. These assumptions remained (and to an extent remain to this day) highly durable. There are many students of archives in recent years who have argued that the values of the historian should remain paramount. ‘“The eye and mind of the historian, the training in historical methodology, the immersion in history in general, cultivates in him the historicist approach, the awareness of historical context. This is indispensable for any one who has archival material in his care.” The position of the archivist-historian began to be challenged (as was the position of Jenkinson) by the complexity of bureaucracy and modern records, the demands of the information age, and the emergence of the archivist as both administrative and cultural activist, broadly defined. Even in Jenkinson’s day, archivists questioned whether selection of records could be left entirely to the competence of the creator. In the ideal of Jenkinson and others, the creators of the records were attuned to the requirements of effective records creation and use and the need to preserve a core of evidence of activities. Following the ‘“Golden Rule of Archive Making,” they would provide an organization of records in order to ensure this event.!6 This might be in the form of a registry system in which all records were systematically reduced to the essentials or of a procedure by which the administrators identified and preserved those records which most fully documented all of the significant actions of their offices. It was assumed, as well, that this highly rational process was carried on in all of the record-creating bodies in society in order that a complete picture of the evolution and contemporary status of that society be maintained. If this was not the case, then it became the responsibility of archivists to extend the scope of governmental archives or to encourage the establishment of private archives or collecting bodies.
By the 1950s, the character of the record, the user, and the archivist had altered significantly. As the Grigg Report noted in the United Kingdom, there was a great danger that the records creator was making no appraisal decisions whatever.!” A manager of records, an administrative conscience, and a guardian of broader social interests had to be imbedded into the procedural process.'® Ironically, the archivist-historian contributed to the movement toward the proactive archival professional, for the historically trained and oriented archivist recognized the potential wealth of documentary material available in society and possessed a cultural imperative in selection that went considerably beyond the interests of the creator.
The flood of government 4nd private records in the mid-twentieth century introduced what one student of appraisal has described as the “management’” phase in appraisal thinking.!® Archives could no longer accommodate or describe all of the records being generated, and archivists, particularly in the United States, sought to introduce controls on both creation and retention. Not only was the archivist to take an active part in evaluation and selection for retention, but this appraisal was to occur at the earliest moment in the life cycle of the record.
In North America, effective legislative controls, limitations on records management in a more laissez-faire administrative environment, and the ‘‘democratic’’ appeals to freedom of action in business and management generally, reduced society’s capacity to organize effectively its documentary resources to avoid or minimize the necessity of choice. Even where administrators had been charged with the responsibility to ensure the survival of their record, it was found that they were unwilling or unable to fulfill the obligation. It was in North America that the role of the archivist as a participant in the full life cycle of the record was most fully embraced. Margaret Cross Norton, Philip Brooks, and others developed criteria for archival selection and argued eloquently for archival involvement in the development of records management practices. ‘‘Brooks recognized that the archivist cannot function alone, that he needs the cooperation and assistance of staff members in the agencies for whose records he is responsible. Noting that today’s records are tomorrow’s archives, he encouraged his colleagues to take an interest in the documents from the moment they are created....While Brook’s ideas and recommendations must seem commonplace to today’s archivists, in 1940 he and*his colleagues were breaking new ground.”’? There can be little question that records management techniques have substantially assisted in the appraisal process by designing mechanisms for effective disposijtion of routine records. More significant, the process permitted regular review of disposition practices and provided archival input into the process to assist the creators of records in the performance of their functions. Although archival decisions continued to be shaped by the needs of the creators, the demands of provenance-based analysis, and other traditional and practical considerations, it still required informed choices. The question then became, informed by what? North American archivists have spoken rather glibly of the evaluative process and ideas of use value, as with Maynard Brichford’s observation that the “archivist applies the scholar’s principles of external and internal criticism to documents to assess their future usefulness.”’?! Little time is devoted to an analysis of the underlying propositions and character of the values and the sources of the values applied.
In essence, the era of the proactive archivist has presented archivists a new universe of values. Archivists are no longer the exclusive servants of the creators of the record. However crucial these remain, the values and judgment of the creator can no longer serve as the ultimate guide to our documentary heritage. Nor can the values of the historian be relied upon for guidance. Archivists are now the servants of society at large, called upon to ensure a record of all aspects of its culture. According to the contemporary archival ethic, records must be acquired from all elements of society and must be accessible to a range of users that includes, among countless others, the genealogist, scientist, historian, lawyer, and administrator. Therefore, it would appear that the values to be applied are the highly heterogeneous values of society as a whole: In determining permanent value, we must capture the essence of that society. ‘‘Permanent value is the capacity of consigning to the future the essence of a society’s culture; it is the power of making permanent a society by making its culture a vital part of any future culture.” The uncertainties imposed by this new universe of values have not been lost on the North American archivist, though appearances may be to the contrary. Particularly in the United States, it has resulted in considerable soul searching. Educational prerequisites for entry into the profession were reexamined in the light of the decline of historicism and changing patterns of acquisition and use. This resulted in an acceptance of graduates of disciplines other than history into the profession, though openness did not extend to endorsement of specialized education in an archival discipline.? Energies were devoted to ever more elaborate methodological schemes to facilitate the analysis and acquisition process. These ranged from Frank Boles and Julia Marks Young’s refined ‘‘Black Box’ algorithm for selection of institutional records to Helen Samuels’s documentary strategies for the thematic appraisal and acquisition of the record of the society at large.?* All this was suffused with a heavy dose of economic realism based upon a growing awareness of the financial implications of preservation in a period of “scarce and diminishing resources.”’? Terry Cook has remarked on the primitive state, at least in the Englishspeaking world, of archival theory on appraisal. To date this has rarely advanced beyond the ‘taxonomic’ stage, that is to say, a descriptive categorizing of various values of records (such as evidential and informational, primary and secondary, and so on). It has rarely approached the level where research into concepts of societal dynamics has led to a theoretical model for appraisal.? At its most superficial, appraisal is a routine and even a mundane task, and indeed this must be the perception of many archivists who perform it on a daily basis. It is a regular process of cost-benefit mechanics applied to a documentary commodity. In a large institution, the volume of records and the repetitive administrative character of much of the records does little to inspire profound thinking about its creation or context or its present, historical, or potential future meaning. The new ethos of the profession as social servant, however, requires archivists to lift their eyes and recognize the process as part of a noble task: a duty to the world community in the protection of its rights, its ability to understand and assess the functioning of its institutions, and ultimately its ability to understand its own evolution in a comprehensive historical context. The responsibility thus becomes awesome and must imply “societal controls,’” an element of accountability in its performance, certain demonstrable internal laws, and a correspondingly complex body of knowledge.” As Barbara Craig has observed:
But should society take us on faith? Can we demonstrate that our actions are based on, say, a well developed tradition in the profession? Or if tradition is not deemed a sufficient basis to validate decisions, can we then demonstrate a fully developed science of appraisal to comfort us and our users? We believe implicitly that our acts of appraisal can be based on a rational science of valuation. We would be appalled by the suggestion that we should rely on the power of fate to decide the shape of our archives: we have no faith in the purpose of any power beyond that determined by rational means. We would also be very sceptical and probably dismissive of the suggestion that artistry and intuition are important ingredients in any appraisal?
This notion of archival accountability has not been discussed in the literature to any extent, despite the importance of the concept of accountability in the retention and preservation of records. It deserves considerable study, for it carries with it potent ideas of knowledge, power, and service. As Jenkinson had anticipated, in moving from passive custodians to active players in the preservation of the cultural heritage of our society, archivists have assumed an enhanced role and thus have opened themselves to criticism regarding their capacity and their rights. ‘By assuming the function of the appraisers of records, archivists and their acts of appraisal are potentially controversial; appraisal is a social action that archivists characteristically perform as part of their professional duties. But archivists assume this responsibility without general agreement in society that appraisal is their proper function.”?
Archivists have perhaps been fortunate that as functionaries of society they have not as yet been called upon to answer to the community for their selection and acquisition choices or their methodologies. The fact remains that few care and fewer would think to challenge appraisal decisions, however arbitrary these may be. As Booms has observed, the ‘situation has failed to attract societal concern.” Archivists have, in fact, been delegated the responsibility for appraisal by society, which expects and trusts them to bring to the exercise a set of values consistent with their training, sense of social mission, and understanding of archives as administrative, legal, and cultural entities. Society has identified the archivist as a professional. That society does not demand of archivists all of the requirements of full professional status, such as an exacting education and an enforceable body of professional ethics, is simply an indication of the degree of importance that it attaches to their function. North American society does not accord the preservation of its past a high priority (though the uncertainties of the age seem to have produced a new reliance on what Abraham Lincoln cited as the ‘mystic chords of memory”’). The lack of concern is reflected in the resource priorities that it establishes and the status it accords cultural professionals of all kinds. Archivists, despite their administrative interests and occasional integration into a conventional bureaucratic structure, remain somewhat outside of the mainstream, championing values and sensibilities that are not those that dominate in society. Archivists, in fact, enjoy the status, as Hans Booms would have it, of “‘social outcasts.”
Archivists as Social Outcasts This is not to say that archivists do not personally embody current social values. As human beings acting in many capacities in society, they inevitably accept or accommodate its values and belief systems. However, like members of all occupational groups with a distinct (and some might suggest esoteric) social purpose, archivists have developed their own norms, values, and ideology. They assess the demands of public or corporate memory, of communication and information, from their own particular vantage point. As the library educator Jesse Shera has observed, The subjective knowledge structure —the Image— incorporates a system of values according to which certain types of information are rated on a series of scales of “‘betterness’” and “worseness’” as determined by the individual, organization, society, or culture. These value scales play such an important role in determining the effect of information upon knowledge, that one might go so far as to say that there are no “facts’” in the absolute sense—only messages filtered through a changeable value system. It must be remembered that knowledge and values are not only societally conditioned but relative to specifics of education and occupation. Archivists will, as a matter of course, develop their own hierarchy of values in response to their training and experience. Their understanding of the community, its needs and demands, is shaped by their conceptual base and epistemology. Like the formation and accumulation of archives themselves, the construction of that archival knowledge which determines the quality of all professional activities is contextual and organic.
This need to understand and to exploit creatively their complex organizational and intellectual environment is an inevitable and natural component of the archivists’ task. They are actively involved (occasionally from a position of real responsibility) in the administrative, cultural, and political interactions of the institutions they serve.3* They are uniquely placed to interpret the interests and concerns of records creators and to assess them against their own perceptions of the values of society. Upon this necessary sensitivity, the professional builds an understanding of the role of the record, the implications of its creation and use, and its unique characteristics as a source of evidence of human activity. This is an intellectual exercise and a conceptual orientation which, at least in North America, has not been accorded sufficient examination or credited with sufficient power as an aspect of the discipline. Where archivists may have betrayed their social responsibilities is not in the assumption of an unsanctioned role in appraisal but in embracing that role without accepting the attendant responsibility to develop and define the conceptual base for their actions.
This situation is gradually changing with the growth of the profession and the advent of a North American scholarship in archives. As Richard Klumpenhouwer has observed,
Ultimately, appraisal decisions are based on value propositions derived from an authoritative value perspective. To be sure, the value authority of archivists is restricted in its scope by the time and culture in which it operates. However, the archival community is developing an awareness of its unique identity as a profession with a responsibility to serve a wide and diverse constituency and to avoid narrow allegiances to specific social institutions and groups. This development may provide the foundations for a more universal, overarching framework of reference for defining archival values.
The challenge to develop and articulate these transcendant concepts is not insignificant, for it demands ‘‘general theoretical overview of records creation in society.’” The archival field has come some distance since the assertion of Frank Burke a decade ago that there has been no “‘elucidation of archival theory” anywhere in the world. The profession has recognized the valuable contributions of European theorists, provided avenues for discussion in North America through journals and conferences, and in graduate-level programs of education has begun to define the focus of intellectual activity for archivists.
The distinctiveness of the field and its raw materials has been articulated by, among others, the education committee of the Association of Canadian Archivists: ‘“Archival material has a nature which differs from any other type of information source or cultural expression. Such a nature is similar everywhere and in any time, because it is determined by the administrative activity generating archives, which has existed since the first forms of society and which develops according to regular patterns.”3® To this fundamental and universal understanding of the record can be added the extraordinarily expansive and multidisciplinary components of archival learning. Scholars of the record are drawing from the information sciences as well as history, and from management science, sociology, philosophy, and the study of government and political science. The scope of research around the single question of appraisal has been recognized recently in a Society of American Archivists planning document (though it is not as yet reflected in archival education initiatives in the United States). Their stated primary activity under the goal of “Identification and Retention of Records of Enduring Value” is to “‘review knowledge gained by other disciplines . . . about the characteristics, management and use of records by their creators.”
From a professional identity born of a dedication to the record, and an awareness of the intellectual potential of a full appreciation of its place in society, emerges the notion of archival thinking: a new archival verstehen. This is the objective of all professional education and training. It is also a product of experience, for academic understanding and intuition (knowledge based upon experience) are not antithetical. Research and analysis in the determination of values in the record will be conditioned by the universal appreciation of the form, context, and purpose of the document and an understanding of the goals of preservation. Like others concerned with dynamics of information, archivists have begun to reach beyond the mechanics of professional methodologies to a more far-reaching comprehension of the distinct place of archival knowledge in the network of human interactions. They are, perhaps, reaching toward the “social epistemology’’ of Shera: Social epistemology should provide a framework for the investigation of the complex problem of the nature of the intellectual process in society—a study of the ways in which society as a whole achieves a perceptive relation to the total environment. It should lift the study of intellectual life from that of a scrutiny of the individual to an inquiry into the means by which a society, nation, or culture achieves understanding of stimuli which act upon it. The focus of this new discipline should be upon the production, flow, integration, and consumption of communicated thought through the social fabric.
Archivists have been loath to assert the validity of their own ideology born of their understanding of and commitment to the record. In their insecurity and lack of confidence in the coherence of their theoretical base, they have looked to external models and attached themselves to more socially comprehensible and valued concepts. In a desire to secure community sanction and to demonstrate accountability, they have made objectivity and measurability their touchstones. Archival choices, it is said, should form ‘‘an objective, scientific . . . exercise.”#! It is iterated and reiterated in the literature that to be socially responsible in appraisal ‘“archivists are expected to transform the complex mass of documentary evidence produced by individuals and institutions into a coherent, useable, and above all, objectively-formed documentary source from which to realize an accurate historical image of society.”’#2 Hans Booms was uncompromising in his assertion that archivists must, as a matter of professional principle and in the interests of the record, “distance themselves from their subjectivity to the greatest possible extent.” Debates have raged as to the best means to achieve true objective awareness of the archival-social-historical value of archives. Philip Brooks held that appraisal was best undertaken as records ‘“are created rather than after they have lain forgotten and deteriorating for twenty years....The earlier in the life history of the documents the selection process begins, the better for all concerned.”# Others, such as the authors of the Grigg report, have insisted that it is best achieved after twenty-five years, providing for a preliminary selection earlier in the life of the records, so that archivists may more accurately assess their relevance to administrative or historical developments over time.*> Attempts have been made to establish models of national development based upon scientific and historical research in order to reflect “the consciousness of the particular period for which the archives is responsible and from which the source material to be appraised is taken.”*46 Or they may rely upon experts or panels of scholars in the effort to attempt to avoid subjective judgment.’
The inescapable fact remains that archivists cannot be truly objective—*‘the subjective and even artistic nature of appraisal cannot be eliminated.’”® What is more, there is little evidence that society expects archivists to be objective. It is unlikely that the archival profession will ever agree on the values to be applied in appraisal until it agrees on the essential nature and purpose of archives in society. In the meantime, archivists can develop their knowledge and refine their professional perceptions. Archivists possess, and have great potential to expand, a unique body of knowledge that brings with it a unique set of values—based on archival knowledge and archival thinking.
Archivists aspire to objectivity in appraisal in order to facilitate the increasingly difficult task of defining the limits of documentary heritage and their own capabilities. In the face of great responsibilities and seemingly insurmountable logistical problems, the appeal of tangibles and absolute answers is enormous. There are limits to knowledge, however, and there are limits to the archivists ability to identify and preserve a complete representation of the record of humankind. In their efforts to realize noble ambitions, there is a danger that archivists will place too great a priority on “appraisal techniques and appraisal strategies.”’® Elaborate methodologies are valuable in defining procedures for selection, but these neither obviate the necessity of choices nor represent a substitute for a broadly based archival knowledge. Harold Pinkett is correct in stating that appraisal judgments are conditioned by the “cultural interests of a definite moment or milieu’; what must be asserted is the validity of the distinct intellectual milieu of the archival professional.>® North American archivists are only beginning to feel comfortable with the competence that society has accorded them, and it will be some time before they unapologetically accept their positive role and their freedom to develop, articulate, and apply their own legitimate values.