When will the vampires of banality succeed at sucking dry the vitality of public history? It may be all too soon unless the normative and positive elements of public history-including the reading of cultural landscapes-can be brought to coexist. In order of value positive/objective judgements seem much more valuable than those which are normative/subjective.
The priority of positive judgements exists on two levels. First they are needed to evaluate the value of normative opinions. If normative judgements are ever to transcend the needs and desires of individuals and have value for societies or groups of individuals, positive analysis will be necessary to commonalities of shared interests/needs. While it is not very popular to posit characteristics of ‘human nature’ or elements of a universally shared humanity that would transcend if not determine culture, the means and tools to do this are finally becoming available available. The second reason positive judgements are needed is so that cultural landscapes can be used to impact social structures. Advances in the empirical reading of cultural landscapes, including if and how cultural landscapes actually impact social structures, is necessary if planners actually want to effectively use cultural landscapes to change social conditions.