Does history matter?
In today’s Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley’s review of Margaret MacMillan’s new book, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History, begins thus:
In this provocative examination of the ways in which we use and abuse history, Margaret MacMillan passes along a story originally told by the writer Susan Jacoby. She was in a New York bar on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, and eavesdropped on a conversation between two “bewildered” men. First man: “This is just like Pearl Harbor.” Second man: “What is Pearl Harbor?” First man: “That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War.” To which MacMillan responds:
“Does it matter that they got it so wrong?”
Later on, Yardley comments:
MacMillan’s emphasis is less on how history is taught and written in academia than on how it is used in the public arena by politicians, journalists and others who seek to influence and rally public opinion…..
What goes unmentioned in MacMillan’s otherwise astute analysis is the trend among professional historians to view the past through whatever contemporary lens they find most congenial. A persistent theme in Gordon S. Wood’s collection of essays The Purpose of the Past, published last year, is that this practice of “presentism” is now so widespread in academia that it threatens to become standard and accepted practice. The hegemony of the “Holy Trinity” of race, gender and class theory has turned the writing of history in too many instances into propaganda machinery for certain political and ideological points of view popular among the rebellious young of the 1960s and ’70s and still regarded as gospel in many university departments of history, the social sciences and literature.
This is a matter about which I have written often, and I do not intend to labor it further now. The point is that complaints by professional historians about abuses of history by politicians and other amateur malefactors lose some of their force when one considers that the history departments themselves are much in need of a housecleaning. This is scarcely the case with MacMillan, whose high reputation has been earned through scrupulous research, clear-eyed interpretation and eminently readable prose. But “Dangerous Games” would be an even better book had she placed this issue squarely on the table.
The ignorance of history in incoming college students is well-documented, and it’s not necessarily any better among many graduate students.. One of my colleagues, a Frenchman, is still recovering from the moment when in response to his having mentioned it, one of his students asked: “What’s the French Revolution?”
But does it really matter?
on July 12th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
JAK –
Somebody here asked recently “What are the Humanities for?” It seems to me the answer is that they teach us what is important (or try to). If we don’t know what is important, we can waste our lives, take dreadfully wrong turns, do damage to ourselves and others. It seems to me that history, because it (theoretically) deals in facts of human experience as we relate to each other on the largrest scale, it teaches us about what is important on these large scale stages. So it teaches us a great deal about wht is important.
No, it can’t do that alone — philosophy is necessary for generalizing, and literature supplies particular images we need to think about history in detail. (Only detailed history really sticks with us, I think.) But these three == history, literature, philosophy — are the sine qua non of any liberal education, the sort of education that frees us to pursue what is indeed important in a fully human life..
on July 12th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Oops — I should have aded that movies and TV can also provide the detailed images we need to think about history.
on July 13th, 2009 at 9:33 am
I could write a book on this, but I do not have the time. In brief, I believe that we–the human race, living and dead–are all in the same boat. Ignorance of the past is ignorance of ourselves that we can ill afford. If we have no access to the past we would probably have to invent it, to make up a story that satisfies our quite proper curiosity about ourselves.
Knowledge of history is especially vital to the heath of the church. I recommend J. M. Rist’s What is Truth? From the Academy to the Vatican.
on July 13th, 2009 at 9:34 am
heath? No, health!
on July 13th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Isn’t this the problem we face within the church where so many Catholic historians, present and past, have fudge or altered history in the name of preserving the faith. We have made saints out of some very dubious people to say the least. Up to Vatican II the clergy had us all convinced that most of the popes were good which is doubtful at best. Third, we were lied to about the treatment of heretics until John Paul II officially apologized for their treatment. (Benedict never approved of those apologies) Fourth, the Jews were officially in hell until the Second Vatican Council said no. Fifth, for most of our history Constantine and Charlemagne were eulogized as saints tho thankfully never declared so. The Vatican still believes Europe is the predestined continent and no thank you for the Tukey country. Etc.
The lack of true history colors our outlook, the way we look at the clergy and our overall theology. It is still a prodigious lacuna in Catholic academia.
on July 13th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Bill
A couple things. St Constantine has actually been declared a saint — though, it is known within the domain of the East (Catholic and Orthodox). His feast is a solemn day for me, as a Byzantine Catholic. Secondly, there is a lot of misunderstanding and rhetoric about Constantine which doesn’t fit. The whole “Donation of Constantine” continues as a hermeneutic even if the document itself is known as a forgery. If you look closely, Constantine’s agenda, at best, is very much like what we see at Vatican II: he was interested in religious liberty (well, of course, up to a point; but he still wanted freedom for people to be Christian or non-Christian); he himself really had little actual direction for the Church (it was others, like Ossius of Cordova, which made decisions, such as Nicea); and he really was, for his time, quite enlightened — sure, he was also a man of his time, but that doesn’t remove him from sainthood nor should it make us overlook the good he did. What people think of in terms of Constantine really is what happens under Theodosius and Justinian — not Constantine; of course, thanks to Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian was possible, but also, thanks to Hitler’s mother, Hitler was possible (and yet his mother is not to blame for what he did).
Oh, and Charlemagne was recognized with his local cult, and you can find him listed in Holweck’s if you look… though I, as a Byzantine, have problems with him, I think one can recognize his sainthood despite it (we have a notion of sainthood which I think is in error, which is also a problem; saints are not perfect, far from it; they just represent someone who God has touched that God’s holiness has fixed itself upon them that they truly oriented themselves to God, and we know they did, despite their mistakes, some which can be great. As I tell people, if St Jerome can be a saint, then God has shown us something about saints… it is a thing of hope when we see such fallen men being saints… )
on July 13th, 2009 at 11:26 am
On a quite attractive blogsite devoted to the Tridentine liturgy, I offered some history derived from (so far as I know, anyway) respected historians, theologians, and other specialists.
One of my opponents wrote in reply, “There is no reason why Catholics in our time need to defer to the authority of the outdated modernists when there are perfectly good historical research that is more uptodate, and supports the Catholic viewpoint.”
“…the Catholic viewpoint.”
!!!!!
on July 13th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I should add: This same guy identified himself first as “a historian” and later as “doing a PhD” in history.
on July 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
“…it is a thing of hope when we see such fallen men being saints… )”
Henry,
I do like this thought while respectfully disagreeing with you. The notion of saints really began in the fourth century when induction into Christianity became a political act rather than a dangerous decision and commitment. Saints became necessary among such widespread corruption. Marcus calls this the “Age of Hypocrisy because more people became Christians for profitable reasons rather than real choice. Read Marcus on this. “As saints became ubiquitous, they also changed their functions. In the
early Christian community the living faithful prayed to God for their dead;
now the dead saint is asked to pray for the living: a whole new liturgy came
into being. As the martyr is , literally, detached from the place of his
martyrdom and made present wherever his relics have become the center of a
cult, so relics began to be seen in a new way…..relics soon became
themselves, the seats of holy power, God’s preferred channels for miraculous
action. A new nexus of social relationships centered around their shrines;
their cult provided ways of securing social cohesion in the locality, and
one of the means on which bishops depended to consolidate their authority.”
The Oxford History of Christianity.pg90.
on July 13th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
It didn’t require Vatican II for Catholics to be honest about their history. Rigorous, critical, and self-critical history was an important part of the rebirth of Catholic intellectual life in the 20th-century that made Vatican II possible.
on July 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
History is important for perspective! Like great literature, it helps us see beyond our small frames of reference.
But it must be grounded in facts, not propaganda.
I noted elsewhere that today, the Spanish Bishops after decade have expressed regret for colluding with the Francoi regime in covering up the murders of priests.
I think special problems need to be noted: secrecy being clearly one.
Also, revisionism, to meet political ends seems to touch on many of the topics we discuss here.
Since much of history depends on interpretation of facts, that it is important the historia make clear his judgements and what influences have played a part in that.
on July 13th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
The Holocaust happened in the heart of the twentieth century. Is that the result of the “rebirth of Catholic intellectual life?” As I wrote above Catholic academia is still not honest about its history.
on July 13th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Bill: You’re going to have to connect the dots for me, because this time I haven’t the faintest idea of what point you could possibly be trying to make. I don’t even know what sort of question to ask. Can anyone else figure it out?
on July 14th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Bob Nunz –
Indeed. And isn’t secrecy the exact opposite of history?
on July 14th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Joseph Komonchak writes that “rigorous, critical, and self-critical history was an important part of the rebirth of Catholic intellectual life in the 20th-century that made Vatican II possible.” Right on — but let’s throw at least a nod in the direction of Lord Acton in the 19th century for his work in this direction. Admittedly Lord A. never published as much as he should have — his proposed “History of Liberty” is sometimes referred to as “the greatest book never written.” But he had a famous tussle with Bishop Mandell Creighton, the Anglican historian, who was (in Acton’s view) letting the Renaissance popes get off too easily. It was out of that argument that his famous “power tends to corrupt,” etc., statement came. (And though the great History of Liberty never appeared, Acton was the editor of the first Cambridge Modern History, which was a landmark in its way.)
All historians have their horror stories about historical ignorance. Here’s mine. Many years ago, when I was teaching at a great university, which shall remain nameless for fear of embarrassing it, , but which is located in a lovely, historic, tree-shaded town, not twenty miles north of Trenton, NJ, a student told me he could never remember the difference between World War II and the Korean War — at this point, the latter had been over only about ten years, and the former not quite twenty years.
on July 14th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Connecting the dots, on Joseph Komonchak’s puzzlement over the statement apparently suggesting a congruence between the Catholic intellectual renaissance and the Holocaust. The only way I can connect them is to suggest that the statement reflects the common post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, a fallacy to which we — even historians, horribile dictu — are all prone.
A consequence of original sin, no doubt.
on July 14th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Dr. Clifford: Yes, Lord Acton was indeed a pioneer. Leo XIII opened the Vatican Archives to historians and said that the Church has nothing to fear from the truth. But the modernist crisis showed that not all churchmen agreed with that Pope. The list of historians who fell under suspicion is impressive–and long. Think of people like Duchesne, Lagrange, Batiffol…
Thanks for the attempt to link together the three sentences in Bill Mazzella’s post. I wondered if the first two were suggesting a causal connection between the Catholic intellectual renaissance and the Holocaust, but it was more charitable not to aasume that this extravagane was intended. What the third sentence has to do with the first two I still don’t comprehend.
on July 14th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Joe,
First let it be known that I did not introduce the derisive tone into this discussion.
I linked your reference to ”the rebirth of Catholic intellectual life” to the holocaust because it is well known that many of those intellectuals were anti-semitic as were many humanist intellectuals in Europe at the time. Many Jewish writers, as well as Christian, note this fact. Probably no one more than Clive James. Intellectuals, especially liberal ones, are speechless when exposed.
Yes there was a Catholic rebirth. Yet that rebirth did not exclude anti-semitism. This is a general criticism about the 20th century intellectual rebirth that it happened in the bloodiest century. Nicholas Clifford can relate all the “hocs’ he can muster. But you cannot take credit and refuse the blame in the same arena.
Lastly, despite Vatican II and the Catholic Church finally finding some honesty in history, it is true that too many academics in Catholic circles have still not reached this historical honesty. You can see them when they parade out to back dogmatic bishops and the Vatican when issues surface. This is why theology has been dead for forty years. You cannot have good theology without an honest history.
on July 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
No, Bill, all you did was suggest that the Catholic renaissance was a cause of the Holocaust! Your claim is impossible to judge, of course, because you are content with a vague reference to “those intellectuals.” And if this refers to leaders of the intellectual rebirth, then my question would be: All of them? Some of them? Most of them? An honesst history would try to address at least such questions, just as starters. And it would also include avoiding the fallacy to which Dr. Clifford refers.
on July 15th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Joe,
Having had a little time to reflect, let me point out that we should not be so quick to praise the Catholic intellectual Renaissance when it happened in the bloodiest of centuries. I did not state that the renaissance was the cause of the Holocaust even if you insist on putting words into my mouth.
You can try to get technical and pretty about some words but what I plead for is honesty about the official church’s role and influence in the world. With all the kudos we are wont to throw around, we have to justapose that with the fact that all this happened in the bloodiest of centuries. We have to learn from this and seek an engagement which enlightens and not to try to trap people in their speech. Certainly there is the need to clarify. There are better ways to do it.
on July 15th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Bill:
I’ll take this an an acknowledgment that you didn’t express your point very well in your initial remark. On the general point, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging God’s gifts to his people, whether they be in the heroism of martyrs or the forgiveness and reconciliation of enemies or the Second Vatican Council, or a rebirth of Catholic intellectual life that made the last of these possible. You seem to take any acknowledgment of something good in the life of the Church as a denial that there’s anything bad in the Church, which may be why the vast majority of your own posts go in the opposite direction with such an emphasis on sin and failures as to make one wonder if you see anything good in the history and present life of the Church. One need not say everything in every post. To affirm that there was something like a rebirth of Catholic intellectual life in the 20th century is simply to point to one fact about Catholic life in that century. That’s the only point I made; I did not make it as praise or “kudos,” but as a simple fact which I think all honest historians acknowledge. And, by the way, I didn’t say anything about “the official Church”, so I don’t know what other people say about “the official Church’s role and influence in the world” has to do with the matter.