A couple years ago, I wrote an essay that considered the work of the modern historian Marc Bloch (who was a hero), as described in The Historian's Craft, and the work of the medieval historian Bede. Here's the conclusion:
The powerful intuition of students of history, amateur historians, and the general educated public has always been that history is a "mirror" of present society. Beginning with the decline of God (who had kept Descartes' evil demons at bay), many thinkers in the nineteenth century began to doubt both the existence of objective reality and our ability to perceive it if it does exist. This extreme skepticism led some scholars to completely solipsistic worldviews (like existentialism or Freudian analysis of history, for example). On the other extreme, this skepticism was wholly rejected by some theorists like Marx who held that we could measure the arc of history using economic rubrics alone. Against this backdrop, historians had to find a way to justify their discipline both to themselves and to others. Some turned to very narrow specialization in an effort to make history more like a science. In fact, there is a direct echo of this sentiment in Marc Bloch, who very much wanted to consider "history" the "science of men in time." If there is one thing that scholars have learned from twentieth-century science it is this: even overwhelming intuitions can be wrong, the paradigm case being Einstein's special relativity. But even with such a powerful injunction away from assuming the historian can purport to learn how the world "really was" at a certain time, it is nonetheless overly cautious to treat all societies (or periods) as if they happened in a vacuum. It would be overstating Bloch's case to accuse him of doing this, but it is clear from his fear of seeking origins that he is more sympathetic to this counterintuitive idea than he is to a sober application of the traditional norms. Bloch's skepticism of our ability to make objective judgments about history extends beyond the idea of origins:
Are we so sure of ourselves and of our age as to divide the company of our forefathers into the just and the damned? How absurd it is, by elevating the entirely relative criteria of one individual, one party, or one generation to the absolute, to inflict standards upon the way in which Sulla governed Rome, or Richelieu the States of the Most Christian King!
And it is here, finally, that the medieval historian (Bloch) can learn from the medieval historian (Bede): humans are not so incomprehensible that we of one generation cannot learn to consider the values of another's. There is nothing that is so alien in human experience that we cannot, with open minds, learn to grasp. We may never appreciate the desire to enslave Africans and abuse them as human chattel, but surely, as uncomfortable as it would make us, we can understand that desire. We cannot be compelled to sacrifice our own children to Baal, but we can find powerful modern analogues to approach an understanding of how Carthaginians would be driven to do so. Unlike Bede, we may not be able to apply a stable moral framework (i.e. the relatively stable absolute morality of orthodox Christianity) against the deeds of our predecessors, Bloch is right in that; but this should not mean that we cannot purport to understand our forefathers nor should it mean that we cannot trace our own origins to those very slaveholders and child-sacrificers. It is, after all, not just to them, but also to the people whose values we still share that we owe our present. It is no wonder, after all, that Joseph Strayer, who obviously admired Marc Bloch, wrote the introduction to the English translation of The Historian's Craft. Indeed, Bloch is right to describe the ideal historian: "This faculty of understanding the living is, in very truth, the master quality of the historian." In order to understand the living, Strayer and the overwhelming majority of historians before him (and a growing number today, even) are right to seek the origins of our social structures, biases, institutions, and cultures in those of our past.
Labels: europe, historiography, history, medieval
There have been countless articles dedicated to the similarities between America's growing imperialism and ancient Rome's. The similarity, of course, is too pronounced to ignore, though its accuracy and degree may reasonably be debated.
Now we have taken yet another step in Rome's direction. The Roman Republic had, as part of its governance structure, the emergency office of dictator which could only be held for six months in states of emergency. The dictator was just that: an authoritarian figure whose pronouncements carried the force of law. The office had such a short term limit because it was designed to free up impediments to solving an immediate crisis, and once that crisis had been resolved, the regular rule of law was supposed to resume.
Of course, that's not the way it always worked. The dynast Sulla managed to install himself as dictator indefinitely. And, importantly, Julius Caesar's demand that he be made dictator for life was the final nail in the coffin of the Roman Republic.
There are plenty of cases where authoritarian regimes come to power in times of national emergency, and this was clear to our Founders. Nonetheless, they never created a constitutional office of dictator even in cases of severe national distress precisely because they were so acutely aware of what that provision had brought about in the Roman Republic. And yet, here we are now. Our president has created the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive which effectively gives him dictatorial control of our branches of government for the duration of:
any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions
I wonder how long our republic will last.
Labels: 'merica, george-bush, history, politics, rome
In America, we have this way of overlooking the patently obvious. What is the American public's number one concern these days? Security. More specifically, terrorism. And what country is the bogeyman du jour? Iran. But let's just consider that perception:
- Did the Iranians have anything to do with 9/11? No.
- Did the Iranians have anything to do with the Madrid attacks? No.
- Did the Iranians have anything to do with the London attacks? No.
- Did the Iranians have anything to do with the Bali attacks? No.
- Where did those attackers come from? Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt—basically Arab countries and Pakistan.
- Were any of those attackers Iranian? No.
-
Do Iranians have any reason to fear us? Consider this map:
Notice those two bright red American-invaded countries on either side of Iran. Then remember all that "axis of evil" talk. Now think back to who has once already deposed Iran's democratically elected prime minister in favor of an autocratic king who ruled until he was overthrown during the revolution of 1979 (hint:
it was us), who it was that armed Iraq in the first place (hint:
it was us), and who it was that encouraged and directly supported Saddam Hussein's war on Iran (hint:
it was us). Maybe
they're afraid of
us. And maybe they should be. Are they seeking nuclear weapons? Probably. They probably look over at their neighbor Pakistan, who has done
much more to harm American interests and realize that Pakistan is an American "ally" because it's got the bomb.
Labels: 'merica, history, iran, iraq, sham, war
So this sounds a little bit like a mock trial by ordeal to me. And people say history doesn't repeat itself!
The critique of Deltano's performance at Dominion High was conducted by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. It included criticism of his decision to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms against HIV by dangling a cinderblock over a male student's genital area.
("Christian Sex-Ed Lesson Criticized"—via)
My favorite part of all this is that some sick self-righteous (I mean, "pious") bastard actually gets paid (from tax dollars) to threaten to crush teenagers' genitalia.
Labels: christianity, education, fud, history, religion, sham
Apparently there's
a trial in London pitting the "historians" Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh against the "novelist" Dan Brown. These "historians" allege that Dan Brown "stole" parts of the "story" from their
non-fiction "book"
Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Now, I might be "wrong" about this, but I always thought that if yours was a work of "history," then you didn't really have any claims over "historical fiction" that may be written based on your "work." You can't both claim that you have written a work of "non-fiction" and demand the protections of "fictional" writing's plagiarism rubric.
Labels: christianity, history, holy grail, religion
Tom Standage, who is the technology editor for the
Economist, has written a holiday
op-ed contribution in the
New York Times today. He writes that elitism in wine drinking has a long history, but that we should largely ignore the ratings and just drink what we enjoy. That's fine. And then we find this paragraph:
The close association between wine and sophistication in the ancient world contributed to its rejection by Muslims. With the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Mohammed's followers expressed their disdain for the previous ruling elites by replacing wheeled vehicles with camels, chairs and tables with cushions and by banning the consumption of wine. Being devout, they signaled, was more important than seeming sophisticated.
This is the first time I've heard this interpretation of Islam's prohibition on alcohol. As far as I can tell, it's entirely wrong. In fact, the injunction against alcohol is one of the best attested traditions in Islam and it can be directly
linked to the Qur'an. The rest of the paragraph is inaccurate, too. Wheeled carts had been replaced
long before the rise of Islam for
economic reasons, and not class warfare. I'm not sure where Mr. Standage came to have this interpretation, but as the technology editor of a widely respected journal, I would expect him to understand the overwhelming technological benefit of using the camel in the Arabian climate. I don't know the social history of early Islam well enough to comment on his claim about the use of cushions instead of tables and chairs, but again, I would suggest that he is probably wrong and the lack of furniture may have more to do with the dearth of wood in the Arabian peninsula than it does with rejection of the imperial elites.
Labels: alcohol, history, islam, religion, technology
In response to an editorial in the Washington Post today, I wrote a short piece further detailing the parallels between the political situations in Iran and Pakistan. I agree with the Post's editorial, but I think the similarity is so striking that it deserves a closer look:
Most Americans either do not know, or have chosen to forget, that the seeds of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution were sown by the CIA and Britain's MI6 in 1953 when they successfully arranged a coup d'etat which removed Iran's elected prime minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh was seen as a threat to British and American interests because he had passed a law nationalizing Iran's oil assets. When Mossadegh was removed from office, the Shah was free to exercise complete authoritarian control over Iran until he was overthrown in 1979. The U.S. and Britain realized that it would be much easier to influence Iranian policy through one man, the Shah, than proposing policies that would be mutually beneficial to Iran and western nations would have been.
Their miscalculation, of course, was an underestimation of Iranian dissatisfaction with their appointed dictator. The government of the Shah had been tempered by an elected representative government led by Dr. Mossadegh, and without these checks, the Shah was free to rule oppressively over an Iran that had tasted freer government. By 1979 many groups were vying for the overthrow of the Shahís government. Decades of tyranny had galvanized the people, and the more radical right-wing revolutionaries eventually gained the greatest prominence in the ensuing revolution. America and Britain, in 1979, were in the awkward position of having to reject a government based on the will of the Iranian people, a people driven to a radical government entirely due to British and American policies.
Today, both the American left and right completely ignore the devastating policies, of their own government, that led to the creation of the Islamic republic of Iran. Iranís government is demonized as anti-western, but historical context is conveniently omitted from the diatribes. Even worse, American politicians are making the same mistakes their predecessors made in the '50s. Just as America and Britain supported the Shahís authoritarian rule in the decades leading up to the Iranian revolution, they are now, under the guidance of President Bush, supporting Pakistanís despot General Pervez Musharraf. Like the Shah of Iran, General Musharraf gained complete authority over his state by a coup, which disenfranchised Pakistanís representative civilian government. He is widely reviled by Pakistanis and he is rightly seen as a tyrant whose power is guaranteed by American and British policies. Like Iran's radical clerics did in the '70s, radical Pakistani religious groups are gaining power, and a revolution like Iranís is entirely conceivable.
Musharraf has occasionally paid lip service to the idea of democratizing his nation. Most recently, he had promised to resign as the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff by today. He has reneged on this promise, and he still retains control of both the "civilian" government and the military of Pakistan. Like Iran, Pakistan has a history of representative civil governance, and like Iran before it, that tradition has been suppressed by western governments. If President Bush is sincere about his oft-stated desire to spread democracy in this region, then he would do well to learn the lessons of his predecessor and threaten to withdraw American support from General Musharraf if the Pakistani dictator does not make significant progress in his promise to re-democratize his increasingly radicalized nation.
Labels: history, iran, pakistan, politics
