Is History Irrelevant?
Pessen, Edward
THE STUDY OF HISTORY is under attack today on many fronts, both from within and without the historical profession. Where free choice replaces a required curriculum, students increasingly...
...Some students charge that historians either focus on the wrong subject matter or offer the wrong—or proestablishment—interpretations when they stumble on the right questions...
...And only the invocation of history offers the hope of transforming significant numbers of their passive neighbors into allies...
...Repetition is impossible in history, given the uniqueness of its human actors and their circumstances...
...Activists scorn scholars who seem indifferent to the consequences of their studies...
...Some testify to nothing more than the perverse taste of the generals in charge of that unhappy country...
...He need only describe their operation—that is, their rationales as against their detailed effects and consequences...
...True...
...Physics and philosophy are harder subjects than history...
...That parochial businessmen and dictatorial rulers are hostile to history does not of course automatically negate the accusations of its high-minded critics...
...Those of us who admire Socrates' insight do not delude ourselves when we think that we have learned from history...
...It is, of course, true that history is not a science...
...If critical historical scholarship is outlawed in dictatorships, however, it is not because it offends the puritanical or perverted morals of the despots but because it threatens their political power...
...Since our histories were written by free men they would be certain to infuriate NOTEBOOK totalitarian censors...
...But while the humanness of historians precludes perfection, it by no means detracts from the possibility that they can make discerning, useful or even true observations about the past...
...The scholar's research invariably discloses if not the sordidness of the powerful, then the vast gulf that separates theory from practice...
...And by any other name the discussion of origins is history...
...Who can improve on Socrates' swift, marvelous analysis in the Phaedo, when he says: "Whence come wars but from the stomach and the needs of the stomach...
...Not only is every vision of social justice based on a unique reading or interpretation of history...
...Part of their argument must deal with the origins of social evil—be it of the Vietnam war, racism, or the maldistribution or poisoning of our resources...
...Others among us sadly may not be very bright...
...Some of us historians simply cannot tell a story interestingly, a deficiency that is hardly conmpensated for by the adoption of sociological patter or by the inclusion in our writings of recondite statistical tables...
...A further assurance against scientific certainty is the inevitable subjectivity of historians...
...In those rare instances in which a community's deeds have conformed to its thoughts, both have typically been low rather than high—men, as The Threepenny Opera reminds us, being what they are...
...No one who values historical research can be indifferent to these attacks...
...In effect he damns history as a mere intellectual exercise because history as actuality does not repeat itself...
...His comment had as its unspoken assumption the belief that men live in order to produce and consume...
...Social critics seek to induce their contemporaries to feel scorn for present arrangements...
...Mini-skirts, even when forced underground, possess only a limited significance in their own right—for all the undeniably liberating implications of the bared female knee and thigh...
...THE STUDY OF HISTORY is under attack today on many fronts, both from within and without the historical profession...
...HISTORY'S CRITICS, both yesterday's conservative businessmen and today's activists, make the similar charge that history is useless in solving real problems, whether these have to do with increasing productivity or promoting social justice...
...History is irrelevant...
...They have proven capable of administering institutions as repulsive as slavery and religious ghettos...
...That human institutions are terribly complex, or that powerful men do not lightly relinquish their power, or that men are creatures variously motivated— often by irrational considerations, against their own interest—all these are not the fault of history...
...An enterprise that evokes such reactions from the evil cannot be totally with out redeeming social value...
...The work of the honest historian cannot fail to give comfort to the critical...
...The maxim that we cannot learn from history is offensive above all to those who would change society for the better or who would end an unjust war...
...The historian need not be emotional or a "bleeding heart" to indict such practices...
...Some highly touted works are unconvincing, precious, unserious, representative above all of their authors' wish to assume a modish stance, to be revisionist for the sake of being revisionist, or to enhance their careers by catching the eye and winning the approval of the right academic people...
...Most strange is the source of modern criticism of history...
...If anything it is history that has taught us these unpleasant but important truths...
...Only recently a brilliant young historian gave public notice that he plans to quit the field, convinced that every feature of the past is unique and therefore without value to an understanding of the present or future...
...Well-meaning but impatient perfectionists, frustrated by the brutalities of present circumstances, will understandably focus their energies on activities likely to produce results, and in this world, not the next...
...But given his presuppositions, contempt for history was logical...
...History is the indispensable ally of every iconoclast, every dissenter, every rebel who would challenge the status quo...
...We are all too human...
...That court historians in any country at any time rationalize the irrational or justify the unjustifiable is a condemnation not of history but of sycophants who distort it...
...And it is always possible that the critics may be right, at least in part...
...Secret police in the 20th century, as in the 19th, have kept close tabs on what historians were writing or teaching...
...Not long ago Henry Ford was proclaiming that "history is bunk," no doubt reflecting a widespread contempt felt by men of affairs for a discipline that butters no bread...
...What is more frightening to those who claim to know The Truth than the existence in print of opposing concepts of it...
...But only an understanding of history will infuse their goals with that indispensable element—attainability...
...There is no denying that much American historical writing is bland or yea-saying...
...The same cannot be said for most of history's modem critics...
...These fears, even if exaggerated, should give pause to history's idealistic critics in this country...
...Where free choice replaces a required curriculum, students increasingly desert the study of Western civilization for the sociology and psychology courses that promise insight into pressing current problems of society and the individual...
...His loveless utilitarianism showed no recognition that men have other purposes than to serve the assembly line...
...For know it or not, radicals above all need history...
...Even if the critics were all wrong, their influence, articulateness, and seriousness can't be ignored...
...Most nations, our own included, have lied about the reasons why they make war...
...Thus, if at the end of the film "Z" a voice reads off a list of some of the things banned in Greece today by the military dictatorship, it does not follow that all of the proscribed items are inspiring...
...For if our interpretations may be foolish, they are varied...
...Santayana's memorable observation that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them is unfortunately not true...
...an understanding of Caesar's campaigns in no way improves the quality of a Ford Maverick...
...If the truly "better idea" enhanced the production and sale of cars, Henry Ford's denunciation of history would have a certain merit...
...Rather, it is to overcome the awesome difficulties that attend any attempt to implement history's lessons...
...Our problem is not that we are incapable of learning from history...
...Certainly the despotisms which take great pains to rewrite history, whether of the nation in general or the ruling party in particular, act as though history is altogether relevant—even too much so...
...Yet, with all of our shortcomings, our histories would be anathema to despots come to power...
...In either case, a serious historian has no alternative but to respond...
...The older accusation, for all its narrowness, comes off better than the more recent attack...
Vol. 18 • June 1971 • No. 3
