Streetwise Professor

The Rest is History podcast is enjoyable, informative, and entertaining. Of the two co-hosts, I much prefer Dominic Sandbrook to Tom Holland. More of a personal reaction to personalities than anything substantive.

My opinion of Sandbrook grew even more after watching this episode of Triggernometry featuring him:

It’s basically a broad discussion of history, or more exactly, historiography. His views align very closely with mine, views I’ve expressed many times in conversations with my daughter in particular.

The most basic stand that Sandbrook takes is on the side of the tragic view of history. It’s also a view that (one of the few conservative public historians) Victor Davis Hanson takes. As do I.

It is in many respects a Christian view. People are fallen, sinful, and flawed, and the ways that they are fallen, sinful, and flawed haven’t changed that much over time. Thus, Sandbrook is somewhat pessimistic about the future. In brief, due to human nature we are condemned to repeat history, even if we bother to study it properly. In fact, pace Spinoza, the proper study of history leads to Sandbrook’s gloomy conclusion that we are doomed to repeat it.

One thing that the discussion brought to mind, and which I was surprised neither Sandbrook nor hosts Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster mentioned, was Thucydides. He famously wrote that fear, honor, and interest drive the decisions of people and states. The tragic view states that was true in the 5th century BC, was true before, remains true to the present, and will remain true in the future. Sandbrook mentions fear, honor, and interest throughout his answers, but doesn’t tie them back to Thucydides, who very much pioneered the human nature-based practice of history. This is unfortunate, as I think it would have emphasized the deep roots of the tragic view.

Sandbrook’s basic point is that modern historical discussions ignore human nature, or have a warped view of it. When one acknowledges that essential aspects of human nature (“fear, honor, interest”) are enduring, such an oversight necessarily leads to the grotesque misunderstandings and misuses of history that pervade modern life. Such history is nothing more than just-so stories that just aren’t so.

In essence, Sandbrook trenchantly criticizes the progressive view of history, and it would have been great if he made that explicit rather than implicit in his discussion.

One of his criticisms of progressive history includes the narcissism of those who criticize historical figures for violating current progressive mores with nary a thought that future generations will judge them and find them wanting. Such arrogant critics of historical figures imagine themselves to be at the end of a historical process, standing in judgment, Christ-like, of all who came before, and that no one will come after them.

Another is his rejection of the utopianism of the great killers of the 20th century–Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. They all viewed themselves as agents in “scientific” historical processes that progressed inevitably to utopia–as long as they helped it along. Different utopias in each case, but utopias nonetheless.

These are all essentially variants on Hegelian dialectics, which is at the root of progressive theories of history.

As an aside, Obama’s frequent statement “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” also embodies the progressive view of history. And Sandbrook would say–no, it doesn’t.

And all of these utopianisms rejected the tragic view of an immutable human nature, in favor of one in which human nature is malleable and plastic; that it had been misshapen in the past by bad institutions (capitalism, mainly and most recently); and could be reshaped into new, and perfected, forms by the application of (usually lethal) force wielded by the enlightened to overthrow these institutions. If some die–hell, if tens of millions die–that is the price of progress, and one well worth paying.

Sandbrook laments the failure of historians, and in particular academic historians, to fight against the errors of progressive history. He attributes this to their failure to engage with the broader populace, and their talking mainly with one another about arcane issues that don’t penetrate the popular consciousness.

I think this is a naive view. The biggest problem, by far, is that the modern academic history profession is itself overwhelmingly progressive. And the self-reproducing nature of academic disciplines means it is unlikely to change anytime soon. An ancillary problem is that progressive history has also been obsessively focused not on broad historical narratives, but on increasingly narrow topics with a disproportionate emphasis on various sorts of social history and identity-tinged history. It is those obsessions which drive the adverse judgments of historical figures: they were racist, sexist, classist, blah blah blah.

I definitely recommend that you listen. I can’t say you’ll come away full of hope. But that’s the ultimate lesson of the tragic view, isn’t it?