What is History? Part 8
The difference between politics and history is that the living do not give up their secrets with the candour of the dead. —Acton
The study of history is not to make us cleverer for next time, but to make us wiser, forever. —Acton
History is the science of what only happens once. —Unknown
History is a story—only true. —Unknown
History is now strictly organised, powerfully disciplined, but it possesses only a modest educational value and even less conscious social purpose. —J.H. Plumb
Let us remember that the agriegation [graduate degree] forms not historians, which is to say researchers working on original texts, but professors of history—which is not the same thing. —Regine Pernoud
History does not furnish any solution, but it permits—and it alone permits—to pose the problems correctly. —Pernoud
There is no true knowledge without recourse to history. —Pernoud
Without the imaginative insight which goes with creative literature, history cannot be intelligibly written. —Veronica Wedgwood
There will always be a connection between the way men contemplate the past and the way in which they contemplate the present. —Buckle
Glory is vain. Have men ever deserved praise? They have been praised because they made a stir. —Frederick the Great
History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. —Santayana
History is a costly and superfluous luxury of the understanding. —Nietsche
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken. —James Joyce
Great empires and tiny minds go ill together. —Patrick Buchanan
The happiest hours of mankind are recorded on the blank pages of history. —Carlyle
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This is great! This series keeps getting better, and I think the shortness of this #8 makes it strike harder.
And history is most interesting where it is a horror.
(By the way, one forgot the 'z' in Nietzsche; those Germans never could spell even their own names.)
Yes! wise, forever? it's possible, possible... part of it is to be wise enough to stay forever young. keep it green, kids of all ages, if wise.
Endure... i go to the bard:
first my blesses (i exist) ... next:
"And that thou teachest how to make one twain
By praising him here who doth hence remain!" -W.S.
Like a coin it may be one but both sides ain't the same...
so it's both as if one ... in other words it's also twain.
that's hot, cool dudes. wizard, dog.
"The study of history is not to make us cleverer for next time, but to make us wiser, forever. —Acton"
This is the only history worth reading. Just think if even a few of our elite leaders had read Herodotus or Josephus instead of Marx and Voltaire. rr
hey, rr love it i read herodotus & josephus... the others were wits not sages. that's modernity... except usually not even witty. shallow waters run murky. the elite likes that... but even they don't know no better. hAHaHA ... under God no less... is he sleeping? good - he can do what he wants, obviously - i'm down with it. having Fun... i'm a man. like you. 'peace, out - dog' - as my kid says.
me i draw circles up and down the block... i kid... more like curlicues.
"History is a story—only true. —Unknown"
Regrettably, there are many false stories masquerading as the true one; and our hearts, fallen as they are, turn in their natures toward the counterfeit and the lie.
My probably vain hope is that somewhere, someone in the Pentagon or the other corridors of power is reading Xenophon's Anabasis.
Mr. Berg,
"My probably vain hope is that somewhere, someone in the Pentagon or the other corridors of power is reading Xenophon’s Anabasis."
I suppose that they could watch the movie adaptations, The Warriors, 1979, and The Ten Thousand, 1993.
"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken. —James Joyce"
Joyce, of course, coupled history together with Christianity and traditional culture into the nightmares from which he spent his life trying to awaken.
"Great empires and tiny minds go ill together. —Patrick Buchanan"
That being the case, the American Empire must surely have been D.O.A. since at least 1964.
"The happiest hours of mankind are recorded on the blank pages of history. —Carlyle"
As a certified but underqualified historian, I've noticed this many times throughout my life, and it is probably the most disquieting aspect of the natural world. Is sin a precondition for all good stories, or are we attracted to tales of the fallen because they reflect our own fallen nature? Absent our fall from grace, what stories would we conceive of?
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken. —James Joyce”
Finnegans Wake is certainly a nightmare. I wonder if a great awakening will ever be found for those who have waded far into its dark waters ?
According to R G Collingwood, if we reflect carefully on what we mean by history, we find that we do refer to the history of human beings in so far as they are purely natural beings, but a history of human beings in so far as they are rational beings. Therefore, the subject matter of history is provided not by natural but rational processes. History proper, then, is the history of mind.
As for Finnegans Wake, it's an impenetrable modernist fable.
The above comment should of course read, we do NOT refer to the history etc........
"Is sin a precondition for all good stories, or are we attracted to tales of the fallen because they reflect our own fallen nature? Absent our fall from grace, what stories would we conceive of?"
-ngpm
We all probably to varying degrees-(it's a world of both apparent opposites & a world of degrees inbetween-and beyond-on either extreme)-intuit G-d.
so it's confusing to us. It's also an imperfect world and if so, then it's by chance and / or design. If we want to 'go for' perfect in patently This world - the best we will arrive at is 'imperfect's perfect.'
absent a fall from grace (if that's possible, a fall - apparently - 'and a mist went up and watered the whole face of the ground') and so into, and/or thus currently within our perception of This world or both - (absent that) would we 'conceive' of stories? Why not? The fall from grace may be possible because even in a fall's abscence we are free to 'believe' one (and so make it real for ourselves) even if/when it's not the Case.
What is the Case - is that even in heaven or perfection we are obviously capable in freedom of self-deception. Freedom apparently is always the case where we are concerned even if it doesn't change heaven or fool God? Again i'm positing God since that is the prevailing intuition of most of us, and my own.
Someone once said most people are afraid of heaven because they feel and/or believe since they've sinned/or fallen God's mad at them? That's because they 'believe' they know God, though perhaps they only know themself in that regard.
Does this mean This world (since we inevitably notice that we are here in this world, primarily while we are) is an enemy... or, more specificially is the Earthly Mother or in other words mother Nature our enemy... or the 'problem'?
No. Doesn't she hold us? If a mother takes care of you with her angels of air and of water of sunshine and of earth which provides too our sustenance continually in almost unbelievable abundance; and a mother does this imperfectly yes but to the best of her ability. Then what should we do? Yes. We should then take care of her.
Do we? There in Her is evidence by reflection of the love of the G-d we intuit. But do we take care of her? Do we love what we see? For if we cannot love what we see why then do we 'believe' we love what we only intuit or cannot see? I'm not saying you shouldn't belive that. How about both? And then go on from there...It may be a 'test'. After all in our fall we were held by her through G-d and not extinguished into any kind of actual oblivion.
Yes it's imperfect here. I know those with - PTSS ... Post Tsunami Stress Syndrome. For some of them life is no longer a beach.
"Hey bud, want to go down to the shore today?"
"Are you out of your freaking mind?"
(Humor) but it's also imperfect.
___________________________
*read my above post, (*directly above this one) i like it. it's an example of a curlicue, rather than a circle-which let's face it after all - is BORING. HOW many times can you just go round-and-round. so i recommend drawing curlicues now up and down the block.
As an undergraduate student, the most poignant of this collection is Veronica Wedgewood's assertion that "Without the imaginative insight which goes with creative literature, history cannot be intelligently written." Indeed, nine times out of ten modern history professors that I have known are sociologists not historians. And probably not very good sociologists at that.
While Dr. Wilson would no doubt not be the least surprised, all one needs for a textbook example of the degenerated state of "history" in our society is to look at the Richmond Times Dispatch's collection of "greatest Virginians" as selected by its panel of historians and journalists. Gen. Washington, of course, takes honors in the 18th Century, but Thos. Jefferson is left off entirely. More egregious, Edgar Allen Poe is selected as greatest Virginian of the 19th century! No insult meant to Gothic horror fans, but that is an absurdity. In a century with 5 Virginian Presidents and Gen. Lee, the paper selects Poe. Why? Because the rest were slaveholders. Indeed, the spectacle of not selecting Gen. Lee is the most egregious. The panel speculated people would be reluctant to select Gen. Lee because he fought and killed US Army soldiers?! You mean, the US army soldiers killing Virginians and burning her homes and farms? Worse, if possible, was that they asserted Lee's generalship was in question because he did not surrender to the North earlier and instead "perpetuated" the war for Virginia!
A close second is the selection of Oliver Hill as greatest Virginian of the 20th Century. Who is oliver Hill, you might ask? He was a black civil rights lawyer who worked with T. Marshall in the Brown v. Board case. I never knew Mr. Hill and I don't doubt he was a good and honorable man. He fought for the right as he saw it. But in a century in which a Virginia held the White House (Wilson) and a Virginian commanded the entire US Army in WWII and then served as the post-war architecht of the plan to save Europe (George Marshall) how can you select Hill? Was ending Jim Crow in the schools more important than winning WWII and saving Europe from communism? (Recognize I am also using the popular historical views of these events that the newpaper would doubtless endorse.)
"History" has become self-flaggelation for "sins" of ancestors (even if they're not your ancestors). It also shows how morally infantile are most historians in that they are incapacable of dealing with the moral complexities of the real world.
There are other egregious sins in this collection but that is enough!
Bill Wilder-
Sound comments!
I guess that is what is meant by "the imaginative insight which goes with creative literature."
So if my Shenandoah (Southern) forefathers were Yeoman farmers but my Cape May (Middle) ancestors were wealthy slave-holders, which were the worse sinners?
@14: As a recent graduate in history, I can confirm exactly what you just said, verbatim, is the truth.
I don't know what school you attend, but if you're pursuing anything other than a professional/license-track degree (architecture, engineering) or natural science, forgive me for admonishing you to watch your back. Don't expect to learn anything you ought to expect from any humanities courses.
Of course, these distinguished scholars of Virginia are too ignorant to know that Poe, if not personally a slave master, was a complete Southerner in all his ideas and instincts. He deserves honour as one of the supreme creative geniuses of American literature (the Yankees had nothing to match it though they had a lot of PR) and for his lifelong ridicule of Yankee pretensions to culture. What several of you have said about the current "history" taught in academia is only too true.
There came an occasion on which I evoked the insight of John C. Calhoun on the question of majority, throwing into the discussion in which I was participating his understanding of concurrent majority, whereupon I was reminded by more than one of my fellow discutants that Mr. Calhoun was pro-slavery. My retort was that while I was not a slave to the Marxist narrative, I would stipulate for the sake of argument that slavery was wrong, and if wrong it was either a crime or a sin or both; and since there were no statutes of the general government against slavery and none in the state in which Mr. Calhoun resided, then the alleged wrongness of slavery was not as a crime. It could then, if wrong, only be a sin; and one sins against on entity in the universe, namely God; therefore, were we now holding that only men without sin could particpate in philosophical, historical and political discussions? I then said that unless those of us in this body of discutants were full of guile, we should all cease speaking, since surely none of us would hold that we were without sin. Thus did I silence, at least for the moment, the overbearningness of the Marxist narrative; and I was allowed to make my point.
@19
I admire your technique.
But since the South may be the last bastion of sanity in the USA (and with Serbia, perhaps the world), to a Marxist, the South is always wrong. So on one hand you were able to say your piece, but on the other, the Marxists were rubbing their hands together, happy that you admitted that Southerners might be sinners. Then they went home thinking how they could control you next time. But I suspect you will be one step ahead.
@20
You are quite correct; however, I did "stipulate for the sake of argument." Had they not allowed me to say my piece, which was before some students, then I would have stepped outside that stipulation. I find the post-modern notion that all moral values are relative and that no entity from God, to the church to a magistrate can impose moral values on those of post-modernity; but that post-modernity reserves for itself the authority to define some action or actions of the past as being "evil." These post-modernest struggle with the terms "sin" and "crime," since the term "sin" places God into the picture, however grudgingly they would keep Him out; and the word "crime" means that there had to be a statute against the act. In their paradigm, issues of race and gender are the cardinal sins, and social justice and equality are the cardinal virtues. The Marxist narrative is built very tightly around these "concepts."
@19
I am always on the lookout for ways to improve my ability to attack the Marxist narrative and pride myself, if you catch the paradox, in having a teachable spirit. There is not better place, in my experience, to learn than here on the fora of Chronicles. So I am open to any suggestions and criticisms, particularly in "keeping one step ahead."
"Of course, these distinguished scholars of Virginia are too ignorant to know that Poe, if not personally a slave master, was a complete Southerner in all his ideas and instincts. He deserves honour as one of the supreme creative geniuses of American literature (the Yankees had nothing to match it though they had a lot of PR) and for his lifelong ridicule of Yankee pretensions to culture. What several of you have said about the current “history” taught in academia is only too true."
Thank you, Dr. Wilson, for pointing out the error even of their judgment in regard Poe. (Of course, I did not mean to slight him by my comments.) That history has become so debased in the Old Dominion (and in her quadracentennial year) is most distressing.
History is a record of all the inconsequential things that happened on the way to me. -- A. Modernist
@21
I think you scored quite a coup.
It is also funny how they spend both so much time defining the world in terms of race and denying that race exists. They blame everything on white people, but don't seem to realize that makes them white supremacist. You put them in their own trap: they hate God and don't believe He exists, but they were more than happy to entertain the thought that Southerners could possibly be sinners, which belies their unbelief.
By admitting God for a moment, they acknowledged an objective standard for truth, and their post-modern house of cards collapsed. I'll bet someone there noticed that besides you, so you may have led that someone to Christ...
"You put them in their own trap: they hate God and don’t believe He exists, but they were more than happy to entertain the thought that Southerners could possibly be sinners, which belies their unbelief."
I'm sorry, PcH, but I don't think this is right. Those who don't believe in God don't believe in sin, you're right. I think that that goes without saying. But just because nonbelievers take delight in Christians standing condemned of sin before "their God" doesn't mean they've tacitly begun to believe in God or sin. It means they enjoy watching Christians being caught in their own web. They enjoy pointing and shouting "Hypocrisy!"
It's true that nonbelievers will sometimes engage in "sin talk," but that's only when talking about subjects they agree with Christians on (which ain't much); race-based slavery, for instance. In a case like that they feel a certain solidarity with Christians on a moral level, although they still deny the existence of God. They think it is Christians who have seen the light and come over to their modern, enlightened way of thinking, so they are willing to give a little.
@26
I think you should ask robert m. peters. I wasn't there.
Having been in an even more pessimistic mood than usual, I'd have to observe that history teaches:
Eventually, every ox is gored.
The empire such as it is, will unwind. Odds are most of us will be alive long enough to see that happening, which we have long expected, become manifest. Is anyone concerned when an infant falls while learning to walk? No, the child goes from strength to strength. When the aged totter we fear and yet know that denying that knowledge will not forestall the inevitable parting. What now does the former Republic resemble, a strapping child or a dissipated rogue slinking off to some yet lower place to expire?
@26 and @27
While I was discussion the issue and having the debate with my "colleagues," the audience which I hoped was being attentive was that of the few students in the room with us.
I cannot attest to any testimoney which the Holy Spirit might have made to an individual discutant using my words or if anyone responded to the Holy Spirit if he did.
I can only say that my "ploy," as is were, was sufficient to shut them up and block their attempt to deconstruct my use of Calhoun as I attempted to bring up "concurrent majority."
What I can attest to is that two of the about fifteen students, with several thereof in the background listening, asked me questions about the "Marxist narrative,' saying that they had never heard of it and about "concurrent majority," having never heard of it either.
So, far me, it was a tactical ploy and a tactical battle won. God, in His own design, may well have turned a head or even saved a soul. He has not revealed it to me, nor is He obligated to do so. My task is to do my duty with the light which He has given me. He will make of it what He will.
As a sidebar on slavery, were I a young parent dying and were I thereupon told by a magistrate that my young children had the option to grow up as free spirits in the home of Rosie O'Donnell or as chattel slaves in the household of Bishop Leonidas Polk, with no other choice, they'd be off the the plantation.
robert m. peters@21 ...These post-modernest struggle with the terms “sin” and “crime,” since the term “sin” places God into the picture, however grudgingly they would keep Him out; and the word “crime” means that there had to be a statute against the act.
Very well said! In my work I am often confronted with people that proclaim not to accept God and are more than happy to live amongst people with Christian values, not acknowledging there own sin. These people are asleep in there faith but alive in serving their own greed. Mr.Peters...... these people do not know the extent that they have embraced the post modern world, thinking that to be a politically correct liberal is the desired way of life. How can I explain to these people the errors of their ways. I am sure they would reject the term Marxist.
Good afternoon,
How about this:
"History never repeats itself: historians repeat each other."
A.J.P. Taylor
Dr. Wilson
Love the quotes. With regard to academic history and the South, what is your opinion of Univ. of South Carolina historian Lacy K. Ford's work?
Inappropriate for me to comment on a colleague.