I have been reading E. H. Carr’s What is History, originally a series of lectures given in Cambridge in 1961, and published by my old employer Macmillan. Carr writes, or rather speaks, with the fluid elegance of a great scholar who has thought deeply about questions which he explains with a light easy-to-read touch. He also has the scholar’s barbed wit when writing about his opponents, especially those at the University of Oxford. One of his themes is the relevance of history to the present and future.
Some of the passages in Carr’s book set me thinking about our times. Here are the passages and my thoughts, for what they are worth.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), History of the French Revolution:
Referring to the terror: “Horrible, in lands that had known equal justice – not so unnatural in lands that had never known it.”
“It is unfortunate, though very natural, that the history of this period has so generally been written in hysterics. Exaggeration abounds, execration, wailing; and on the whole darkness.”
Protest (e.g. Black Lives Matter, protests in Mexico against “Femicide”) can be messy, disruptive, infuriating, destructive. It can provoke resentment. Protest cannot be entirely unlimited, but the causes should be understood and addressed. The destruction of property that has occurred in some Black Lives Matter protests in the USA is illegal. However, heavy-handed policing to score political points in an election is equally reprehensible and provocative. Still more provocative, and profoundly wrong, is to encourage armed, self-appointed enforcers of the laws that they choose to enforce (while ignoring laws that prohibit their actions) to oppose the protests. The question that has not been asked as a result is whether the destruction of property is more wrong than the failure to have taken, over a period of years, effective actions to prevent the deaths of black women and men at the hands of law enforcement, and armed white men who claim to enforce the law?
In Mexico City a group of women recently protested the murder of women (“femicide” is a term invented in Mexico because of the frequency with which women are murdered, frequently by their male partners) and the impunity of those who murder them because police rarely investigate the crimes effectively. Some of the women occupied the offices of the National Commission on Human Rights. A slogan was written on a portrait of Francisco Madero, who led the Mexican Revolution of 1910 against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, was elected President, but then assassinated by the military. He is known in Mexico by the sobriquet the “Apostle of Democracy”. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has elevated Madero to a status near to sainthood. In his world view AMLO battles constantly against neoliberal conservatives. He therefore dismissed the protesters as conservatives. He has ignored femicide and therefore no action has been taken to address the problem.
The responses of presidents Trump and AMLO confirm that we surely live in an era of abundant exaggeration and execration, which sanctions behaviour in the public sphere that would previously have been unthinkable.
Karl Popper (1902-1994), The Open Society:
“Wherever the freedom of thought, and of the communication of thought, is effectively protected by legal institutions and institutions ensure the publicity of discussion, there will be scientific progress.”
When Mr Trump was elected I tried to reassure my dismayed American friends that the robust institutions of the USA would constrain the new president’s ability to subvert freedoms. Unfortunately, Mr Trump has proved to be exceptionally skilled in using freedom of expression to attack and undermine freedom for any except those who share his views. My optimism has proved sadly unfounded.
For example, Secretary of State Pompeo recently published a draft report of the US Commission on Unalienable Rights. The commission proposes to base US human rights law on the rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Any additional rights will be classified either as “worth defending” or as “not worth defending”. In Mr Pompeo’s vocabulary rights come in two kinds: unalienable and ad hoc.
Rights worth defending include freedom of assembly, freedom to own property, freedom of religion. However, the commission declared, after examining the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that some of the rights contained therein are more important than others, and therefore that some are unalienable, others are ad hoc.
Now, the report states that “foremost among the unalienable rights that government is established to secure, from the founders’ point of view, are property rights and religious liberty.” These rights are inherently superior to civil and political rights such as freedom of speech and assembly and the right to vote. Other rights, such as reproductive rights and LGBTQ protections are classified as “divisive social and political controversies”. The creation of a hierarchy of superior and inferior rights in itself challenges a fundamental principle of international human rights law that has previously been unquestioned – that all rights are universal and equal.
We need not worry, says Mr Pompeo, because “America is special. America is good. America does good all around the world.”
A similar approach to human rights has been suggested by the UK government. The intention is to remove from UK law adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights (which the UK was instrumental in drafting) so that the UK can decide its own approach to human rights. Like the approach taken by the Trump administration, this undermines the concept of the universality of rights. Americans might have rights which UK citizens are denied, or vice versa. If an autocratic regime should deny to its citizens a right as fundamental as freedom of expression, the UK and the USA would lack moral authority to criticize such a denial of human rights since our governments would have declared that rights are a matter for national governments.
The current UK government is as fond of appealing to UK exceptionalism to justify itself as Mr Pompeo is of extolling the unique virtues of the USA, whether the purported exceptionalism is relevant to the question at hand or not. The Prime Minister was recently asked in Parliament whether the increase in rates of COVID-19 infections could be attributed to the inadequacies of the UK’s national testing and tracing system, run by companies with no experience or qualifications in public health or epidemiology. The questioner observed that in Germany testing and tracing managed by experienced local government departments has proved to be far superior. The Prime Minister reached into his notes to find the “bombastic answer à propos of nothing that turns a charlatan into a patriot”: “And actually, there is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world, and that is our country is a freedom-loving country. And if you look at the history of this country over the last 300 years, virtually every advance from free speech to democracy has come from this country and it is very difficult to ask the British population uniformly to obey … guidelines in a way that it is necessary.”
I imagine that Mr. Pompeo’s founding fathers may have been surprised by this statement.
E H Carr (1892-1982): What is History?
Commenting on the nature of science, emphasizing that science does not claim to predict with certainty what will happen in a particular context, nor can it ever do so. Rather:
“Modern physical theories … deal only with the probabilities of events taking place.”
“If two or three children in a school develop measles, you will conclude that the epidemic will spread; and this prediction, if you care to call it such, is based on a generalization from past experience and is a valid and useful guide to action. But you cannot make the specific prediction that Charles or Mary will catch measles.”
In the UK we have heard government ministers state repeatedly that “we follow the science” as if there is one immutable, indivisible, incontrovertible and single scientific truth, and therefore all government decisions are beyond criticism. One frustrated minister declared in May that “If the science was wrong, advice at the time was wrong. I’m not surprised if people will then think we then made a wrong decision.” Ministers either fail to understand how science works and the very nature of scientific advice on which they claim to rely, or they use it as a convenient shield to avoid responsibility for their decisions.
There is a famous road sign in the UK that reads “Hatfield and the North” (so famous was the sign in the 1970s that a rock band adopted it as their name). Now, if you follow that sign up the M1 you will certainly end up in the north of England, but most people will have a more specific destination in mind, perhaps Barnard Castle, County Durham. Perhaps along the way you are hungry. You see a sign for Loughborough and leave the M1 in search of lunch. Later you decide that some sea air would do you good. You see a sign for Scarborough and leave the M1 again for a gentle stroll on the beach. You ask a fellow beach stroller for the best way to Barnard Castle, only to discover that it’s more than 80 miles away and you are due to meet your guest for dinner in one hour. When you arrive at the restaurant, your disgruntled guest is eating her dessert. You explain that you followed official geographical advice, but unaccountably the journey took much longer than you had expected. You hope that your guest accepts your explanation.
Your journey is quite a good metaphor for the government’s management of the pandemic. A politician is given advice by scientists concerning the general course that the pandemic is likely to take and steps that are likely to reduce the rate of infection. The politician then makes a range of policy decisions to implement the advice. However, the politician later decides that the pandemic is sufficiently under control to change some of the measures taking into account a variety of factors. If the result is that the rate of infection increases, that is a consequence of a policy decision (no doubt taken in good faith) not of the science. The scientists are responsible for giving the best advice possible in a climate of anxiety, the politician for deciding the best policies to implement the advice
Commenting on morality in history:
“History is a process of struggle, in which results, whether we judge them good or bad, are achieved by some group directly or indirectly … at the expense of others. The losers pay. Suffering is indigenous in history. Every great period of history has its casualties as well as its victories. This is an exceedingly complicated question, because we have no measure which enables us to balance the greater good of some against the sacrifices of others”
“modern India is the child of British rule; and modern China is the product of nineteenth-century western imperialism, crossed with the influence of the Russian revolution. Unfortunately it was not the Chinese workers who laboured in the western-owned factories in treaty ports … who have survived to enjoy whatever glory or profit may have accrued from the Chinese revolution. Those who pay are rarely those who reap the benefits.”
Black Lives Matter has made the judgement of figures from the past a topic of heated debate. This is a question with no easy answer. However, it is clear that the choice of figures to be judged and the verdict reached says as much about the preoccupations of our contemporary society as it does about the actions of figures in the past.
Let us take as an example Hernán Cortés, who led the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Cortés has always been harshly judged in the popular understanding of Mexican history, for he destroyed an Indigenous civilization of ancient Mexico, the Aztecs, and several others for good measure. You will be hard pressed to find a modern Mexican who has a good word to say about Cortés. However, Mexicans have not had to debate the issue of statues of Cortés, as Americans have debated (perhaps rather shouted at one another about) statues of Confederate generals, for there are no statues to Cortés in Mexico. Nor are any streets, towns, buildings or institutions named after him. In the 21st-century public sphere he is non-existent, except when he serves the rhetorical interests of AMLO.
In AMLO’s view of Mexican history Cortés is the arch villain, a precursor Neoliberal Conservative. AMLO has criticized Cortés, for example, for being the first to hold a fraudulent election in Mexico by appointing to the council of the newly-founded city of La Vera Cruz (The True Cross). It is perfectly true that the procedure was thoroughly undemocratic, but it is equally true that Cortés acted as the representative of an absolute monarch, so democracy was not an option that was open to him, or any other European come to that. Nor were the regimes of ancient Mexico democracies. All rulers were absolute, and none too gentle in the manner of their autocracy.
From the point of view of a 21st century judge, there are plenty of charges that could be levelled against Cortés. Let’s consider just a few:
· Mass killings: thousands of Aztecs, and Indians from some other groups who encountered the Spaniards on their march to the Valley of Mexico, died at the hands of Cortés and his forces. However, it is also true that Cortés was enthusiastically assisted by large numbers of Indians from other groups who had suffered at the hands of the Aztecs and thirsted for revenge. Many Aztecs were killed by fellow Indians. A crafty lawyer for the defence might argue that Cortés was liberating Indians from Aztec tyranny, or at least was no worse than the Aztecs.
· Slavery: Cortés owned large numbers of Indians, enslaved for resisting (from a Spanish point of view) the lawful representatives of the King of Spain and of the Pope himself. Cortés’ lawyer might plead in mitigation that the Aztecs themselves practised a form of slavery, although it seems that their slaves were not considered to be the personal property of an owner as was the case of Spanish slavery, and it was possible for Aztec slaves to gain their freedom. Cortés’ slaves could never be given their freedom.
· Religious intolerance and cultural vandalism: the Pope had given the Americas to the King of Spain on condition that he evangelize the Indians and treat them according to his Christian conscience. Cortés’ band was therefore diligent in destroying temples, sculptures (“idols”) and other cultural artefacts, which would now be considered the priceless heritage of the Mexican people. Our judge might dismiss Cortés’ lawyer’s defence that he was acting on the authority of the Pope to suppress heresy, as a cynical attempt to evade responsibility. However, Cortés could probably plead in mitigation that he was sincerely horrified by the ample evidence of human sacrifice in the temples, especially by the priests wore the flayed skins of their sacrificial victims.
We can safely predict that the judge will find Cortés guilty, but that leaves open two questions:
· The Mexican nation is the direct result of Cortés’ actions in the 16th century. It was he who determined the location of the country’s capital. Biologically, the people themselves are a complicated mix of Indian and Spanish, with a good dash of African (more slaves) and Asian (some slaves, some not), added to in subsequent centuries by assorted Europeans and North Americans who decided to stage a little invasion of Mexico on some pretext or other. This does not excuse Cortés, but if we focus only on actions that are reprehensible by our standards we miss his foundational contribution to modern Mexico.
· Should we ignore his other qualities, which contributed to his victory in 1521? Cortés was a supreme politician. He outwitted his superior in Cuba. He managed an unruly band of cutthroats with supreme skill. He understood the “politics” of Indigenous Mexico and allied himself with the Aztecs most powerful enemies. As a military leader he was decisive, resolute, undaunted by appalling setbacks, strategically and tactically acute. He also seems to have been a sharp businessman whom Mr Trump may well admire.
All of this makes Cortés an enormously important historical figure, however we judge him as a person. We can recognize his ugly deeds, we can if we wish condemn them, but can we therefore ignore his significance?
On causality:
Carr bats easily to one side the argument that Cleopatra’s nose proves the importance of chance in history. The idea is that if Cleopatra’s nose had been less attractive, perhaps an enormously ugly schnozzle, Marc Anthony would not have been besotted with her and the course of Roman history would have changed.
Carr goes on to examine a case study, which I have adapted here. Mr Jones gets in his car and drives a few miles to meet a friend in a pub. He intends to drink only a half pint, but the conversation flows and by the time he gets in his car to drive home he has had more beer than is wise or legal. His car had been serviced the previous day by a mechanic new to the job who had failed to check the brakes, which were faulty. As Jones rounds a bend near home, a little faster than is wise, Mr Robinson is crossing the street to the convenience store because he has run out of cigarettes. Jones’ car hits Robinson who breathes his last.
The question is who or what caused the death of Robinson. Was it Mr Jones excessive consumption of alcohol? Was it the negligent mechanic who had not noticed that the brakes were faulty? Was it the highway engineer who perhaps made the bend too tight? One possibility is that Robinson caused his own death since, if he had not been a smoker, or had ordered his cigarettes online, he would not be dead. If that defence were accepted by the court, perhaps all smokers who die in traffic accidents in future can be held responsible for their own deaths.
This set me thinking about Mr Trump’s grasp of causality in the context of the West Coast wild fires. The argument might go something like this. It was unusually hot, and has been unusually hot often lately. There were unusually strong winds, also an increasingly frequent occurrence. Lightning struck dry vegetation. A fire started. There was a good deal of dry matter on the forest floor (dead trees, fallen branches etc.) which burned fiercely. Now, there could have been no fire without lightning. The only plausible cause for the lightning is the unusually hot weather. The wind did not cause the fire, but was a contributory factor that spread the blaze over a wide area. The dry matter on the forest floor was similarly a contributory factor, but it was not ignited by spontaneous combustion. Mr Trump, however, keen to attribute the fires to something other than climate change, ruled that bad forest management was the only cause. Whatever one’s stance concerning climate change, Mr Trump’s argument is simply illogical. Tinder alone cannot cause a fire. A spark is also needed. I suspect that if he were the judge in the case of Mr Robinson President Trump would have found him responsible for his own death, and liable for the damage he caused to Mr Jones’ car.
Carr’s fundamental argument is that we live in history. History shapes us, we shape history, and history says as much about us as it does about people of the past.
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