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.
