by Last year, I wrote a couple of posts defending historical presentism, that is, the view that we should examine events and actors in history (at least in modern history) in the light of our current concerns, rather than treating them as exempt from any standards except those that prevailed (in the dominant class) at the time. Those posts referred to controversies within the history profession. Unsurprisingly, given the current state of the US, they have now been embroiled in the culture wars. Rightwing critics of wokeism have now added presentism to the list of evils against which they are fighting, along with critical race theory, cancel culture and so on. This creates a dilemma for anti-presentists. Do they welcome political support, even if it comes from rightwing culture
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Last year, I wrote a couple of posts defending historical presentism, that is, the view that we should examine events and actors in history (at least in modern history) in the light of our current concerns, rather than treating them as exempt from any standards except those that prevailed (in the dominant class) at the time.
Those posts referred to controversies within the history profession. Unsurprisingly, given the current state of the US, they have now been embroiled in the culture wars. Rightwing critics of wokeism have now added presentism to the list of evils against which they are fighting, along with critical race theory, cancel culture and so on.
This creates a dilemma for anti-presentists. Do they welcome political support, even if it comes from rightwing culture warriors? That’s a natural thing to do, but it implies a lot of baggage. Once you identify as “anti-woke”, you’re committed to racism, misogyny, science denial, book-banning and, ultimately, fascism.
The default response, dignified silence, is little better. If academic advocates of anti-presentism don’t define the term for the general public, the far-right will do it for them. Very soon, any negative reference to presentism by an academic historian will be the equivalent of coming to lectures wearing a MAGA hat.
So, is there room for a version of anti-presentism that is importantly different from Trumpism? In the US context, that’s going to be very difficult to find. It’s one thing for Herbert Butterfield to criticise historians taking sides in the disputes between Jacobites and Hanoverians on the basis that the Hanoverians were “historically progressive” as viewed from the 1930s. It’s quite another to say that historians should stay neutral with respect to the battles over slavery and racism that have been central to American history since well before the United States even existed.
Anti-presentism fails miserably on the issue of slavery. There was no time in modern history when slavery was generally accepted. Even an enslaver like John Locke used anti-slavery rhetoric against the advocates of monarchical power as applied to white male Britons. The enslavers who signed the Declaration of Independence stand condemned by their own words, written when they thought they would find a painless way of ending slavery. Most of them (Washington was an exception) failed even the most minimal test of freeing slaves in their wills. And earlier statements in favour of slavery, like those of famous theologian Jonathan Edwards (now the subject of some controversy in evangelical circles) were only made because other people condemned the institution. Finally, although the thoughts of the slaves themselves have been suppressed almost completely, they expressed them in revolts whenever they had a chance.
So, when academic opponents of wokeism/presentism say that current moral standards are being imposed on the past, what they mean is that racist views that are now deprecated were once dominant, and vice versa. So, they can pretend to oppose actually existing racism, while excusing that of their chosen period of study, whether it’s 1619, the Jim Crow South or, for that matter, the Trump Administration.
The real issue isn’t to do with time, it’s whether any moral standards at all apply to history. Rather than saying that (for example) Pol Pot was a man of his times and exempt from contemporary judgements, they should just say that it’s not their job to decide whether genocide is good or bad, just to report the facts. That’s a position that’s hard to refute, but one that, if accepted, will accelerate the demise of history as an academic example.