I have identified what seems to me to be the main crisis of our era: the loss of trust: in experts, in all institutions, in the honest intentions of the opposing political party. The ability to address any issue in a way that isn’t immediately connected to one of the parties in the culturel war — is lost. Radicalization everywhere. Either you are a green-socialist-feminist or you are a racist-populist-nationalist. The same position, expressed in different groups, will be ridiculed and laughed at for it’s “centrist innocence”, but for opposite reasons. Each random meme-group, whether about plants or the Lord of the Rings, inevitably reaches a break-point that cannot be sustained, and then splits into a group that prohibits transphobia and a group in favor of Trump. All motives of the other party are white supremacy or a Soros plot. No one is ever honest, and if you think so — you’re a useful idiot.
I want to offer a solution.
When we deal with historiography, or “the science of how history is made,” we find that history written in each period corresponds to the intellectual trends of that time. If this sounds banal, think of how being critical of old texts is a new concept in itself; The implicit assumption was that older = more reliable: as can be seen in the degree of credibility given to Islamic traditions (Hadith) by the chain of oral delivery: closer to source = more reliable, also in the case of Thomas Aquinas, lest it seem like a Middle Eastern peculiarity. For example, Bernard Lewis developed the Theory of Ottoman Decline from a reading of Ottomans in the 16th and 17th centuries who testified to a decline, without considering a set of questions that nowdays we are bound to consider, such as:
What is the writer’s interest in writing one way or another? What information is the writer exposed to? What is the cultural background of the writer? What do his words mean?
For example, when the founding fathers of the United States wrote against democracy, one must understand that the word “democracy”, for them, represented direct democracy. When Luther writes “to the German people,” one must understand that he means nobility and priesthood.
Thus, ancient historical writing is motivated by the need to “judge” past leaders: If the purpose of writing is to educate princes who will grow up to be kings, then Machiavelli should teach lessons. This tradition relied on the information that was available: what was documented were exchanges of government, wars and battles, and marriage.
So we learned to look at the time & place where a history was written. We realized that Edward Gibbon was writing about the decline of the Roman Empire out of anxiety about the decline of the British Empire. We realized that Orientalism was not only due to error but also to the justification of “educational” colonialism. We realized that adopting the Black Athena theory stems from an uprising against the racial-cultural order that attempts to replace one false narrative with another false narrative.
Alternatively, we see problematic attempts to discover the “laws of history”, as Karl Marx and Jared Diamond did, who are expected to act as physical laws: because their formulation always requires the simplification, abstraction, and omission of historical facts; Both because they cannot be taken into account by the actors’ agency; And because they will necessarily ignore the historical awareness of the actors of that history itself.
And so we came to a different approach: the parallel but different narratives. If we are rooted in the thinking that surrounds us, then any historical interpretation we write will be the same as any other interpretation — postmodernism. This is problematic in every field, and in history as well.
So what should we do? If I dare reject both “the history of eminent people and their actions,” “the laws of history,” “history as an activist correction of wrongs,” and “history as a collection of stories,” what am I left with?
I think the answer lies in the expansion. Historical research can and should, instead of continuing the brawls over existing great narratives, continue to work on more and more areas, times, and unprocessed subjects. Much of what seems “explored” is not so; Both because of the wealth of unprocessed sources, and because of new capabilities to process sources: both technological (word processing engines) and perceptual (such as Linda Darling, which decrypted Ottoman taxation texts).
The benefit of working on the Spanish fishing industry, or treatment of the mentally ill in Bohemia, or teaching hygiene in rural China is that the historian is required to formulate a narrative: relativism cannot be an escape. But on the other hand, that narrative is likely to be cut off from an existing, tired “grand narrative”: no one has any opinion yet on the Spanish fishing industry in the 18th century.
The goal is not to leave the grand narratives behind! But now, armed with a multitude of small and well-based narratives, you can gather from all the historians from different disciplines and argue — based on solid research! — About the grand narrative.
We started with a proof that historiography is influenced by the zeitgeist. Now, I would like to take the opposite step: From the insight I have established regarding historical research, I wish to influence the current cultural discourse:
Atomization.
We must sever the total connections between each subject and subject. It is not possible that all chauvinism will be racist, that all patriotism will be right-wing, that all conservatism will be homophobia. You must be thinking, “But these issues are really related!” And that’s right — in the end, everything has to do with everything. But it is worthwhile to examine each issue in itself, with references to its external links as a peripheral issue. As we saw in the Holly Cases “Age of Questions”,, this connectivity is what forces totalist solutions to every problem: anyone who is transgender must be a socialist; Anyone pro-gun is pro-Trump; Anyone who believes in climate change opposes nationalism.
We have to bring the actual matter, that is, the discussion of the real issue first, and its political implications — second. Only then can we have a legalist argument that does not assume total politicization of the Justice system; Conduct an argument about economic policies that doesn’t view all issues as racial issues; conduct an environmental discussion without using anti-scientific rhetoric.
When we examine everything case-by-case, methodically, accurately, passionately, we will achieve three things:
- New ideologies. Physics also has “ideologies”, paradigms — but they are cut off from the paradigms that control political discourse. An exterminators’ ideological debate about a pest eradication strategy is valuable and interesting, because on the one hand it will present similar elements to other ideological debates, and on the other will be based in a brand new environment.
- Victory over populism. You can’t scream or clap or shout slogans when dealing with a specific, technical topic. It is much easier to create cross-party coalitions, which can nurse state-level defragmentation. If a person & I, while being politically opposite, suddenly find ourselves on the same side of literary debate, we will find it easier to discuss other issues as well.
- Dismantling “Identity Politics,” which comes from a dual understanding: An understanding by its opponents that current identity politics comes solely in response to a long history of discriminatory identity politics, which has forcibly blocked the path of various people in their pursuit of freedom, happiness, and equality. Alongside that, understanding by its supporters that ignoring nuance only leads to error. In Haiti there were free blacks who owned black slaves and they fought for the right to keep them; Christian slaves existed in the Ottoman Empire; countries could simultaneously lead democracy, women’s emancipation, and the release of serfs, alongside colonial enslavement; Fascism, populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism are related but separate, and often very contradictory.
Which is why I am preaching: this is the time for professionalism. Every citizen cannot be expected to understand all the functions of the Congress and its laws, epidemiology, climate, economics, criminology, sociology …
Choose topics. Study them. Know them well. Fight the ignorants who come in with pompous screaming trying to ruin the discussion. Go with the compelling claims based on the data, and don’t stop believing good points because someone said that they have a shadowy organization behind them. Believe in the truth you have discovered and remain open to refutation.
