Why History Is Not Enough
by R. Anthony Arnold
December 2023
I love history. That love is why I study it, write about it, and incorporate it into my podcast. However, as I have delved deeper into history, I have become increasingly concerned about how it is often misused, particularly in moments of conflict and tension.
History, with all of its lessons, rarely provides a roadmap for dealing with issues today. Nor do historical figures, with their flaws, hypocritical beliefs, and idiosyncratic ways. So, instead of looking outward, we must turn inward, building our own moral self, with history simply serving as one of the pillars.
To see the ills of our current approach, look at the discourse surrounding the Middle East.
There are well-intentioned people who insist that knowing the history must come before judgment can be rendered.
The expectation is that you’ll become a pseudo-expert, acquiring a deep grasp of a conflict that not only predates most people, but that scholars themselves spend a lifetime trying to make sense of. From the outset, this approach sets the bar too high for most.
Lack of time. Lack of reliable resources. Lack of access to information. All of these serve as formidable obstacles on the path to understanding. In many cases they’re insurmountable. Does that mean that people who, for whatever reason, don’t attain “enlightenment,” deserve to have no voice in the matters of the day? There’s a deceptively elitist tone to arguments that begin with “You don’t understand…”
But while I’m critical, I do understand why this approach has supporters. The pursuit of fairness suggests we should hold off on judgment before having all the facts. That it’s prudent to learn as much as possible about a situation prior to reaching a conclusion. It matches the highest ideals of our legal system in this way, and so it seemingly comes pre-approved.
However, legality is not morality. Our approach of deciding between innocence and guilt is insufficient in this case.
Here are two statements, both of which are true:
- It’s bad to build settlements on other people’s land, against their will.
- It’s bad to kidnap, torture, and kill people.
These things are bad because they violate the basic right to live free of violence. A right that’s not based in Western documents, or Eastern documents. One that’s not confined to a specific religious practice.
It’s a right that we’ve built our societies upon. It’s a core principle of our legal system, and one of the primary arguments for governments based on self-determination. It’s the reason we object to wars of conquest. People have the right to live free of violence.
But this principle holds not just because we practice it, but because in our not too distant past, we’ve seen what societies that don’t hold it look like. Societies where partner violence was not just tolerated, but encouraged. Where the enslavement of others was seen as legitimate business. Where colonization was widespread. We must stand against violence because we’ve seen what the world looks like when we don’t.
And yet, a common response to that conclusion is to highlight some time in the past where a different offense occurred, and to use that as justification for the current action. But this raises a difficult question, one that’s extremely relevant to how we discuss what’s happening around the world right now.
How far back should we go?
Five years? Ten years? Twenty? A century?
In 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico, after we annexed Texas. For the next two years, the U.S. consistently won battle after battle. And by the time the war was over, Mexico had lost 1/3rd of its territory, about 500,000 square miles, in a naked land grab carried out by the Polk administration. Territory which now includes Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Would Mexico be justified in invading us today? Do they have a moral right to launch raids into California claiming, quite truthfully, that their ancestral land was stolen from them nearly two hundred years ago? Would it be considered “ok” to kill thousands of people in modern-day Los Angeles over the crimes committed centuries ago?
This example highlights a crack in the foundation of using history alone as a guide.
If you go back far enough and search wide enough then you’ll find that both individual people and groups frequently flip between being the victim and the oppressor.
Take the indigenous people of the United States. Presently, we prefer a version of history that highlights the ways in which they were victims of European colonization. And they were. There’s no doubt about that.
But history doesn’t begin there.
Prior to Europeans arriving, they practiced slavery on each other. And even after Europeans arrived, multiple tribes eventually took African slaves of their own. In fact, many Indian nations signed treaties with the Confederacy when the Civil War began.
This isn’t to suggest they deserved their treatment. It’s simply an attempt to point out how victim/oppressor narratives too often depend on starting the clock at a particular time, or arranging historical facts in a particular fashion.
The way that history is taught and understood, as an unbroken narrative, encourages this practice. We like stories, so by making the past an intricate part of the present, and organizing events so they help explain where we are today, it helps us connect with it, and hopefully internalize it. And this really is a wonderful way of teaching.
However, it’s a very poor way of understanding why those events happened.
The present moment, and this is as true for individuals as it is for nations, is shaped by choices being made right now. The historical links exist, but they’re forged by present actions, not an unavoidable outcome of what happened long ago.
Is there something conservative in this belief? Yes. Personal responsibility, the idea that we are each responsible for our own actions and beliefs, is a core part of seeing the world this way. I know that makes it inherently unappealing to some people, and you can certainly go too far with this approach. But it does provide a better starting point.
Israel continues to build settlements because their government wants to, knowing that it’s wrong to steal people’s land. That, or they’ve rationalized their own violence by pointing to their own warped version of history. Of course, this merely highlights the need for both moral clarity and the judgment of others. People, and nations, can fall into self-rationalizing traps. Unable to truly see themselves or their actions, their peers are then obligated to provide guidance and truth.
Hamas continues to be a terrorist organization, indiscriminately killing innocents, because they want to. Again, they’ve either rejected the principle, or deluded themselves into believing their actions don’t defy it.
You don’t need a PHD in history, and you’re not required to spend hours reading wikipedia entries and longform articles, in order to reach those conclusions. People have rights. And when those rights are violated, we should call out those doing so.
The point of passing judgment isn’t simply to condemn. It’s to illustrate for others what is and is not allowed. The minute you begin glossing over the theft of people’s land, or the murder of innocents, you’ve started down a path to nihilism. If those actions are allowed in this circumstance, then why aren’t they allowed in this other circumstance? Slippery slope concerns can be overblown, but they aren’t without merit.
And to be clear, this isn’t a theoretical problem.
In response to various campus protests and controversies, there’s been a swell of donors who’ve now decided that, actually, canceling people is good. It’s not lost on me that these are the same people who previously spent a lot of time talking about the scourge of cancel culture. It seems that their objection was merely with who was wearing the boot, as opposed to a principled disagreement with the existence of the boot in the first place.
That’s an example of how the failure to stick by a principle, in this case free speech, has led to a steady erosion of it, leaving us all worse off. And that’s why sticking to principles matters for all of us. The creation of healthy societies can only occur if we’re willing to look at certain actions and declare them unacceptable.
Don’t be sucked down historical rabbit holes trying to find the one event that will make it all make sense. No such event exists and no such explanation will be coming. History is not a skeleton key to the present, providing us with ready answers.
As someone who reads and brushes up on quite a bit of history, I know this quite well. The more you learn, the more questions you have. Every bit of information acquired about the past only highlights more cracks in what I thought I knew.
At a certain point you have to stop, and guided by your own moral compass, draw a line in the sand.
Learning about history is a wonderful thing, but it will always be complementary to a strong sense of right and wrong, not a replacement.
