View Full Version : Brave New World
by Victor Davis Hanson
All I can say is, my sentiments exactly.
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/brave-new-world/?singlepage=true
Peregrino
02-19-2013, 20:31
A voice crying in the wilderness.
Anyone ever stop to think what the average Centurion was up to around the time of the fall of Rome?
Maybe the dark-ages were NOTHING compared to what is upon this epoch of human history that stands ahead?
We'll see...... meanwhile, I am buying precious metels...... Lead, Copper, Brass, Silver, etc........
Peregrino
02-19-2013, 21:06
Anyone ever stop to think what the average Centurion was up to around the time of the fall of Rome? ...
I suspect most were shopping for a barbarian bride and a strategically significant location to construct a motte-and-bailey fort. I'm partial to intersecting trade routes or river crossings myself; better to start small and consolidate that bite off more than you can control with whatever legionaires you can bring over with you. Course it helps if the aforementioned bride has lots of tribesmen loyal to her bloodline. I like the idea of collecting precious metals too.
Hanson's professed astonishment with topics, issues, and trends Americanists (to say nothing of Europeanists) have kicked around for decades is surprising. The stratification of wealth and its impact on democracy, the intertwined issues of immigration and assimilation, and the fragmentation of social ties caused by advances in communication technology, are not new to serious students of modern history.
Nevertheless, his editorial is evidence of both the fragmentation of professional academic history and Hanson's growing unwillingness to step outside of his own intellectual comfort zone.
The latter dynamic is especially problematic as Hanson once made his living in the Ivory Tower. Maybe if he had spent more time engaging with and listening to colleagues who disagree with his approach to history rather than railing at them, he'd be in a better position to affect the change he desires.
Or, maybe Hanson knows many of his readers fall into the "most of us" category.
Yet most of us are scarcely aware of the collective effect of that odd habit repeating itself millions of times over each day, of millions of books not read, of “hellos” not offered, of brains wired to screens rather than the physical world about them. After all, why should Hanson take genuine intellectual risks if he can get an endless chorus of "Atta boy" by preaching to the choir?
My $0.02.
TXGringo
02-19-2013, 21:35
post
My $0.02.
Is there anything in particular in his editorial that you take issue with?
Is there anything in particular in his editorial that you take issue with?
Everything. Mostly because I posted it.;)
gwbarnes
02-20-2013, 07:28
Everything. Mostly because I posted it.;)
And I, for one am glad you did. I would have found it later, anyway, but am now deep in the "Ds" earlier in the day than normal. (Depression, Despair, Disbelief, Discouragement, etc)
At the risk of being accused of wearing a" tin foil hat" I enjoyed this article very much, thanks for sharing. Our future looks bright indeed.
"When an historian who specializes in ancient Greece gets depressed about current events... Guess what?"
Classic.
Richard :munchin
I thought this was a well written summation of the current status.
Keeping my weapons clean, rounds magged and waiting on the CALL!
In the Dark Ages the average person had no idea about why or who built the roman road systems in Europe. They thought trolls built the bridges and lived under them.
People were so stupid back then. Trolls live in Norway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hi_4GT35yc
Is there anything in particular in his editorial that you take issue with?
Hanson's not taking genuine intellectual risks. He's railing when he could be voguing. That's all. :D
Streck-Fu
02-20-2013, 11:58
People were so stupid back then. Trolls live in Norway.
I was thinking they came from the Pelosi and Boxer residences but may be confusing trolls for witches....
A voice crying in the wilderness.
May have just heard the echo from the first shot in the wilderness. This continues to get more disturbing at a rapid pace.:(
Good article, thanks for posting it. It's a nice little summary of our current situation.
Hanson's professed astonishment with topics, issues, and trends Americanists (to say nothing of Europeanists) have kicked around for decades is surprising. The stratification of wealth and its impact on democracy, the intertwined issues of immigration and assimilation, and the fragmentation of social ties caused by advances in communication technology, are not new to serious students of modern history.
Nevertheless, his editorial is evidence of both the fragmentation of professional academic history and Hanson's growing unwillingness to step outside of his own intellectual comfort zone.
The latter dynamic is especially problematic as Hanson once made his living in the Ivory Tower. Maybe if he had spent more time engaging with and listening to colleagues who disagree with his approach to history rather than railing at them, he'd be in a better position to affect the change he desires.
Or, maybe Hanson knows many of his readers fall into the "most of us" category.
After all, why should Hanson take genuine intellectual risks if he can get an endless chorus of "Atta boy" by preaching to the choir?
My $0.02.
Sigaba,
As a blue collared dude who has been reading professional historians all his short life, what you just said does not make a lot of sense to me.
It seems to me that most professional historians are in ideological lock step with each other. To pick on the one of the few outliers as an example of someone who will not step out of his intellectual comfort zone without any concrete examples seems like a cheap shot born out ideological hostility.
I have my disagreements with Hanson same as I do with everyone. But his brand of historical analysis sits better with me then the "professional historians" who have taken it upon themselves to decided that Domitian was not so bad in spite of the universal testimony of the classical authors. Their dubious grounds on basing this assessment is that they can detect signs in the archeological record that the roman economy improved under his reign and the class background of classical authors means they were "biased" (oh, the horror).
To my simple uneducated mind, this is like future historians saying that Stalin was all right because the Soviet economy recovered under his watch and all the people criticizing him in the historical record came from a well educated class of people that did not represent the masses as a whole.
Russian economy had nowhere to go but up after the Russian civil war, World War I, and World War II. The same thing could be said about the Roman Empire after Domitian took it over.
All that is a long winded way of saying that I think "Professional historians" have swung the pendulum to far in the direction of thinking that they know better than the classical authors (or the source authors of what ever time period they are studying). I understand that slavish devotion to such sources have there problems, but there is still a place for humility and giving the people who where there the benefit of the doubt.
In this regard, I see Hanson as being one of the few who fights from the other side of pendulum and tries to make sure that the classical authors are still given their due.
Sigaba,
As a blue collared dude who has been reading professional historians all his short life, what you just said does not make a lot of sense to me.
It seems to me that most professional historians are in ideological lock step with each other. To pick on the one of the few outliers as an example of someone who will not step out of his intellectual comfort zone without any concrete examples seems like a cheap shot born out ideological hostility.
I have my disagreements with Hanson same as I do with everyone. But his brand of historical analysis sits better with me then the "professional historians" who have taken it upon themselves to decided that Domitian was not so bad in spite of the universal testimony of the classical authors. Their dubious grounds on basing this assessment is that they can detect signs in the archeological record that the roman economy improved under his reign and the class background of classical authors means they were "biased" (oh, the horror).
To my simple uneducated mind, this is like future historians saying that Stalin was all right because the Soviet economy recovered under his watch and all the people criticizing him in the historical record came from a well educated class of people that did not represent the masses as a whole.
Russian economy had nowhere to go but up after the Russian civil war, World War I, and World War II. The same thing could be said about the Roman Empire after Domitian took it over.
All that is a long winded way of saying that I think "Professional historians" have swung the pendulum to far in the direction of thinking that they know better than the classical authors (or the source authors of what ever time period they are studying). I understand that slavish devotion to such sources have there problems, but there is still a place for humility and giving the people who where there the benefit of the doubt.
In this regard, I see Hanson as being one of the few who fights from the other side of pendulum and tries to make sure that the classical authors are still given their due.Albeit unintentionally, you prove my point for me.
Professor Hanson offers polemics about eggheads and their allegedly pernicious influence upon American society. Members of the general public, based upon their experiences (which do not include an immersion into how academic historians are trained, nor exposure to the professional, political, personal, and philosophical issues with which they grapple on a daily basis) fall over themselves to agree.
This agreement comes without an appreciation for the irony of comments such as:To pick on the one of the few outliers as an example of someone who will not step out of his intellectual comfort zone without any concrete examples seems like a cheap shot born out ideological hostility. And:But his brand of historical analysis sits better with me then the "professional historians" who have taken it upon themselves to decided that Domitian was not so bad in spite of the universal testimony of the classical authors.
In regards to the first quote, you demonstrate a growing reluctance among members of the PS.COM peanut gallery to use the search button. By not using the search button, you made the decision not to test your assumption that I am picking on Hanson without providing concrete examples. Yet, a quick search provides the following <<LINK1 (http://professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=269441&postcount=10)>>, and <<LINK2 (http://professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=337434&postcount=5)>> and also <<LINK3 (http://professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=414810&postcount=27)>>. Or, if you prefer, you could take a look at Hanson's "The Dilemmas of the Contemporary Military Historian" (1999) and ask yourself how his assessment of the craft differs from those offered previously by such military historians as Peter Paret in 1971, John Kegan in 1976, Maurice Matloff and Thomas E. Griess in 1988, or John Lynn in 1997?* (If nothing else, the two 'take aways' should be [1] I don't take "cheap shots" at historians and, [2] #TSBIYF.)
In regards to the latter quote, the comment displays the very intellectual complacency that Hanson derides--and with which you apparently agree. Is the serious study of history about reading books that "sit better" with a reader? Or is the serious study of history about challenging one's own understanding of a topic/subject and remaining up to speed with the ongoing debates over interpretations of the past?
My beef with Hanson is as follows. Were he more interested in using his skill set as a historian, he could use his first rate mind and his enviable skills as a writer to give readers concise overviews of the numerous debates over the relationships between the events of the day and the past.
He could also show a general audience how historians face an ongoing crisis of relevance and effectiveness. This crisis is not because they, as you mistakenly believe, walk in "ideological lock step" with each other. (And it is curious that you made the decision to not provide examples given what you accuse me of doing. But, hey, I'm sure that's different.;) ) On the contrary, the crisis exists because historians disagree on many key issues. That is to say, academic historians cannot, at present, provide American audiences with a tidy usable past because they focus on trees at the expense of the forest.
Instead, the man more and more operates as a polemicist who is pitching his own books. Instead, the man perpetuates a sense of crisis without reminding readers that many of the issues we face today are not new and without showing how a "sense of history" can provide perspectives that allow a sense of urgency that doesn't devolve into the air of desperation that has settled upon the land.
Two quick points. First, transparent attempts at self-effacement ("To my simple uneducated mind") would be more efficacious, and less ironic, if one avoided simplistic suppositions. Using what future historians might say about Stalin as a reason to display umbrage with the profession of academic historians does not work as well as displaying a familiarity with what current historians are saying about Stalin, the two world wars, or Russia both during and after Stalinism and then taking those existing interpretations to task.
Second, claims that one is "who has been reading professional historians all his short life" might be more credible if one were to drop some names and/or delineate clearly fields, topics, and time periods of interest.
__________________________________________________ ___________
* Victor Davis Hanson, "The Dilemmas of the Contemporary Military Historian" in Reconstructing History: The Emergence of a New Historical Society, ed. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn (New York and London: Routledge 1999), 189-201; Peter Paret, "The History of War." Daedalus 100:2 (Spring 1971): 376-396; John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: The Viking Press, 1976; reprint, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1993); Maurice Matloff, "The Nature of History," in A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History, ed. John E. Jessup, Jr. and Robert W. Coaklely (Washington, D.C.: [U.S. Army] Center for Military History, 1988), 3-24; Thomas E. Griess, "A Perspective on Military History," ibid., 25-40; John Lynn, "The Embattled Future of Academic Military History, Journal of Military History 61:4 (October, 1997): 777-789. FWIW/FYI, a previous discussion of John Jessup took place there (professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22135).
Everything
Huhhh? I just liked his article because it validates my own biases and prejudices.:)
I would reply on my iPhone but I keep driving off the side of the road when I try that.
Amen.Huhhh? I just liked his article because it validates my own biases and prejudices.:)
Huhhh? I just liked his article because it validates my own biases and prejudices.:)I watch Louis CK's show for the same reason.
My concern is that Hanson is pouring gasoline onto the fire at the expense of helping members of his readership to develop a wider array of tools to counter the asshattery that is rampaging across the land.
I am concerned by the fact that he positions himself as a military historian when he might be more accurately defined as a Classicist with a secondary interest in military history. If one were to read the references offered in my previous post, one would see that he is greatly out of step with many of the big picture issues that military historians have focused upon since the end of the Second World War.
Yes, the changing sensibilities of the historical profession as a whole have greatly contributed to the effacement of "traditional" fields of history (military, naval, diplomatic, political) in the Ivory Tower. However practitioners of those traditional fields have facilitated the decline by making mistakes of their own. IMO, Hanson's approach inhibits the ability of concerned stakeholders to understand, to address, to correct those errors, and to participate in the process of bringing that pendulum back towards the middle.
My $0.02.
Your post
Reading Sigaba's treatises on history makes my head feel like this sometimes, but are well worth the effort...
My favorite Sigaba quote from the links in his post: "Hanson gets away with this intellectual alchemy..." ouch Hanson...academic burrrnnn....
v v v v v v v v v v v
The Reaper
02-21-2013, 19:34
I really wish Hanson were here to respond to these complaints himself.
He must have a day job or something.
TR
I really wish Hanson were here to respond to these complaints himself.
You mean Hanson the professional, degreed, award-winning historian and professor? That guy?
I really wish Hanson were here to respond to these complaints himself.
He must have a day job or something.
TR
You mean Hanson the professional, degreed, award-winning historian and professor? That guy?FWIW, I am not the only one to take Hanson to task for wearing too many hats. For example, Everett L. Wheeler's review of Hanson's A War Like No Other in the Journal of Military History, 70:3 (July 2006): 816-818.But this Socrates of Selma has become controversial: a gadfly to postmodernist, politically correct trends in higher education and a "true believer" in current American foreign policy, in support of which classical parallels are frequently cited. Which Victor Hanson do we find in this work? The scholar or the conservative publicist?
Wheeler--himself a Classicist who specializes in Greek warfare--goes on to offer a devastating critique of Hanson's work and his methods.Scholars will soon tire of a repetitious text at least a hundred pages too long, besides flippant comparisons (p. 99: Lebanonization of Greece; p. 120: Brasidas as Fidel Castro) and marvel at the number and degree of exaggerations, including abuse of the Greek language (e.g., p. 14: attikizo, "to speak Attic Greek, to side with the Athenians," connected with globalization). Hanson applies his well-known face-of-battle approach emphasizing individual experience to an entire war with a seemingly endless litany of statistics on civilian and military casualties to dramatize how awful it all was—all encased in the Hansonian agrarian view of Greek history. A disclaimer of avoiding strategic issues (p. xiv) is false, but again the author lacks anything new to say. Thomas Kelly's analysis of Spartan strategy (AHR 87 [1982]: 25–54), emphasizing a more active naval effort than commonly supposed, is curiously absent.
The Reaper
02-21-2013, 20:59
Sigaba:
What is the measure of success of a historian?
Is the one who can artfully tell a tale that reflects some of his personal beliefs and yet reach millions to educate them a failure, compared to the scholar who seems to have the answers for everything but few listen?
TR
Okay...I'm gonna watch Moonshiners now, so I can FEEL like the smart one!
Sigaba:
I will have to reply to you piecemeal as a full reply would take longer then any one time block that I have available to me. You say...
This crisis is not because they, as you mistakenly believe, walk in "ideological lock step" with each other. (And it is curious that you made the decision to not provide examples given what you accuse me of doing. But, hey, I'm sure that's different. ) On the contrary, the crisis exists because historians disagree on many key issues. That is to say, academic historians cannot, at present, provide American audiences with a tidy usable past because they focus on trees at the expense of the forest.
As far as historians having fierce disagreements on key issues, I half agree with you. They certainly have fierce arguments. About a decade ago I saw a electronic exchange that Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen had with a fellow Egyptologist and I was shocked how fast the argument left the bounds of civility and good order on both sides.
But I think your definition of key issues reveals the insularity of your profession. According to this poll, (http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html) 98 percent of professional historians believed that George Bush’s Presidency was a failure. To anyone outside the profession, that is ideological lock step. Yes, they have fierce squabbles amongst themselves, but so do Marxist or most Fundamentalists churches.
I think this broad political agreement stems from the fact that most historians are united by a Whig view of history. I know that they would almost a man and woman deny it, but my reading of historians over a variety of disciplines leads me to believe otherwise. In their view, the moral understanding of the world is superior now than it has ever been and they see themselves on the forefront of a moral revolution for the better. And this view of themselves does not just affect their politics, but also how they present history.
To give you just one example, look at the books that most professional historians write about abolitionist pre-civil war. There is a lot of disagreements amongst them about a whole host of issues. Yet they are united by what they tend to find important. You will find that William Loyd Garrison and his fellow ideological travelers are heavily represented but Lewis Tappan is given relatively short shrift. In so far as he is dealt with, it is usually in the context of his relationship with Garrison or the slaves of the Amistad. Almost never is he or the type of people he represents considered worthy of study in his own right. Yet by any objective measure you care to name (wealth, number of followers, and connections with political establishment) Tappan was more influential in his time then Garrison was.
To my mind, this disparity cannot be explained by objective impact on history and so is more likely to be reflective of a Whigish mentality. Garrison might not have been very effective on most conventional measures. But ideologically he represents the future. Or at least, Garrison is closer in his views to your average collage professor that Tappan was.
The above might seem like a small thing, but to me it represents a broader distorting of the anti-slavery movement that I will not go into now in the interest of brevity. Nor do I think the above is the only example of how Wiggish view of history is expressed by contemporary professional historians. But this is not the time or place for wide ranging discussions of various historical eras and how they may or may not be distorted.
The bottom line is that it is hard for me to imagine that the demonstrable political near unanimity of the academic class is not reflected onto how history is presented. To a person inside the tower, I am sure you all seem like a very diverse group. But that does not mean that you are immune to a class mentality nonetheless.
I will respond to your other points as I get time.
FWIW, I am not the only one to take Hanson to task for wearing too many hats.
"You have enemies? Good! That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
-Winston Churchill
SGT,I mean LT
02-22-2013, 13:31
Sigaba:
What is the measure of success of a historian?
Is the one who can artfully tell a tale that reflects some of his personal beliefs and yet reach millions to educate them, a failure compared to the scholar who seems to have the answers for everything but few listen?
TR
What he said.
You mean Hanson the professional, degreed, award-winning historian and professor? That guy?
He's nothing but a pernicious Classicist.
Sigaba:
What is the measure of success of a historian?
Is the one who can artfully tell a tale that reflects some of his personal beliefs and yet reach millions to educate them a failure, compared to the scholar who seems to have the answers for everything but few listen?
TRTR--
For academic historians, it would be the latter. For popular historians it would be the former.
Ultimately, the measure of an academic historian's success is the degree to which one advances the profession's understanding of a given topic in an area of expertise. If a historian manages to reach a broader audience, more power to him/her--provided he/she maintains the historian's mindset.
MOO, the specific issue IRT an individual such as Hanson is when a person uses his/her standing as an academic to establish himself/herself as a public intellectual and then to hold on to that status, but does not maintain his/her standards as a historian.
To paraphrase a mentor, a historian is a historian is a historian. Academic historians regardless of level of achievement, field of study, area of interest, or political POV have a responsibility to serve Klio before all others. IMO, the way to counter the likes of Douglas Brinkley is not to beat them at their own game by actively seeking popular approbation or political clout but rather to remain focused on the craft.
For some, that focus will lead to obscurity WRT a general audience. For others, such as J.H. Elliott, the focus will lead to a degree of prestige that transcends politics--international, national, and professional.