History

The other day I was reading the Times Literary Supplement (TLS). It is a tabloid size paper that since 1902 has been reviewing the works of leading writers and thinkers. I generally find it an awkward read. Nevertheless, I found the latest issue (Oct. 13.06) interesting because it touched on a subject close to me, the meaning of history. It talked about how 40 years ago it devoted three issues to "New Ways in History". It commemorated those forty years ago with a feature article entitled "New ways revisited: How history's borders have expanded in the past forty years". The discussion 40 years ago was about the new approaches that were being used in discerning and evaluating history. A new bread of historians, unorthodox historians who incorporated other disciplines to understand and explain history - sociology, anthropology, psychology - wrote those articles. Also, some of those historian believed that current events, rather than past events, were better at explaining history.

"The twentieth century is the first in which comprehending world history has become possible." I thought of that remark as I read the TLS article. I believe it's true. However, scholars have pointed out that that notion is nothing new. It also was believed in the 19th century. For instance, Hegel thought that history had reached a climax in 1806 and that future history would be comprehended and shaped from that moment on. However, human history marched on and historians know that what happened then didn't really settle anything, let alone the meaning of history.

I'm really not sure what Hegel sensed in 1806 that made him think that from that moment on world history could be comprehended. (He did see Neapolitan ride by on horseback in Jena, Germany, after defeating the Prussians.) How, though, could world history be fully comprehensible after 1806 when it had not yet experience the horrendous world events of the twentieth century. Yet around that time Hegel must have experiences something significant because he became aware of the very force that drives and determines human and world history. He discovered that one thing that made the comprehension of history truly possible. Without knowing this force it would be impossible to give any historical meaning to human endeavour. Hegel recognized that the main driving/ determining forces of history was the human struggle for freedom and recognition.

Obviously the TLS article made me think about history. It also made me think of a book that is probably the antithesis to what the TLS postulated in its New Ways in History articles. The book is "The Killing of History: How Literary Critics And Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past" by Keith Windschuttle. One social theorist of history Windschuttle railed against was Francis Fukuyama, because of his book "The End of History". What Windschuttle disliked most about Fukuyama's approach to history is his economic determinism and his injecting philosophy into it, not just any philosophy but Hegelian philosophy. Fukuyama also used history to discern a truth, something traditional historians are against. According to Windschuttle history should just be a narrative and accounting of events, without injecting meaning or a truth into it. Windschuttle doesn't believe that history should be mixed with other disciplines in order to troll for meaning.

Fukuyama's interpretation of history impressed me because I was thinking the same thing. We both believe that the collapse of Communism means that there is now only one alternative in human governance left to the world, Democracy. Humankind had exhausted all other possible forms of governance in its struggle for freedom and recognition. History had an empirical purpose, helping prepare human governance for the modern world and establishing Democracy as the only true governance of human freedom and recognition. Fukuyama saw that the universal human struggle for freedom and recognition could only realistically be fulfilled within and by Democracy.

I noticed that TLS did not include Fukuyama in their revisiting New Ways in History. However, as things go he is a giant in new ways of viewing history. He discovered one of the defining, pivotal moments in history by linking it with the human condition and needs and aspirations, the collapse of Communism and the ascendancy of Democracy. As an historian he believes that current events can explain the meaning and trajectory of history. He introduced one big new way of examining history, through human governance. He re-introduced the idea of ideology in history and the idea that we have reached an end point in our ideological evolution when in comes to defining and establishing legitimate human governance. He rightly pointed out that if humans hope to fulfill their needs and aspirations in this modern world the only realistic alternative form of government is liberal democracy - capitalism and democracy - Democracy.

I am surprised TLS omitted Fukuyama in its revisiting of New Ways in History because he discovered a new way of evaluating history, through human governance.