What Will History Judge?

Gary North - November 14, 2016

It is common for famous figures to say things such as this: "History will judge."

I searched Google for "history will judge." I got 228,000 hits.

Here are the top ones:

"History will judge societies and governments -- and their institutions -- not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless." -- Cesar Chavez

How history will judge 2016 -- Washington Examiner

History Will Judge Today's Christians According To These 4 Questions -- Washington Post

How will history judge Donald Trump's GOP supporters? -- Washinghton Post

If the word "God" were substituted for "history," no one would pay any attention to these statements. There is too much dispute over who God is and how He will judge.

Journalists generally are not believers in God. They would not write such headlines. But they are true believers in their view of history. They got this view mostly in tax-supported and/or state-licensed schools, where it is illegal to speak of God as a final judge, except in classes that ridicule such an idea.

THE FIVE POINTS OF SOCIAL THEORY

I once again refer to the five points of social theory [i.e., my favorite points, which in fact are not self-consciously used by any other analyst]: sovereignty, authority (representation -- "speaks on behalf of"), law, sanctions, and the future.

Is history sovereign? Anyone who says "history will judge" is implicitly assuming that it is. The very phrase assumes this.

Then who speaks on behalf of sovereign history? Who therefore represents sovereign history in history? There's the rub. "May I have the envelope, please?" And the answer is: "Journalists initially; then university-certified and university-employed historians."

But what standards -- what laws -- will they use? This assumes that there are laws of history -- an assumption that is universally rejected by those few historians who think about historiography. (Courses in historiography are as despised by history majors as courses on methodology are despised by economics majors. They say: "Let's just get on with it.")

Then there is the application of these universally denied laws to historical facts. This is the issue of historical interpretation. It is the issue of judgment. Put in terms of the language of Calvinism and Austrian School economics, it is imputation. It is the selection of the appropriate facts and matching them with the applicable theory of human behavior.

You might ask: "But what is 'appropriate'? What is 'applicable'?" Don't ask. Don't tell.

This is how the game is played. The players don't like it when people ask these sorts of questions. "Let's just get on with it!"

Then there is a theory of the future. How does anyone know how "history" will "judge"? Is history conscious? Is history self-conscious?

If you press someone -- if you keep asking these sorts of questions -- the person who made the announcement of how history will judge will fall back on that old favorite: "It's just a figure of speech." It is, indeed.

When someone says that "God will judge," it's not a figure of speech. No one thinks that it is. People will respond: "Whose God?" They will respond: "How do you know what God will do?" Or this: "Who gives you the right to say what God will do?" Or the ever popular: "Oh, yeah?" These are all reasonable responses. If you ever say, "God will judge," be prepared for such questions.

Yet anyone who says "history will judge" should be equally prepared to answer skeptical questions. But this is rarely the case. No one asks. Why not? Because the figure of speech really is just a figure of speech. Most people don't take it seriously -- nor should they.

To say that "history will judge," if true, rests on a theory of history. It equates the opinions of historians with the opinions of God. It has to rest on a view of history that is intensely personal.

If everyone dies in the final heat death of the universe -- the conclusion of almost all modern secular science -- then history has no meaning. Why not? Because there will be no final judge. The last man standing will die. Then what? The correct atheistic answer is: "Who cares?" But once someone adopts this answer, it must be applied across the board to everything. This gets back to some version of this: "It's my opinion. My opinion matters to me." If you answer: "My opinion matters to me more than your opinion matters to you," you are in for an epistemological fight. The next steps:

Oh, yeah? Who says?"
"I say."
"You and who else?"

The phrase "history will judge" is really this statement: "My historians will beat your historians."

HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

Have you heard this phrase? "The victors write the textbooks." This includes history textbooks.

I doubt that anyone has ever read the prevailing high school textbooks and college textbooks. They are not placed on research university library shelves. Librarians don't put "wasteful books" on the shelves.

Next step: no one has read the prevailing history textbooks over (say) a century, to see how opinions changed, and why. I know of only one such attempt, limited to public high school textbooks: Frances Fitzgerald's America Revised (1979). She identified the crucial textbooks: those written by David Saville Muzzey. Muzzey was the most important historian in American history, yet this is the Wikipedia entry on him -- the shortest I have ever seen.

David Saville Muzzey (1870-1965) was an American historian. His history books were used as textbooks by millions of American children. He was accused of being a "bolshevik" by the Better America Federation.

There is no Wikipedia entry on the Better America Foundation. Any outfit that identifies the Progressive and theologically liberal Presbyterian Muzzey as a bolshevik does not deserve one. It is run by an idiot.

Anyway, here is the bottom line: "History will judge" is up there with "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you" with respect to its degree of trustworthiness. When you see it, you can be sure of the following:

1. The person saying it is not a professionally trained historian.
2. He has never read a book on historiography, let alone several.
3. He has no self-conscious theory of knowledge.
4. He has no self-conscious theory of history.
5. He has enormous confidence in his own assessment.
6. This self-confidence is not backed up by either facts or theory.
7. He thinks of "history" as the equivalent of God.
8. He does not think that God is a judge -- final or otherwise.
9. He has not read half a dozen conflicting history books on any topic.
10. He has not considered what Facebook is doing to historical agreement.

For more on this, read my article on "Historiography and Destiny." It's here:

//www.garynorth.com/public/15803.cfm

COSTS AND BENEFITS OF REVISIONISM

Here is the revisionist's problem. The official story is not fully trusted, but there are dozens of rival stories. Who has time to research them all?

The official story wins by default. The personal cost of studying even one official story is high. There are lots of weaknesses in every story. Also, the cost of persuading others of a new, improved view is even higher. Finally, there is no money in getting a rival website online. No one will pay to hear a rival story.

Then there are costs for the persuaded. Converts sound nutty to their friends for denying the official story. They must be familiar with the facts: pro and con. They must be able to defend their odd view. The personal cost is high. The payoff is vague or even negative. Why bother?

Consider 9/11. Why did Building 7 collapse? Where did the plane that did not crash in Shanksville actually crash? How did the Piper Cub pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon execute the circling maneuver that highly skilled commercial pilots say they could not do?

People don't want to believe they were suckered. They also want to know what happened. Refutations are not sufficient to get them to change their minds. Rule: You can't beat something with nothing. "Don't tell me what didn't happen. Tell me what happened and how it happened." This is not easy. It is difficult.

Professor William Marina was in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. He taught courses on the assassination for decades. Yet he could never bring himself to write the book that he always said he would write. I reminded him of this eight days before he died.

This is why the textbook accounts are almost impossible to undermine. No one in academia wants to lose his job because he holds to an unofficial version of a story the historical guild has come to defend.

And then there is this. What if the facts scream that the official story cannot possibly be true? But what if it requires you to abandon the universally accepted view of the past. What then?

Ignore it. Pretend it isn't there. Here is my favorite example. Start at 11 minutes.

What sayest thou?

Start here: Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966). I have waited 60 years to see it footnoted as a reliable source in any history textbook or monograph published by a university press. I am running out of time.

This is why I don't use a textbook for my American history course in the Ron Paul Curriculum. Textbooks are the official story. I don't want my students infected by the official story.

Too bad I don't have a million students.