Thread by @BretDevereaux

One thing I find odd is the sometimes facile dismissal (as unserious/unscholarly) of public-facing history which takes the form of "condition now is like condition then, what lessons can we take from that?"

As someone who occasionally writes in this genre, I have thoughts. 1/21

Now I don't want to conflate different kinds similar sounding arguments here. It is certainly reasonable to be tired of a particular (esp. if badly flawed) historical argument coming up again and again (e.g., the over-worn 'Thucydides trap'). 2/21

And I also don't mean the argument by non-historians that casts the historian as a useless, thin-necked poindexter who could not possibly have anything interesting to say from the 'ivory tower.'

Those folks are fools and blockheads and may safely be ignored as such. 3/21

This also isn't a defense of shallow 'history repeats' arguments. History doesn't repeat. But history and the present share a common feature (along with differences!): humans.

Consequently, 'how did humans respond then?' will be relevant for as long as we remain humans. 4/21

Instead I mean a general rejection of any sort of application of historical knowledge to policy or politics, made by historians or historical enthusiasts.

(I'm not putting smaller accounts on blast here, so you will have to trust me this is fairly common) 5/21

Typically this is framed in the sense that such efforts to instrumentalize history in a practical context are per se simplistic, unserious and so an unfit activity for proper scholars; the attempt supposedly sullies the discipline.

And that's just nonsense in my view. 6/21

It goes to a view of the field that I think often conceives of the proper historian as practically a history-monk - kept pure by their lack of concern for the outside world.

It is a fundamentally narcissistic view of production in the field... 7/21

...where only writing either for other academics, or for use in our classes, has any worth and consequently those are the only things we should write.

But we're not monks and more importantly the broader society is, one way or another, paying for our work. 8/21

The resources which support research don't come from other academics, but from the public, which might well expect to get some value on their return (see: acoup.blog/2020/07/03/col…)

They thought the monks could pray them into heaven, after all; I can make no such promises! 9/21

Academic monasticism is, it seems to me, a bad organizational culture holdover from the days when most academics were from the leisured classes (or retained by them) and thus could afford a fashionable disdain for the economics of the profession, on account of being rich. 10/21

But I suppose the more serious-sounding rejoinder is then 'why not write for the public but in a more rigorous, hard-nosed sort of way? Why not write a book on the topic with enough pages and footnotes to really be very complete and break new ground and so on?' 11/21

And my answer is: Yes, I am doing that. I am working on my narrowly tailored, extensively over-footed book project (very, very slowly). I also write academic articles (also slowly).

But the reach of that sort of thing is narrow, too slow to come out and we all know it. 12/21

So you want to write the 'traditional media' article because that is a way (not the only one) of at least engaging the broader chattering classes instead of just other academics (convenient, since the chattering classes control both our funding and most broader policy) 13/21

But the demands of such writing are tricky: on the one hand you need to supply all of the necessary background information because you simply cannot be sure that your audience knows any of it.

On the other hand, you have tight word limits (1200 is common). 14/21

Which in practice means you can develop one example to a moderate depth, or name-check a few examples at almost no depth.

There isn't generally the option of writing a rigorous 15,000 word essay, but in only 1,200 words. 15/21

But the alternative, it seems to me, is to abandon the battlefield entirely to folks without our training or knowledge.

I'd rather it be trained historians trying to package a useful historical argument in 1,200 words than the writers at Buzzfeed or Cracked. 16/21

Because the fact is, someone is going to write about <topic> in any case. The question is if they come to that topic with any historical exemplars (exemplars here taken very broadly) in mind and the degree to which they actually understand those exemplars deeply. 17/21

After all the original point of doing history was the (correct) supposition both that
1) learning the methods of historical analysis can improve an individual's thinking and that
2) historical exemplars offer a sound basis for thinking about the future. 18/21

Or, as Thucydides puts it (because of course):
"if it [his work of history] be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human things... [19/21]

...must resemble it, if it does not reflect it, I shall be content."

Trying to bring some pocket-sized history, done by a professional, to the public in the places and in the format (like the 1200 think piece) they consume is not shabby or unserious. 20/21

If the argument is *bad* then write your response (ideally in the same publication) explaining why. The public could use to see historical debate done well.

But don't look down your nose at the endeavor, because in the last accounting, it is what keeps the lights on.

end/21

Anyway, Condition <rising negative partisan polarization> is like condition then <ancient Greek factional infighting in within the polis>, what lessons can we take from that?

Read my bit: foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/07/anc…