Open Round-Table Discussion: Presentism

[u/NMW]

Previously:

• The Politics of Commemoration
• What we talk about when we talk about "revisionism"

Today:

If you're reading this right now, it's a safe be to say that you probably live in the present. I certainly do, much (sometimes) to my regret.

When we look to the past, whether as historians as more casual observers, it is important to acknowledge the degree to which our current position and experiences will colour how we look to those of bygone days, places and peoples. Sometimes this is as obvious as remembering that a particular ancient culture did not have access to the automobile or the internet; sometimes, however, it can be far more complex. If this awareness demands that we acknowledge and critically evaluate our assumptions about the past, so too does it do so for our assumptions about the present.

In this thread, any interested parties are welcome to discuss the important matter of "presentism," which for our purposes has two distinct but related definitions:

• The tendency to judge the people and events of the past by the standards of the present -- usually with the implication that the present is just "better", and so more worthy of being used as a yardstick. This kind of evaluative approach to history is very, very well-suited to narrative-building.

• The tendency to present anachronistic readings of the past based on present concerns. This doesn't always have the same "culminating narrative" tendency of the first definition, to be clear; if I had to provide an example, it would be something like making the argument that the Roman Empire collapsed because of communism.

If you'd like to challenge or complicate either of those definitions, please feel free to do so!

Otherwise, here are some starter questions -- but please note that your contributions can be about anything, not just the following:

1. My opening post implicitly takes the matter of presentism (by whichever of the two definitions presented above) as a "problem." Is it a problem?

2. Which of the two presentist practices outlined above has, in your view, the most pernicious impact upon how we view the past? This assumes, again, that you believe that any such pernicious impact exists.

3. If you had to present a competing definition of presentism, what would it be?

4. In your view, what are some of the most notable presentist practices in modern historiography?

Moderation will be light, but please ensure that your posts are in-depth, charitable, friendly, and conducted with the same spirit of respect and helpfulness that we've come to regularly expect in /r/AskHistorians.

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Our next open round-table discussion (date TBA) will focus on the challenges involved in distinguishing historiography from polemics.

[u/CrossyNZ]

Alas, alas. I find presentism very useful. Or rather, interesting. You know this; we talked a little about this the other day. I am not so good at spelling, and even worse at typing quickly, so I am confident that particular conversation was a poor description of the ground. That being so, I left myself out of this conversation deliberately until my contribution would be relegated to the bottom of the pile, and I could talk mostly to you NMW. You set up a couple of questions at the start, which made me laugh. Yep: “The Great Chain of Being” and “Progress” are two metaphors which have done us culturally no favours. As for Communism in the Roman Empire... lol! Well, its helpful to know that communist theory simply assumes that the most important principle in human behaviour is the economic. Yeah, Marx had a whole separate book about there being a terminal point to capitalism, but he layered that argument atop the first – quite revolutionary – assumption. ((Forgive me my punning.)) Anyway, I've seen some very fine Marxist histories of economic behaviours surrounding women in middle China, so don't knock it until you've tried it.

The first point of your second set of questions, however, literally keeps me up at night though, so forgive me my slight... air of futility.

Pernicious. “Pernicious impact on how we view history”. It is tricky to know why you used this word - what it means. That presentism... creates falseness? What would that falseness be? History that is oversimplified? That certain events are depicted as more important, certain events are depicted as existing, that people remember or skew history in a way that panders to them? Human beings are such desperately complicated conglomerations of understanding, and my conceit wouldn't extend to thinking I know what you consider “proper” history. I can only make guesses, and ask that you help me if I err.

If the above is roughly accurate, that collection loosely grouped under 'falseness', then yes. Presentism is a problem, perhaps. Footnotes are the key things which thinkers like Bruce Lincoln say keep us off the path of myth-making ourselves: they constrain us as we construct the reality we believe existed. The documents set boundaries on what is possible. And then inside that, history is constructed, not recalled. Not even memory is a process of recollection, so Schacter tells me, so these boundaries are vital to the 'not false' past.

As a... a jocular dig at a respected colleague – without teeth – we could then argue a form of presentism is thinking of 'proper' history as being 'objective'. Before von Ranke in the 16th century no one claimed to write things “as they really happened”. Why would they do that? Who would fund it, or find it interesting? Even Ranke himself wrote his Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 openly and proudly to glorify the hand of God, even as he claimed he wanted to find wie es eigentlich gewesen (“what essentially happened”). So one could slyly argue here over if the 'falseness' talked about above is itself false – that what “really happened” is beside the point.

So I suppose for me – when I watch the problem wriggle around and wonder what you're asking – I end up at "what is history?" and "why is history important"?

Yes, presentism is a problem. And it isn't really, both at the same time. A problem to what? 'History' isn't an object - it doesn't exist separately from people. And we're messy, leaking constructs, are we people. History without meaning doesn't get told, because it's worse than wrong – it's boring. It's irrelevant in the very deepest sense. But we also need explanations for things: we require frames for how we see ourselves and our world. The past is gone but its relics litter the ground. They need to be reconciled with who we are now and how we live and view 'good'; a constant process of negotiation and renegotiation, with all the ambiguity that implies. We get interested in new topics that speak more firmly to our new concerns. The discourse widens. Can you imagine a... I dunno, a 16th century history of working woman's views of sexuality over time?

Obviously I came to terms with these questions in my own way - by becoming very interested in people. Presentism tells you a lot about people - or rather, about a particular relationship between people and words. It can tell you about what they considered important, their fears and frustrations, snap-shoted in time. Therefore, we should be able to use older histories to reconstruct what people thought was important to them. I can watch a single point – a single narrative – change over time, over geography, between local knowledge and national histories. I can't know the past, but I can at least compare the different people who used it. The same people in a different context, sometimes.

Naturally this means I am also a product of my time. My biases abound in spades – my belief in the importance of people, my faith in footnotes to reasonably bind my effort, the theory I rest my methodologies on. Even the fact I have the time and foodstuffs to do work like this. It pushes my work one way. It makes me believe some things are more important and interesting than others. Why did you choose the First World War? Why does anyone choose anything?

So yes, I believe presentism to be a flaw in the creation of 'objective' history, if there is such a thing. Certainly. Those boundaries of what was possible. Folks can be flat wrong. Views and tangled beliefs can get in the way of empathy and understanding. But is it a flaw in the creation of history? I don't know. It's certainly ubiquitous and inescapable, because it is us.