“We will never understand the past unless we recognise that human beings are light and shade and acknowledge both. Few individuals and no societies have ever been wholly good or wholly bad in any age. This mixture of darkness and light is a critical part of the process by which human societies develop. We can celebrate the achievements of our forebears as well as learning from their mistakes and iniquities. To reject what is wonderful and fascinating about humanity in favour of a monochrome view of the past, dictated by current priorities, is obsessive and fanatical. It is also very bad history.”
This quote from Jonathan Sumption accurately surmises why history is important for society and why the current climate is doing more harm than good. Those who defend the iconoclastic approach of tearing down statues, renaming buildings and ridding curriculums of “problematic” texts, argue that it’s necessary to tell the truth about colonialism, slavery and the evils of the world.
There is, of course, truth to both views.
History is filled with embellished and apocryphal tales. We’re all aware of the concept of chastity belts being used on women in the Middle Ages to prevent pre-marital sex and/or infidelity. However there is no evidence that such a thing even existed, and the concept only appears to have gained traction in the 19th century, presumably as a way for those telling the story to depict their ancestors as repressed and authoritarian.
Similarly, we’re often told about how Marie Antoinette responded to the plight of the French peasantry with the phrase “Let them eat cake”. As juicy as this tale is, it is not only a mistranslation (the actual phrase was “Let them each brioche”) but it first appeared in print in 1765 (when Marie Antoinette was nine years old).
However, when the past is endlessly depicted as an evil place where evil deeds were committed in the name of country on a daily basis, balance is needed. And with this book, Frank Furedi details his thoughts on this matter and how he feels it is nothing less than a war against the past.
A founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which went through many a shift in ideology before metamorphosising into Spiked (cue the hysterical shrieking from some quarters), Furedi is also a prolific author, writing about the legacy of the First World War, the Jimmy Savile scandal, borders, the culture wars, therapy and parenting. All of which are undergirded with a mistrust of aloof elites with no sense of how the average person lives.
In the introduction, Furedi succinctly identifies what is going on and what is forming in the vacuum left by this approach to history:
Throughout the book, Furedi discusses many aspects of this conflict, starting with Greek culture being vilified because of slavery, the reduction of complex historical figures to “bad guys”, the idea that culture equals exclusionist white supremacy and even a change in language to combat sexism which divorces family members from each other. In other words, everything that we traditionally held up (democracy, the Enlightenment, Shakespeare, Michaelangelo) is tainted and therefore the past is bad. One widely shared example is this note from an art museum in Glasgow:
It’s exhausting but a necessary study as it helps the reader understand just how deep the trenches are (so to speak) and that the ultimate goal is a society that neither has a past to draw inspiration from nor a future to aspire to, thus creating an uninspiring and blank canvas type of ‘presentism’.
Certainly, in this country (both north and south), the legacy of our recent history has resulted in something similar. On one hand, you have those who revel in the myth of the “Good Old IRA” who fought the British fairly and who would have deplored the Provisionals (despite the latter using the same tactics as their forefathers, including disappearing people). On the other hand, you have the revisionists who deplore republicanism and who believe the Irish Free State was built on ethnic cleansing of Protestants resulting “…in the single greatest movement of a native population within the British Isles since the seventeenth century” according to the late Peter Hart (whose once influential work has been retrospectively criticised for cherry picking). The combination of these two schools of thought has, to me, played a part in the south moving to the position that it occupies today: as a lapdog to the EU that sees money as its god and rejects nationalism in favour of a politically policed multiculturalism that divides everybody instead of uniting recent arrivals and long-term residents to build a fair and democratic Ireland.
Undoubtedly an emotionally charged and morally outraged read, it has to be said that Furedi does, at times, sidestep certain tricky questions, such as what he calls loss of the moral authority of the past where the past is an endless well on which to draw from when educating children, and so the dismantling of “outdated” traditional values is a loss. While I can see where he’s coming from, a less discerning reader could interpret such a lament as nostalgia for the Empire. Plus, let’s face it, the woke do have a point when discussing the evils of slavery and colonialism. So maybe “moral authority” is best qualified as “the constant advancement of the human race”.
In that sense, we can still draw from history and acknowledge how far we’ve come along.
At times taxing, at times infuriating and at times enlightening, this is a book that should act as a springboard for further conversations about history, how we teach it and how we need it.
Frank Furedi, 2024, The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight For its History. Polity, ISBN-13: 978-1509561254
This quote from Jonathan Sumption accurately surmises why history is important for society and why the current climate is doing more harm than good. Those who defend the iconoclastic approach of tearing down statues, renaming buildings and ridding curriculums of “problematic” texts, argue that it’s necessary to tell the truth about colonialism, slavery and the evils of the world.
There is, of course, truth to both views.
History is filled with embellished and apocryphal tales. We’re all aware of the concept of chastity belts being used on women in the Middle Ages to prevent pre-marital sex and/or infidelity. However there is no evidence that such a thing even existed, and the concept only appears to have gained traction in the 19th century, presumably as a way for those telling the story to depict their ancestors as repressed and authoritarian.
Similarly, we’re often told about how Marie Antoinette responded to the plight of the French peasantry with the phrase “Let them eat cake”. As juicy as this tale is, it is not only a mistranslation (the actual phrase was “Let them each brioche”) but it first appeared in print in 1765 (when Marie Antoinette was nine years old).
However, when the past is endlessly depicted as an evil place where evil deeds were committed in the name of country on a daily basis, balance is needed. And with this book, Frank Furedi details his thoughts on this matter and how he feels it is nothing less than a war against the past.
A founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which went through many a shift in ideology before metamorphosising into Spiked (cue the hysterical shrieking from some quarters), Furedi is also a prolific author, writing about the legacy of the First World War, the Jimmy Savile scandal, borders, the culture wars, therapy and parenting. All of which are undergirded with a mistrust of aloof elites with no sense of how the average person lives.
In the introduction, Furedi succinctly identifies what is going on and what is forming in the vacuum left by this approach to history:
The goal of cancelling the legacy of Western civilisation is pursued through reorganising society’s historical memory and disputing and delegitimising its ideals and achievements. Activists seek to erase the temporal distinction between the present and the past to achieve this objective…At times, it seems as if the boundary between the present and the past has disappeared as activists casually cross over it and seek to fix contemporary problems through readjusting what has already occurred.
Throughout the book, Furedi discusses many aspects of this conflict, starting with Greek culture being vilified because of slavery, the reduction of complex historical figures to “bad guys”, the idea that culture equals exclusionist white supremacy and even a change in language to combat sexism which divorces family members from each other. In other words, everything that we traditionally held up (democracy, the Enlightenment, Shakespeare, Michaelangelo) is tainted and therefore the past is bad. One widely shared example is this note from an art museum in Glasgow:
Roman artists copied Greek sculptors, who used mathematical formulas to work out what they thought were people’s perfect proportions. This has been wrongly used to promote racist ideas about the ideal proportions of faces.
It’s exhausting but a necessary study as it helps the reader understand just how deep the trenches are (so to speak) and that the ultimate goal is a society that neither has a past to draw inspiration from nor a future to aspire to, thus creating an uninspiring and blank canvas type of ‘presentism’.
Certainly, in this country (both north and south), the legacy of our recent history has resulted in something similar. On one hand, you have those who revel in the myth of the “Good Old IRA” who fought the British fairly and who would have deplored the Provisionals (despite the latter using the same tactics as their forefathers, including disappearing people). On the other hand, you have the revisionists who deplore republicanism and who believe the Irish Free State was built on ethnic cleansing of Protestants resulting “…in the single greatest movement of a native population within the British Isles since the seventeenth century” according to the late Peter Hart (whose once influential work has been retrospectively criticised for cherry picking). The combination of these two schools of thought has, to me, played a part in the south moving to the position that it occupies today: as a lapdog to the EU that sees money as its god and rejects nationalism in favour of a politically policed multiculturalism that divides everybody instead of uniting recent arrivals and long-term residents to build a fair and democratic Ireland.
Undoubtedly an emotionally charged and morally outraged read, it has to be said that Furedi does, at times, sidestep certain tricky questions, such as what he calls loss of the moral authority of the past where the past is an endless well on which to draw from when educating children, and so the dismantling of “outdated” traditional values is a loss. While I can see where he’s coming from, a less discerning reader could interpret such a lament as nostalgia for the Empire. Plus, let’s face it, the woke do have a point when discussing the evils of slavery and colonialism. So maybe “moral authority” is best qualified as “the constant advancement of the human race”.
In that sense, we can still draw from history and acknowledge how far we’ve come along.
At times taxing, at times infuriating and at times enlightening, this is a book that should act as a springboard for further conversations about history, how we teach it and how we need it.
Frank Furedi, 2024, The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight For its History. Polity, ISBN-13: 978-1509561254
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.
Another firm review Christopher. The Woketards will be jumping down your throat for saying both the F word and the S word!!
ReplyDeleteThe same ones who think Marcus Garvey was a good man, no doubt!
DeleteComely maidens Dancing at the crossroads was apparently a quote from devalera to describe a positive that was picked up by commentators in the south in the 80s as a contrast with then modernity to sum up a contrast a poverty stricken priest ridden past Ireland.
ReplyDeleteI was in a kitchen with my Granny and her sisters with RTÉ radio on and some commentator said with emphasis the phase 'dancing at the cross rds'
It started a conversation between the Granny and the sisters about how they used to have great craic dancing at the crossroads.
It was basically just teenagers hanging out on a corner listening to music and enjoying themselves
Relatable to dubliners in the 1980s with gettoblasters hanging around on cornors listening to nwa, withney, run dmc or who ever.
Attacking the past isn't new but neither is looking pathetic for doing so.
When people can understand that their perceptions are saturated by their values, they are less likely to become embroiled in conflicts between the past and the present.
ReplyDelete