Should Historians Make Moral Judgments?
...Ponders author Henry Steele Commager In the book "A Sense of History"...
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He first notes that many of the ancients and most of the 16th and 17th century historians thought it was good to make moral judgements, and they thought themselves just and great for having done so.
He then goes on with a list of four main arguments against the use of moral judgements by historians;
1 The persons of history are not able in the 21st century AD to have their say about their deeds and their day in court so it's not of worth to judge them since impartial and just is the way to be the best.
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2.The historian is a professional like a teacher and evaluations are allowed, but if a teacher made the same judgements plus a moral judgement, their skill wouldn't be considered of worth and they would lose their job.
3.The historian is not a god so we can't be sure of his judgement.
4. The reader already is aware to read a great author (like the author they were reading no doubt!) so they already will have highly evolved enough opinions about history and enough information and savvy to decide on their own.
From these four conclusions Commager then deigns the goal of the historians is in essence to just list the evidence, plus comments about the events. More insubstantial, safe conclusions about the conduct of say Churchill on one day in his life, Phillip the II, or Edison the I are allowed. There is to be no large scale judgement in history-old fashioned.
While many would praise the great deeds and heros in history, Commager's main question seems to be about the judgements of the other "bad" times of old history. It's obvious about the episodes such as the Conquest of Mexico by Cortes, these are about weapons used badly by people against the less fortunate people. An imbalance in the social order caused by weapons the other side was lacking in caused injustice. You may say, what about the persecution of Christians by the Ancient Romans or the Jews in World War II and other events of this type in history? This doesn't seem to have been caused any more by weapons than just people choosing it who were in power, some say the oppressors chose it so they should be judged. It's true judgement is not all bad but it's better to solve the cause of a problem than to blame. It would be the boost of all boosts if there were less bad history, if we find ways to improve history, historians may have the most boost of anyone. It's true the misuse of weapons by man against man is the cause of much of the bad history, but a second much larger "unknown" bad use of weapons in history has been by man against evolution, this may also be used to explain all these second types of "bad" times in history (not just weapons used badly by relatively healthy individuals such as the conquistadors conquest of Peru) when the overpopulation was higher including the modern problems such as the economic depression of the 1930's. As in ancient times, and more recent times after the 1600's first the weapons were used against evolution, this caused a rise in the number of people like in ancient Rome and Greece. This at first would seem to be an excess advantage used against evolution. But "advantages" like this are not common in evolution, so the motif of first excess then deficit would take place. The increased population would have increased Competition for Decreased Resources, causing strain and reduction of the overcrowding by way of Supply and Demand. I believe if we reduce our numbers/unit land these days so we would buy enough relief by this method, we could actually reduce the overpopulation, not just change the density with more time. People aren't ready to reduce, it would be more burden yet, sort of like losing fat. They find this increases risk of death many times, and the young people are most able to diet, so if weight reduction wasn't much common in evolution because of no tempting lunch, and most were healthy so were never overweight, (because we didn't evolve overweight) evolution would consider diets to be stressful and the older people would have more risk thereof. So too overpopulation was absent in evolution, and for now just reducing the burden of too much competition for reduced resources would be the most strengthening. Once the world was made stronger by reduced density, then we could consider more active (peaceful) reduction of the overpopulation.
That what people have done to evolution is not moderate and so may cause more harm than good is why weapons whether used against people or evolution can be used to explain all the bad times of history (other than plagues and famines, and so on.). These would be the only two causes of the illness and this sort of problem wasn't found in evolution for millions of years, because life science shows disease to be virtually absent in living evolution. After all both types of use of weapons, against others and against evolution are the most extreme behavour in all of history. The same motif of evolution's balance would be involved in modern times causing problems like World War II. Click Here for my complete causology of OVERPOPULATION, EVOLUTION AND ITS HISTORIC INFLUENCE.
The Four reasons to undeign morality of Historians abridged are
1.Others In History Before Us Aren't Able to Say Their Side Of It
2. Non Professional
3.Not a God
and 4.The Reader is Already Smart
About 1st of the four reasons that the ancients or others should be allowed to have their day in the witness stand and thus Commager's conclusion that moral judgement would be bad, this may be unimportant because the ancients are asleep for the time being and we may think of them as a reflection and mirror of our life here and now to learn about us. Life insurance is not just for calm people, it's a boost for business!
The 2nd objection to historians making moral judgments is about the distinction between history and authorship. If it's just history and like a judge or coach without moral boosts why should history be science and art more than just science? One reason is because history is us in the highest realms, it's all the lives of millions of people will be, it isn't just a reflection, it's twice all the world. Unimportant to them in 100 BC perhaps, but of worth to us the living. I would think one good reason to think of history as both science and creativity is because the historians of the good times like ancient Rome or the 1600s have seemed to think it should be so and they were good about so much it would seem they were right about this too. The civilization was more healthy in those times so while this is just a based on probability, so is most of life. So the use of appeal to some authority is not always without worth. Who doesn't have a boss some time in their life, Mom would have fired me on March 35th if I stayed out late!
About whether historians should be moral, I liken this to asking if Shakespeare would have been better authorizing just the science of events, or should he also add on his own inspirational vision? Or to put it in another way, since life is competition, should teams like in sports have cheerleader squads? I separate this into two motifs; A, The health of the teams and B, the boosters, this would be the judgement or moralizing of the older historians. When are boosts of worth to the team?
-In the 3rd reason on the list (The Historian is not a god) to not be a moralist if a historian, Commager speaks of the "bad" historians who used their own opinions to justify nationalistic, chauvinist or militaristic motifs. Generally the type of rhetoric the historians sometimes have used to these type of aims like in communist nations is generally not of worth to most people as much as a more healthy sort of use of the good words. If the team is fighting against us and is unhealthy too, then the team boosts tend to be more against us than for us. This may be why Commager and other modern historians seem to be lowering their goals to the level of just reported history. If they can't rely on others generally because of increased demand with reduced supply of resources and room caused by unfair treatment of evolution, pep would be discouraged, even though in the time of the Elizabethans it was considered to be worth more. If the health of the teams are sound then so may be the boost. The general health of civilization seems as I say to usually be associated with the immoral use of weapons in history whether to people or evolution. If so the health of the teams is of worth to improve by stopping or phasing out use of weapons somehow, and reducing the levels of persons per unit room by more people moving to the suburbs. If enough people were living by evolution we would be like my old competitions where we had the force of Co Ed for us not against us. It would be like a dream or falling asleep, with each go round of the stimulus we go calmer and calmer, more and more asleep, till finally the world could be in triumph by way of real rest. We read about this musician in the 1600's who had this plan to convince the royals to use music well in order to stop war and save the country. He didn't achieve it, but we go to sleep often twice in 24 hours, and go asleep a minute early if we all dream, we could stop war. If this is not the way it is it's what I dream of. You may say, we can't go back, weapons and bad technology are here to stay. But we use technology all the time that causes no harm and makes us feel good, when you read this awesome site, you are! You may say, you know misuse of weapons is bad, I know weapons is bad, but to do They? What I'm saying here it's not bad to fight like a dog needs to bark, just that it's of worth for us now to fight so efficiently we win by reducing out weapons generally more with each go round, including convincing the enemy to reduce his weapons likewise because of the worth of the wisdom of doing so at this time in history, sort of like one Santa who asks another, "So what do you do for a living the other 364?" and the other says, "You may be unaware, I'm in biz for the most folk revel in the world!" While the ancient greeks were a high civilization in the history of the world, they had common sense too. The golden rule seems to make the best business sense, what's called patience is actually changing the real problem without blame while accentuating the positive about the look of what's going on. If we have enough cause and are smart we can solve a lot with all our tricks, I like what's up most. Goodness is not inaction. It's waiting for the hour to do what's the best, in the best way possible, as often as is of worth. The problem of the weapons are the why, and once we find the why, the how is easier to find in much of life, being good may be our salvation, it always was most for the ages. To not eat meat often is my way of life, no more than was in evolution and not to be a hunter, it seems like a good or great deed to the world to abstain to moderate levels. Other options to reduce harm to the ecology are by reducing consumption of most goods and I cherish what is of use more months to years to conserve the environment and reduce demand. Since the strain that's common in the cities these days may be caused by the overpopulation and urbanization, it may be far better for us and the world to move to the suburbs where research shows the civilization is most healthy. Dreams like the above for the world are easier to achieve if silence is golden, the truth abounds in quiet rooms. (If you must live in the noise, a good way to reduce the stress is to buy a set of the new digital antinoise audiophones, they cancel 99% of the noise this even causes high blood pressure while you're asleep even for hours after the noise takes place. Research shows if you're overweight or thin it links with the road you live on somewhat, hope you live near Lois Lane of superwoman fame and the road where you live is a line! The digital antinoise is of value to stop almost all the noise compared to most cheap headphones that try to just reverse the sound with a high speed chip. These cheap antinoise headphones aren't fast enough so they don't stop about a fourth of the sound. This is important because noise is defined in physics as changing sound, and cheap antinoise is mostly worthless except for like low frequency sound like in production plants or planes where they first started using antinoise, so if you can hear any of the sound no matter how loud, if it's changing, it's noise. The price of the digital antinoise is high (about 400$) but the price may come down rapidly in a year or two (this is 2008) for me, how about you?)
The idea that the historian is not a god or anjel is like being so much a perfectionist all worth of the good is shut out of the real world. Historians aren't gods, but who is? We don't say know to Edison because he was deaf, or Einstein because he wasn't a great math or music whiz too.
Commager's 4th conclusion about the reader already having savvy about the moral part of the history they read from the author seems like saying if the team has no boosters, the fans will be able to draw their own conclusions about the plays. While this is somewhat so, if the historian is proud of their labor brought to the reader with much diligence, why wouldn't they add a hoot like in ancient times when the civilization was in power, the word pride had a good meaning in those days. In the middle ages, the word shame became "good" with words more like humility, or patience. If belief in the labors of love was of worth in a healthier civilization, this would seem to be a good reason to believe in it in other times.
Perhaps there may be slings where you wear a liner like a sleeve that are cooled by electric heat, lots of heat pumps are!
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A foot computer mouse may be good, more web sites in your hand!
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