Historical Illiteracy: A Failure of Empathy
History is worth being passionate about because it is the story of us told through another lens. It is the actual (to the best of our knowledge) chronicle of what befell our ancestors. The dramas they lived should matter, not just because we should honor the memory of our predecessors, but because they would have been ours but for the accident of the timing of our birth. Their sufferings could well have been our sufferings. Their misdeeds could have been ours. Who among us, born in another time, can profess to know that they would not also have made the same vile mistakes of our predecessors?
Barbara Tuchmann, once a leading historian, wrote a book called A Distant Mirror. It described the 14th century in Europe by telling the story of a French nobleman who happened to be involved in many of the leading events. It was a dark time indeed for the continent. The Black Death killed a sizeable fraction of the population. The Mongols and the Turks came and wrought vast destruction. The Hundred Years’ War was fought between England and France, leading to untold ruin. All this is boiled down into a book which tries to convey the drama of that century. The title, A Distant Mirror, clearly tries to persuade the reader that in looking back, we are looking at ourselves.
We consistently trivialize the events of the past
When you read about the fall of Constantinople, the colonization of Africa, or any number of historical events, it is impossible to fully empathize with the inhabitants of that time. We ought to try but it is simply impossible to get right. It goes against our grain to envision ourselves, not just in a different time or place, but actually believing the most ludicrous things. Imagine that YOU had lived in Anglo-Saxon England in the year 600. Can you even begin to imagine it? Consider your preconceptions about the people at that time. Do you really think that you would be different if you had been born then? Of course not. You’d be unwashed, possibly pagan and shamanistic, and certainly backwards in every respect. And yet you would also be a thinking, emotional, generally normal person.
You’d have thoughts and feelings just like anyone else. And yet the events that might transpire in your time, such as the Black Death in the 1300's to take one of countless examples, would feel strikingly real to you. It would feel as if the world were ending. Imagine the sheer panic. Today we panic over the deaths of thousands when 7 billion people are alive. What if 2 billion people suddenly died from disease? Can you even begin to fathom the paroxysms of social trauma that would result? The sects, terrorists, war bands, lunatics, fundamentalists, fascists, and god-knows what else would arise from that sort of trauma? We can scarcely grasp it. And yet when Europe underwent a similar upheaval in the 1300s, among many similar dramas throughout history, we think about it clinically with scientific disdain.
We ought to empathize more with our predecessors. We should try, however impossible it may be to succeed, to faithfully imagine what if felt like to be in their shoes. Only then can we soberly appreciate the magnitude of historical events.
We assume we’re smarter, more enlightened, and generally better than our predecessors
There is an unspoken undercurrent in historical discussions that implies that people today are different from historical peoples. We’re not like them. We’re simply better. We’re definitely smarter. Look at all the technology we have. We’re more enlightened; we would never commit the barbarous acts of the past. We’re more just and caring. We’re less violent. On the whole, we’re really just better people than our ancestors, who were uncouth, violent, ignorant, and barbaric. Their beliefs were laughable. Their actions, despicable.
This is all the most self-serving flattery. We’re no better than historical peoples. We simply aren’t. We can’t be, the stuff of our making is the same stuff. The same human flaws win out in the end. All the uniquely human idiosyncrasies that enliven history, that fuel the dramas of the past, arose from the root character of mankind itself. It is in our genes. No amount of civilizational scaffolding can upset that.
There are those who think that we’ve entered a new era in which our baser instincts will be solved and finally neutered by the strictures of a logical, wiser authority, namely civilization. I believe that this is naive. Yes, violence may be down, but the instruments of death are keener than ever. Yes, life spans are up. So are standards of living. Technology continues to amaze. But the same seeds of discord remain. We should learn, as ever, from historical example.
Imagine another historical people, the Romans. Their empire encompassed virtually the entire known world. Outside it lay lands where people were, frankly (spot the pun) quite backwards, poor, and underdeveloped. The Roman Empire was civilization. It housed immense learning. Millions of books existed, which we can scarcely credit since they did not survive. We continually underestimate the sophistication of people at that time. The Greeks and Babylonians before them invented things that were truly quite advanced. Much ancient knowledge existed then that should still impress us today.
The Roman Empire was so large, powerful and august. Imagine the awe and sense of permanence it must have once inspired. It had lasted for so many centuries. Foreseeing its collapse would be like predicting WW2 in the 1700s. This is another example of trivializing the past. Centuries then felt just as long as centuries today. The longevity of the Roman Empire must have made it seem like an immutable object for the people of its day. Only in retrospect did we know that it would fall.
And when the Western Roman Empire did fall and the Dark Ages began, a long upward slope of history suddenly went flat and dove downward. All the metrics of civilization plummeted. Literacy evaporated. Knowledge itself withered. The few works that were translated into Latin that would survive were crumbs compared to the learning that had existed before. Centuries of relative stability and of progress suddenly ended. The positive trend in knowledge which, by all accounts, one could well have assumed was interminable, suddenly terminated.
The story goes on, of course, at great length. Suffice it to say that we would do well to empathize keenly with our predecessors. We are not better than them. And we should not assume, in a superior vein, that we would have done it differently. Instead one should soberly read history like a drama, but with real characters, and we should ache for their losses, and think deeply about the lessons therein.
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