APRIL 18, 2023 – The other day I enjoyed a long conversation with a college friend-classmate during which we talked a fair amount of politics. He’s a student of history, and in the context of our political discussion, historical perspectives necessarily came into play. He struggles, as do I, with making judgments about the views, actions and reputations of many historical figures.
We agreed: historical figures acted in what for them was the present—just as we today act in the here and now. For the most part, we’re seeking one objective or another concerning our immediate times, which at best include our own lifetimes and our kids and grandkids. But rarely do we vote based on what a candidate promises to deliver a century from now. In fact, we never do, now that severe effects of climate change are no longer reserved for the distant future. Moreover, without a clear view of the future—as generations ahead will see and experience it—we act according to the needs, trends, desires, mores, standards, resources, conventions and limitations or our times, not as as they will evolve or devolve in the future.
Examination of the past is fraught. Currently, I’m still immersed in The World at War 1939 – 1945 by Max Hastings (See 3/17, 3/23 and 3/26 posts) and reading for the third time Robert Massie’s acclaimed biography, Peter the Great / His Life and World. In the case of WW II, we all know the outcome; with smugness and self-righteousness, we condemn and criticize all sorts of errors in tactical and strategic judgment in political and military arenas, as well as in moral and ethical realms. But if the old adage “hindsight is 20/20” applies to facts, determinants and outcomes, it not so well suited to moral and ethical judgments about individuals or societies.
How, for example, are we to treat widespread anti-Semitism in the United States as a factor in American policy during WW II? Does everyone get a pass because . . . “no one knew any different”? Yet, if the vast majority of generations born before say, 1940, grew up in a society in which all the overt and covert social signals acculturated non-Jews to believing Jews were undesirable, how can we be surprised by the fact that a majority of Americans disfavored acceptance of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany or by our underwhelming response to the revelation of the death camps?
Or what of the indiscriminate internment of perfectly loyal Japanese-Americans, ostracized because of race? Against the panic and prejudices of the time, should we, 80 years later, sentence our forebears to moral imprisonment for eternity without parole?
Or what of the catastrophic Anglo-American aerial bombings of German and Japanese civilians—justified at the time as strategic but in hindsight, hardly so. The air crews who sacrificed their lives and the love ones who suffered their loss would be horrified by our second-guessing.
None of which is to pardon the sins of our forefathers but merely to understand them in a way that ensures such sins won’t be repeated.
Similarly, Peter, Tsar of all the Russias. He certainly made an indelible impression on the vast lands he ruled, thus earning fairly the moniker, “great.” But he also ordered punishments as cruel and bloody as those imposed by the most sadistic tyrants of the ages. For the most part, this barbaric streak was aimed at the Streltsy guards, who, in Peter’s youth, had themselves wreaked horrific violence over the Kremlin. In the context of the power struggles of the day, by what moral gauge can we properly assess Peter’s vengeance?
And in our own history, of course, there’s the whole matter of slavery and modern treatment of its practitioners, apologists and indirect beneficiaries. You don’t have to scratch very far into history to realize that blanket and irredeemable condemnation is a very sticky wicket. Nearly all of us without African lineage predating emancipation or resolute abolitionists in our family trees would have to stand in line for confession.
The better approach is to broaden one’s perspective by knowing more history but with awareness that the prism of hindsight refracts differently from the lens through which past generations viewed their own times.
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
