Thoughts on History

Sometimes a revealing insight can spring from the least expected of places. I say this as I was recently watching the brilliant Peep Show, when an encounter between Mark and Jeremy struck me as reminiscent of the confusion which sometimes surrounds History.

Jeremy has been brainwashed into a religious cult which posits the universe is governed by the power of ‘orgones’, supposed ‘invisible molecules of universal life energy’. As he confidently expounds, negative orgones are therefore the source of all that is wrong in life. Long-suffering Mark is quick to dismiss his friend’s novel hypothesis. Incredulous, Jeremy then challenges him to ‘explain all the problems in the world’. Mark wearily responds: ‘I couldn’t. There are so many historical and economic factors.’ Jeremy, sensing victory, then remarks with relish: ‘Exactly – you haven’t got a clue!’

Jeremy’s naïve confidence in his ludicrously simple explanation makes us laugh, along with his frustration at Mark’s necessarily inconclusive, but more realistic answer. Reflecting human nature, Jeremy craves a straightforward explanation, yet the audience knows his wiser friend is right. This seems very analogous to many people’s misconception of History.

To the Jeremys of this world, historians must appear very indecisive, even superfluous people. Even otherwise very able people have said to me, with utmost sincerity, ‘History’s easy, isn’t it? Any answer is right.’ What they fail to understand is the past’s ambiguity, its complexity that eludes a rigid interpretation, is what makes it so stimulating and enjoyable to study. The person that gets exasperated when a historian fails provide a straightforward answer to question, ‘Was the US right to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?’ is as deluded as Jeremy, content with his ‘orgones’.

History has no set methodology, it draws on no ostensibly arcane skills. So where does a historian begin to answer the above question? What frame of analysis could one legitimately work in? Is it enough to establish the bomb was dropped earnestly for reasons that were legitimate within the framework of assumptions American policymakers had at the time – for instance, that its use would ultimately yield a net saving in human life – even if in hindsight, they were wrong? Morality is more properly dealt with by philosophers, and by venturing further historians risk committing a cardinal sin: anachronism. The realisation that past phenomena are so multifaceted should prompt a further revelation about the present – that it too defies black-and-white dichotomies.

You wouldn’t run a marathon just to reach the finish line; this misses the point. It is the exertions and drama in between that drives people to compete. Similarly with History, scholars aren’t striving for a monolithic explanation of past events, as this would be unrealistic anyway. Instead, historians enjoy analysing the past because they see it as of intrinsic interest, because the issues at stake are so central to our identity, and furthermore they underpin important arguments about our future. To have a humane, educated citizenry, one capable of debunking fundamentalist dogma and other more insidious creeds, experience of studying History can only be a good thing.