CONSEQUENCES:
An Unanswerable Defense of the Study of History
By Paul Merkley.
………………………….
Christianity is essentially a historical religion. It bases its claims on the historical facts it asserts. If these are demolished, it is nothing. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from facts [Paul Johnson, History of Christianity, ix-x.]
Present-Day Contempt for History.
Why is it that this generation, more than the previous generation, and even more still than the one previous to that, is so contemptuous of History?
Probably no one you know – and that would include your children –“likes” History. This contempt for History is linked to another reality: contempt for the study of world news. My local newspaper typically includes only a single small paragraph, culled from Reuters or AP, on a single event of world news, several pages inside of its daily version. Television is undoubtedly a better source for world news.
Today’s News.
A few hours ago, the news-casters were telling me of a powerful event that looked like changing the political landscape in a major way. I am inclined to agree that the consequences to this event are already great and will eventually be too numerous to count. But previous to that event was another event that had been gathering up consequences for a generation longer, and must therefore be considered more consequential. And before that, there had been events, that had been gathering up consequences even longer, and which require to be considered more consequential still.
Multiplying Consequences.
It is simply not true that events that happened today are more consequential than events that happened in the past.
Here is the reality that haters of History are resisting: the further back you go in time the more consequential TODAY are the facts that you find there.
Of very great consequence today are the facts that follow from the day that your dad met your mother. Think about it. Ask her about it. I know enough about the circumstances that attended the courtship and the marriage of my parents to say with confidence that there must have been moments when the entire future turned on an awkward moment that might have turned the courtship away from marriage.
I recall a moment in our courtship when I was getting ready to conclude that I was not succeeding and that I would need a strong sign of possible success if I were to start the courtship going again. It came with perfect clarity. I was walking across the broad central park outside the Convocation Hall of the University of Toronto, when I saw at a distance my girlfriend in conversation with a female friend of hers. I summoned my courage and caught up with them and quickly proposed to Gwen that we might get together for a coffee. She agreed.
Frankly, I do not know how I might have re-started my courtship had this serendipitous moment not occurred. The consequences that followed from this moment include a good but challenging marriage of over fifty years, four adult children, and four grandchildren. None of these would be in the world had I gone the other way that day.
Conjecture about what might have been can have no standing at all in reason –although people do it all the time. Solipsism – pre-occupation with our selves – is the full and sufficient explanation for this temptation to speculate about what might-have-been. Any child should be able to see the logic of this.
Now, I am absolutely convinced that the story of my parents’ courtship contained serendipitous moments of the same kind. And how about their parents – and their parents and their parents – all characterized by fortuitous happening – events that seem, in retrospect, to be just glancing off the course of their lives?
How then, do we explain the contempt for History that is rampant throughout the educational system and has utterly captured the minds of the last several generations?
Hands up, everyone who has heard of the Battle of Issus?
To redress this perspective, I suggest that in the present moment there are many more active consequences following from the victory of Alexander the Great in the Battle of Issus (November 5, 333 BC) than there are from the most prominent political event of last week. These consequences began on November 6, 333 BC and have been multiplying ever since.
Within the long and broad chain of consequences that followed from Alexander’s victory at Issus and the subsequent collapse of the Persian Empire, we find events and processes that changed the political realities of the time. Most serious historians accept that the eclipse of Persia’s “oriental” and “despotic” political system by the Greek system championed by Alexander deeply affected political thinking throughout the Mediterranean world and was a step leading in the direction of modern democratic politics.
Once this simple point is grasped, any possible argument against the importance of History vanishes into thin air.
Deciding for History.
The study of History does hurt your head. It imposes commitment to limitless reading. Until recently, this reading had to be done in ill-lit libraries and archives; but today the setting is usually much more comfortable. Most of it – maybe even all of it — can be done on your home computer All the major archives are “online.” But it is no less hard work than ever before — and who wants that? It is much easier to believe that the really consequential stuff is in today’s internet news sites.
And, one more bit of bad news: there is no end to the study of History. In science, by contrast, you can bundle up your discoveries into formulas – and spend the rest of your life finding ways to apply them to life. If your are a scientist you can hope that people will come back for centuries to come and recall happily “Merkley’s Hypothesis” By contrast, there is no end to historical discovery. Every day there is more and more material for consideration of the past. If you are a real historian and not a “social scientist” pretending to be a historian, you cannot look forward to winding-up the meaning of your story with a famous and enduring “Hypothesis.”
I am not tempted to defend the study of History on the grounds that they used to employ in the official Teacher Training manuals that were in use when I was (briefly) a student at Teacher’s College. My defense comes down simply to the unbeatable appeal of daily immersion in the ever more-complicated task of imposing intellectual order upon all the knowable facts of the human story.
……………………………………….
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The Bayview Review 
CONSEQUENCES
January 9, 2018 by Paul Merkley
CONSEQUENCES:
An Unanswerable Defense of the Study of History
By Paul Merkley.
………………………….
Christianity is essentially a historical religion. It bases its claims on the historical facts it asserts. If these are demolished, it is nothing. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from facts [Paul Johnson, History of Christianity, ix-x.]
Present-Day Contempt for History.
Why is it that this generation, more than the previous generation, and even more still than the one previous to that, is so contemptuous of History?
Probably no one you know – and that would include your children –“likes” History. This contempt for History is linked to another reality: contempt for the study of world news. My local newspaper typically includes only a single small paragraph, culled from Reuters or AP, on a single event of world news, several pages inside of its daily version. Television is undoubtedly a better source for world news.
Today’s News.
A few hours ago, the news-casters were telling me of a powerful event that looked like changing the political landscape in a major way. I am inclined to agree that the consequences to this event are already great and will eventually be too numerous to count. But previous to that event was another event that had been gathering up consequences for a generation longer, and must therefore be considered more consequential. And before that, there had been events, that had been gathering up consequences even longer, and which require to be considered more consequential still.
Multiplying Consequences.
It is simply not true that events that happened today are more consequential than events that happened in the past.
Here is the reality that haters of History are resisting: the further back you go in time the more consequential TODAY are the facts that you find there.
Of very great consequence today are the facts that follow from the day that your dad met your mother. Think about it. Ask her about it. I know enough about the circumstances that attended the courtship and the marriage of my parents to say with confidence that there must have been moments when the entire future turned on an awkward moment that might have turned the courtship away from marriage.
I recall a moment in our courtship when I was getting ready to conclude that I was not succeeding and that I would need a strong sign of possible success if I were to start the courtship going again. It came with perfect clarity. I was walking across the broad central park outside the Convocation Hall of the University of Toronto, when I saw at a distance my girlfriend in conversation with a female friend of hers. I summoned my courage and caught up with them and quickly proposed to Gwen that we might get together for a coffee. She agreed.
Frankly, I do not know how I might have re-started my courtship had this serendipitous moment not occurred. The consequences that followed from this moment include a good but challenging marriage of over fifty years, four adult children, and four grandchildren. None of these would be in the world had I gone the other way that day.
Conjecture about what might have been can have no standing at all in reason –although people do it all the time. Solipsism – pre-occupation with our selves – is the full and sufficient explanation for this temptation to speculate about what might-have-been. Any child should be able to see the logic of this.
Now, I am absolutely convinced that the story of my parents’ courtship contained serendipitous moments of the same kind. And how about their parents – and their parents and their parents – all characterized by fortuitous happening – events that seem, in retrospect, to be just glancing off the course of their lives?
How then, do we explain the contempt for History that is rampant throughout the educational system and has utterly captured the minds of the last several generations?
Hands up, everyone who has heard of the Battle of Issus?
To redress this perspective, I suggest that in the present moment there are many more active consequences following from the victory of Alexander the Great in the Battle of Issus (November 5, 333 BC) than there are from the most prominent political event of last week. These consequences began on November 6, 333 BC and have been multiplying ever since.
Within the long and broad chain of consequences that followed from Alexander’s victory at Issus and the subsequent collapse of the Persian Empire, we find events and processes that changed the political realities of the time. Most serious historians accept that the eclipse of Persia’s “oriental” and “despotic” political system by the Greek system championed by Alexander deeply affected political thinking throughout the Mediterranean world and was a step leading in the direction of modern democratic politics.
Once this simple point is grasped, any possible argument against the importance of History vanishes into thin air.
Deciding for History.
The study of History does hurt your head. It imposes commitment to limitless reading. Until recently, this reading had to be done in ill-lit libraries and archives; but today the setting is usually much more comfortable. Most of it – maybe even all of it — can be done on your home computer All the major archives are “online.” But it is no less hard work than ever before — and who wants that? It is much easier to believe that the really consequential stuff is in today’s internet news sites.
And, one more bit of bad news: there is no end to the study of History. In science, by contrast, you can bundle up your discoveries into formulas – and spend the rest of your life finding ways to apply them to life. If your are a scientist you can hope that people will come back for centuries to come and recall happily “Merkley’s Hypothesis” By contrast, there is no end to historical discovery. Every day there is more and more material for consideration of the past. If you are a real historian and not a “social scientist” pretending to be a historian, you cannot look forward to winding-up the meaning of your story with a famous and enduring “Hypothesis.”
I am not tempted to defend the study of History on the grounds that they used to employ in the official Teacher Training manuals that were in use when I was (briefly) a student at Teacher’s College. My defense comes down simply to the unbeatable appeal of daily immersion in the ever more-complicated task of imposing intellectual order upon all the knowable facts of the human story.
……………………………………….
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