Culture Wars Are About Our Society

Once again history and historiography are in the limelight. One approach involves ‘a notion of trust between the generations’. We are not obliged to agree or approve/disapprove of past events; only to try and understand them. The other approach involves a re-writing of history in an attempt to impose a particular version of our present day society. Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine looks at these two historical approaches, and argues that the notion of ‘collective white guilt’ – central to the second approach, cannot end well:

Distorting our knowledge and understanding of the past by making it a matter of good or bad is a reductionism that is lazy and crude and stupid and dangerous. Academics serving up explanation in terms of race are similarly reductionist and similarly stupid.

This is not about statues but a culture war, one in which the forces of illiberalism, intolerance and hatred brilliantly masquerade behind the call for righting the past and very much to the profit of a conceited and self-interested cadre of would-be revolutionaries; but do let them go first-class to their conferences, and remember that his/her title is Professor.