I remember, I took a class in grade school, I was thinking it was history, but they called it social studies. I didnt really realize at the time the distinction between the two things. The fact that social studies was the study of society not the study of history or whatever. It seems to me that if you specifically frame history as the study of society you might actually address the phenomenon of anachronism at some point but somehow this gets lost in all the bullshit. Or maybe I wasnt paying attention on that day or something.
Its a fascinating thing really, we look back at another time, another "us" (U.S.?), make all sorts of ethical judgment calls about what they did. Decry whatever does not comply with our own modern interpretation of how those peoples of the past should or should not of acted. Sitting back and judging society (history?) this way, with no sense objectivity, how exactly are we supposed to understand these societies? If we, by way of example, consider the colonization of latin america by spain with an anachronistic contemporary morality we cant possibly understand why the colonization happened in the first place. The spanish, and the church in particular, comes of as an insane religious institution of genocidal maniacs practicing biological warfare on a scale as of yet unseen at the time. But if we, and if we are to study history we should, if we make an attempt to see things from the view of the catholic church of the period it seems much more reasonable. The spanish had no understanding of germ theory, disease was completely misunderstood. Smallpox was no more biological warfare than getting your co-workers sick is terrorism.. Moreover the church and the catholics of the day genuinely believed that if they did not convert these godless slave owning human sacrificing heathens and stop all of this pagan stuff they would burn for all eternity in eternal damnation. Now, I know, we are all post-modern, post-religion, hippy-dippy-love-in types so its hard to understand that anyone might actually believe this kind of thing but please, for a moment play along. If you literally knew that an entire continent teeming with humanity would be damned for eternity you might, kind of, make saving their inviolable souls a priority even if this resulted in some looting and pillaging and disease and whatever else. Moreover, half the reason we even understand the ethical complications and problems of this kind of colonization is that people like the spanish did it in the first place. We are seeing everything with 20/20 hindsight and contemporary morality. From this frame of reference its impossible to understand the how and why of history. And anyway isnt this also the same sort of mentality the spanish had? Dont we have some of the same kind of hypocrisies that we participate in? We have a hard time reconciling the bill of rights with thomas jeffersons slave ownership but no problem reconciling liberal activism (criticism) and owning iPods.
What really is "social" study without an objective and impartial analysis of the subject? It seems to me that we arnt really analyzing these societies in the past, we are analyzing our own contemporary society with history as the prop. A bit the way we use famous actors to act as foils for otherwise common people in movies. Events of the past that where of monumental importance at the time mean nothing to us if we dont see reverberations in our own contemporary society. Every event is seen through contemporary lenses, every crime with contemporary judgments on the existence or nonexistence of these crimes. Then we sit around self satisfied going like "well slavery was a great evil but those days are gone things are different today we are more civilized". Patting ourselves on the back for our modern reforms as if our own civilization isnt engaging in behavior that is just as ethically dubious and potentially damaging to humanity. Like, im not saying slavery wasnt bad but right now, like, every single person (this means you) living in the first world is participating in the total and eventual destruction of every living thing on planet earth in the form of global warming, pollution and mass extinctions. We are exterminating lifeforms every day. I dont mean to say wiping out animal species is morally exchangeable with wiping our native american civilizations but surely (?) threatening the existence of all life on the planet is a bit more ethically worrisome than exterminating the natives living on one continent alone. Thomas Jefferson may of owned slaves but al gore flies around in airplanes to speaking engagements to talk about how flying around in airplanes to speaking engagements is destroying the planet. Comparing the morally corrupt and racist institution of slavery to environmental destruction is not a stretch I dont think. Again, though enslaving men is horrible, endangering the future of the human race as a whole is even worse. Anyways im getting on a tangent where was I? Oh O.K. . .
So the point being, I could really do without the finger pointing in contemporary history lessons. This is an anachronistic application of contemporary morality. We cant start applying our own moral and ethical codes to civilizations of the past if we wish to learn anything about them and their intentions or about their moral and ethical codes. This doesnt mean our contemporary morality is meaningless by comparison, dont get me wrong, our contemporary beliefs really are superior, because they are ours (SPQR4LYFE DEAL WIT IT HATERS!). The whole understanding of history (society?) becomes completely confused when you fail to draw a line between these two things though. I think people get so caught up knocking down "myths" of history they kind of forget about like, you know, history. I dont really care if hellenistic mystery cults influenced communion services in christian churches of today, it, quite frankly, is not important in the wide view of things. Christianity (as we know it) wasnt contemporary to those societies so why even bring it up in a history lesson? Are we talking about hellenistic society or contemporary christian religious rituals? The fact that ancient greek religious rituals might influence things in the future was of no consequence to the greeks so why even bring it up? Or, another way, are we studying the civil rights movements of today or are we studying the spanish colonization of mexico? Are you seeing my point? Our "history" classes are all about studying contemporary social issues but not the societies in which they existed. This is horribly frustrating to me, I dont care if what alexander the great did would be morally repugnant today, im not interested in making empty moral condemnations of historical figures from 2300 years ago. Why would anyone even do that unless they just had some ax to grind? I dont want to grind axes (in class at least. On this blog? sure).We stopped calling history history and called it social studies but maybe we should change the name again. Lets start calling it what it is, ax grinding in the 21st century!
