To modern people, the past was weird, and is not always a comfortable place to visit. This has led many writers to denounce it, and others to give it a more agreeable veneer. However, I recently read a 20 year old article by former President of the American Historical Association, Lynn Hunt, entitled “Against Presentism.”In it she states, among other things, that:
…despite the great upsurge of interest in 20th-century and even post–World War II topics, students still take courses in ancient and medieval history. Whether motivated by escapism, nostalgia, a wish to study "elite" subjects, or just a desire for something "different," they readily throw themselves into another era. In this, they reflect the interests of the general public, which often resents the scholarly insistence on revealing all the foibles of past men and women. They don't always want history to teach them the inadequacies of people in the past or even to reassure them about their own identities in the present. It's the difference of the past that renders it a proper subject for epic, romance, or tragedy-genres preferred by many readers and students of history. The "ironic" mode of much professional history writing just leaves them cold. [emphasis mine]
20 years later, is this still true, or have the interests of the general public changed?
How do you feel about presentism in history and fiction?
(From Wikipedia: In literary and historical analysis, presentism is the anachronistic introduction of present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past.)
I’d love to hear your thoughts! Let me know what you think in the comments or respond in an email.
I've definitely noticed that tendency as well. It used to be more influenced by escapism than realism, but in the past few years, there's also been a major push to judge people of the past by the present day moral compass. In historical fiction, this has been expressed either by treating characters harshly for having realistic views for their era, or by making the main characters inexplicable 2022 transplants in fancy period dress. Both strike me as essentially a cop-out.
My contention is series is that we misjudge the past not merely if we apply present-day ideas and perspectives to it, but if we fail to recognize that present-day ideas and perspectives are simply reflections of the conditions of our own time.
This is what the study of history should really teach us. We are the product of our times every bit as much as people of the past were the product of theirs.
To give a few examples, individual freedom and equal rights are not universal ideals, but the preferred operating environment of a particular class which arose at a particular time and period. Individual freedom and equal rights puts no limit on how high you may rise, but also no limit on how far you may fall. Most earlier societies were organized on the basis of specific groups enjoying specific privileges earned by fulfilling specific obligations. The privileges of the lower orders may have been less than those of the upper order, but they were real and substantial and the were stripped away in the age of individual freedom and equal rights.
Slavery was abolished when it became economically unviable. It persisted in the American South because of a vast demand for cotton. We got rid of slaves and then of servants, because we got steam engines and then microwave ovens. On the other hand, we have introduced abortion, which had been almost universally abhorrent for all earlier history, to backstop the sexual revolution.
It is good to acknowledge that people of the past were creatures of their times, as long as we don't kid ourselves that we are anything but creatures of our own times.
This is a fascinating topic. Personally, I see parallels between what people are calling “wokeness” and the various 20th C. academic trends that were all the rage during my own brief academic career, but never really affected my own personal preference for good old-fashioned historical writing. Here’s a few of the trends and authors that were constantly being mentioned and that I never felt any interest in looking too deeply into: post-modernism (Foucault, Derrida, LeMans), New Criticism, queer theory, feminism--The list goes on, and, man, does it go on.
Radical methods of critical interpretation (or “methodologies”, if you’re fond of that neologism) had its precursors in the post-WWII era (Marxism, Freudianism, the “Annales” school, etc.), but those earlier trends seemed less inclined to scotch history altogether, and some of those historical works and writers are still interesting to me and worth dipping into (Braudel, Peter Gay, Toynbee). But then those scholars still had a rigorous grounding in the discipline and would’ve been able to speak with authority about Leopold von Ranke, Macauley, Gibbon, etc.
I will say that one of things I find troubling is that there seems to be less inclination to stand up to ignoramuses making off-the-wall pronouncements and challenge them. I remember attending a lecture in which one panelist presented a very well researched paper on Turkish preparation for the 1683 siege of Vienna and the Polish nobels’ response to it. It was well received. The next panelist went to the lectern and launched into a madcap rambling tirade about how better the world would have been if the Ottomans had taken Vienna and Europe had fallen under the Ottoman yoke. The moderator interrupted the presenter and asked him to cite his sources. When the presenter had no sources to cite, the moderator told him to sit down because there was no place his presentation at the conference. That was in 1994. I don’t think anyone would have the temerity to do that to a presenter today. However, I did attend a conference a few years ago in Denver to meet up with a friend of mine running a panel on Medieval Islam. The quality of the papers were quite good and the Q&A was extremely scholarly.
I think it’s just a matter of (re-)empowering people to be able to make these kinds of calls (“your presentation has no place at this conference”) without such calls being labeled racist or culturally insensitive assaults or attempts to censor or suppress so-called “valid” points of view. One of my favorite quotes is by one of the Seven Sages mentioned (per Plato) who’s name was Myson of Chen. He’s believed to have said: “You are interpreting facts based on an argument, when you should be interpreting the argument based on facts.” I think that applies here.
Sep 22, 2022·edited Sep 22, 2022Liked by J. M. Elliott
I heard about "presentism" for the first time just last week. Being Canadian, we have a different past. We had slavery up here, but still being a British Colony at the time, pretty sure it ended the same time it was abolished by the Crown. When I heard "presentism" it was because it involved a school teacher who was teaching a class and told the truth. Apparently, that's a big no-no. That's like saying we had slavery down here, but we were really nice to our slaves. I read ROOTS when it first came out, and watched the show when it first came out as well. I never thought twice when Kunte Kinte had his foot lopped off, or half off, in an effort to stop him from running. Accordingly, "presentism" wouldn't make allowances for that sort of scene. How about that scene in the movie GLORY when they take Denzel's shirt off to whip him, only to see it hideously scarred? "Presentism" wouldn't allow that either. I shouldn't say allow, more in the lines of "not want people to know that's what it was really like." So if you write a story about Roman slaves you shouldn't let the reader know that his ear was probably clipped; when they were first condemned to the mines they were given one hundred lashes, and if they survived that, they were worked to death. I have a story that takes place in Ancient Rome. I couldn't imagine sugar-coating anything because it might hurt the sensitivity of the reader. I say: "Tough luck." If you don't want to read historical fiction, or read a different version of it, grab a Romance novel, or watch BRIDGERTON. As for rewriting history so that it reads as a "softer" version of history, the Nazis wanted to do that--and probably would have had they won--because the victors write the history that suits them. What does that tell us about our own times? Who are the victors, and better still, who are the vanquished?
Thanks for this topic. I hadn’t realized it had a name: “Presentism”. It has a striking resemblance to the underlying concepts of “wokeism” or “wokeness”, which is a term I see thrown around often.
I don’t mind certain topics or media using present day representations for something if it means making it consumable, such as modern language for past or alien cultures. I wonder if it’s because we have very specific suspensions of disbelief with specific things. As long as it stays consistent in the framework of the narrative, I generally won’t hate it.
I question the usage of these concepts once they have broken the suspension of disbelief or are being used to send a “message” by destroying what we had come to understand and like about previous iterations. I also don’t understand the desire for fiction to represent reality, or even a false view of reality peddled by corporations obviously so ensnared by globalism that they can’t reverse course.
Top Gun: Maverick. Not the best film ever made, but the reasons for its success are glaring. Honor the past while giving us something new. And have some fun!
(I’m not a history buff, so I’m trying to view this through a pop culture and fiction lens)
I've definitely noticed that tendency as well. It used to be more influenced by escapism than realism, but in the past few years, there's also been a major push to judge people of the past by the present day moral compass. In historical fiction, this has been expressed either by treating characters harshly for having realistic views for their era, or by making the main characters inexplicable 2022 transplants in fancy period dress. Both strike me as essentially a cop-out.
I've actually just begun a series of essays on this topic, which I am calling The Anomalous Now. The first essay is here: https://www.storiesallthewaydown.com/p/normal-wonderful-or-terrible.
My contention is series is that we misjudge the past not merely if we apply present-day ideas and perspectives to it, but if we fail to recognize that present-day ideas and perspectives are simply reflections of the conditions of our own time.
This is what the study of history should really teach us. We are the product of our times every bit as much as people of the past were the product of theirs.
To give a few examples, individual freedom and equal rights are not universal ideals, but the preferred operating environment of a particular class which arose at a particular time and period. Individual freedom and equal rights puts no limit on how high you may rise, but also no limit on how far you may fall. Most earlier societies were organized on the basis of specific groups enjoying specific privileges earned by fulfilling specific obligations. The privileges of the lower orders may have been less than those of the upper order, but they were real and substantial and the were stripped away in the age of individual freedom and equal rights.
Slavery was abolished when it became economically unviable. It persisted in the American South because of a vast demand for cotton. We got rid of slaves and then of servants, because we got steam engines and then microwave ovens. On the other hand, we have introduced abortion, which had been almost universally abhorrent for all earlier history, to backstop the sexual revolution.
It is good to acknowledge that people of the past were creatures of their times, as long as we don't kid ourselves that we are anything but creatures of our own times.
This is a fascinating topic. Personally, I see parallels between what people are calling “wokeness” and the various 20th C. academic trends that were all the rage during my own brief academic career, but never really affected my own personal preference for good old-fashioned historical writing. Here’s a few of the trends and authors that were constantly being mentioned and that I never felt any interest in looking too deeply into: post-modernism (Foucault, Derrida, LeMans), New Criticism, queer theory, feminism--The list goes on, and, man, does it go on.
Radical methods of critical interpretation (or “methodologies”, if you’re fond of that neologism) had its precursors in the post-WWII era (Marxism, Freudianism, the “Annales” school, etc.), but those earlier trends seemed less inclined to scotch history altogether, and some of those historical works and writers are still interesting to me and worth dipping into (Braudel, Peter Gay, Toynbee). But then those scholars still had a rigorous grounding in the discipline and would’ve been able to speak with authority about Leopold von Ranke, Macauley, Gibbon, etc.
I will say that one of things I find troubling is that there seems to be less inclination to stand up to ignoramuses making off-the-wall pronouncements and challenge them. I remember attending a lecture in which one panelist presented a very well researched paper on Turkish preparation for the 1683 siege of Vienna and the Polish nobels’ response to it. It was well received. The next panelist went to the lectern and launched into a madcap rambling tirade about how better the world would have been if the Ottomans had taken Vienna and Europe had fallen under the Ottoman yoke. The moderator interrupted the presenter and asked him to cite his sources. When the presenter had no sources to cite, the moderator told him to sit down because there was no place his presentation at the conference. That was in 1994. I don’t think anyone would have the temerity to do that to a presenter today. However, I did attend a conference a few years ago in Denver to meet up with a friend of mine running a panel on Medieval Islam. The quality of the papers were quite good and the Q&A was extremely scholarly.
I think it’s just a matter of (re-)empowering people to be able to make these kinds of calls (“your presentation has no place at this conference”) without such calls being labeled racist or culturally insensitive assaults or attempts to censor or suppress so-called “valid” points of view. One of my favorite quotes is by one of the Seven Sages mentioned (per Plato) who’s name was Myson of Chen. He’s believed to have said: “You are interpreting facts based on an argument, when you should be interpreting the argument based on facts.” I think that applies here.
I heard about "presentism" for the first time just last week. Being Canadian, we have a different past. We had slavery up here, but still being a British Colony at the time, pretty sure it ended the same time it was abolished by the Crown. When I heard "presentism" it was because it involved a school teacher who was teaching a class and told the truth. Apparently, that's a big no-no. That's like saying we had slavery down here, but we were really nice to our slaves. I read ROOTS when it first came out, and watched the show when it first came out as well. I never thought twice when Kunte Kinte had his foot lopped off, or half off, in an effort to stop him from running. Accordingly, "presentism" wouldn't make allowances for that sort of scene. How about that scene in the movie GLORY when they take Denzel's shirt off to whip him, only to see it hideously scarred? "Presentism" wouldn't allow that either. I shouldn't say allow, more in the lines of "not want people to know that's what it was really like." So if you write a story about Roman slaves you shouldn't let the reader know that his ear was probably clipped; when they were first condemned to the mines they were given one hundred lashes, and if they survived that, they were worked to death. I have a story that takes place in Ancient Rome. I couldn't imagine sugar-coating anything because it might hurt the sensitivity of the reader. I say: "Tough luck." If you don't want to read historical fiction, or read a different version of it, grab a Romance novel, or watch BRIDGERTON. As for rewriting history so that it reads as a "softer" version of history, the Nazis wanted to do that--and probably would have had they won--because the victors write the history that suits them. What does that tell us about our own times? Who are the victors, and better still, who are the vanquished?
Thanks for this topic. I hadn’t realized it had a name: “Presentism”. It has a striking resemblance to the underlying concepts of “wokeism” or “wokeness”, which is a term I see thrown around often.
I don’t mind certain topics or media using present day representations for something if it means making it consumable, such as modern language for past or alien cultures. I wonder if it’s because we have very specific suspensions of disbelief with specific things. As long as it stays consistent in the framework of the narrative, I generally won’t hate it.
I question the usage of these concepts once they have broken the suspension of disbelief or are being used to send a “message” by destroying what we had come to understand and like about previous iterations. I also don’t understand the desire for fiction to represent reality, or even a false view of reality peddled by corporations obviously so ensnared by globalism that they can’t reverse course.
Top Gun: Maverick. Not the best film ever made, but the reasons for its success are glaring. Honor the past while giving us something new. And have some fun!
(I’m not a history buff, so I’m trying to view this through a pop culture and fiction lens)