The brilliant Sobran:
October 14, 1999
We the Victors
Joseph Sobran
"Progressive" views of history usually assume that the present is somehow
the culmination and even the perfection of the past; this is what the
historian Sir Herbert Butterfield called "the whig interpretation of
history." Such views are apt to be unconsciously and optimistically
provincial.
The current uproar about Pat Buchanan's views on World War II is due to
Buchanan's rejection of "victor's history." He doesn't share the general
opinion of the literati that the Allied victory over the Axis was a blessing
for everyone. On this subject, multiple perspectives aren't allowed. The
"progressives" assume that their perspective is the only valid one; others
are taboo.
Yet every historical event can be seen from many angles. If you ask a
Catholic whether World War II ended as it should have, he may reply: "No.
Stalin wound up in control of several Catholic countries." Is that wrong?
>From his point of view, it's the obvious truth. A Hindu might answer: "The
war ended well. It hastened the end of the British Empire and the
independence of India." A diehard British imperialist might lament the war
for the same reason. The optimistic view of the war simply omits these
perspectives. They don't count.
Because the "progressive" - "liberal," "moderate," or "conservative" - can
hardly imagine other perspectives, he assumes that his own angle is "the
judgment of history." In his new book, A Necessary Evil, Garry Wills assumes
that the growth of a centralized federal government is a wholly desirable
thing, partly because it has given us legal abortion (which he says has
"made women the arbiters of their own pregnancies"). He also assumes that
the reader will agree. So American history becomes a long but ultimately
triumphant march toward today's status quo, and the abortion clinic becomes
a monument of freedom.
But reverse that postulate, and it all looks different. If you regard
abortion as a barbarity, you not only see no happy ending in a million
abortions per year, you see tragedy. And you may look back at American
history with the question, "Where did we go wrong?" American history is full
of people, many of them profound thinkers, who rejected the prescribed
official optimism.
Tens of millions of people died in World War II, and their survivors were
entitled to feel that the whole thing was a terrible waste. Yet the official
optimism, reflecting the perspective of the rulers, doesn't even take this
natural human feeling into account. And of course the dead don't write
letters to the editor offering their own point of view. They don't count.
But from the point of view of Franklin Roosevelt and "Uncle Joe" Stalin, the
war ended very happily. As Stalin said: "One death is a tragedy; a million
deaths is a statistic." There is the official view in a nutshell. In a world
of superstates, private feelings don't count.
The trouble with the optimistic mind is its adaptability. It cheerfully
accepts the replacement of traditional morality by a new state-imposed
morality. It believes in "evolution," even when this means that the very
standards by which it judges keep evolving. People who used to think
abortion was (of course) evil now point to it as a proof of progress. Before
World War II, all civilized men would have condemned the aerial bombing of
cities. But since the victors annihilated cities with bombs, the practice is
no longer regarded as quite so horrifying. It's still as evil as ever, but
we have set a precedent we don't dare renounce.
When we violate our standards, the danger is that we may wind up changing
our standards. Optimism requires self-exculpation; we can't bear to face the
possibility that we have become evildoers, so we redefine good and evil to
suit our practices. Instead of judging history by fixed standards, we allow
history to dictate more convenient new standards. And we call the result
"the judgment of history."
A soul that adapts to its time is a soul in decay. It judges not by morality
but by utility, usually the utility of the state. And a lot of us have
adapted very well.
Copyright ¸ 1999 by the Vere Company |
