A Tale of Two Historians

Ivory tower intellectuals show privilege is gained via ideological parroting. Revolutionary intellectuals show privilege should be earned by way of philosophical inquiry.

Göttweig Abbey library, Austria. - Jorge Royan

I generally write in the affirmative here at Classically Cultured. My last post covers the ancient origins of the modern bikini. In terms of my artistic contributions, I prefer to build, rather than destroy. However, sometimes I come across things that are of such great significance, even though they appear inconsequential, I am compelled to say something.

In the last two weeks, I’ve attempted to read two modern books. One is on human psychology, and it contains some philosophical flaws. But I’m still able to make my way through it without too much time spent in the marginalia. The other one I’m reading though, surprised me. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is too flawed for me to continue reading it.

The book in question is The Princeton Guide to Historical Research by Zachary Schrag. The book is part of a series of guides published by Princeton. I am currently in the beginning stages of writing a nonfiction narrative book. This book was supposed to help me with the nuts and bolts of the project. I know how to write books. But nonfiction narrative, especially of a historical subgenre, takes a lot of strategy. A working bibliography, note-taking, research, the list goes on and on. 

However, as I made my way through the first page of the Princeton guide, I noticed red flags. I still continued though, trying to give the author the benefit of the doubt. I am several chapters in now, and doubt can no longer be the basis of my thought process with the book. This guy means every word he writes.

The Importance of Philosophical Detection

The book is a startling example of why, in today’s society, people are, on a large scale, unable to discuss issues in a civil manner, formulate arguments, think critically, and form new ideas. But the book doesn’t highlight this in the way you might think. The contents don’t cover these realities. The author’s many, many errors give legitimacy to my preceding claims.

Today’s prevailing philosophical framework accepted by most can be broken down into two different concepts. One, is the concept of identity politics—the breaking up of people into smaller and smaller groups and the pitting of these groups against one another. Or, in my words, the taking of the least interesting biological part about you that you had no control over at birth and making it your entire existence. Identity politics is the severing of one’s mind in honor of a completely bodily, therefore animalistic, existence.

The other concept is philosophical, and that is the philosophy of skepticism. Skepticism rejects the possibility of sound knowledge. It rejects the validity of our senses, and our ability to make sense of the world around us (reality).

Skepticism states that there are no objective truths. It raises a question. If there are no absolutes, how can we know anything?

Unless you have your philosophical detective hat on at all times while reading, you may miss these prevailing political and philosophical concepts prevalent through so much of today’s literature. These two belief systems are destroying Western culture right in front of our very eyes, and they are present throughout this book in question because the author subscribes to both.

The author is a professor at a renowned university (not Princeton). I hoped objectivity would be of paramount importance, however, aside from some advice on the mechanics of writing a nonfiction narrative book, the author’s philosophy, whether he consciously realizes it or not, is far more present throughout the work than helpful advice.

Each concrete example he gives to add context to a section is a historical example viewed through the lens of power dynamics. It’s clear, to him, history is the reality of the war between oppressor and oppressed. At one point, he suggests not compiling too many sources from history who are “white men with ties to prestigious institutions.” He thinks these guys get too much attention. For the professor and historian, who teaches at a prestigious institution, I guess the inherent hypocrisy in his statement is lost on him. The lack of situational awareness regarding his statement is baffling.

He constantly uses women and minorities as objects of victimhood and hopeless oppression. While the reality is women and minorities haven’t always had equal rights, to ignore the greatness of an Einstein, Locke, Mozart, Washington, or Churchill because they were too male and too white is to subjectively cover and therefore undo mounds of historic truth. When compiling sources, to discard them because of any physical characteristic of the source at hand is to breach one’s personal and professional ethics. For instance, racists aren’t racists because they are any specific “color.” They are racist because they have adopted and believe in an anti-rational, life-destroying, collectivist philosophy. Funny enough, he had a section on ethics, but this ethical principle never came up. He did suggest I be extra careful with Native American artifacts should I ever come into contact with one.

The author also believes history is malleable. He states in the book, “For better or for worse, today’s cutting-edge history becomes tomorrow’s relic. In 1949, Conyers Read argued that “history has to be rewritten for every generation… The older historians move in never-ending march from our studies to our attics and from our attics to our dustbins.”” This is the passage of a skeptic. He believes there are no absolute truths, therefore, history and historic literature can’t possibly be objectively true. To him, each new generation that comes along will undo the work of the previous. Not because previous historians necessarily got it wrong. That would warrant rightful correction. But because of arbitrary standards. Because that’s just what happens. After quoting Read, the author even takes a moment to admonish him for using “gendered language.” In the author’s opinion, because Read chose to write “only of fathers and not mothers, he himself took a step up toward the attic.” 

He has a disdain for those who like to reminisce about “the good old days.” I must admit, I do find myself reminiscing about those good old days these days, when my dollars went further and people were taught that history isn’t something to be reshaped and remolded, but discovered and honored.

He believes the definition of historian is “fluid,” and he includes community activists among a list of people who operate under the wide, ever-changing umbrella of “historian.”

“Inescapable Feature of My Career”

This book is just a microcosm of the grand scheme of things. Identity politics and skepticism have hijacked, via a willing audience, minds and turned people into victims of unearned injustice, creatures of emotionalist rhetoric, and humans that just plain don’t appear to be all too human. You’re damn right I reminisce about the good old days.

While this historian and professor is sitting in his ivory tower, preaching the gospel that all but a few dogmatically worship these days (and I’m definitely not talking about Jesus), others are not so fortunate. They understand all too well, if you don’t tow the philosophical line, bad things are in store for you.

One of those professors is C. Bradley Thompson. He’s a brilliant man with a brilliant mind, and his books do not disappoint. In fact, they’ve been a source of inspiration. No one covers America’s founding years with such eloquence, drama, and accuracy as Mr. Thompson. For summer reading, I wholeheartedly suggest his work, America’s Revolutionary Mind.

As I was turning thoughts over in my mind in regards to the book I was reading, and how its philosophical framework has wreaked havoc on every facet of society, Mr. Thompson released his latest post on his Substack,

The Redneck Intellectual

. The post, titled, “Welcome to My World,” details the many attacks he’s been under, and the increasingly volatile attacks he faces, while being a champion of liberty, truth, and reason. He too is a professor and historian, and he’s one of the hardest working thinkers in today’s world that I’ve come across.

Though he’s handling the vitriol well, one scroll through his post reveals critics who’ve clearly let their sanity go. Commenters attacking his coverage of the October 7th attacks on Israel even suggested well-documented events involving the massacre didn’t even happen. This sounded familiar to me.

While reading the Princeton guidebook, the author took a couple of sentences to randomly state the Irish were never the subjects of indentured servitude and slavery that was “as bad or worse than those endured by people of African descent.” He claimed this subject was a ruse that a few lowly writers fell for, and they continue to propagate lies about it. I continued on to the second paragraph, expecting him to back up his claims with evidence as to why the Irish were indeed never subjugated in this manner. Instead, I was met with a new paragraph on an entirely new subject that had nothing to do with what he just posited.

A footnote was included pointing me to a New York Times article, but an attempt to discard an entire chapter of history should include a proper defense. To discredit hundreds of historic documents that detail the horrendous conditions of Irish slaves and indentured servants, thousands of positive reviews of books on such matters, and a multitude of authoritative voices praising the work of writers and historians who have brought this time in history to light is startling. Why does consensus only matter to ivory tower intellectuals when it deals with a point they agree with?

I’m guessing, for him, the Irish are too white. Therefore, their indentured servitude in early America never happened. The Sack of Baltimore never happened, which resulted in the enslavement of many townspeople at the hands of North African pirate-slave traders. Their forced conscription during war after immigrating to America never happened. And to quote economist Murray Rothbard, in case there’s any confusion, “Conscription is slavery.” Slavery is no less slavery in regards to matters of degree. Are sex slaves no less slaves because they are not forced to participate in hard labor conditions like the child slaves of Africa’s diamond mines?

Philosopher and writer Dr. Leonard Peikoff covers these philosophical themes masterfully in his legendary Ford Hall Forum lecture titled, “Assault From The Ivory Tower.” While so many others have missed it so far, even as far back as the ‘70s and ‘80s, he could see the writing on the wall. To him, the denial of objective reality, of objective truth, and the spreading of subjectivity and skepticism are, “...the intellectuals… preparing us ultimately for a totalitarian dictatorship.” He covers this widely in his book, The Ominous Parallels.

In the lecture, he expands on why the push for skepticism, therefore the denial of objective truth, is so supported by the powers that be. He quotes the late philosopher Richard Rorty to drive home his point, that if there is no ability to know objective truth, to know reality, then, “This means that when the secret police come, when the torturers violate the innocent, there is nothing to be said…”

At one point early on in his post, Mr. Thompson asks, partly in jest, “Is it something about my personality or character that rubs people the wrong way? Is it the fact that I am, or at least was, a ginger… Is it that I have a punchable face? Does it have to do with my moral-political views? Whatever the reason, it seems to be an inescapable feature of my career. 

For much of my adult life, I have been attacked…”

But none of these (aside from his “moral-political views”) are why he, unlike the Princeton guide author, is so hated. He is hated for his philosophical discernment, for his dedication to reason, and for his ability to stand on his own against a barrage of ad hominem attacks and worse. He is hated because he is principally virtuous.

The Difference Between Totalitarianism and Freedom

This is the society that is created as a result of philosophy. Not the other way around. Culture is a consequence of its prevailing philosophy, not its cause. 

I was left just a couple of days ago with an important question. With such a horrendous philosophical framework, do I continue with the Princeton book by context-dropping and only focusing on the random pieces of advice that could be helpful? For me, knowledge is contextual. So participating in context-dropping would put me in the same category as today’s ideologically, not logically, driven citizens. Therefore, the context stays, the book does not.

The danger with these books is that, unless you’ve done the hard work of philosophical discernment ahead of time, and you come into the book green, you have no idea how it is shaping you, your mind, your work, and your actions. Philosophy is no passing side street. It’s the red light seizing your attention while you are on your journey, emboldening you to stop and question what road you want to, and should, take.

While culture is one of prevailing philosophy’s consequences, politics is philosophy’s final one. Unfortunately, like the book, these days it’s all people can focus on. And unfortunately, context-dropping is the name of the game for politics because politics is antithetical to reason. It deals in every fallacy imaginable, from appeal to authority and appeal to emotion to cherry-picking, and of course, those dreadful ad hominem attacks.

What we see now, is an unfortunate consequence of society putting politics above all.

That ruins books. It ruins universities. It ruins lives. And worst of all, it leaves in its wake no path for rebuilding.

To the free thinkers and sovereign individuals out there, it is our job to rebuild. But not after disaster has struck and is over. You and I both know well, it will never be over. No, we rebuild now, actively, as the crumbling continues.

And we do that by way of reason, by way of philosophy, by way of refusing to give in to pressures of the mob both big and small. Whether it’s the closing of a book and opening of a new one or laughing in the face of an enemy, we must never give in. In the words of Churchill:

“Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Ayn Rand once stated in her book Return of the Primitive, “What this country needs is a philosophical revolution—a rebellion against the Kantian tradition—in the name of the first of our Founding Fathers: Aristotle. This means a reassertion of the supremacy of reason, with its consequences: individualism, freedom, progress, civilization.”

Whether these two historians realize it or not (though I’m sure Mr. Thompson does), they are actively involved in a philosophical revolution. But they champion opposing sides. In terms of the American Revolution, the Princeton book author sides with the loyalists, who dogmatically worship despots. Except the despots he worships today are not royalty, but political relics that were once rightfully relegated to the past: biology over merit, ideology over reality, and university dollars over the currency of one’s soul (virtue). Mr. Thompson, fighting for the revolution, fights against tyranny of all kinds, including tyrannical control of thought and ideas. He does not worship. He does not blindly follow arbitrary rules enacted by some university board or governmental agency. He upholds principles - principles of reason, freedom of the individual, and actual progress (the enlightenment of the mind). 

These are the traits of a true historian. As we try to preserve what is left of Western civilization, it is important that we understand the historian doesn’t simply uncover the past, he guides the future.

The difference between an ideological historian and a revolutionary historian is an important and essential philosophical distinction. The former works to preserve tyranny, the latter works to defeat it.

What philosophy do you want guiding your future? One built on pressure groups and warring contemporary tribes, majority rule, and victimhood? Or one built on the principle of man freed from the tribe, and free to lead a life he chooses if he uses the full capabilities of his mind to build his purpose, which is built on virtue, not victimhood.

Based on our country’s current situation, with its blind, mob-induced renunciation of reason and the chaining of the individual to others who simply look like him, but certainly may not think like him (which is what matters), the answer is clear.

It may seem disconcerting, but this is the reality:

Choose the philosophy of reason, or enable the last of Western civilization to disappear.

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