• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Podcasts
  • Support
Current

Current

Commentary. Reflection. Judgment.

  • Way of Improvement
  • About John
  • Vita
  • Books
  • Speaking
  • Media Requests

When historians on the Left and the Right engage in “the pleasures of condemnation”

John Fea   |  September 22, 2020

Yesterday I wrote about the White House’s conference on American history. Read that post here. Conservatives are cheering the event. Those on the Left–particularly academic historians–are trashing the event.

There are a lot of reasons to be critical about what happened at the White House last Thursday (again, read my post). But I often wonder if those on the academic left are engaging in the same kind of anti-intellectualism, rigid fundamentalism, and cancel culture as those on the right.

Meanwhile, there is a very large intellectual center in America made-up of people on the Left and the Right who are not willing to be pulled to the fringes. I think this large center–a place of open discourse and academic freedom–is articulated best in the recent letter published in Harpers magazine and signed by the likes of Anne Applebaum, Margaret Atwood, David Blight, David Brooks, Noam Chomsky, Gerald Early, Francis Fukuyama, Todd Gitlin, Malcolm Gladwell, Anthony Grafton, David Greenberg, Jonathan Haidt, Jeet Heer, Matthew Karp, Randall Kennedy, Damon Linker, Dahlia Lithwick, Greil Marcus, Wynton Marsalis, Deirdre McCloskey, John McWhorter, Samuel Moyn, Olivia Nuzzi, Mark Oppenheimer, George Packer, Nell Irvin Painter, Orlando Patterson, Steven Pinker, Claire Potter, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, J.K. Rowling, Salmon Rushdie, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Paul Starr, Gloria Steinem, Michael Walzer, Cornel West, Sean Wilentz, Molly Worthen, and Fareed Zakaria.

These signers and other like-minded academics, intellectuals, and thinkers, are calling for the “free exchange of ideas,” which the letter describes as the “lifeblood of a liberal society.” Read the statement here.

Western Washington historian Johann Neem, the author of several books including What’s the Point of College?: Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform, reflects the spirit of the Harpers letter in a recent twitter thread:

1) "It is the combination of love of one’s nation and awareness of its failures that makes acts of citizenship possible," I wrote in @chronicle in 2011. @AHAhistorians @The_OAH @SHEARites https://t.co/VW1DBRcLB8

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020

2) Trump's efforts yesterday to condemn professors, teachers, and journalists, is dangerous. It is authoritarian. And it must be resisted. Academic and press freedom are fundamental to a free society.

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020

3)Trump's comments yesterday at the White House Conference on American History make clear that he does not want an honest appraisal of the complex American past– the good, the bad, and the ugly. He does not think Americans are patriotic and adult enough to face the truth.

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020

4) But the academic left is wrong if they think this is about truth/facts versus lies. It's about how the truth is told. It is about narrative and plots. Patriotic history can be as critical as it can be celebratory. But it does not take joy in America's failings.

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020

5) I have seen the same kind of reductive one-sided responses from #twitterstorians as what I saw from the White House conference yesterday. It is as if the inverse of a bad story is a true story. It is not.

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020

6) Too often, the academic left engages in what @toddgitlin called "the pleasures of condemnation." Condemning people will spur backlash. It will make people less willing to listen to hard truth, honest truth, about America's past. It turns people against the truth tellers.

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020

7) As @RitaFelski writes, we need to understand the “the limits of critique.” We need many modes to engage the past. "Critique" is one way, and necessary. But it is not the only way to be critical. And it may not be the best way to have one's truth be heard by others.

— Johann Neem (@JohannNeem) September 18, 2020


If you appreciate this content, please consider becoming a Patron of Current.

Filed Under: Way of Improvement Tagged With: #ageoftrump, #whystudyhistory, academic community, academic freedom, academic life, academic profession, critical thinking, Donald Trump, historical thinking, history and patriotism, Johann Neem

Primary Sidebar

Archives

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Footer

Contact Forms

General Inquiries
Pitch Us

Search

Subscribe via Email