In
my working life, I regularly encounter people in public affairs with a
total lack of interest in history. Even officials with PhDs who swear by
democracy and the rule of law, and who claim to promote them, will tell
me that a man like Alexis de Tocqueville is too ancient to be of any relevance today.
This
sort of thing leaves me stunned but is not particularly surprising in
our age when Western “elites” look upon their own civilization’s past
with a mixture of total incomprehension and righteous indignation.
It is
obviously extremely dangerous when a society’s leadership is ignorant
and contemptuous of its past. I’ll go much further back than Tocqueville
and cite Cicero as an authority: “To be ignorant of what occurred
before you were born is to remain always a child.” We are governed by
the human equivalent of self-loathing goldfish.
I
well understand the frustration that people feel in studying history,
“one damn thing after another.” Almost every child’s memory is scarred
by their high-school history classes presenting an inchoate series of
dates, personalities, and events to be memorized. Paul Valéry
felt the same way, so if you’ve a distaste for history, you are not in
bad company. In fact, there is some sense in drilling a few common
references into young people’s heads, but on the whole this misses the
point. The fault here is with our systems of secondary education,
apparently uniformly odious forms of mental circus training, not with
history as such.
The point is: How did we get here? What can we learn from past experience? What have we inherited so we don’t start from scratch?
I advise every thoughtful young person to discover the pleasures of
browsing a good historical atlas to understand how his society, his
moment of time, fits in the big picture of the wider human
journey. This can inspire right action. Again Cicero: “For what is the
worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors
by the records of history?”
Personally,
I have always strongly felt the intrinsic kinship between history and
politics. I later discovered that ancient historians long before me had
felt the same way. But the ancients went further, in always emphasizing
that the study of past lives and societies should also improve our
personal moral character.
Take
Polybius, that Greek historian of a Roman Republic which triumphantly
unified the lands of the Mediterranean: “not only is there no more
authentic way to prepare and train oneself for political life than by
studying history, but also there is no more comprehensible and
comprehensive teacher of the ability to endure with courage the
vicissitudes of Fortune than a record of others’ catastrophes.”
I
would go further and claim that the ancient historians’ approach and
interests directly resonate with our experiences today. Peruse the
introductions of Herodotus,
Thucydides, Polybius, or Livy. What do they discuss? The great deeds of
the Greeks, Romans, and other nations, the rise and fall of republics
and empires, the diversity and conflict among tribes and civilizations,
and even globalization. Consider Livy, who says he will document
“the history of the greatest nation on earth . . . [so] that each reader
will pay the closest attention to the following: how men lived, what
their moral principles were, under what leaders and by what measures at
home and abroad our empire was won and extended.” Who could be
uninterested in the roots of the power and glory of Rome?
Nota bene:
You don’t need to read the whole damn things. Chronicles may be
necessary but often make for dreary reading. Though a good guide helps,
e.g. the excellent Oxford Classics and Landmark series. Walls of text
should also be complemented with illustrated encyclopedias featuring all
the beautiful non-literary evidence and heritage left behind by our
predecessors: architecture, statuary, paintings, artifacts, etc. The
past was as alive as we are today, if anything, more so.
History
itself also shows that its study is not limited to that of humble
bookwyrms like myself. The fact is that the most serious and
consequential modern leaders were also men of historical culture: the
American Founding Fathers, Bonaparte, Hitler, De Gaulle, Gandhi, even
that supposed knucklehead Patton . . . all were great and voracious
bibliophiles with wide-ranging interests, in particular historical.
And why do
great men study history? Because they seek to put their life’s work in
the perspective of the ages, of all past human accomplishment. That is the challenge they put before themselves. That is how they incite their manly pride to accomplish something truly worthy and as great as can be.
But I
well understand that such a mindset is incomprehensible in our times,
where not just mediocrity but outright defectiveness are celebrated as
sacred rights. Why would anyone study the great deeds of past men if
this would only remind them of the humdrum nature of their own
existence?
In truth, I would not
recommend studying history at university randomly, like the
Anglo-Saxons and increasingly Continental Europeans do, without a view
towards a specific career. Do so, if that is your calling, that is, with
the specific goal of becoming a history teacher, a professor, a
researcher, a museum curator, an independent historian, etc.
You
may be put off by such humble careers. I will say, in France,
high-school teaching used to be a fairly respected and prestigious
profession, one compatible with higher political activities. Hervé Ryssen
had a stint as a history-geography teacher (his pedagogic skills indeed
transpire in all his work) and, in a very different genre, the charming
leader of the French conservatives in the European Parliament is the
30-something philosophy teacher François-Xavier Bellamy.
More
generally, I discover every day more and more content creators who are
forging their own career path, most commonly through the steady
production of YouTube videos. It seems most young boys these days dream
of becoming video game streamers, and no doubt there is a large market
for that. (Streamers provide viewers with the characteristically male
pleasures of competitiveness, creativity, comradeship, humor, and . . .
victory, made shameful only by their virtuality.) But I also encounter
more and more surprisingly popular history channels such as those of Survive the Jive, Simon Roper, History Debunked, or the weekly reliving of World War Two series.
There are real openings today for bold, young entrepreneurs. Do not hesitate to call and talk to
the best people working in your field of interest. Don’t worry about
making money right away, as long as you are actually accomplishing
something noteworthy. Live in your mom’s basement if you have to free
yourself from the tyranny of rent.
There
is a real craft to history, tools and techniques whose use must be
learned from the masters: the arts of interpreting ancient documents
(see Yale’s New Testament course
or maverick historian Richard Carrier’s work), archaeology, archival
research, the tracking down of oral sources and private documents (David
Irving surely must rank as a master here), etc.
Do not
however fall in the trap of studying humanities and then trying to be
some kind of generalist. That is particularly dangerous in these times
of victim quotas and tickbox careers. We want our young men prosperous
and independent. By studying the humanities, you will be largely
indistinguishable from the hordes of semi-literate riffraff that are
being plowed through the mass ed system in a half-drunken haze.
And
anyway, study is best done on your own time, though of course professors
and peers can help. There’s no guarantee academia will provide you a
proper education. I’m still embarrassed the university system let me
graduate with high honors in history and politics without ever reading
Tocqueville or Aristotle. In a good state, familiarity and understanding of both would naturally be among the minimum qualifications for suffrage.
Admittedly, one must also be ready, mature enough for classic works. I remember encountering Plato’s Laws and Jeremy Noakes’ Nazism series, and leaving them aside in puzzlement.
If
you are interested in public service, be smart and get some identifiable
skills or qualifications that separate you from the interchangeable
office plankton. If interested in foreign service or intelligence,
perhaps learn a relevant language (Chinese, Russian, Arabic . . .
sometimes more obscure ones for niche roles). Among European
officialdom, economics and law are the surest paths to rising above the
rabble of poli-sci graduates.
Basic numeracy, much rarer than you’d think, goes a long way in upgrading your market value from that of disposable intern to a “consultant” charging €750 a day.
But really, you should find and stick to whatever you do with gusto!
And
regarding poli-sci: I advise against it. No field is less capable of
lifting your mind out of the fashions and ignorance of our time. This is
the journalism of the humanities. Much of this field only exists
insofar as it caters to and flatters the idiotic assumptions and
insincere policies of our current governments. You may as well be
undertaking Marxian economic studies in the late Soviet Union.
I.R. theory is dubious. EU studies are a bore and, in the Continent, largely involve enculer des mouches (much ado about very little, pardon my French).
There
is little you will learn in poli-sci which cannot be gleaned by reading
the newspaper or, better still, an internship in some dismal office. I
suppose a two-year course at a community college is justifiable, for
slow folks who need help learning the buzzwords for an easy job with an
NGO or some quasi-governmental shop. I cannot fault anyone for wishing
to get aboard a gravy train.
Nota bene:
I am sure there are good political scientists at the margins. Stephen
Walt and Amy Chua have said interesting things over the years. I’ve just never met a person who was intellectually or morally improved by the process.
So,
as I say, if you aspire to be a man of worth, study history. Be you
soldier, scientist, artist, entrepreneur, bureaucrat, bum, or bordello
manager, learn from your illustrious predecessors! There’s a warm
kinship among peers that extends across generations and boundless aeons.
Indulge in the exquisite pleasures of the mind which are also the path
to man’s self-knowledge. Listen to Machiavelli, at the end of a long
day’s work:
I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday
clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court
and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable court
of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself
on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am
unashamed to converse with them . . . and they, out of their human
kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I
forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified
by death. I absorb myself into them completely. And because Dante says
that no one understands anything unless he retains [it], I have jotted
down what I have profited from in their conversation and composed a
short study, De principatibus.
