Last week
the widely read columnist, Rich Lowry, published an article which critiques the
work of historian Howard Zinn. Recently, he explains, the president of Purdue
attempted to ban Zinn’s book A People’s
History of the United States from the classroom, characterizing it as “a
truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American
history on every page.” When Purdue’s history department learned of the
president’s intentions, they responded by defending the book’s use, asserting
that to throw it out of the curriculum would be tantamount to an attack on
academic freedom. To Lowry, this is nonsense. He writes that, “You’d never
guess from the hysterics that the low estimation that Daniels has for Zinn’s
work is shared by a swath of distinguished historians. It’s not that they
disagree with Zinn or believe he’s too controversial. They think his work is,
to borrow the word Daniels used in another email, ‘crap.’” According to Lowry, “‘A
People’s History’ is a book for high-school students not yet through their
Holden Caulfield phase, for professors eager to subject their students to their
own ideological enthusiasms, and for celebrities like Matt Damon, who has done
so much to publicize it. If it is a revelation to you that we treated Native
Americans poorly, and if you believe the Founding Fathers were a bunch of
phonies, Zinn’s volume will strike you with the power of a thunderclap. And one
day, maybe, you will grow up.”
Lowry’s article is noteworthy because
it epitomizes several problems that have become commonplace amongst those who
produce “intelligent opinion” in America, especially those who are part of
the venerated establishment of the fourth estate. What follows is the first part of a new series
which critiques several assumptions that are held by a surprising number of
people who specialize in the manufacture of “intelligent opinion.” While
dissecting these assumptions it becomes apparent that what is at stake is more
than simple scholarship, but indeed, how we think and engage the world: whether we are to live with our feet planted on the ground, or live a life enveloped in convenient illusions -- albeit ones buoyed with pleasant prose.
________
The most plangent critique sounded
against Zinn in the article is the charge that his work is not “objective.” One
can tell that Lowry believes this to be the most damning charge that one can level
against an intellectual, Lowry sniffing that Zinn simply “had no use for
objectivity.” Lowry’s choice of the objectivity card – a favorite among
journalists – is interesting. It is reflective of many erroneous and, quite
frankly, dangerous assumptions which are current amongst most members of the
so-called fourth estate. The principle of objectivity has become axiomatic, the
standard by which all journalists are supposed to gage their work. There must
be an “even-handed” analysis of the event, “both sides” need to have their day
in the sun, and, whatever you do, do not alienate any of the readers. Seeing as
objectivity, that elusive, ethereal ideal, is a preoccupation of journalists,
it should not be surprising that Lowry raises it as his chief point of
contention with Zinn’s work. In the mouth of Lowry, the idea of objectivity
takes on the theological colors. When he says that Zinn “had no use for
objectivity,” it is like excommunicating him from the altar of intellectualism
– or uttering the vilest expletive.
Behind this air of professionalism,
however, is a great deal of nonsense. The fact of the matter is that the facade
of objectivity indulged by journalists is just that – a substance-less spectacle.
No human-being is a disinterested automaton; if they were, they would not be
human. Instead of hovering above the earth, freed from the limits of the mind
and external influence, all people live within a set of complex circumstances
that shape their interests, reveal their ignorance and limit their
understanding. For journalists to entertain the pretense that they are
“objective” is consequently an exercise in self-deception and thoroughly
misleading.
Just as wrong, though, is the related idea
that being objective requires giving equal coverage to “both sides of the
story.” Of course, knowing where all the players stand is important, but the
principle of “both sides” is more often than not used to hide a power imbalance
between the “sides” rather than acknowledge or rectify this disparity. It is
also inherently reductive, framing any scenario as that between two groups for
ease of comprehension, even though the issue may encompass more groups than two
and be considerably more complex than implied. It also has the effect of
protecting powerful interests by giving credence to their lies; the concept of
“both sides” and “balance” becomes the fiction that both sides can be true or
right. Most importantly, this notion of “balance” commonly obscures the reality
that there may be one truth which is crystal clear and, moreover, that
this truth may have powerful moral implications. (That is not to say that
either “party” grasps this truth, but only to suggest that an absolute truth
does exist and often can be discerned by the journalist if they choose to see
it.)
The classic example of the bankruptcy
of “objectivity” is the media’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The
two “sides” in this case are Israel and Palestine. Under the facile notion of
“two sides,” the idea of parity or equal power between the two groups is
suggested implicitly. Furthermore, the demands of each “side” are seen as
equally legitimate. There is no victim and no victimizer, no weak and no
strong, only “sides.” Yet this cookie-cutter narrative utterly fails to evoke
the actual nature of the conflict. For in actuality, the conflict is between
wealthy Israeli colonizers who are violently constructing colonies on
Palestinian land, and Palestinians who are being ethnically cleansed from their
homes – a criminal process which has been going on over the course of the past
century.
This is not an objective assessment of
the conflict per se because the viewer – me – is embedded in society, and thus,
like all humans, views the conflict from a certain reference point within the
world. But this assessment is based on facts and, more importantly, it is the
truth. The “birth” of Israel was made possible by the violent displacement of
around 750,000 Palestinians, a number accepted by the international community,
serious scholars and many Israelis themselves. Today the construction of
illegal “settlements,” i.e. colonies, continues to displace 1,000s from their
homes. In fact, U.N. Resolution 194 explicitly recognizes that Palestinians are
being ethnically cleansed from their homes, as it guarantees their right of
return. And the right of return, now enshrined in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, was specifically created with the Palestinians in mind, as their removal
from the land occurred while the document – now the cornerstone of
international law – was being drafted.
In short the truth, contrary to the
suggestion of Lowry, is never reached objectively and the cookie-cutter
application of the “sides” criteria can actually wreak havoc on reality. What
is probably more radical to some ears, though, is the fact that the truth is often imbued with moral implications
and pathos. When Palestinian children are being attacked with (illegal) Israeli
phosphorous and cluster bombs, as happened during Operation Cast Lead of 2008, the
truth is not “even-handed,” “impartial,” or “balanced.” The truth, rather, is
that Israel is in the wrong and the deaths of Palestinian human-beings – not
“casualties,” “collateral damage,” or “numbers” – should make any human-being
angry. To sanitize the hellish torment experienced by the victims under the
shibboleth of objectivity, with its “sides” and “even-handedness,” is not being
objective: it is aiding the victimizer by distorting the facts.
The ideal of objectivity suggests that
the journalist exists above and outside the world, recording pure, distilled
truth as it hovers out in the ether. We have already examined why this is not
the case for the journalist; now it is time to explain why this understanding
of truth is problematic. For truth, like the journalist, exists in the world,
not outside of it. It then follows that truth is not a stoic, emotionless ideal
but a tangible, even emotional, reality. It is not pedantic, dry or lifeless –
a floating abstraction – but can be exuberant, heartrending, calm or powerful.
Truth reflects the complexity, chaos and wonder of existence. The Bible, for
example, says that the truth will set you free; these are, indeed, bold words. What
does all this mean though? To begin, the truth can and, in many cases, should
elicit an emotional response from the hearer. Some truths require a response,
that is to say, action. When someone learns about the truth of Palestinian
suffering, for instance, they should use the opportunities within their reach
to help the victims. At the very least, they should not perform any act which
aids the crimes of the oppressors. Simply put, truth can have real moral
implications and should compel real action.
________
For Lowry to rail against Zinn because
of his lack of objectivity consequently reveals more about the columnist’s
(erroneous) assumptions than anything intrinsically wrong with Zinn’s work. The
question still remains, though, as to why journalists are so enamored by the
idea of objectivity. Firstly, entertaining pretensions to objectivity
implicitly accords the journalist a position of superiority and power: the
power to know over the known. This power is obviously a very seductive idea. On
the assumption of objectivity, they can claim oracular abilities, to see the
world without the pesky obstacles of bias and ignorance – obstacles which, if
we are honest, are faced by all humanity. Secondly – and as previously noted –
the notion of objectivity lends itself to convenient, cookie cutter clichés
which make writing easier. The format of “two sides,” “equal coverage,” and
“balance” literally provides a ready-made blueprint for any issue, even those
which do not fit the mold in real life. For journalists who are under the
pressure of a deadline, these formulaic models can become very attractive.
Thirdly,
many journalists and news organs are funded by special interests which have a stake
in seeing that their side is given favorable coverage. There are few lobbying
interests in the U.S. for the Palestinians while there are legions of groups
which propound Israel’s policies: the ADL, AIPAC and WINEP, to name a few. If
any newspaper suggests that the Israeli government is doing anything illegal in
Palestine, these groups are sure to pounce – as they have before in the past. It
also does not help that the decidedly non-objective political culture in the
U.S. is bitterly hostile of the Palestinian “side.” The U.S. government gives
more military and foreign aid to Israel than to any other country in the world,
despite Israel’s being a member of the First World; the last U.S. “arbiters”
between the “two sides” were former members of the Israeli lobby (Dennis Ross of
AIPAC extraction and now Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel); and the
U.S. is the only country that vetoes
U.N. Security Council resolutions that criticize Israel’s violations of human
rights.
And lastly, the notion of objectivity
is, in practice, highly profitable. Newspapers are, in the end, businesses. To
buy a newspaper is to buy not only news but advertisements, which, you may
notice, generally account for one-half of each page. By depicting stories in an
“objective” fashion, it is less likely that a reader’s ideological inclinations
will be alienated, prompting them to stop subscribing to the newspaper. If
“both sides” are depicted, then, the explanation of the issue may be synthetic
and the truth may be muddied, but it is less likely that the reader’s feathers
will be ruffled and stop paying the subscription fee. After all, their “side”
will have been covered. What’s more, the above-noted formula that “objective”
reports follow dogmatically is easier for the reader to digest. Complex issues
are broken down into binaries, e.g. “both sides,” creating a narrative that,
while superficial, has instinctive appeal. The reader may not understand what
is going on in the Syrian War, for instance, but they will be assured that
there are “two sides,” and their government supports the “good” one. All
issues, no matter how complex or grave, can be grasped instinctually by the reader
through use of this cookie-cutter formula.
What then can we conclude from Lowry’s
objectivity fetishism? The much vaunted ideal of objectivity, in practice,
assumes that the truth itself is neutral, though this merits a bit more
explanation. You will often hear journalists say that they strive to be
“neutral,” this phrase in fact being interchangeable with “objective.” While it
is important for a journalist to scrutinize the facts and weigh them honestly,
this is different from being neutral or objective. For when striving to be
neutral or objective – two criteria with no semblance to reality – most
journalists end up projecting these criteria on the truth; the criteria used to
gain truth come to restrain, order and, all too often, distort the truth itself.
In seeking to gain truth neutrally or objectively, the truth itself is seen as
existing in a neutral or objective state. This is, in part, why “both sides”
may be given an air of validity, even if one may consist of unimpeachable facts
and the other complete fabrication. But the truth is seldom neutral, as
explained in the case of Israel and Palestine. Rather, the truth may very well
serve to vindicate some while assigning guilt to others. It can be
revolutionary, electrifying and demand a response; it is far from the vapid,
bipolar and negotiable abstraction assumed by the fourth estate.
But the assumption of truth’s
neutrality does serve a distinct political purpose. If truth is neutral than
both sides can be right, even the victimizers; the moral demands intrinsic to
some truths are emasculated from the truth itself, meaning that the viewer is
encouraged towards apathy; and, out of a sense of “proportion,” the great power
differential that lies between the haves and have-nots, the common and the
elite, the victims and the victimizers is glossed over. The weakness of one
group is hidden, allowing for their continued victimization. So this week the
press can talk about “peace talks” between both the Israeli and Palestinian
“sides,” obscuring the fact that the “peace talks” amount to the powerful
dictating the terms to the weak; that is, the U.S.-Israeli alliance – which is
a legal, diplomatic and historical reality – against the Palestinians. Yet, we
are assured, this is simply done out of a sense of “neutrality,” “proportion”
and “balance.” This engenders contradictions to no end. The U.S. is supposed to
be a “neutral” party to the dispute, despite the fact that it arms Israel with
the latest weaponry; has waged war on the Palestinians, as in Lebanon during
the 1980s; and, even while it negotiates with Palestine, refuses to recognize
the existence of a Palestinian state – in other words, that a Palestinian
“side” actually exists. So “objectivity” and “neutrality” do serve a particular
“side;” that people actually believe in objectivity – especially journalists – is
one of the greatest propaganda coups of the twentieth century.
________
Now having addressed Lowry’s maladroit
handling of the objectivity card on journalism’s terms, it is time to examine
why objectivity is problematic when used as a criterion for historical
research. After all, Lowry’s article, at its core, raises questions of historical
methodology. All history is selected and manmade by necessity. Since it is
impossible to internalize all of history in its entirety, a historian must choose what they study based on a specific
question or problem that they seek to address from the reference point of the
present. Thus there is no such thing as an objective history because all
history is relative – that is, it is created in relation to a certain question,
problem or curious individual which exists in the present. Behind every
historical problem is a question and behind every question is a human-being.
As the philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote,
the “questions of science will always remain replies to questions asked by men;
the confusion in the issue of ‘objectivity’ was to assume that there could be
answers without questions and results independent of a question-asking being” (Arendt,
Between Past and Future, p. 49). In
regard to history, “every selection of material in a sense interferes with
history; and all criteria for selection put the historical course of events
under certain man-made conditions, which are quite similar to the conditions
the natural scientist prescribes to natural processes in the experiment” (p. 50).
So for Lowry to demand objectivity from Zinn is to literally assume the
possibility of human omniscience, trans-historical prescience and the existence
of neutral, platonic truth. It is, in short, to assume the fictive and expect
the impossible.
The real questions, then, are as
follows: were the questions raised by Zinn worth pursuing, was his methodology
honest and for what purpose did he write A
People’s History of the United States? Zinn, a civil rights scholar and
activist, was throughout his life deeply concerned with how history is
presented to the public. During the time in which he wrote A People’s History, few textbooks spoke about the struggles of
working-class people, the government’s genocidal campaign against Native Americans
or the struggles of non-white people in America. Instead, history – as in many
classrooms today – concentrated on the deeds of great white men (seldom women)
and generally viewed the nation’s past with rose-tinted glasses. Memorable
anecdotes were substituted for historical context, musty dates for relevance
and patriotic lessons in place of a real understanding of the U.S.’s less than
exemplary conduct in the world. Writing scholarly works during the Civil Rights
Movement and Vietnam War, Zinn was acutely aware of how history could – and was
– used to serve powerful interests. His magnum opus, A People’s History, was thus a response to a generally parochial
and hagiographic curriculum, the terrible effects of which he had seen in the brutal
ignorance of white supremacists in the American south and overseas in Vietnam.
So when Lowry writes that “If it is a
revelation to you that we treated Native Americans poorly, and if you believe
the Founding Fathers were a bunch of phonies, Zinn’s volume will strike you
with the power of a thunderclap,” he is literally taking Zinn’s work out of its
historical context. The sad fact of the matter is that many Americans at the
time of the book’s publication did not realize that the U.S. had “treated
Native Americans poorly” or that the “Founding Fathers” were humans in the
flesh who made serious transgressions. Many still don’t. If more people today –
such as Lowry, apparently – know these facts, it is in no small part due to
enterprising historians like Zinn who have seismically altered the way history
is taught during the last half century. For Lowry to be unaware of this fact
betrays astounding lack of historical foresight. After all, these social and
educational problems are precisely why Zinn’s book was written in the first
place.
Every historian pursues their studies
with a specific set of motives in mind. Zinn’s was to add a counter-narrative
to top-down histories, those that concentrate on the lives of an elite few, by
writing about the struggles that the majority of people faced in the U.S.
Unless you are someone with a vested interest in seeing that the history of the
U.S. working-class is hushed-up – a history often marred by elite violence,
greed and misanthropy – then it is hard to see why this would be viewed as a
controversial undertaking. Like most historical writing, it recognizes a problem
in existing scholarship and addresses this problem through the use of facts and
strenuous research.
In contrast, Lowry’s column would not
pass the same test of scholarly rigor. When he professes to be in complete
accord with the President Daniels of Purdue – “The sin of Mitch Daniels, it
turns out, is to take history more seriously than they do” – he commits himself
to several insoluble contradictions. The
President of Purdue’s claim that Zinn’s book “misstates American history on
every page,” for instance, falls apart on its own terms. Zinn’s book is several
hundred pages long. If Zinn really was a fraud, it is hard to believe that he
would have been skilled enough to lie on every page of his voluminous tome while
maintaining an air of credibility for the overall narrative. Most
interestingly, though, is the fact that many of the pages include extended
excerpts from primary source documents, i.e., historical evidence. Is Daniels’
saying that the historical evidence itself is lying? That is to say, is Daniels
denying reality?
It is also worth noting that while
Lowry uses the article as forum for hacking out gutsy and self-satisfying
flourishes – such as when he suggests that most historians view Zinn’s work as
“crap” – he fails to note a single instance in which the book actually falsifies
history. If the book is really wrong on “every page,” as Daniels and Lowry
suggest, then this task should not be too difficult. The absence of a single
concrete example of Zinn’s alleged sins is telling. The only sentence which
even takes on the semblance of a concrete example is when Lowry writes that
Zinn “joined his propagandistic purpose to a moral obtuseness that refused to
distinguish between the United States and its enemies, including Nazi Germany.”
This charge is not only false but shameful. During WWII, Zinn was a member of
the U.S. military who fought fascism overseas. Thus the claim that Zinn “refused
to distinguish” between the U.S. and Nazi Germany – and, by implication, that
he lacks moral scruples – is utterly ridiculous, not to mention, a gross distortion
of the facts. Zinn went on to oppose war as a matter of principle, largely out
of his own first-hand experience with war, both as a soldier and later as an
observer of the war in Vietnam. For someone like Lowry, who has never risked
anything, to level these absurd charges is disgusting.
________
The fact of the matter, however, is
that there are vested interests at work which would be all too happy to see a
work like Zinn’s banned. After WWII, for instance, few Americans believed that
laisser-faire capitalism worked. For people who had lived through the poverty
of the 1920s and subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, the idea of
“percolation” – or, in our day, “trickle down” economics – appeared ridiculous.
It had been wholly disproven by the Depression, a catastrophe of epic
proportions which wealthy interests wished people would soon forget. It was only
government wartime spending that had extricated the country from the morass of the
Depression and the rise of labor unionism in the 1930s that safeguarded
post-war prosperity. Yet this shift towards the left and Keynesian economics
chagrined big business to no end, even as it reaped in cost-plus contracts and
massive subsidies from the government. Eventually influential businessmen like
Joseph Pew created pro-business organizations for disseminating corporate
propaganda amongst church organizations and dictating the curriculum in
schools. Their concerted efforts were very successful. Whereas most people in
the mid-1940s believed that some government intervention in the economy was
necessary, such support for government intervention fell precipitously in
subsequent decades.
These same interests were dead set
against students learning of big business’s soiled past. General Motor’s’
strategy of introducing prostitutes and liquor into their factories in order to
discredit sit-down strikers was forgotten. The Rockefeller mining interests’
massacre of striking women and children at Ludlow was forgotten. The free
dispensation of land-holdings the size of France by the government to the “free
market” railroad interests was forgotten. Henry Ford’s illegal attack on
unionization efforts through his clandestine “Service Department” was forgotten.
The fact that the nation had only decades earlier gone through a depression, the Depression, was forgotten. In short,
there was a lot that big business did not want people to remember. A People’s History helped resurrect
these memories; it was a shot of sanity into a historical discourse that had
long drifted away from the facts and this for political reasons.
So when Lowry writes that Zinn
believed that history is “politically useful,” he is merely stating the
obvious. Yes, Zinn believed that history is “politically useful,” but that is
because it is. Without history it is impossible to engage the political process
in an educated and informed manner. To deny this fact, as Lowry does, is to be
either naïve or mislead others purposefully. The “facts” had already been
marshaled by certain groups for their own interests – most notably the business
interests of the country – and Zinn’s work intelligently assailed to these
fixed ideas by showing that they simply do not conform to the historical
record.
There is a compelling reason, though,
as to why Lowry would want Zinn’s book to be banned. As a conservative
columnist and disciple of Charles Krauthammer, he has dedicated the majority of
his intellectual life propounding the thesis of American exceptionalism and
chronicling the vicissitudes of the Republican Party. Zinn’s book brilliantly
demolishes the thesis of American exceptionalism, or that the U.S. is a
uniquely beneficent power, and shows how both major political parties are out
of touch with the average American. Zinn does this through the use of two
things which are conspicuously absent from Lowry’s column: historical facts and
a deeper analysis of how present developments are linked to the past – you know,
history. And this is what makes Zinn’s tome powerful. Instead of divorcing the
past from the present, as many history teachers are in the habit of doing, he
had a knack for contextualizing present issues against the past in a way that
made both the past and present understandable. In other words, he was both the
consummate history teacher and a savvy political commentator. It is, then, not
surprising that Lowry should ridicule Zinn. Zinn had already proven that
Lowry’s work is factually wrong or, at best, socially irrelevant.
That the columnist chose to attack him after
his death is also telling; if he had written the same fact-less article during
the historian’s life, Zinn would have demolished it with a characteristically
brilliant critique. It is a sad but common tendency of intellectuals to attack
their peers only after they have gone to the grave. It is much easier to win
arguments when you are only arguing with yourself.
________
What
is most stunning about the work of public intellectuals like Lowry, however, is
the fact that, unlike Zinn, they do not invest anything in their writing. Zinn’s
views were informed by a life of activism and undergirded by a deep respect for
the intelligence of all human-beings. He had the humility and moral audacity to
protest war as a matter of principal, even though this meant discrediting his
own stint in the military and his previous worldview. To him, the potential
lives lost in war were more important than his own reputation.
In contrast, Lowry supported the
illegal invasion of Iraq instead of “objectively” noting that the reasons
spouted off by the Bush administration in favor of the war were all factually
incorrect; that is to say, they were 100% phony. After the initial invasion he
even went on to suggest that the U.S. should attack Syria, a country which had
assisted the U.S. in the 2003 invasion. The reason for this verdict: the U.S.
was in a “strong position to demand that they [Syria] end their relationship
with terrorist groups.” Lowry also was not enthusiastic about Baathist party of
Syria which he suggested was connected to the Baathists of Iraq.
What Lowry neglects to mention – and seems
blissfully unaware of – is the fact that the only “terrorist groups” which
Syria was allied with were American. After all, if America’s illegal invasion
of a sovereign country and the deaths of over one million Iraqis is not an act of "terrorism"
then I don’t know what is. And the suggestion that the Baathists of Syria are
connected to the Baathists of Iraq is laughable. If Lowry knew anything about
Middle-Eastern history, he would know that the Iraqi and Syrian branches of the
Baathist party split off from each other about a half century ago; they had
been irreconcilable enemies ever since. Lowry’s tendency to advocate and cover up
war crimes even went so far as supporting waterboarding and other policies which
are illegal under international law.
But what, you may ask, does this have
to do with the state of intelligent opinion today?
Intellectuals like Lowry can,
and regularly do, indulge in advocating policies which are questionable,
sometimes even criminal. When they are proven wrong, as in their support of the
Iraq War, they come out of it unscathed, their professional reputations intact.
One million Iraqis may have died, but you can bet that people will be reading –
and taking seriously – the columns of people like Lowry for years to come.
Nothing is at stake. And when they advocate sensational policies like
waterboarding, something inherently cruel and immoral, they may even expand
their reputation. He’s gutsy, people think; at least the column for makes an
interesting read. But that is the problem: what is written is interesting, yet most
of it is nonsense and some of it is dangerous. Despite their recklessness, irresponsibility
and whitewashing of reality, their work will still be read and applauded.
Advocates of the Iraq War like David Brooks, Michael Gerson and Rich Lowry will
continue to be read by “serious” audiences (probably not by Iraqis) and will
continue to haul in awards for their “serious” ideas.
Is this why so many intellectuals hate
Zinn? Confronted by a man who used facts, acted upon his convictions and
admitted when he was wrong, they are suddenly confronted by what they themselves
have failed to do. Suddenly the contradictions of their work come into the
light, only to blister and crack under their own weight.
And if, as Sartre said, the job of the intellectual
is to expose society’s contradictions, then Zinn's work fulfilled its task. Indeed, some people are still trying to come to grips with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment