Histories and Fallicies

I thought it worthwhile to quote from Carl Trueman's book Histories and Fallicies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History.  Trueman is a provocative and witty writer (and teacher) and I have enjoyed his articles and short books.

Though he is a professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA), he is very well-read and uses many examples beyond church history--literature and 20th century political history are two--that make for eye-opening reading.

He spends a good deal of time discussing the methodology of Holocaust Denial (HD) and Marxism.  HD does not claim that no Jews were killed, but that the numbers were not nearly as high as reported and that the intention to kill Jews (and others), either at the start of Hitler's reign ("Intentional" view) or something that developed during WWII ("functional" view), is false.

I admit not knowing much about Marxism, even being ignorant that it is an all-encompassing worldview, and not simply a political or economic philosophy. I was also ignorant of the extensive and appealing nature of Holocaust Denial.  Neither of the two can simply be waved off, but must be met head-on in the arena of historical criticism. In other words, they must be allowed to be subject to criticism; they are not nonfalsifiable.

Holocaust Denial automatically comes across as a conspiracy theory. But, in the example I will provide, Trueman shows that a commitment to a Marxist view of history can come across as conpiracy-like as well.  Anything in brackets is my addition in order to make the context clearer.

Anyone who has spent any time on the Internet will have come across the various bizarre theories that lurk there, whether relating to the alleged death of Paul McCartney, the alleged survival of Elvis, or the existence of various arcane groups who really control the world's governments.

One of the problems with such theories is that any evidence one provides to counter them or refute them is, to the theory's adherants, merely more evidence of just how deep the conspiracy runs. You find DNA from the grave that matches that of Elvis? Well that simply shows that the undertakers or the DNA laboratory are also involved in the conspiracy. In the same way, you claim you can demonstrate that many members of the upper class were fighting the king in the [English] Civil War [something that goes against typical Marxist theory of class struggle]? Well, that just shows how confused they were over their own class interests.

Ironically, as regards [Marxist historian Christopher] Hill, I saw this flaw most dramatically (and tragically) in a BBC documentary some years ago. The program was examining the fascination of British intellectuals, such as George Benard Shaw, with Stalin and communism in the 1930s, and how the Soviet leader had invited numbers of them, including Shaw and Hill, to travel through the Soviet Union to see the Communist utopia in all its glory. Like coal mines whitewashed before a royal visit, one can only imagine how stage-managed and choreographed such tours were, and how closely they resembled real life for the typical Soviet citizen.

By the time of the documentary, of course, Shaw was long since dead; but Hill was still alive as aging Marxist academic, living in the aftermath not simply of the 1930s show trials, but also the revelations about the gulags, the 1956 Hungarian Uprising; the Prague Spring, the erection and demolition of the Berlin Wall, and, of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. That is quite a tally of evidence which, one would think, might militate against the idea that Stalin's Russia was a worker's paradise, the utopian synthesis at the end of the dialectical materialist rainbow. Thus, I was eager to hear Hill's comments on his time in Russia from the vantage point of the post-Soviet world.

Finally, the moment came for the question: the interviewer asked Hill, what about the famines caused by Stalin's economic policies in the 1930s? I will never forget the great historian's answer: there were no famines.

What about all the evidence? responded the somewhat startled interviewer. There is no evidence, said Hill, and any that you claim to be able to provide is merely the manufactured information of those imperialist Westerners who wish to hide the glories of what communism has done and can do.

The answer was stunning because Hill was an Oxford historian, a man who made his living by interpreting the past on the basis of empirical evidence. What it showed was that his commitment to Marxist philosophy trumped his commitment to allowing the evidence to shape his thinking; indeed, when push came to shove, his Marxism led him to sound as delusional as the typical black helicopter aficionado from the craziest corners of the virtual world. On this point, at least, there appeared little--indeed, there was no--difference between Hill and the typical Holocaust denier. They simply came from different ends of the political spectrum. (pp. 101-02)

As L.P. Hartley has said, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

Trueman answers questions about the book in the youtube clip below: