I've heard of a phenomenon called Presentism, or viewing history through a modern lense and often using it to prove a point outside the context of history. An example I've often seen would be moral arguements, like us judging, say, Romans, and their practice of sacrifice or gladiatorial games and judging them and shaping policy through a modern, very different and often political, lense. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this definition.
So I was listening to 1A on NPR and Confederate monuments, due to recent events, have come up and I heard a member of the panel say that we need to view these statues through the lense of the day, meaning when said statues were erected, rather than that of 2017. I understand this and agree with it, but at what point does it go too far? He seemed to be ignoring other events closer to today, the most notable being that said monuments were often erected in the 1920s. Is there a phenomenon of only viewing history through a skewed, historical view, rather than our modern historiography? If so, how do we counter that?
Also, if this is the wrong place to ask or it violates the rules do too it's relation to recent political events it totally understand, thanks for the time.
I understand this and agree with it, but at what point does it go too far?
There comes a point where you argue relativism- and this applies anywhere- to such an extreme that it's employed as an argumentative quagmire. Nothing is absolute, everything is relative and nothing can be done because it isn't our place.
Context is everything, but the thing to remember is that there are two context in play. While we should absolutely consider the context in which the statue was bought, made and erected, we also have to consider the modern day. After all, we're not looking at the Mongols and turning our nose because they were mean to the Russians. No, we're talking about statues, often on public land.
In which case the conversation becomes, 'does this belong in a museum? Has a private party offered to pay for it and remove it?'
There are two groups of questions you really need to ask yourself in these situations. The one relevant to this conversation is, 'are we dictating the past through our own modern morality, or are we allowing the past to control us today?' While it may have made sense at the time- and the logic may have been perfectly sound- today is not that time. What made sense 100 years ago may not make sense today.
The other question is whether or not the condemnations made are cheap and easy.
I think you're getting some interesting answers about moral relativism and so on, but if I understand you correctly, that isn't exactly what you're talking about.
I understand this and agree with it, but at what point does it go too far? He seemed to be ignoring other events closer to today, the most notable being that said monuments were often erected in the 1920s. Is there a phenomenon of only viewing history through a skewed, historical view, rather than our modern historiography? If so, how do we counter that?
This sort of argument, in which a debater dismisses actual context and era-specific facts and consideration as "presentism" does seem to be a recurring issue in popular historical debates. So, in this case, the person arguing for the statues says, "We need to understand the context in which the statues were erected" as a means of ignoring the actual context in which the statues were erected.
Is there a name for this? I don't know. One place where this comes up all the time on this sub is the debate over the nuclear bombing of Japan. /u/restricteddata has written some really interesting posts about how people try to frame real arguments made at the time about the morality and utility of the atomic bomb as modern ahistorical concerns.
ETA: On a personal note, I just had a argument with someone dear and close to me about residential schools in Canada. They said that yes, residential schools were bad, but we only see that from our late 20th/21st century perspective. In this case, this person was completely unaware that as early as the late 19th century, people on the ground including government officials were telling the government that the residential schools were causing unbelievable death tolls compared to children left in their own community. They were just ignored, because the government had an ideological commitment to removing children from their culture, and no interest in spending extra money on proper health care and schooling. Contemporary critical voices are forgotten, and people assume, "well, everyone back then thought that way. It was just the times, so they couldn't have known better."
This not uncommon discussion in a Canadian context is another relevant example of this sort of "anti-presentism".
Many historians think that how you should understand the past and what you should do about it in the present are very different kinds of questions. There are many historians of slavery, and some of them are interested in understanding slaveholders-- how did they think? what did they care about? what about slavery made sense to them? Those are important historical questions, because it really is true that lots of people thought slavery made sense, and we can't understand them without trying to think about what it looked like from their point of view.
But that doesn't really have anything to do with whether we should keep the statues that they put up, or that other people who supported them later put up. You can understand someone and pay attention to what they think and still think they were very wrong. Just because something made sense to someone in 1865 or 1925 doesn't mean I want it in my city right now. At that point, it's a public policy question, not really a historical question.