"Does Anybody Really Know What Time, er Truth Is?"

Part of the context in which learning takes place is the culture to which the students belong. From our culture, students derive a number of fundamental misunderstandings about historical truth.

Probably the most common misconception among my students is that there is in fact some agreed-upon set of historical “facts” that constitute objective history. This stems from the way history is taught in most public schools, and from the limited exposure most students have to history books, as opposed to school texts. Very few students understand that historical scholarship consists mainly of reviewing surviving documents and artifacts in an attempt to write a (hopefully) more accurate, but still inconclusive version of the past. No doubt they’d be disappointed, if they only knew!

A second misconception has to do with the purposes of history. Virtually no one remembers what Herodotus and Thucydides, who wrote the first attempts at historical research, set out to do in their writing. Especially among minority students, I’ve found that it is more important to them that history be inspiring than true. Exposed as they are to multicultural texts and little else, it does not seem strange to them that history should be written mainly to make them feel good about their ethnic or racial background. This is of course why so many fight so hard over what is included in school history texts (see Ravitch’s The Language Police for a lively version of the culture wars and their effects on educational publishers).

Finally, two related misconceptions color students’ understanding of the past: that movement through time represents progress, and that the past should be judged by the standards of the present. I often wonder what the point is to making moral evaluations of long-deceased historical personages. (Was Helen Keller inspiring or a communist? In fact, she was both. There’s a scary thought for many Americans: an inspiring communist!). I suppose every generation sees itself fit to judge its predecessors, because every generation sees itself as an improvement on the examples of the past!

It is very difficult to correct these misconceptions, and not just because the depths of history (and truths about history) are so difficult to plumb. These ideas are in fact cultural biases and therefore part of the human condition. Let’s start with the last two: the notion of progress and evaluations of the past. In some cultures, Ancient India and in Mesoamerica, for example, history was used to reinforce a concept of time that was cyclical. But Western notions of time are linear. Every monotheistic religion in the West has been introduced as a historical correction and improvement on a past set of religious beliefs, right from the time of the Golden Calf in the Old Testament. Christianity is a New Covenant with all of mankind; Islam is Allah’s final message to mankind, and so on. One can hardly wait for the next Ultimate Revelation; doubtless we’ll all disagree on that one, too.

Related to this conception of time is the idea that not only is there an objective reality, but that it also has a purpose. You’ll often hear it said – sometimes by historians – that everything happens for a reason. Many people suppose that if you study history, you’ll know the reasons for major events. And it’s true that causation is an important part of historical understanding. Whole books of history have been written to “prove” theories of Divine Providence and Eternal Moral Truths. But any decent modern historian will admit that most of what happened in the past didn’t have to happen the way that it did. That is to say, most historians don’t believe in Fate. But even the most sanguine of historical researchers, while they hold fast to the idea of objective truth, will not contend that it can actually be known, except in the collective sense of a culturally agreed-upon version of the past that is incomplete, flawed and subjective.

This brings us to how students objectify the past, often in hopes of finding inspiration. If I can drive a wedge between any one of these misconceptions and another, it may be possible to overcome all of these student misconceptions. I remember reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a major work of revisionist American history about the Indian “wars” of the American West. My high school library stocked it behind the librarian’s desk, and I needed my mother or father to sign permission for me to take it out. It was, of course, a book that posed a danger to commonly held beliefs about the past among the white majority. Yet I could take Mein Kampf right off the shelves, and so I did! In another time and place, the situation has no doubt been reversed.

Probably the best way to overcome students’ misconceptions of history (given that we are free to believe any sort of claptrap about history we choose) is simply to give students enough time and enough versions of some familiar set of events to get them to start questioning their own biases. That is to say, history teachers should give them more dangerous books of different types. David Bowie once sang, “Where there’s trouble there’s poetry.” Something similar may be said of teaching history: Where there’s real history being taught, there’s probably trouble. But then without trouble, there would be no thinking, would there?

A Peak at the Future

The topic of running out of oil never really left my radar screen since listening to Edgar Winter's White Trash and Tower of Power address the issue somewhat lopsidedly. Now comes Harper's Magazine to renew my interest, so I google "peak oil" and find...well a lot commentary. Much more than I expected, in fact, from both sides of the issue. I thought everyone was still arguing about global warming now that Gore put out his film; WRONG AGAIN!

Now unless you're a geologist, you can't really have an informed opinion on this, and even if you ARE a geologist, you've got some pretty questionable data to work with. That may keep some geologist not in the employ of Exxon, et alia from saying much, but it doesn't keep the sides down, and their arguments amount to this:
Peak Oiler: We're running out of oil, on which our civilization depends, and when it runs out, the sh*t is going to hit the fan.
Conservative Capitalist: Oh yeah? How do you know? We might have LOTS of oil available; we just need to figure out better ways to get it out of the ground and use it more efficiently.

If the PO is right, it's time to buy a nuclear submarine and stock it well. If the CC is right, it's business as usual with a little more government funding for renewables and LOTS more tax credits for oil companies.

The PO's have added to their argument that global instability resulting from dependence on oil has gotten worse and will likely continue to do so (not that that's news to anyone); the CC's have added a nod to conservation, as long as it doesn't rock the oil-driven capitalist juggernaut of global trade. I want to assume that BOTH sides are partly right: We are running out oil, and yes, we will adapt; there will be global instability and resource wars, and yes, they will suck. What else can be safely predicted?

I don't make predictions unless I feel that my information is good, and in this case, beyond knowing how much oil is in the ground and how fast it will run out, it actually isn't too bad; one can at least read the trends. Global conflict over resources (including oil; water is becoming scarce, too) will certainly increase, although how quickly is hard to say. The UN and the West have lost much of their moral authority in a world leaning toward religious fundamentalism. The West has also been much more dependent oil for longer than anyone, but has now been joined by China and India. Ideological confrontations have increased as well among the Great Powers, led by the Megapower, the USA.

Probably the safest prediction isn't too helpful. Global warming, whether caused or exacerbated by human activity or not, will lead to higher seas and a more violent climate. There may be a switch in the currents of the seas that keep temperate zones temperate, so that Europe once again undergoes an ice age. Desertification will certainly spread. But I don't believe in any apocalyptic outcomes (and not just because the apocalypse has always failed to show up; the world has to end SOMETIME). Humanity will adapt to the change in resource supply in fits and starts, just as it has in the past. The vast numbers of humans on the planet, with their various cultural adaptations will assure that at least some of humanity's cultures will survive.

For selfish reasons, I'm betting on good 'ole godless, secular Europe to lead us into this new and troubled age, but I have practical reasons for doing so, too. For while you just can't beat the Europeans for showing you a good time, there's nothing like rationality and science to get you through a tough spot, and the Europeans have always had the market cornered on rationality since WWII ended. The EU may be dull, and to outsiders pointless and silly, but it is nothing if not a rational response to the world's problems. Also, Europe will be less likely to blame disasters on divine intervention and think that they deserve the divine onslaughts. I'm counting on the Dutch to do their part to show the rest of the West how to keep out the rising waters -- they have the experience, after all -- and I'm counting on the English to stay calm, because, well, they almost always do. The Italians and the French and the Germans may bicker and quibble, but I expect they'll come through somehow (with the help of the Scandinavians to kick them in the ass when the glaciers move north far enough -- just like they did during the last global warming episode -- remember the Vikings?).

In the US, I expect more crazed millenial movements and folks wearing tinfoil hats to keep out the deadly rays. Of these, I expect the Mormons will survive, perhaps because they have the institutional will combined with pure nutcase fantasy religions to manage it. (Pace, Utah, but Joe Smith was cracked). Or perhaps just the Mormons will take over the US completely, just to spite the likes of atheist rationalists like myself (::shivers::).

China, as it always does, will carry on its ancient traditions at the expense of anything. Expect more cultural hunkering down and centralization.

Japan will disappear. Sorry; I was born after 1956, so I've always liked them. Good cartoons, too. The Ainu will learn to swim and take over what little remains of the archipelago in the Sea of Japan.

On the other hand, trends sometimes take a left turn; maybe the US, Russia, China, Iran, Europe, Canada, Venezuela, Africa and all the rest of the oil-producing and oil-consuming nations will all learn to get along -- just like the Arabs and Jews -- right!

Most likely to thrive in an oil-free tomorrow are those cultures that just happen to be in the right places for the wrong times. They won't be ready for the future, but the future will be theirs regardless. Based on precedent, I believe primitive peoples in remote areas will be just as successful in the post-Peak era as anyone else, if not more so.

So take heart. Even if Tower of Power were right: "there's only so much oil in the ground"--there's also whole lotta people on the surface! Donna Summer's music may not suvive, but something of humanity will. Even if it's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.