presentism
Ross beat me to the punch on this one: surely historians, of all people, should be wary of the presentism that inclines us all to think that that the best and worst of everything is happening NOW. You’d think that historians, of all people, would be disinclined to pronounce too definitively on the merits and demerits of an administration that’s still in power. Isn’t it one of the social functions of the historical profession to warn us against over-confident judgments based on a limited perspective? Isn’t the patron saint of historians Zhou Enlai, who, when asked for his assessment of the French Revolution, replied “It’s too early to tell”?
That said, it’s always possible that the best or worst of something is happening now. Many of the people arguing about whether the best TV show ever is The Sopranos or The Wire are woefully ignorant of any cultural product that’s more than twenty years old — but that doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. As it happens, the Davids (Chase and Simon) have been given freedoms and resources for making their shows that creators at any earlier stage in the history of the medium could scarcely have dreamed of. So on those grounds alone there’s reason to think that the best TV ever could be being made now, other things — writing and acting talent especially — being equal.
(If, by contrast, you look at the theater, you’ll see that today’s theatrical producers have far fewer resources — especially human resources — at their command than Shakespeare did. Richard III has fifty-two — fifty-two — speaking parts. A modern playwright who wrote a play with half that many parts would be laughed out of the theater. The freedom that came from knowing that anything he imagined could be staged didn’t make Shakespeare a great genius, but it didn’t hurt him either.)
Given our tendencies to presentism, here are a couple of encouraging moments: When, a few years ago, ESPN chose their top 100 athletes of the 20th century, the choices were widely distributed throughout the century — though the selection of Michael Jordan as Number 1 was dubious, if inevitable. You see the same kind of distribution in the American Film Institute's 100 Best Films.
All this to say: unless our own time exhibits obviously unusual circumstances that promote excellence or ineptitude, shouldn’t we try to be aware of the tendency to presentism and correct for it? To the question of whether Bush is the worst president ever, isn’t the only reasonable answer “It’s too early to tell”? It would be nice if our historians showed the same caution in these matters as our sportswriters and film critics.
I notice in pop-culture, parallel to presentism, there seems to be a growing nostalgia for things that just happened.
When I was a kid in the 80’s, the “Good Old Days” happened about 50 years earlier. Since then we have gotten the “Good Old Days” down to about 10 years ago (Remeber the 90’s? Seinfeld?, the dot com craze?, Pre-steriod scandal baseball?).
At this rate, 10 years from now the “Good Old Days” will be about a week and a half ago. If our technology progresses enough , we will be nostalgic for things that haven’t happened yet (who was a better President, Chelsea Clinton or Jenna Bush?).
— John · Apr 8, 02:20 PM · #
You’d think that historians, of all people, would be savvy enough to put aside their current partisan feelings and show a sense of perspective about the fact that there were past Presidents who suspended habeas corpus, threw people in jail for critizing World War I, locked thousands of Americans in concentration camps, dropped nukes on innocent civilians, got us into Vietnam, etc.
— Stuart Buck · Apr 8, 04:53 PM · #
I agree. It’s too soon to tell. For now, let’s just leave it that Bush is a really bad president.
— Steven Donegal · Apr 8, 06:55 PM · #
This is the best blog post ever! For now, anyway.
— dw · Apr 9, 12:55 PM · #
Thanks for the shout-out, DW. And I’m with Steven: it’s not too early to say that Bush has been a disaster, only that there have been no greater disasters among our presidents.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 9, 02:08 PM · #
The AFI is actually very low on recent movies. According to it, the past 25 years have given us 13 of the best 100 movies, if I count correctly. I don’t know if I think that’s a mistake, but it’s striking. If it’s a bias, I’d assume the explanation for favoring older movies is that it’s those movies that shaped the critics’ expectations of what a movie should be.
— Justin · Apr 10, 12:33 PM · #