Reuters
It’s never been easier to find things out and to learn. The power of the internet means that information is at our fingertips in a way that would have astounded our ancestors less than 100 years ago. But the internet also offers us a window into just how many people seem to have much to learn.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana is supposed to have said. Though it may be a well-worn cliché we’d do well to pay attention to it now more than ever. In the UK and the USA there are countless examples of historical ignorance affecting the national debate.
Let’s start in the USA, with the Trump phenomenon. While there are elements of Trumpism which are clearly unique – his absurdly self-aggrandising answers to questions, his independent wealth allied to his demagoguery, his never having held elected office – there are many echoes in Trumpism of some features of American history.
His nativist rhetoric is based on an imagined America of White Anglo Saxon Protestants (and no-one else). In the 1850s, as the country fissured ahead of the Civil War, the American Party and the Know Nothings engaged in what we can now call proto-Trumpism. “The Know Nothings were rabidly xenophobic,” writes Laura Reston. “This was the first time that Americans had to confront an immigrant class whose origin stories, last names, and religious beliefs set them apart from the British settlers who had cleared her forests and populated her first towns centuries earlier. The Know Nothings claimed that Catholic immigrants owed their allegiance, not to the burgeoning American government, but to the Pope, whose autocratic ruling style was antithetical to American democratic values.” It isn’t hard to see the obvious parallel with Trump.
“Nativists champion the purported interests of American citizens over those of immigrants,” writes Donald Brand, “justifying their hostility to immigrants by the use of derogatory stereotypes: Mexicans are rapists; Muslims are terrorists.”
We can go on and compare Trump’s outrageous campaign with those of Huey Long – the populist Louisiana Governor in the 1930s. There are obvious links to Ros Perot’s insurgent campaign in 1992 (and 1996). The signs were there, but were we looking to history?
The promises Trump makes can’t be kept. He can’t build a wall. He can’t ban Muslims. If he tries these absurd policies he’ll bankrupt the country, cause the economy to collapse and fracture an already deeply divided populace. But his rhetoric has an appeal to those who’ve been cut adrift from the success of American capitalism – and who don’t know enough history to realise that demagogues never deliver.
Let’s look at the UK – specifically the deep hole in which the Labour Party finds itself.
In the midst of a chasm in the party over who the next leader should be and which direction the party should take, there have been some, at best, baffling views on display. One of the hot button issues is Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent – Trident. Some in Labour think it should be scrapped on moral and cost grounds. Others consider it a vital part of the national defence. It’s hardly a new debate – it goes back a long way in the Labour Party.
Both are legitimate positions within the Labour Party. But the idea, espoused by some supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, that Labour MUST oppose Trident or that backing Trident is a uniquely right-wing position is historically laughable. It was Labour’s most successful and arguably most left wing government (1945-51) under Clement Attlee which developed Britain’s first nuclear deterrent.
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Over on the other side of the Commons, the Conservatives seem to have their own version of historical myopia. As I’ve written before, Conservatives seem to have forgotten how to conserve things. Under the current Conservative government, British institutions seem to be under almost perpetual threat. Far from being conserved, they are run down.
The NHS, once the envy of the world, is in a deep funding crisis. The legal aid system – of which the UK should be rightly proud, and which enables the most fundamental British value, equality before the law – has been reprieved from the most drastic cuts, but remains vulnerable. The bedroom tax, meanwhile, is a policy which breaks up communities– also a result of the ending of lifetime tenancies.
When their policies are described as being “damaging to family life and to communities” we have to ask whether the Conservatives remember any more of their history than Labour does.
A lack of historical knowledge also deprives us of knowing about our faith as a country. While we are now obviously a much more secular country than we once were, that doesn’t mean we can forget our historic faith. In fact, we can only understand how we became the kind of country we are by understanding the Christian faith. But the head of religion at the BBC says many people don’t even understand some obvious Biblical references.
So what is the answer here? Personally encourage as many children as possible to study history. I’d also broaden the curriculum. In my experience, children spend too long studying The Nazis and Henry VIII. These are both important historical topics but they aren’t sufficient for a working understanding of our history. Politics lessons should also be more widely available at school.
It isn’t just down to the education system, though. We have a responsibility as citizens to become more au fait with our history and by doing so, to unlock the keys to understanding the present. The future depends on it.
Follow Andy Walton on Twitter @waltonandy.
