Remember when Bill Maher was Leftist Jesus..you know if they actually believed in Jesus? During Republican Administrations, Maher would consistently rail against what he saw were Republican mistakes and idiocy, and Leftists cheered. Then, when Joe Biden became President and Maher started railing against what he saw were Democrat mistakes and idiocy, the Left no longer found him to be a voice of truth. But they did find him to be a traitor.
Welcome to the party, Bill. Go grab some punch and a cookie.
The reason I brought up Bill Maher (something I try not to do much for the sake of my sanity) is he recently introduced a Leftist term I hadn’t heard before: presentism. Apparently, Leftists are applying this whenever they discuss history, and it may be coming to a history discussion near you.
presentism
What the Left thinks it means – framing historical figures and events with modern sensibilities
What it really means – holding the past up to present standards to establish modern superiority
There’s an old saying, “History is written by the victors.” Although, these days, it could be written by the Victor/Victorias, but that’s not important right now. The saying refers to how some aspects of history get ignored or forgotten because people tend only to think in terms of winners and losers. Leftists have seized upon this tendency to push for what they call a more comprehensive view of history, i.e. downplaying the “white” view of history in favor of the histories of marginalized people.
And that’s how we get Post-Modern Native American Albino Lesbian Literary History degrees.
It’s all a part of the Left’s intellectual (stop laughing!) approach to all academic fields called intersectionality. Although this could be a Leftist Lexicon entry in and of itself, the long and the short of it is every form of oppression overlaps with others, like racism and sexism. By recognizing it, Leftists hope to undo the damage by…well, they haven’t figured that part out yet, but it has lead to some interesting discussions on who is considered more oppressed in a country where they’re allowed to drive, vote, and dress like Miley Cyrus during a performance at a strip club. Or, as she calls it, Tuesday.
By framing everything in terms of oppression, the Left has created a hellscape where just about everyone is oppressed to some degree. Unless, of course, you’re a straight white male. Then, you’re everybody’s asshole. Of course, I already have a lot of Leftists think I’m an asshole, so it’s nothing new.
Presentism plays into this framework by allowing Leftists to dictate the standards by which figures of the past (i.e. straight white males) are to be held without those figures even knowing it. Because, you know, they’re dead. That gives the Left all the power to frame the past with none of the piddly little details that add a little something the Left has a love/hate relationship with called context.
When I was in college back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, Leftists at the time were up in arms over Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of the book’s use of the n-word. I won’t give the whole word for a number of reasons, not the least of which being I want to save Chris the headache of having to answer more angry emails about me than he usually gets. In their attempt to virtue signal before such a thing was a thing, they ignored a lot of context, namely the historical backdrop for the story and how Huck became the voice of those who wanted to treat blacks like everyone else. If it weren’t for people who actually read the book for comprehension rather than to find naughty words, there might be a generation that wouldn’t even know who Huck Finn was long before YouTube turned their brains into tapioca pudding.
On the other hand, it prepared them in case they ever got elected to be President of the United States.
The same attitude the Left used over Huck Finn is the same drawback presentism faces today: the lack of context. I’ll be the first one to admit human history is rife with events and attitudes that elicit shame and disappointment (like when Gary Cherone took over singing duties in Van Halen). Having said that, the people then didn’t have the advantage we have of being able to look back at the historical record. In more than a few of these dark periods of history, what happened was unprecedented because it had literally never happened before with the circumstances they had to work with. It’s like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle in the dark blindfolded while strapped to a ticking time bomb. You’re going to make mistakes, and the results won’t always be good.
Then, there’s human nature to consider. Contrary to Leftist belief, yet completely consistent with their actions and thoughts concerning others who disagree with them, humans are assholes. We will consistently choose evil over good for whatever reason we can justify in our own heads. Hatred, lust, greed, convenience, having to listen to “Baby Shark” on repeat because your child loves it, and so on. It is only through work, thought, and determination that we overcome our base nature to be better, and you can’t regulate your way to that end.
Can you say “War on Drugs,” kids? I knew you could.
In spite of those dark periods, there are points of light that Leftists will likely overlook or disregard because of the race, gender, and sexual orientation of the ones responsible for them. Take William Wilberforce, for example. During the British slave trade, Wilberforce worked to end it at great personal expense and against the prevailing attitudes of the time. But given the Left’s current prevailing attitudes towards white men (especially Christian white men like Wilberforce), I’m guessing he’s going to be mentioned well after someone like Cardi B.
Which is to say probably never because, well, Cardi B.
The big issue with presentism for me is how easily it can be manipulated for ideological gain. And by “can be” I mean “will be.” With Leftists controlling academia, they have all the power and, since they’re around other Leftists, none of the accountability. Combine the two and you have the perfect storm of academic and historical malpractice through the revision of history in real time. It will be like Wikipedia, but with more academics signing off on it.
Of course, nothing bad will come from academics signing off on bad ideas just to fit in, right? That reminds me, how is Michael Mann’s “hockey stick graph” holding up these days?
The worst thing we can do right now is to overlook how far-reaching presentism is. We’ve seen how Common Core has fucked up math and English, and presentism will wind up no differently from where I sit. And as George Santayana once wrote, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Or was it my high school history teacher threatening summer school if I didn’t get my grades up?
Either way, we will have to be on our toes and make sure what is being presented as historical fact meshes with actual historical facts. Yes, that will require us to be honest about our past, even the dingy corners of it, because that is the only way we will have the intellectual high ground. Opting for a version of history that just so happens to fit our beliefs doesn’t achieve this. We have to be above board because we know the Left won’t be.
So, Bill Maher was good for at least one thing. Yay…I guess?
