"I'm still old-fashioned enough to believe that history consists of facts"

[Viva_La_Revolution]

I just finished watching the Encore Booknotes interview with Bernard Lewis (taped Dec. 2001)

I highly recommend it, I learned more in one hour about the history of the Middle East than I ever thought I could.

I wanted to bring to your attention this small snippet from about 10 minutes in. Lamb just loves to push the politics in his interviews, doesn't he? Jeez.

LAMB: But at--at your core of beliefs, your political beliefs or how
you see the world, can you give us s--examples? I mean, what would
you--what are you politically, or do you even consider yourself
political?

Prof. LEWIS: I don't identify myself. I don't always vote for the
same party. I vote for the individual rather than the party.

LAMB: Do you consider yourself right or left?

Prof. LEWIS: I consider myself moderately conservative, but this
wasn't always true. I have gradually moved towards the center and
then slightly to the right, as is normal with the passing of the
years.

LAMB: Is there a political way of looking at this in--in American
terms that you're used to in teaching at Princeton--I mean, if you're
on the right or left, are you going to look at this issue in a certain
way?

Prof. LEWIS: I don't think so. I think obviously we are all
influenced by our basic philosophies. But I'm still old-fashioned
enough to believe that history consists of facts as attested by
evidence. I realize this is no longer generally accepted nowadays,
and evidence is unimportant, accuracy is unimportant. All that
matters is narrative and the intention which inspires the narrative,
but I don't share that view.

LAMB: There's a quote in one of these articles--and I--I'm trying to
find it right here--I can't put my finger on it--but basically you say
Americans don't know much about history.

Prof. LEWIS: My point is that, in this country, there isn't a great
deal of interest and, therefore, of knowledge of history, and the
phrase `that's history' means something is unimportant and irrelevant
to present concerns. It is dismissing history as such. And one is
constantly astonished, and, I may say, appalled at the lack of
knowledge of history, even among educated people. This is the more
remarkable if one thinks that the universities of the United States
are full of tenured historians. There must be tens of thousands of
them turning out hundredweights of books, monographs and so on on
history, all of very high quality--well, mostly of very high quality,
and yet the--the ignoran--the general ignorance of history remains,
and tested in a number of ways. You make an allusion to something
that happened not so long ago, within my lifetime, even educated,
well-informed people look blank. This is a major difference between
the United States and these various cultures of the Middle East, where
they have a very acute sense of history, a very keen awareness of the
past.

Now I'm not saying that their perceptions of history are necessarily
accurate. I mean, we all have our own particular slant to the--the
way in which we view the past, but at least they know. I mean, for
example, in the Iraq-Iran war, between 1980 and 1988, the war
propaganda of both sides, of both the Iraqis and the Iranians, made
frequent allusions to events of the seventh century. Now they didn't
describe them or discuss them, they just alluded to them in passing,
in the secure knowledge that their readers on both--their listeners
and readers, on both sides, Iraqi and Iranian, would pick up these
allusions and understand them. The allusions were to the advent of
Islam, to the coming of Islam to Iran and the struggles between
different factions in earlier Islam. They could allude to these in
the sure knowledge that they would be understood.

When Osama bin Laden, in one of his recent pronouncements, said, `We
have suffered this shame and humiliation for more than 80 years,' I
haven't the slightest doubt that all his intended audience knew
exactly what he was talking about. They didn't have to start
scurrying around and looking up reference books and saying, `Eighty
years? What happened 80 years ago?' Now we did that here; they
didn't.



On edit: link to the complete transcript - it's well worth the read.
http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/index_print.asp?ProgramID=1657

[Hissyspit]

1. "What Happened" consists of facts. "History" is something else...

It has facts in it, but it has all kinds of other stuff, too.

[blm]

2. Thanks for the heads up, Viva. I believe strongly that historic facts will

matter long after the forgotten soundbite.

I find it unacceptable that so many people think historic record doesn't matter, and am saddened to hear it even here at DU.

Accuracy and facts will always matter. It's the lazy mind and unhealthy ego that ignores facts.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. That's why I included the following questions...

about Americans not having the grasp of history that most of the rest of the world seems to.

[Toots]

9. They will only matter if recorded accurately

Did you know that Bush* once chopped down a cherry tree and when asked about it by his father said "I can not tell a lie father Kerry did it" and Kerry was prosecuted for destruction of property and Bush* becomes known as Honest George...

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. shameless

self kick!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. ...

one more. :P

because I ReallyReally enjoyed this.

[patdem]

6. Viva, while a agree for the most part that history contains FACTS ..

..the biggest ah ha moment in my life is when I fully understood the FACT..'to the victors goes the writing of history'. Which means FACTS are often left out in order to slant the interpretation of the FACTS to enhance the standing of the 'victors'. And thanks for the heads up regarding this segment. I will be sure to watch it if and when it is repeated. I LOVE your C-Span threads. I read them every weekend, but I did not catch the importance of this one.

[izzybeans]

7. That's why he suggests paying attention to academic historians

and not the popular history books peddled by "victorious" elites on the T.V.

[ComerPerro]

8. If he's so into history, and so right wing, then maybe

he should study some German history, between 1928 and 1945

[H2O Man]

10. I note that some

responses include the idea that "the victors write history." And that is true, to an extent, but it also misses the point. Malcolm X taught us that the oppressor cut black Americans off from their history for specific purposes. It worked, for a long time. But, to the exact extent that black Americans learned their true history, and re-connected to their "Roots" (as Malcolm's friend Alex Haley did as a result of his association with Brother Malcolm), they were able to come of age and change America.

"The victors write history" should never be considered an excuse for being a limp puppet, lacking a spine. We need to expand our understanding of it to include recognizing the role technology has played in cutting us off from our roots, as well as taking advantage of that same technology in order to not only learn history -- but to write it as well.

(And today I will sit and watch the snow as I continue work on my second book on -- what else? -- history!)

[Jim__]

11. Does the professor cite any source for his claim?

Prof. LEWIS: I don't think so. I think obviously we are all
influenced by our basic philosophies. But I'm still old-fashioned
enough to believe that history consists of facts as attested by
evidence. I realize this is no longer generally accepted nowadays,
and evidence is unimportant, accuracy is unimportant. All that
matters is narrative and the intention which inspires the narrative,
but I don't share that view.

I realize that a number of scholars question the accuracy of our historical knowledge. But, I'm not clear on exactly who claims that evidence is unimportant, accuracy is unimportant. And, there probably are a few people that can be cited who make such a claim; but, I'm interested in something to back up the claim that this is now generally accepted.

People who pump up their view point by attributing ridiculous opinions to those who disagree with them undermine their own credibility.

Can anyone cite a source that can back up the professor's claim?

[H2O Man]

12. The Bush administration

might be the most obvious example.

[Jim__]

14. That's interesting. A number of people think the Bush Administration's

view of the Middle East is largely based on Lewis' view.

For example:

Bernard Lewis can be considered as the chief ideologue behind the shaping of US foreign policy post-Sept 11th. Having the academic authority and the legitimacy to be heard, he could root inside conservative as well as liberal thinking the basic premise that Islamic societies are backward and need change. Today, the majority of Middle Eastern thought (from basic opinions in the press to academic research) bears the footprints of this particular perspective.

Lewis is the first scholar to coin the term “Clash of Civilizations” in a 1957 article on the Middle East way before Samuel Huntington, who got famous for this theory, could formulate such a thought. Then in 1990, he published a rather controversial paper, The Roots of Muslim Rage, arguing that Muslims’ supposed “resentment” were the result of a "historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present and the worldwide expansion of both". Between these two dates, Lewis has been a very prolific writer of the bestseller kind, who could keep strangely enough an intact academic standing. His books rolled over the same arguments, which evolved from an abstract perception of a clash of civilization, to a targeted and precise thought that Muslims are angry people. In the words of Anis Shivani, Lewis has strived to describe the Islamic world in a “suspended state of humiliation”. ...more

And:

Today, that epiphany—Lewis's Kemalist vision of a secularized, Westernized Arab democracy that casts off the medieval shackles of Islam and enters modernity at last—remains the core of George W. Bush's faltering vision in Iraq. As his other rationales for war fall away, Bush has only democratic transformation to point to as a casus belli in order to justify one of the costliest foreign adventures in American history. And even now Bush, having handed over faux sovereignty to the Iraqis and while beating a pell-mell retreat under fire, does not want to settle for some watered-down or Islamicized version of democracy. His administration's official goal is still dictated by the “Lewis Doctrine,” as The Wall Street Journal called it: a Westernized polity, reconstituted and imposed from above like Kemal's Turkey, that is to become a bulwark of security for America and a model for the region. ...more

I realize that Bernard Lewis is a recognized expert on the Middle East. And, I also realize that the bush adminsitration's view of the Middle East is not nearly as sophisticated as is Lewis'. However, Lewis remark about the generally accepted view of history appeared to me - within the limited context of the description - to be aimed more at academics than politicians. I don't believe his assertion holds for academic historians.

[DrDebug]

13. Lyndon LaRouche / PNAC

He is one of the authors of Executive Intelligence Review and he belong to the LaRouche group and he is indirectly involved with PNAC.