The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
In the COVID Lockdown, I have had the pleasure of reading several books I had never read before. I have also reviewed the underlines I made in histories and biographies I read years ago. This has been an excellent intellectual exercise. I do not hope the lockdown shall continue for another year or two so that I can peruse all the unread books on our bookshelves that I have collected through the years. Nonetheless this has been a very productive time for me, despite my guilt for not being able to engage in other, more obvious, pastoral activities.
In 1790 the British statesman Edmund Burke gave a speech in Parliament. In it he said, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” In 1905 the Harvard philosopher and poet George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” In 1948 Winston Churchill wrote, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Perhaps ten thousand years ago an ancient inscriber on stone named Oogwunk chipped into a flat rock the words, “People who don’t know why things went wrong long ago will make the same mistakes again, so be careful about what you do.”
There may have been academic majors other than history which would have been more useful for becoming a minister, but I have always been grateful that history was the academic major I chose. In my advanced years history has again become particularly re-ignited.
In the past three months I have become intrigued by underlines I made in biographies and histories I read long ago. The nature of what I underlined back then perhaps tells far more about me than about the people whose lives the authors were describing. I am sorry to admit that I discovered some of my marginal comments were colossally arrogant. On the other hand, in some cases I now affirm what I affirmed way-back-when even more than I did way back when.
Stephen Ambrose wrote a two-volume biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Professor Ambrose is probably the most famous University of Wisconsin history-major of the past century. In his summary of the high and low points in Eisenhower’s presidency, Ambrose wrote, “Any attempt to assess Eisenhower’s eight years as President inevitably reveals more about the person doing the assessing than it does about Eisenhower.” That is always true to one degree or another about every historical summation ever written by anyone about anyone.
Depending on when historians or biographers attempt to describe any historical figure, they may or may not have much verifiable data regarding their subject or subjects. In 1984, for example, when Stephen Ambrose published EISENHOWER: The President, he had a plethora of primary and secondary sources for researching his biography. On the other hand, it would be far more difficult for anyone to try to research the historical essence of Lao Tzu, the influential 6th century BCE Chinese philosopher. Few written sources of Lao Tzu’s life have survived, if they were ever composed in the first place.
Biographers and historians benefit tremendously from the advantage of hindsight. Always they write about people and events that happened in the past, and about which relatively many things were previously written. History is the record of purported facts plus many opinions and prejudices about the lives of historical personages. It has always been that way, and it cannot be possibly be otherwise.
Having taken many courses in the History Department of the University of Wisconsin three years after Dr. Ambrose graduated from there, and having read several of his books, I am led to surmise he and I have quite similar views about many issues political, sociological, and historical. The internationally regarded UW History Dept. had an outstanding and diverse faculty. However, no one would accuse the majority of the UW professors of being a clearly conservative conglomeration, at least not in the late Fifties and early Sixties.
I make that observation not to suggest that historians and biographers should all be clustered in one small segment of the academic spectrum. Like every other slice of academia, all academics are scattered from one end of the scale to the other.
In conclusion, Point One: Everyone who is devoted to a study of history tries to understand what made who do what, or why famous figures of the past made brilliant or disastrous choices under particular circumstances.
Point Two: The more important the person is who is studied, the more material there is to sift and winnow for those whose historiographies to be collated. Hugely famous people have many things written about them, and the best writers look through the best of those writings to attempt to capture the accurate essence of their subjects.
Point Three: Historical people who receive a “good press” during their lifetimes may be literarily shredded a short or long time after they are dead. To millions of Americans, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was a courageous warrior against communism in the 1950s and 60s, but almost no one now is sufficiently foolhardy even to speak two positive words about that unfortunate misanthropic misfit. On the other hand, Ulysses S. Grant was wildly popular as a Civil War general and two term president in the 1860s and 70s. Then he fell out of favor for a century. Finally he has made a spectacular comeback, not the least because of Ron Chernow’s lengthy biography. Mr. Chernow also made Alexander Hamilton even more famous and beloved in his Broadway-bound biography of the ever-controversial founding father.
Point Four (and this is really important): No one who becomes an historical personage has the benefit of hindsight about himself except as it relates to actions he himself has taken. In other words, no major figure can possibly know for certain during his lifetime what to do in the present or future. Thus he has no personal hindsight to give him absolutely clear and certain choices about what he should do now or soon.
Point Five: All of us, with hindsight, may be easily able to see where good or bad choices were made by past people, wise or foolish decisions, helpful or hurtful actions. All of us also are quite capable of deluding ourselves about such matters, because most of us do not like to think ill of ourselves or those we admire. Biographers and historians cannot operate under such self-protective compunctions. They can appraise people from the past with any bias they carefully select. However, those who write summaries of the lives of anyone still living have an unavoidable deficiency. Without hindsight, they may skewer their still-breathing subjects, and others might conclude they were given a bum rap by the bums who chronicled their lives.
Point Six: That is why it is exceptionally wise that anyone who aspires to become the subject of future biographers should follow the advice of Messrs. Burke, Santayana, Churchill, and Oogwunk: Learn from the mistakes of the past if you don’t want to repeat them in the future. That also is when they should recall the statement of the ever-discussed, highly discussable, and (to some) disgusting Teddy Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts – not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or when the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high acclamation, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
In terms of everything written in this essay, and as an exercise in what it is all about, three questions: 1) Of what individual do you suppose Teddy Roosevelt was primarily thinking when he wrote those two far-longer-than-usual and more colorful-than-usual sentences? 2) Who do you suppose he would prefer to write his own life-history: himself, or someone else? 3) Did he have the benefit of hindsight about how he would be viewed by the many biographers and historians of his life when he sat down to compose those extraordinarily lofty thoughts? - May 31, 2020
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.