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January 1, 1998

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

"Ernst Zundel has been accused of spreading racial hatred via the Internet. In your opinion, how far should free speech go on the Net?"

491 people voted for "No restrictions at all" 491 people voted for "Some restrictions are necessary"

"We ought to distinguish here two senses in which we use the word History.

We often employ the word to designate the set of all events that have happened up until now. This is the metaphysical sense whereby we acknowledge that what has happened has happened­p;and nothing can alter that. (Remember the old saying, 'Not even God can change last year's harvest.') This use of the word doesn't get us very far but it does remind us that the historian's job is based on a body of facts.

The word History is also used to denote the account of what has happened. These, as we all know, can vary considerably. The body of what has happened may be as unchanging as the Parmenidean One , but the evidence, tangible and otherwise, often seems in Heracleitan flux.

Sometimes it is entirely lacking. Other times there exist but fragments. Occasionally there is a plethora of seemingly contradictory evidence. Since no one is either infallible or omniscient, an individual historian's work can seldom be accepted as the definitive account of an event or events.

Nevertheless, since things are what they are and men possess the faculty of reason, it is possible in a given instance for one man to have covered all the bases on a particular historical matter. He simply has to prove his title. Even if he has proved it, however, other historians, not to mention troubled seekers, fastidious scholars and even crackpots, have every right to retail their own version of the event and submit it to the judgment of interested readers, who in turn must sift and weigh the evidence and reasoning on their own.

It is commonly said ­p; often with the condescending sneer of the skeptic­p;that history is created by historians. This is manifestly untrue in the first sense of the word. It is unjust with regard even to the second. The conscientious, intellectually honest historian seeks assiduously to bring his account of what happened into line with the facts.

This is by far the most painstaking and difficult part of writing history. Nevertheless, if the historian stopped here, he would be a mere compiler of facts or at best a chronicler ­p; both useful occupations, but neither worthy the title of historian.

Having carefully gathered every stitch, stick and crumb of fact he can find, the historian must stand back and ­p; drawing upon his philosophy, his view of the universe, of human knowledge, of good and evil, of significance and beauty ­p; integrate and interpret those facts.

Thus, two historians who manage to obtain the very same facts about a given event can come up with two conflicting assessments of the event. The job of sorting out these interpretations belongs to the philosopher, particularly to the philosopher of history.

History, like Poetry, makes nothing happen. I know that some of my historian friends out there may bristle at that remark. Please understand what I mean. Obviously one event led to another ­p; but that was the EVENT, not history itself. History's main importance is that of a springboard for objectivity in other related disciplines. The substrate of history is inviolable fact ­p; the law of identity (A = A) engraved upon the bones of the past.

Men have volition. They can learn from the past and steer their present and future action in light of or in spite of it. But the past does not and cannot force their hand.

It is in the interpretive realm, where philosophy takes her seat, that all manner of things, good and bad, begin to happen. One reason I chose this topic to close 1997 and look towards 1998 is that largely owing to a deliberately irrational philosophy, the craft of the historian was under relentless attack during this year past.

I speak here but briefly of the storm of vituperation and controversy that has been raging around World War II revisionism for many a year, nay many a decade. This is not the place to relate the history and heroes of revisionism. This information is readily available to all who are sincerely interested. I simply wish to point out a huge piece of hypocrisy that is befouling today's intellectual atmosphere.

For decades our "educationists" (as against honest scholars, teachers and students) have been preaching to the captive congregations in the public education (sic) system that one must adopt a "critical" attitude and question EVERYTHING.

This is senseless on its face. Imagine "questioning" the law of identity or the fact that twice two is four or that mutual respect among men of good will is superior to rancor and spitefulness.

The dictate comes in handy, however, for egging schoolchildren on to "question" the authority of their parents, the religion (generally Christianity) they have been brought up in, and the rules of morality they have been taught at home. (Consider, as well, how leftists such as Mr. Clinton chant and drone about "the need for change." That changes in a hurry once they've ensconced themselves in the seats of power.)

Perhaps our "educationists" are simply overly zealous? Surely their "critical" method" must be all the rage in a field like History?

It is precisely here that the prevailing sophisticates proclaim their most virulent ukases AGAINST critical thinking. One example will suffice.

It is commonly taught that the German nation deliberately sought to exterminate the Jewish people and that the German nation murdered six million Jews during World War II. This statement is at least open to debate ­p; to objective, dispassionate scholarly discussion.

What happened happened. No historian­p;German or Jewish­p;can change that. The historian's job is to research and tell us what did happen. The facts themselves will not change anything.

But we need the facts in order to build a proper interpretation, including an accurate apportionment of wartime guilt. Time after time, however, the academic elite of this country and others seeks to stifle by juvenile ridicule, academic or professional blackballing, state firepower or outright terrorism and thuggery the critical study of what happened during the Second World War. As I wrote some months ago, "If it's false, what do THEY fear?"

Unlike the facile pleasantries, meaningless count-downs and grandiose resolutions of this season, the matter of historical truth is not trivial. What men have done to themselves and others points to valuable lessons for future actions. Moreover, what happened happened ­p; and most people accept this as a matter of no dispute.

This is plainly evident in many areas of the historical discipline itself. Who gets excited if someone questions what the standard history books say about the Greeks, the Romans or the Persians? All manner of ingeniously twisted and bizarre hypotheses and reinterpretations have been advocated and argued for vociferously. Scholarly debates even become heated and acrimonious, but they remain debates, in which serious, plausible and possible viewpoints are granted a hearing and in which sheer, arbitrary crackpottery receives the intellectual cold shoulder it merits ­p; not the threats and blows of club-wielding inquisitors and goons.

To amend a statement from a 20th century musician whose politics I loathed but whose music I loved: All we are saying is Give Truth a Chance!

Truth is correspondence to reality. Since reality is inexorable, truth will eventually triumph, so long as there are rational minds to hear it and heed it. The changing of the year may change little, for better or worse. It does remind us amid the confetti and noisemakers how steadily the present slips into the past.

Shall we, like Poe's narrator, mourn the loss of the "rare and radiant maiden" known as truth because mysteriously synchronized voices riding roughshod over human reason croak incessantly "Nevermore!"?

So Happy New Year, folks. Cheers if you can find them. And may all your histories be True, Good and Beautiful."

Thought for the Day:

"I will not hide my tastes or aversions . . . If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own."

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)