Back in the late 1980s, I watched a PBS special on the human mind and learned about the terrible fate of Clive Wearing, a man unable to make new memories. He had been an accomplished musician and musical programmer for the BBC, but in 1985 he contracted herpes encephalitis, which attacks the central nervous system. Since then, he has lived in a deep mental fog that never lifts. He recalls almost nothing about his previous life, and he is unable to remember anything that happens to him for longer than about 30 seconds. (He can, however, still play the piano and conduct a choir.) His life is a continual experience of emerging to consciousness and trying to piece together what’s going on, only to forget immediately and start all over again. The most heartrending detail I recalled from the TV program was his journal: a long sequence of entries along the lines of “I am now completely awake” or “I have finally woken up,” with all the entries but the last one crossed out.
Great piece Brink, though I think there is a paradox here. Yes, the internet has ushered in an age "presentism," but at the same time, our short attention spans leave us less "present" than ever. Go to a concert and you will find most people holding up their phones and recording the event for watch in the future...are they truly living in the present at all?
To your point, over the past few years, I have noticed that Google searches are increasingly "presentism-cursed" and it is getting harder and harder to find information pertaining to past events. All links that appear in the top searches as designed to sell me something today...not provide me information about something six months ago.
As a retired history teacher now serving as a docent at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum, I appreciate this eloquent description of the problem
I share thd view that too many on the left contribute to a gloomy mood that’s hardly encourages a serious study of history
However, nearly half the country will vote for a man who mangles history every day. And Trump talks as if the country will die tomorrow if he is not elected
Many in the right ard stripping our best history teachers of agency in the name of Parent rights
I'm reminded of John Adams: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
The trouble with this progression is that the grandkids wind up ignorant about politics, war, etc. An unwitting recapitulation of the saying (about wealth) "from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations".
In my own case, I studied computer science and mathematics so that I could earn enough to retire and read history and literature. I'm not wise enough to plan for multiple generations, only how to earn a living and retire to "finer things".
You make a good point about the fragility of some kinds of progress: if we make gains in the context of facing hard challenges or learning from bad mistakes, it may be hard to maintain those gains when those who remember those challenges and mistakes have passed from the scene.
Brink, I can't disagree with any of your points, but it seems to me that you're engaged in your own case of presentism. Or maybe romanticism.
Unfortunately, I don't think there was ever a time (at least not for long) that there was any great historical literacy, or any other kind of literacy for that matter. I can't find the quote, but I recall that someone once asked Woodrow Wilson, when he was president of Princeton, how many scholars he had. His reply was along the lines of "maybe 20%."
I don't doubt that in your years at Princeton you mostly associated with reasonably serious students who devoted significant time to their studies, but even then there were some lazy legacies, uninterested jocks, and dedicated climbers. Even in Wilson's years, there were many middle-brow people who read widely on many topics, even if they hadn't attended college. I think this continues today - historical books of many types continue to sell well, and they mostly aren't the ones dedicated to undermining our common society. I have a good friend who spent seven years as a Marine, then got a degree from the local State University. He works as an IT manager, and plays pool in bars. But he has intense curiosity about just about every topic, and learns a lot "on his own."
Today, our educational institutions, especially the elite ones, seem committed to obsessing over all that is wrong with our society while denying that anything is right, or even tolerable. This is new. But it seems mostly unrelated to lack of historical knowledge.
Thanks for your comments. You make a very good point that there was no golden age of historical literacy and intellectual seriousness more generally. But I think it's clear enough that things have gotten worse--a lot fewer history majors, a lot fewer people taking college-level Western civilization and American history courses. And extremely widespread ignorance of what I consider to be the single most important historical fact people should know: that the past couple of centuries, and particularly the past few decades, have seen dramatic transformational progress for human welfare around the planet.
Again, I agree in part. Certainly, there are a lot fewer history majors. But many of the history majors of the 1980s chose the field because it didn't require math, and could lead to law school. No doubt they learned some interesting history along the way, and also how to do research.
I take your point about the decline of Western civilization, American history, and Great Books courses, particularly as requirements at elite universities. This decline was well along by the time we attended Princeton - there was a distribution requirement that could be met by two history courses, but there was no history requirement at all, and I don't recall a broad survey course in either Western or American history. I started to meet this requirement with "Europe in the 20th Century", but found the first two lectures to be unbelievably dull, and noticed that most of my classmates actually seemed to be asleep. So I switched to Roman history, and loved it. I followed up with Greek history. These gave me good understanding of some of the bases of our Western civilization, but that was it.
I agree that ignorance of the story of progress from (pick your start date; I'll take 1600) to the present makes one unaware of the single greatest story in world history. This ignorance has some significant consequences - it can make people unwilling to defend the gains, and far too willing to "tear it all down" because it wasn't perfect in its treatment of every possible disadvantaged minority group, while still retaining too much unearned privilege. Our society continues to be imperfect, but has more to praise than any society at any point in history, anywhere in the world. Students aware of this might still criticize Israel, but they would find little to praise in Hamas. And they'd probably be less romantic in believing that liberal democracy is just waiting to emerge among Palestinians.
Great essay on a critical topic. I work a lot with high school kids, many of whom are very bright, and I think a good bit of the turn toward "practical" subjects is simply a response to rising competition. If one grew up in the 1950s or 1960s, one could become a historian and expect a reasonably middle-class career to come out of it, for example in teaching. A woman could reasonably expect that she wouldn't have to do the heavy lifting on household earning, which gave her freedom. Western society had no competition from Asia or other places.
For young kids today everything is changed. Teaching positions are scarce, there are no more pensions, and housing, higher education, and health care costs have risen much faster than wages. Many of the kids I know aspire to do art and writing as hobbies while they focus their schooling and career ambitions on things like computer science.
That description of how "books" are kept (or not) on the internet is like falling back into the past of rare tomes being seen to be in some notable's library and then on his death the library being broken up or worse if there were a revolution.
In his newest book, Jonathan Haidt tells us it's hard for people above the age of, say, 40, to talk with the average person who's under 40 because many of the latter only know social media scandals that wax and wane, while these folks simultaneously don't have much understanding of the history of their culture, and therefore feel apart from it. I suspect this problem will worsen in the short term, and I hope it can be reversed in the long term.
Thanks so much for the amazing piece! It really hits home, and I thought I’d share some personal experiences similar to what you described.
As someone who’s basically grown up with ‘post-literacy’ as the norm, the observation about lack of ‘deep literacy’ is impossible to deny. I’m just about done with my 4 years of high school, and I think this applies to most people in my grade (likely more). It’s not even ‘deep literacy’; I feel (though I can’t be sure) that many of my classmates are functionally illiterate. And not just in history.
I can think of a few examples immediately. I remember a question in my AP psychology class, which asked for an analysis comparing two positions about human needs. One of them was summarized by a quote from Dostoyevsky: “Without a firm idea of himself and his purpose in life, man cannot live with himself even if surrounded by bread.”
The question assumed (incorrectly) that students would be able to understand the quote. I assumed so also, until the person sitting behind me got confused and asked what it meant. Then I realized most of the class probably had no idea what Dostoyveysky was saying (much less who he was). I don’t think this was my classmate being exceptionally bad at reading comprehension either. The issue was (quite common in most classes), students only really learned how to think in a very narrow way with a specific vocabulary. Introduce something unfamiliar (say, by changing a few words) and they immediately become helpless. There’s no pattern tracing, analytical skills, or critical thinking. Just… parroting.
I don’t think I can disagree about technology and quick click media being a part of the problem, but I think the problem runs deeper than that. I just don’t think my classmates actually engage with the material.
I think my best example would be when the class read and discussed Garret Hardin for Environmental science. Hardin, being a neo-malthusian, advanced a ton of repugnant arguments in his piece ‘Tragedy of the Commons’.
Take for example:
> If our goal is to maximize population it is obvious what we must do: We must make the work calories per person approach as close to zero as possible. No gourmet meals, no vacations, no sports, no music, no literature, no art.
Or…
> To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action. Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the United Nations.
Needless to say, I was horrified. Imagine my surprise when my classmates glossed over the Repugnant conclusion and a blatant argument against reproductive rights. They also ignored the fact that Hardin’s thesis (population growth would eventually cause mass immiseration) was complete nonsense. They then proceeded by taking the face value argument, and agreed with eachother on how important it was to restrict individuals from polluting the environment. Skipping over all of Hardin’s arguments and moving on to the modern, sanitized version of all his revolting ideas.
In my experience, superficial ‘learning’ like this is sadly all too common. We read a few passages, answer a few questions, do a little work, and pretend to have understood the material which we no doubt will forget after the test. We repeat whatever the teacher wants us to say, and smile innocently when asked to elaborate. Even basic knowledge can be missing, and it’s just the same for history as it is for everything else. Oftentimes this gets farcical. A friend of mine who is at the top of the class is headed to CMU. She can (or at least could) elaborate on how states gained and maintained power (a key AP test theme). But she didn’t even know why the U.S joined WWII (who attacked us? Was it Germany?), much less what happened during it. She still passed the test with a perfect score, because all you need to pass a test is cramming.
I guess I’m taking your analysis of presentism and applying to all fields, not just history. For many of my peers, learning itself is not done in a meaningful, coherent way, even in schools (the one place you might expect to find it!). They ‘learn’, only to the extent they need to pass an exam, and in the process develop a violent dislike for their bogus education. The result is that no actual learning happens, attention span or not. The damage is twofold. They can’t actually read texts they don’t understand, and even if they did they don’t see why they should.
I could go on with my frustrations, but I think I’ve taken up too much space already. I ought to not tempt our modern attention spans so much. (/j) Hope you enjoyed reading though, and would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks so much for your first-hand report from the classroom--depressing if not surprising. I think it's worth stressing that the percentage of high school kids really interested in learning and stretching themselves intellectually has always been fairly modest. What worries me is the decline in standards even in elite institutions.
Of course. Love for learning (at least academically) has been rather rare in my experience, and though I suspect the education system in the US is partly to blame there's no use denying it.
I find it depressing too, particularly as a person who really loves history. I know this may sound a bit presumptuous, but I've grown to cherish it, even though I've never done much in the way of formal study. History for me is understanding, as King said, "...we are all connected by threads of mutuality, tied together in a single garment of destiny". Knowing that the present is the product of the past, both good and ill, and that our choices will determine whether the world of tomorrow will be better than today.
The lesson is particularly acute to me as the children of two Chinese immigrants. I know that everything which I took for granted as a child-- freedom, civic liberties, vast material wealth, are all products of hard fought struggles; won for me by the blood and sweat of people whom I've never met. Learning their story has showed me that being born here was a priceless gift, given freely by those who faced hardship in their day so I would not need to now. Just like my parents, who clawed their way here, seven thousand miles from home, so I could grow up with prosperity like nothing they ever knew. Had they not done so, I might be a starving farmer in China, wondering when harvest might come. Or, more likely, I would have never been born.
It's incredibly humbling to understand all this. But above all, it contributed to a sense of duty. My life is not mine to squander. I ought to make something of it, do good, be happy, and live up to the sacrifices made for me. To escape my own life, and work to make the world a better place for others. To remember Cicero's words, non nati solum nati sumus-- not for ourselves alone are we born.
I know I try, and often fail. I never volunteer as much as I want, write as much as I want. I devolve to the experience machine all too often. But still, I try, and I am happier with that knowledge than I will ever be simply wasting away.
I'm not sure if it's possible to show my peers this. But I think if I did, and presented my case fully, many would try, and they would love it as well.
I guess this is why I don't personally believe we ought to be worried too much about decline in standards in elite institutions. I believe the sort of appreciation for history we both value is likely not taught there, or anywhere, for that matter. I think it's the result of deeply personal, loving efforts to reach beyond our bubble in time.
I'm unsure if you read Yale Professor William Deresiewicz's Excellent Sheep, but I think the dynamics he describes at elite colleges is starkly similar to the incentives students face at my school, only with higher stakes. Students at elite universities are not really selected for intellectual curiosity or genuine leadership but for privilege, willingness to check the right boxes, and above all, heaps and heaps of free time.
Everything is performative. The two dozen extracurriculars that will no doubt be dropped after admission. Every weekend lost in different competitions. Perfect grades obtained by last second cramming, and shiny certificates for the internships and mission trips brought by their parents money. The sports, like fencing or sailing, are just the icing on the cake. Deresiewicz is of course not describing everyone at an ivy league, but the little I know from people who got admitted and personal friends seem to corroborate his thesis. The ivy admits tend to be artificial products of either helicopter parenting or crushing psychological conditioning. To gain admittance, they sacrificed friends, hobbies, and self direction for the carefully cultivated regimen of an admissions counselor. Not the type you would imagine as genuine thinkers. I think he sums it up pretty well here:
> The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.
These are, by and large (though of course there are exceptions) not the next Obamas, Mandelas, or Tarbells. They will be consultants, middle managers, or investment bankers, and rise into positions of genuine power if they are lucky. Once there they will likely follow in the footsteps of the same people who pushed our democracy to the precipice.
I'm not sure if we ought to place our faith in them to revive our sense of purpose or cultural memory. They were selected to perpetuate a broken system, not to change it. They will be happy with their undeserved privilege, convincing themselves it was earned, and thirst endlessly to change the world while never considering the plight of the less fortunate. They will be insecure, of course, and deep down realize all of this. But what then? I think they are more like the much derided russian aristocrats of 1917 than they realize.
"We imagine that their sufferings are one thing, and our life another."
But then, I suppose I shouldn't get too carried away. I know very few elite students. What about you? Is Excellent Sheep an accurate descriptor?
Thanks for sharing your perspective so thoughtfully. I haven't read Excellent Sheep, but I read reviews and excerpts when it came out so I'm familiar with the argument. I think he fairly accurately describes the current system and what it incentivizes, but still there are plenty of bright, curious kids at those institutions. Most people are conformists--always have been, always will be: the problem is that the values elites are conforming to today are off. Don't worry too much about the crowd; your job is to find your people who see the world as you do. I grew up in the Deep South in the 60s and 70s in a fairly aggressively anti-intellectual ambient culture, but my two closest friends from childhood both ended up getting history PhDs! You can find people who feel the gratitude you feel, and the curiosity you feel--they're out there.
Mhm, I think you're right on all points, thanks for the advice!
Quite strange, actually. I generally think the west coast California area is fairly liberal and intellectual as far as culture goes. But then, finding people who think similarly to me has been more difficult than I anticipated. I suspect it's because I'm not really in the right circle, high school being what it is.
Do you know of anyone who thinks similarly to me? I've only met one or two myself in real life. I know this may be a lot to ask, but I was wondering if you could connect me with or point towards where they might be.
I'm finding the current trajectory of our country to be looking quite abysmal, and with my beliefs being what they are I find it hard to just sit still. I feel like I ought to be doing something, and I do not want to settle for a performative turn. I feel think I'd love to interact with people who recognize the problem and do real, substantive work to fix it; like what I see from you and your colleagues at Niskanen.
I would love it if you had any more advice for me!
Finding your kind of people can be challenging in high school, but if you're heading to college next that's a chance to meet a whole new crowd. I had a few close friends in high school but never felt like I "fit in"; college was a wonderful opportunity to meet people. And it worked -- along with my former roommates who are all lifelong friends, I'm heading to my 40th college reunion later this month!
And thanks for the advice! Yeah, I've definitely heard college is a different place. I think I can find some new friends also, and leaving home will certainly be an experience. Hopefully I can find some lifelong friends as well.
Thanks so much for the conversation by the way, really appreciate being able to talk to someone I respect.
I teach middle school English and the average student's knowledge of even American history gets worse with each passing year. The medium is the message. With fifteen second videos driving youth culture, they don't even watch movies. Any kind of figurative language or basic allusion seems lost.
Case in point, one our readings referenced Prohibition. Many students have genuinely *never* heard of it. That baffles and bewilders me! At that age, I could at least give a thumbnail sketch of the major periods in American history with working dates. Basic civics. Yet of all things, back when The History Channel showed history--like music videos on MTV--maybe that wasn't so farfetched.
In sum, there are no easy answers at the bottom. I collect and study old primers and schoolbooks and hope I don't end up like the wandering book folks of Fahrenheit 451.
Thanks for sharing -- sigh. By the way, I just recently reread Fahrenheit 451 for the first time since I was a kid: I had remembered its "1984" elements, but completely missed back then its "Idiocracy" style satire of television. There are worse fates than being one of the wandering book folks!
Brink another home run. Beyond brilliant. I hate to sound like an old crank, but today’s kids- especially ones demonstrating on campuses - have no historical clue. Ditto with MAGA. We are cursed to live in an of presentism
Some of us may know it better than others. I once saw it in a corporate training session, attributed to "General Santa Ana" - nobody's idea of a philosopher or historian.
Another symptom of cultural amnesia is our inattention to the problem of orphaned works. The vast majority of books are out of print, and accessible only in a handful of large libraries. Technology has the means to make these works available and searchable. I personally found a few treasured photographs of a great-great-grandfather who walked the Oregon Trail in 1852, in an extremely obscure volume scanned by Google Books.
Meanwhile, our copyright legislation is designed to protect commercially-important assets, and organizations like Google and the Internet Archive that digitize orphaned works are sued by the likes of Hachette for infringement. Our copyright system needs an overhaul that protects Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse, but also allows works that are no longer commercially viable (the vast majority) to be digitized and preserved.
Excellent article. I would like to add that personal history has also been lost. We look at ancestor.com and see names and dates, but we have no idea who these people were, how they lived, if they fought in the Civil War, WWII or were Revolutionary soldiers. They are the source of who we are. Children no longer know how to write except in text shorthand. As I read the letters your mom and I wrote for 30 plus years, the history not just of family is there, but of politics, and so much more. What we did together all those years was a huge amazing exposure of the times we lived. As you said, your love of history came through your mom when you were a kid. So much is not being taught to our children now and yes, the attention span is as long as a limited text. What to do about this is the question?? Thanks for the insights. Barbara
Thanks so much for your comment, Barbara. The loss of handwriting skills is part of the problem, I agree. I knew kids no longer know how to write cursive, but I read recently they can't read it either! So future historians will need to learn script like they're learning a foreign language just so they can read original handwritten documents. And learning family history is such a great entry point into the broader study of history by making it personal.
Brink, you've served up an excellent article summarizing the the dangers of presentism and the many threats to public historical consciousness. As a Florida college history professor, I've spent a significant portion of my career fighting the problems you describe. Absolutely, the electronic revolution and the rewiring of our entire approach to knowledge presents an enormous challenge to history. And, make no mistake, the resulting tidal wave of electronic entertainment and misinformation has the potential to finish off public historical literacy . So, given this alarming situation, what is to be done? Alas, I haven't found any magic bullets, but here are a few practical steps that ordinary citizens with an interest in history can take to help keep the discipline alive.
First, support your local museums, historic sites, and history festivals. Visit them frequently, participate in their events, and contribute to them financially. I have been sending my students to local museums for their course papers and I am finding that they often become engaged and interested by the sheer novelty of the experience. Many parents do not take their children to such places and instead opt for movies, sports, and theme parks. So my students are often taken aback and confused by the assignment but then warm up to it once they get inside the historic site or museum. Second, determine what the history requirements are in your state's universities, colleges, and K-12 systems and advocate strengthening them to your legislators. When college history requirements in Florida started getting pushed out, the Florida Conference of Historians convened an informal lobbying group and, by enlisting prominent friends and associates in the community, managed to meet with legislators and get rules passed that kept history courses as at least a prominent option in the general education course requirements. Interestingly, we found that both conservative and liberal legislators were receptive to arguments about the value of history. The ideological divides can be tricky but are not insurmountable. Remember, there are a vast numbers of community and state colleges where blue collar, nuts and bolts history gets taught every day. These institutions don't get much attention but they are an essential part of history communication. Ultimately, the entire history profession needs to emphasize the importance of public outreach and it needs to take general education history survey courses seriously. Relentlessly publishing or perishing will not save the discipline and may even cause it to wink out and be forgotten. Third, don't forget social media. Make posts about your personal experiences with history. Include a few pretty park or historic site pictures and you might be surprised at the response. The above measures are certainly not a comprehensive solution but they can help.
Where will the discipline of history end up? I don't know, but taking some practical actions can be an uplifting tonic to the depressing reality of historical illiteracy. History may be about to disappear, or it may be headed for a rebirth and a brighter future. No way to tell, but I'm certain life is more interesting when we all enjoy and engage with history!
That description of how "books" are kept (or not) on the internet is like falling back into the past of rare tomes being seen to be in some notable's library and then on his death the library being broken up or worse if there were a revolution.
Please expand your analysis of history ignorance by exposing the horrific lack of knowledge about our own history. kowingg and understanding our hiostory is needed mare than ever.
Great piece Brink, though I think there is a paradox here. Yes, the internet has ushered in an age "presentism," but at the same time, our short attention spans leave us less "present" than ever. Go to a concert and you will find most people holding up their phones and recording the event for watch in the future...are they truly living in the present at all?
To your point, over the past few years, I have noticed that Google searches are increasingly "presentism-cursed" and it is getting harder and harder to find information pertaining to past events. All links that appear in the top searches as designed to sell me something today...not provide me information about something six months ago.
Very good point: our endless present is so filled with distractions that we have great difficulty being "present."
As a retired history teacher now serving as a docent at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum, I appreciate this eloquent description of the problem
I share thd view that too many on the left contribute to a gloomy mood that’s hardly encourages a serious study of history
However, nearly half the country will vote for a man who mangles history every day. And Trump talks as if the country will die tomorrow if he is not elected
Many in the right ard stripping our best history teachers of agency in the name of Parent rights
The problem is even worse than Lindsay describes
Dennis Lubeck
I'm reminded of John Adams: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
The trouble with this progression is that the grandkids wind up ignorant about politics, war, etc. An unwitting recapitulation of the saying (about wealth) "from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations".
In my own case, I studied computer science and mathematics so that I could earn enough to retire and read history and literature. I'm not wise enough to plan for multiple generations, only how to earn a living and retire to "finer things".
You make a good point about the fragility of some kinds of progress: if we make gains in the context of facing hard challenges or learning from bad mistakes, it may be hard to maintain those gains when those who remember those challenges and mistakes have passed from the scene.
Brink, I can't disagree with any of your points, but it seems to me that you're engaged in your own case of presentism. Or maybe romanticism.
Unfortunately, I don't think there was ever a time (at least not for long) that there was any great historical literacy, or any other kind of literacy for that matter. I can't find the quote, but I recall that someone once asked Woodrow Wilson, when he was president of Princeton, how many scholars he had. His reply was along the lines of "maybe 20%."
I don't doubt that in your years at Princeton you mostly associated with reasonably serious students who devoted significant time to their studies, but even then there were some lazy legacies, uninterested jocks, and dedicated climbers. Even in Wilson's years, there were many middle-brow people who read widely on many topics, even if they hadn't attended college. I think this continues today - historical books of many types continue to sell well, and they mostly aren't the ones dedicated to undermining our common society. I have a good friend who spent seven years as a Marine, then got a degree from the local State University. He works as an IT manager, and plays pool in bars. But he has intense curiosity about just about every topic, and learns a lot "on his own."
Today, our educational institutions, especially the elite ones, seem committed to obsessing over all that is wrong with our society while denying that anything is right, or even tolerable. This is new. But it seems mostly unrelated to lack of historical knowledge.
Thanks for your comments. You make a very good point that there was no golden age of historical literacy and intellectual seriousness more generally. But I think it's clear enough that things have gotten worse--a lot fewer history majors, a lot fewer people taking college-level Western civilization and American history courses. And extremely widespread ignorance of what I consider to be the single most important historical fact people should know: that the past couple of centuries, and particularly the past few decades, have seen dramatic transformational progress for human welfare around the planet.
Again, I agree in part. Certainly, there are a lot fewer history majors. But many of the history majors of the 1980s chose the field because it didn't require math, and could lead to law school. No doubt they learned some interesting history along the way, and also how to do research.
I take your point about the decline of Western civilization, American history, and Great Books courses, particularly as requirements at elite universities. This decline was well along by the time we attended Princeton - there was a distribution requirement that could be met by two history courses, but there was no history requirement at all, and I don't recall a broad survey course in either Western or American history. I started to meet this requirement with "Europe in the 20th Century", but found the first two lectures to be unbelievably dull, and noticed that most of my classmates actually seemed to be asleep. So I switched to Roman history, and loved it. I followed up with Greek history. These gave me good understanding of some of the bases of our Western civilization, but that was it.
I agree that ignorance of the story of progress from (pick your start date; I'll take 1600) to the present makes one unaware of the single greatest story in world history. This ignorance has some significant consequences - it can make people unwilling to defend the gains, and far too willing to "tear it all down" because it wasn't perfect in its treatment of every possible disadvantaged minority group, while still retaining too much unearned privilege. Our society continues to be imperfect, but has more to praise than any society at any point in history, anywhere in the world. Students aware of this might still criticize Israel, but they would find little to praise in Hamas. And they'd probably be less romantic in believing that liberal democracy is just waiting to emerge among Palestinians.
Great essay on a critical topic. I work a lot with high school kids, many of whom are very bright, and I think a good bit of the turn toward "practical" subjects is simply a response to rising competition. If one grew up in the 1950s or 1960s, one could become a historian and expect a reasonably middle-class career to come out of it, for example in teaching. A woman could reasonably expect that she wouldn't have to do the heavy lifting on household earning, which gave her freedom. Western society had no competition from Asia or other places.
For young kids today everything is changed. Teaching positions are scarce, there are no more pensions, and housing, higher education, and health care costs have risen much faster than wages. Many of the kids I know aspire to do art and writing as hobbies while they focus their schooling and career ambitions on things like computer science.
That description of how "books" are kept (or not) on the internet is like falling back into the past of rare tomes being seen to be in some notable's library and then on his death the library being broken up or worse if there were a revolution.
In his newest book, Jonathan Haidt tells us it's hard for people above the age of, say, 40, to talk with the average person who's under 40 because many of the latter only know social media scandals that wax and wane, while these folks simultaneously don't have much understanding of the history of their culture, and therefore feel apart from it. I suspect this problem will worsen in the short term, and I hope it can be reversed in the long term.
Thanks so much for the amazing piece! It really hits home, and I thought I’d share some personal experiences similar to what you described.
As someone who’s basically grown up with ‘post-literacy’ as the norm, the observation about lack of ‘deep literacy’ is impossible to deny. I’m just about done with my 4 years of high school, and I think this applies to most people in my grade (likely more). It’s not even ‘deep literacy’; I feel (though I can’t be sure) that many of my classmates are functionally illiterate. And not just in history.
I can think of a few examples immediately. I remember a question in my AP psychology class, which asked for an analysis comparing two positions about human needs. One of them was summarized by a quote from Dostoyevsky: “Without a firm idea of himself and his purpose in life, man cannot live with himself even if surrounded by bread.”
The question assumed (incorrectly) that students would be able to understand the quote. I assumed so also, until the person sitting behind me got confused and asked what it meant. Then I realized most of the class probably had no idea what Dostoyveysky was saying (much less who he was). I don’t think this was my classmate being exceptionally bad at reading comprehension either. The issue was (quite common in most classes), students only really learned how to think in a very narrow way with a specific vocabulary. Introduce something unfamiliar (say, by changing a few words) and they immediately become helpless. There’s no pattern tracing, analytical skills, or critical thinking. Just… parroting.
I don’t think I can disagree about technology and quick click media being a part of the problem, but I think the problem runs deeper than that. I just don’t think my classmates actually engage with the material.
I think my best example would be when the class read and discussed Garret Hardin for Environmental science. Hardin, being a neo-malthusian, advanced a ton of repugnant arguments in his piece ‘Tragedy of the Commons’.
Take for example:
> If our goal is to maximize population it is obvious what we must do: We must make the work calories per person approach as close to zero as possible. No gourmet meals, no vacations, no sports, no music, no literature, no art.
Or…
> To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action. Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the United Nations.
Needless to say, I was horrified. Imagine my surprise when my classmates glossed over the Repugnant conclusion and a blatant argument against reproductive rights. They also ignored the fact that Hardin’s thesis (population growth would eventually cause mass immiseration) was complete nonsense. They then proceeded by taking the face value argument, and agreed with eachother on how important it was to restrict individuals from polluting the environment. Skipping over all of Hardin’s arguments and moving on to the modern, sanitized version of all his revolting ideas.
In my experience, superficial ‘learning’ like this is sadly all too common. We read a few passages, answer a few questions, do a little work, and pretend to have understood the material which we no doubt will forget after the test. We repeat whatever the teacher wants us to say, and smile innocently when asked to elaborate. Even basic knowledge can be missing, and it’s just the same for history as it is for everything else. Oftentimes this gets farcical. A friend of mine who is at the top of the class is headed to CMU. She can (or at least could) elaborate on how states gained and maintained power (a key AP test theme). But she didn’t even know why the U.S joined WWII (who attacked us? Was it Germany?), much less what happened during it. She still passed the test with a perfect score, because all you need to pass a test is cramming.
I guess I’m taking your analysis of presentism and applying to all fields, not just history. For many of my peers, learning itself is not done in a meaningful, coherent way, even in schools (the one place you might expect to find it!). They ‘learn’, only to the extent they need to pass an exam, and in the process develop a violent dislike for their bogus education. The result is that no actual learning happens, attention span or not. The damage is twofold. They can’t actually read texts they don’t understand, and even if they did they don’t see why they should.
I could go on with my frustrations, but I think I’ve taken up too much space already. I ought to not tempt our modern attention spans so much. (/j) Hope you enjoyed reading though, and would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks so much for your first-hand report from the classroom--depressing if not surprising. I think it's worth stressing that the percentage of high school kids really interested in learning and stretching themselves intellectually has always been fairly modest. What worries me is the decline in standards even in elite institutions.
Of course. Love for learning (at least academically) has been rather rare in my experience, and though I suspect the education system in the US is partly to blame there's no use denying it.
I find it depressing too, particularly as a person who really loves history. I know this may sound a bit presumptuous, but I've grown to cherish it, even though I've never done much in the way of formal study. History for me is understanding, as King said, "...we are all connected by threads of mutuality, tied together in a single garment of destiny". Knowing that the present is the product of the past, both good and ill, and that our choices will determine whether the world of tomorrow will be better than today.
The lesson is particularly acute to me as the children of two Chinese immigrants. I know that everything which I took for granted as a child-- freedom, civic liberties, vast material wealth, are all products of hard fought struggles; won for me by the blood and sweat of people whom I've never met. Learning their story has showed me that being born here was a priceless gift, given freely by those who faced hardship in their day so I would not need to now. Just like my parents, who clawed their way here, seven thousand miles from home, so I could grow up with prosperity like nothing they ever knew. Had they not done so, I might be a starving farmer in China, wondering when harvest might come. Or, more likely, I would have never been born.
It's incredibly humbling to understand all this. But above all, it contributed to a sense of duty. My life is not mine to squander. I ought to make something of it, do good, be happy, and live up to the sacrifices made for me. To escape my own life, and work to make the world a better place for others. To remember Cicero's words, non nati solum nati sumus-- not for ourselves alone are we born.
I know I try, and often fail. I never volunteer as much as I want, write as much as I want. I devolve to the experience machine all too often. But still, I try, and I am happier with that knowledge than I will ever be simply wasting away.
I'm not sure if it's possible to show my peers this. But I think if I did, and presented my case fully, many would try, and they would love it as well.
I guess this is why I don't personally believe we ought to be worried too much about decline in standards in elite institutions. I believe the sort of appreciation for history we both value is likely not taught there, or anywhere, for that matter. I think it's the result of deeply personal, loving efforts to reach beyond our bubble in time.
I'm unsure if you read Yale Professor William Deresiewicz's Excellent Sheep, but I think the dynamics he describes at elite colleges is starkly similar to the incentives students face at my school, only with higher stakes. Students at elite universities are not really selected for intellectual curiosity or genuine leadership but for privilege, willingness to check the right boxes, and above all, heaps and heaps of free time.
Everything is performative. The two dozen extracurriculars that will no doubt be dropped after admission. Every weekend lost in different competitions. Perfect grades obtained by last second cramming, and shiny certificates for the internships and mission trips brought by their parents money. The sports, like fencing or sailing, are just the icing on the cake. Deresiewicz is of course not describing everyone at an ivy league, but the little I know from people who got admitted and personal friends seem to corroborate his thesis. The ivy admits tend to be artificial products of either helicopter parenting or crushing psychological conditioning. To gain admittance, they sacrificed friends, hobbies, and self direction for the carefully cultivated regimen of an admissions counselor. Not the type you would imagine as genuine thinkers. I think he sums it up pretty well here:
> The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.
These are, by and large (though of course there are exceptions) not the next Obamas, Mandelas, or Tarbells. They will be consultants, middle managers, or investment bankers, and rise into positions of genuine power if they are lucky. Once there they will likely follow in the footsteps of the same people who pushed our democracy to the precipice.
I'm not sure if we ought to place our faith in them to revive our sense of purpose or cultural memory. They were selected to perpetuate a broken system, not to change it. They will be happy with their undeserved privilege, convincing themselves it was earned, and thirst endlessly to change the world while never considering the plight of the less fortunate. They will be insecure, of course, and deep down realize all of this. But what then? I think they are more like the much derided russian aristocrats of 1917 than they realize.
"We imagine that their sufferings are one thing, and our life another."
But then, I suppose I shouldn't get too carried away. I know very few elite students. What about you? Is Excellent Sheep an accurate descriptor?
Thanks for sharing your perspective so thoughtfully. I haven't read Excellent Sheep, but I read reviews and excerpts when it came out so I'm familiar with the argument. I think he fairly accurately describes the current system and what it incentivizes, but still there are plenty of bright, curious kids at those institutions. Most people are conformists--always have been, always will be: the problem is that the values elites are conforming to today are off. Don't worry too much about the crowd; your job is to find your people who see the world as you do. I grew up in the Deep South in the 60s and 70s in a fairly aggressively anti-intellectual ambient culture, but my two closest friends from childhood both ended up getting history PhDs! You can find people who feel the gratitude you feel, and the curiosity you feel--they're out there.
Mhm, I think you're right on all points, thanks for the advice!
Quite strange, actually. I generally think the west coast California area is fairly liberal and intellectual as far as culture goes. But then, finding people who think similarly to me has been more difficult than I anticipated. I suspect it's because I'm not really in the right circle, high school being what it is.
Do you know of anyone who thinks similarly to me? I've only met one or two myself in real life. I know this may be a lot to ask, but I was wondering if you could connect me with or point towards where they might be.
I'm finding the current trajectory of our country to be looking quite abysmal, and with my beliefs being what they are I find it hard to just sit still. I feel like I ought to be doing something, and I do not want to settle for a performative turn. I feel think I'd love to interact with people who recognize the problem and do real, substantive work to fix it; like what I see from you and your colleagues at Niskanen.
I would love it if you had any more advice for me!
Finding your kind of people can be challenging in high school, but if you're heading to college next that's a chance to meet a whole new crowd. I had a few close friends in high school but never felt like I "fit in"; college was a wonderful opportunity to meet people. And it worked -- along with my former roommates who are all lifelong friends, I'm heading to my 40th college reunion later this month!
Oh? Nice! Hope you enjoy yourself.
And thanks for the advice! Yeah, I've definitely heard college is a different place. I think I can find some new friends also, and leaving home will certainly be an experience. Hopefully I can find some lifelong friends as well.
Thanks so much for the conversation by the way, really appreciate being able to talk to someone I respect.
In any case, I wish you have fun at your reunion!
I teach middle school English and the average student's knowledge of even American history gets worse with each passing year. The medium is the message. With fifteen second videos driving youth culture, they don't even watch movies. Any kind of figurative language or basic allusion seems lost.
Case in point, one our readings referenced Prohibition. Many students have genuinely *never* heard of it. That baffles and bewilders me! At that age, I could at least give a thumbnail sketch of the major periods in American history with working dates. Basic civics. Yet of all things, back when The History Channel showed history--like music videos on MTV--maybe that wasn't so farfetched.
In sum, there are no easy answers at the bottom. I collect and study old primers and schoolbooks and hope I don't end up like the wandering book folks of Fahrenheit 451.
Thanks for sharing -- sigh. By the way, I just recently reread Fahrenheit 451 for the first time since I was a kid: I had remembered its "1984" elements, but completely missed back then its "Idiocracy" style satire of television. There are worse fates than being one of the wandering book folks!
Brink another home run. Beyond brilliant. I hate to sound like an old crank, but today’s kids- especially ones demonstrating on campuses - have no historical clue. Ditto with MAGA. We are cursed to live in an of presentism
Thanks, Bob!
"We all know the George Santayana line"
Some of us may know it better than others. I once saw it in a corporate training session, attributed to "General Santa Ana" - nobody's idea of a philosopher or historian.
Very funny. General Santa Anna: Those who cannot remember the Alamo are destined to repeat it!
Another symptom of cultural amnesia is our inattention to the problem of orphaned works. The vast majority of books are out of print, and accessible only in a handful of large libraries. Technology has the means to make these works available and searchable. I personally found a few treasured photographs of a great-great-grandfather who walked the Oregon Trail in 1852, in an extremely obscure volume scanned by Google Books.
Meanwhile, our copyright legislation is designed to protect commercially-important assets, and organizations like Google and the Internet Archive that digitize orphaned works are sued by the likes of Hachette for infringement. Our copyright system needs an overhaul that protects Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse, but also allows works that are no longer commercially viable (the vast majority) to be digitized and preserved.
Yes, great point. I wrote about the abuses of copyright, including the problem of orpaned works, in my book with Steve Teles The Captured Economy.
Excellent article. I would like to add that personal history has also been lost. We look at ancestor.com and see names and dates, but we have no idea who these people were, how they lived, if they fought in the Civil War, WWII or were Revolutionary soldiers. They are the source of who we are. Children no longer know how to write except in text shorthand. As I read the letters your mom and I wrote for 30 plus years, the history not just of family is there, but of politics, and so much more. What we did together all those years was a huge amazing exposure of the times we lived. As you said, your love of history came through your mom when you were a kid. So much is not being taught to our children now and yes, the attention span is as long as a limited text. What to do about this is the question?? Thanks for the insights. Barbara
Thanks so much for your comment, Barbara. The loss of handwriting skills is part of the problem, I agree. I knew kids no longer know how to write cursive, but I read recently they can't read it either! So future historians will need to learn script like they're learning a foreign language just so they can read original handwritten documents. And learning family history is such a great entry point into the broader study of history by making it personal.
Brink, you've served up an excellent article summarizing the the dangers of presentism and the many threats to public historical consciousness. As a Florida college history professor, I've spent a significant portion of my career fighting the problems you describe. Absolutely, the electronic revolution and the rewiring of our entire approach to knowledge presents an enormous challenge to history. And, make no mistake, the resulting tidal wave of electronic entertainment and misinformation has the potential to finish off public historical literacy . So, given this alarming situation, what is to be done? Alas, I haven't found any magic bullets, but here are a few practical steps that ordinary citizens with an interest in history can take to help keep the discipline alive.
First, support your local museums, historic sites, and history festivals. Visit them frequently, participate in their events, and contribute to them financially. I have been sending my students to local museums for their course papers and I am finding that they often become engaged and interested by the sheer novelty of the experience. Many parents do not take their children to such places and instead opt for movies, sports, and theme parks. So my students are often taken aback and confused by the assignment but then warm up to it once they get inside the historic site or museum. Second, determine what the history requirements are in your state's universities, colleges, and K-12 systems and advocate strengthening them to your legislators. When college history requirements in Florida started getting pushed out, the Florida Conference of Historians convened an informal lobbying group and, by enlisting prominent friends and associates in the community, managed to meet with legislators and get rules passed that kept history courses as at least a prominent option in the general education course requirements. Interestingly, we found that both conservative and liberal legislators were receptive to arguments about the value of history. The ideological divides can be tricky but are not insurmountable. Remember, there are a vast numbers of community and state colleges where blue collar, nuts and bolts history gets taught every day. These institutions don't get much attention but they are an essential part of history communication. Ultimately, the entire history profession needs to emphasize the importance of public outreach and it needs to take general education history survey courses seriously. Relentlessly publishing or perishing will not save the discipline and may even cause it to wink out and be forgotten. Third, don't forget social media. Make posts about your personal experiences with history. Include a few pretty park or historic site pictures and you might be surprised at the response. The above measures are certainly not a comprehensive solution but they can help.
Where will the discipline of history end up? I don't know, but taking some practical actions can be an uplifting tonic to the depressing reality of historical illiteracy. History may be about to disappear, or it may be headed for a rebirth and a brighter future. No way to tell, but I'm certain life is more interesting when we all enjoy and engage with history!
Thanks, David, and I really appreciate the practical, constructive suggestions!
That description of how "books" are kept (or not) on the internet is like falling back into the past of rare tomes being seen to be in some notable's library and then on his death the library being broken up or worse if there were a revolution.
Please expand your analysis of history ignorance by exposing the horrific lack of knowledge about our own history. kowingg and understanding our hiostory is needed mare than ever.