On Tue, 22 May 2007 00:31:52 -0400 Lyle E. Browning wrote... a detailed reply
to my recent discussion under the subject heading given above.
Much of today's reply consists of explication of what he says he *meant* to say.
This has not really affected my reading of what he actually wrote, though I
will acknowledge his shrewd assessment of the rhetoric of my opening sally
(listing what I was not going to discuss). Otherwise, however, Mr. Browning
has not really addressed the issues at hand. A few points remain:
1) Merely assigning a reductive label ("PC") to an issue under discussion
produces heat without light. I questioned (in passing) the use of the word
"emasculating" to indicate an endemic problem with gendered language, not
merely Mr. Browning's usage. This is a problem because it associates strength
with masculinity and weakness with the other, and thus indicates a set of
embedded cultural assumptions. If this particular usage strikes Mr. Browning
as "more evocative," it's because he's employing a common habit of discourse.
Habits of discourse should be examined. I did not "infer gender" from his use
of the word--the word is gendered by definition. But Mr. Browning is right to
say this topic is irrelevant to my main points.
2) When Mr. Browning wrote about the outcome of a culture clash between
European settlers and indigenous people, he added these words: "To negate that
also negates what we became later as in the United States of America. The end
result of had we been PC way back then was that we don't now exist." While it
is far from clear what being "PC way back then" means, his argument is clear
enough: to deny (or negate) the outcome of "domination" somehow denies the
long-term outcome, the establishment of the United States. I call this a
necessitarian argument because it explicitly draws a causal connection between
a set of historical events and a present outcome, and implicitly states that
this outcome would have been impossible without this particular set of events.
Mr. Browning is of course correct to frame the conflict as a clash between
cultures convinced of their absolute superiority, and he is right that
technological differences aided the Europeans, though many historians would add
to the mix the epidemiological issues. In a number of specific points I have
no disagreement with Mr. Browning. Nevertheless, his original message involves
an argument of necessity--if the conflict had not gone the way it did, the
nation as we know it would not exist.
3) I agree with Mr. Browning's proposition that "This nation developed out of
all of our past events." Fine. No problem there (though that's not what he
said originally). However, he contradicts himself when he first states that
"what went on yesterday is generally over for good," and later acknowledges
that choices and actions produce unintended consequences." Why not apply this
latter principle to the matter at hand? We are still living with the
unintended consequences of the invasion of America, the "domination" of
indigenous people by Europeans and their descendants.
4) Curiously, I find the next point--the one Mr. Browning admits was
"unexpressed"-- very congenial. He says, "We now criticize past actions from
our current perspective without ever fully understanding what caused those
events to take place." Exactly. This is a classic crux of historiography.
How can we observe, analyze, praise, or criticize the historical past free from
the assumptions of our current culture (what hermeneutical theorists call "the
horizon of understanding")? We can't. These assumptions govern the way we
explain things, the normative values we embrace explicitly or implicitly, and
even the way we select evidence (and the kinds of evidence we view as
significant) to construct our interpretive arguments. And Mr. Browning is also
right to suggest that historical causation is more complicated than the
single-event theory.
5) And then Mr. Browning simply reverses the terms of my argument:"What is
fallacious is to infer that if we had either done or not done some bit of
history, and you take your pick, that the rest of our history would have
resulted in us being who we are." As I read this passage, Mr. Browning is now
saying that it is impossible to determine whether different historical actions
could have produced the same results (would we exist as a nation if...?). If
he will acknowledge that we cannot be certain they wouldn't, I will concede
that we cannot be certain that they would. Moreover, his argument begs the
question: are we to assume that it would necessarily be a bad thing if American
history had taken a different tack in regard to various events (supplanting the
indigenous people, slavery, prohibition, etc.)?
6) I enjoyed Mr. Browning's brief foray into the area of counterfactual history
and historical fiction. It does not alter my reading of his original comment
as necessitarian.
7) Mr. Browning's more nuanced explanation of his view of the cultural conflict
is interesting, and removes most of my objections to what appeared in his
original statement as oversimplification.
8) My comment about the complexities of colonial and First Nations cultures
stands. There were many native cultures, some of which could accommodate
change, and others could not. There were many settler cultures, not all of
which took the same approach to native cultures. This does not require a "time
machine" to determine, nor does it contradict the "reality...generally and
broadly accepted"--not according to my reading of the historical and
ethnohistorical literature. I do not quarrel with your premise that both sides
viewed the other as inferior (in a sense, I suspect they were both right about
that). But the contention that Euro-American technological superiority
mandated precisely the outcome that occurred is, I think, overly simple. In
New England, for instance, the native population was clearly superior
technologically but succumbed to European disease. The Powhatans were superior
to Smith's English, and so forth. There were other issues, especially the
degree to which the European belief that the native population were sub-human
licensed inconsistent diplomacy and violence--and the degree to which native
belief in the superiority of their way of life led them to defend it.
9) While I must acknowledge that Mr. Browning did not explicitly pursue the
argument of historical necessity to the extent of overtly accepting "the
Jacksonian view that the resistance of indigenous people to assimilation places
them outside the bounds" of justice, I am still convinced that his
necessaritarian view of history is the same view that produced the historical
outcomes I mentioned. To state that the "domination" of indigenous culture
*had* to happen *the way it did happen* is to place the destiny of the new
nation above all other considerations. It is not speculative history or
fantasy-making to question or criticize both the actions taken by our forebears
and the logic underpinning these actions.
10) Though Mr. Browning now acknowledges the complexities of historical
causation--"Events follow one upon another for an absurdly large number of
reasons. The flow is called history. I make no relation between sequence and
causation, none whatsoever. History is seldom logical"--he still maintains the
same necessitarian position as he did in the original message. I suggest that
other approaches might have produced different outcomes, a suggestion he first
rejects with contemptuous analogies and then with dismissing the suggestion as
science fiction. My point was not to suggest that other approaches might have
been better (though they *might* have been), but to demonstrate that the
necessitarian approach assumes things happened in the way they *had* to happen.
11) Mr. Browning concedes that "Criticism is hardly ever wrong, in and of
itself." But then he adds that this principle only applies when he agrees with
the criticism. He explains, "The PC worldview is narrow, circumscribed,
agenda-ridden and intellectually stultifying. That emasculates, not criticism."
The principal argument of those he dismisses as "PC" is that the world-view
they criticize is itself agenda-ridden--it's just that the agenda is assumed
and accepted uncritically. How narrow and circumscribed is it to dismiss a
body of thought and a method of inquiry by dismissing it all with a
contemptuous term? How intellectually stultifying is it to substitute
name-calling for engagement with discussing ideas? Mr. Browning claims that
"Political correctness is in itself a form of censorship and as such undercuts
the free exchange of ideas, unless phrased in such a way as to give no offense
to anyone." In fact, he has used the term "PC" repeatedly to dismiss ideas, to
characterize careful attention to language as censorship, and to close
discussions. This stance allows him to claim the privilege of silencing others
while at the same time complaining about being censored.
12) Finally, I'd like to suggest another overlooked issue--the contention made
by a number of First Nations in North America. They say, "We're still here."
Cheers -- KJB
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