At the outset I should make clear that I have no credentials in historiography. In fact I do not have even have the so-called Union Card for the professional academic historian—a Ph. D. degree—but I do believe that I have enough practical experience in the writing of history, and in teaching it at three universities, to warrant having some thoughts on the nature of history, and of its uses. And I have another reason, as well, as you will see.
Let me start by explaining how I intend to treat this important topic: The uses of history. First I shall give you my interpretation of what the nature of history is. Next I will offer some very general thoughts on the uses of history. Then I would like to make one or two comments on how I visualize history being currently useful for Loudoun County. Finally, I shall tell you a little bit about my own day-to-day involvement in several very specific uses of history.
First, then, for my views on what history is—and what it is not. Several months ago there was an interesting debate in the New York Times Magazine about the nature of history, provoked by an article written by Barbara Tuchman, the historian whose public reputation is based primarily upon her magnificent book, The Guns of August. The essence of the debate was whether history is what actually happened in the past, or is merely the record of what happened. The subtle distinction, of course, is comparable to that involved in the question of whether there can be noise—as from a tree falling in the middle of an impenetrable forest—if there is no ear to hear the sound waves. I don’t intend to revive the debate; I merely want to suggest that there are various ways of looking at the nature of history. You are about to be exposed to my way of looking at it.
As I see it, recorded history is society’s memory. For society as a whole, as well as for an individual, memory can provide insights, wisdom, and the recollection of past experiences which are in some way relevant to every new experience—no matter how unanticipated the manifestation of that new experience may be. And of course each new experience adds to the information stored in that amazing electronic computer—the human brain. Sometimes the new experience reinforces the information already stored there, sometimes it qualifies the existing information, but always the new experience is in some way relevant to events in the past which are already recorded in the memory. This same process is to some degree true of society as a whole.
Every event of significance in mankind’s past can enrich the memory of human society, and can be used to the future benefit of mankind—if some way can be found to relate that experience to current issues and problems, without distortion, through some kind of memory process. The historian, of course, is the essential element of this memory process.
In considering this relationship of experience to memory, it is pertinent to point out that even the most startling new scientific development invariably has had a historical background of its own. New wonders of technology and science all have a direct connection with the past, not only through the evaluation and analysis of empirical records, but also through discontinuities or continuities which exist between the new development and what has happened in the past.
If there is anything to my suggestion that historical experience is the basic material for the memory of society, then the record of past experience is a natural resource, which can and should be mined for the present and future benefit of mankind. Save possibly in the area of science, human society has never come near to efficiently exploiting this resource of its own experience.
When it is mined, this natural resource can make its principal contribution to social memory by enriching wisdom. We have a tendency to speak of the “lessons” of history, as though they were immutable—I do this as much as anyone—but I realize that in a literal sense this is impossible. One can never recreate, in every detail and particular, the exact circumstances of a past event. History can never exactly repeat itself, and so its so-called lessons cannot be applied blindly or automatically.
But if history doesn’t repeat itself it does, in the words of Herman Kahn, paraphrase itself. Kahn, incidentally, is a scientist and not a historian, but he, like Toynbee and other historians, recognizes that human and institutional relationships in modern times can often bear a close resemblance to events of the past. One can discern many parallel patterns in history, and both trends and specific events are often directly comparable between these patterns. The rise and fall of nations and dynasties, for instance. And since human reactions to circumstances and stimuli are not ever likely to change radically, it is easy to note danger signals from certain circumstances in related patterns of events, and to see what kinds of actions have been successful in certain circumstances in the past, and which have failed, in similar patterns.
Thus, while rejecting the idea that history teaches us lessons from the past, I am convinced that history will widen our horizons, revealing new perspective, providing insights, and generally enriching wisdom in using good judgment in dealing with the present. There is still one caution, however. If there is any immutable lesson which history teaches, it is that no quantity of insights can ever replace or substitute for good judgement or the basic intellectual capacity which experience transforms into wisdom.