How to judge History without Self-Righteousness

Frequently in my social relations I find people that practice ethical and normative judgments on history. From a retrospective point of view, i.e. from today toward the past, it seems reasonable to speak of the errors, mistakes and crimes of our ancestors (because when we criticize the past, we inevitably criticize our ancestors).  This is commonly done by establishing a more or less universal conception of the good and justice, assuming that today is closer to the realization of that conception than the past was. It assumes that we know better than our ancestors did. In few words, the conceptions that we use to criticize our present and our immediate past are logically transferred to pass judgment on the far past. I am a strong advocate of our capacity to judge our present (and by present I include our immediate past and our immediate future). Because only through this capacity, which is always relative to our vantage point, can we participate in the public realm through speech viz. violence. 

Now, if we do not accept that our capacity to judge is always relative to our vantage point, it follows that we claim an absolute truth, and the possibility to speak with those that dissent from us becomes impossible. In the realm of logical arguments we cannot exchange truth for falsehood. Whereas in politics there is no truth or falsehood but simply vantage points. This is why I reject any political speech that claims universality. They are antidemocratic, because democracy demands exchange of arguments, and this is only possible when arguments are relative. This regards to our capacity to judge our present.

But when we speak about our far past things change. We no longer participate in the public debate that belonged to our ancestors. We cannot fully understand their context from and within which they acted. Hence our capacity to judge morally is out of context. This means that our moral claims regarding the far past are simply irrelevant. This is common knowledge among historians today. But not among people outside the field of history, many of whom are very fond of passing judgment on the far past, even though they are completely out of context. For many of them, passing judgment on the far past justifies their normative conceptions that they use to judge today's world. For example, when many say that colonialism is bad, and they use this principle to argue that NATO states should stay out of the Middle East, it follows that the Unites States should have stayed out of the western regions of North America, that the Spanish should have stayed out of the Americas back in the 16th century, that the European knights should have never gone in pilgrimage to the Holy Land back in the 11th and 12th centuries, and so forth (these as very frequent examples). Moreover, it follows that the Mongolians should have never invaded half of Eurasia, that the Roman Republic should have never invaded its Italian and Mediterranean neighbors, that the Persians should have never crossed the Hellespont, that Thutmose III should have never invaded Canaan, and so forth. In few words, history should have never been, following the principle that some people use today to judge NATO's involvement in the Middle East. This is a reductio ad absurdum that shows how ridiculous it is to use the present conceptions of our capacity to judge when judging the far past. I say that we should only use them in a conversation when judging our present.

I think many are afraid that, because they do not consistently apply their present normative conceptions to the far past, their conceptions might be erroneous. I also think that this structure of reasoning is based on the arrogant will to present arguments of universal validity. When some people are engaged in an intellectual conversation they need to believe that what they claim is somehow universal, so that it makes sense to them that they are defending it in the first place. They fail to realize that public arguments are always relative, and that it is perfectly fine that it should remain that way. When they have a problem with the relativity of public argumentation, they also fall in the arrogant discourse of passing moral judgment on the far past, as it would be logically consistent. Unfortunately logic is the most authoritarian form of discourse that there is, and for what regards to democracy, this form of speech is unwarranted, and it remains solely in the realm of classrooms of eminent professors. This is a major difference between academia-street and main-street.

However, as a follower of Humanism, I do not pretend to be neutral when talking about history and the far past. I am aware that I am constantly passing judgment. But it is of a completely different sort that when passing judgment on current affairs. Instead of consisting of normative claims, my way of judging the far past is aesthetical; i.e. it focuses mainly on the resonance of historical facts, on the basis that I like some stories and I dislike others. It is not about what I think it should have been, but what I find to be impressive, spectacular, worthy of honor and respect, independently of my normative conceptions that I use to judge today's world. In this way I can admire both the Spanish conquistadores as well as the beauty of the Aztec civilization. Both are amazing to me, and I find the tragedy of their confrontation a wonderful story. Because for me tragedy is not inherently bad but an entelechy of human history. I study history as the best spectacle of all. Just as people don't judge morally the content of the works of Shakespeare, nor they think that Macbeth should have never happened, I think of history in the same exact way. The fact that I think killing is morally bad does not obstruct my reasoning in appreciating Julius Caesar's murder, Urban II's call for the First Crusade, Cortés conquest of Mexico and Cuauhtémoc's last stand, Robert E. Lee's brave defense of the Confederate States of America, or Lenin's revolutionary genius. For me all historical actors always commit moral wrongs. But I do not pay attention to the moral elements in their actions, but just the resonance of their deeds. And that is what makes them spectacular and worthy of respect. All history should be appreciated.

This is the difference between our capacity to judge current affairs, and our capacity to judge our ancestors. They are of two different kinds, and if we do not separate them, intellectual problems arise. The first one is the reductio ad absurdum that follows if we think history should have never been when we use our normative conceptions to judge the far past, and the second is the moral nihilism that denies good and evil when we use the same aesthetical form of judgment applying it to the present.