I’ve been thinking recently about the difference between how historians tend to interpret events and how those who haven’t studied historically-focused fields (history, classics, etc.) tend to approach an estimation of the same scenario.
To be clear, this isn’t to over-generalise one side or the other – more to consider some of the assumptions built into each pathway and why they might lead to varying interpretations of the same information. We often engage in these arguments over what is reasonable, but neither side (or indeed any other) ever really explains the assumptions they are making in the approach they have chosen. This is an attempt to explore those.
At first, I was getting into the social side of things. The primary assumption made by those commenting on politics is that politicians are people interacting with people and that, therefore, the same rules of interaction still apply. This approach tends to lead to the standard conclusion of confusion and puzzlement at why politics ends up so unnecessarily complicated. Why should talking to people and coming to a reasonable agreement be so difficult when any of us could walk into a situation and come up with something more down to earth and effective than whatever bungled plan is the latest to get leaked from government sources.
One stage of this is of course the imperfect presentation of that scenario. None of us are ideal people – we all have our own flaws to overcome when encountering any situation or forming a judgement. There is also the vast complexity of the government machine to account for. Unlike a social group – or even a small or large business – any government is invariably composed of numerous departments employing thousands of people, all of which have to be coordinated and kept on the same message (lest government be accused of self-contradiction, incapability or even cover ups). In addition, unlike any comparable scenario we might encounter, any government is the most historically weighty institution in its region. This then comes with having the biggest effect on individuals across the country and, on a related note in certain political formulations, being accountable to individuals across the country. That is without mentioning either the economy, international relations or the length of time for which a decision might have an effect (intentional or otherwise).
On this note, then, the analogy of a simple conversation is fundamentally flawed. No political statement, however small and regardless of whether one is actually involved with the current administration, can ever be taken lightly. Each action necessarily carries huge weight. It is natural, then, that actions be taken carefully and with some attempt at strategy.
However, this is not sufficient to explain the difference in viewpoint. It is reasonably straightforward to recognise, at least to some extent, that a political action carries more weight than an everyday one. It is inherent, for example, in the commonly found idea that the “little people” of history cannot affect the affairs of state and that they are irrelevant to it. This is a separate issue to consider, but it does rest upon the concept that national actions carry significant weight (whether they should or not).
To take this one step further, politics is not necessarily national politics. Office politics is the classic example – another is family politics, or even social politics. We talk to others every day, and we would use the word “politics” to describe certain interactions, but we would not describe everything that way. This implies that, just as actions in national politics cannot be understood on a simply social level, situations in everyday life can sometimes – but not always – be seen in a political way. What is the difference between a social interaction and a political one?
Here, we approach an understanding of what defines politics and the core mistake made by assuming political decisions can be understood in purely social terms. In any political situation – national or everyday – there are several defining factors underlying it:
- The outcome will have a serious impact
- The interests of various people or groups will need to be navigated
For example, a conversation with your line manager about the hobby of tennis is social and recreational. However, a conversation about whether you can adjust your hours in order to make room for the weekly 5pm game at your local tennis club is political. In the first, the stakes are much lower. At most, you’ll disagree about tennis as a hobby. You can put aside mistakes made or minor disagreements because they don’t have a serious or remotely sizeable impact on your life. In contrast, the conversation about hours is political because:
- You seriously care about it
- The outcome will require sacrifices on the part of either you or your line manager
- The decision will necessitate a reallocation of resources to compensate
- Everything each of you says has weight because what you are asking will require that sacrifice from the other side
This means that anything you say or do in relation to this topic will need to be carefully – and strategically – considered. The definition of strategy here is in thinking several steps ahead, having an awareness of psychology (how people will react), considering resource allocation and then coming up with an effective argument. All of this will be impactful. All of it will need to be either seriously considered at the time or done in advance.
This, then, is the other aspect of the difficulty found in any political interaction, statement or even implication. In a situation where a misstep may be taken to be seriously inconsiderate, each step must be considered. This is true regardless of the scale at which the interaction occurs, but it is magnified when set in the context of the organisational scale and historical impact outlined earlier.
The result is that, where everyday social interactions are defined by a compromise of personalities to find common ground and the putting aside of seriousness in the interests of a positive experience, political interactions necessitate that seriousness. This means that, to interpret them accurately, they need to be interpreted not as being most defined by our compromise selves, but by our innermost desires and characteristics. One’s approach to a political situation is necessarily most defined by our inner selves because of that seriousness.
We’ve discussed why political decisions are necessarily strategic rather than social. So why the difference in assumptions between those who have studied historically-focused fields and those who have not?
The obvious and initial answer is that the latter have experience of the factors, characters and outcomes of political situations. They’ve studied situations where people have faced similar circumstances and seen what the consequences of each decision and factor were. This is indeed true to a certain extent, though it’s limited by the precise fields studied and their applicability to political situations.
But ultimately it’s that most of us are not self-aware enough to understand accurately and honestly the way our own personalities, emotions, strengths and weaknesses affect our perception and our decision making. If we cannot be honest with ourselves about why we hold a certain opinion, or why we feel a certain way, we are unlikely to have an accurate understanding about why those same factors might affect others. External interactions with others in which we compromise, hide or otherwise distance our most inner selves are a much more familiar situation to most people than our internal selves. Therefore, when we see a situation defined by engaging and negotiating with people, we most immediately see it as defined by talking externally to others rather than by our own most seriously held values or our own traits.
This is not to say that those in historically-related fields are immune to this – far from it. These same internal traits are a part of what leads to a wide range of interpretations of the same subject matter and evidence. However, studying people from a different time enables us to escape somewhat from emotional attachments to our current time. Where we might hold particular opinions (even if they constitute active disinterest) about current times, we as humans are able to approach most past situations with as close as we are ever going to get to a clean slate (notwithstanding existing cultural assumptions about the past). This can lead to the opposite problem – seeing political figures and times more as chess pieces than as humans – but generally it has the effect of removing the socio-emotional veil and revealing the strategic factors of the situation, complete with their outcomes.
Experience of time spent in this perspective enables us to return to the present, on occasion, with the option to see things a bit differently. Humans will always be emotional creatures first and foremost, but this time spent outside of that is an eye-opener which reveals what we might be missing in our own time, what is likely to be going on behind the scenes and which reactions might not hold true. Where previously we may have seen a political figure as just another person, with the same options and stakes available to them as an everyday person, a historical emphasis opens the door to the reality of the strategic decisions necessitated by any situation, at any level, of a political nature.
One answer, then, as to the reason why a historically-focused field might lead to a different interpretation is that the assumptions held by the person are different. They assume a level of strategy which has held true in their experiences of studying historical situations.
The other characteristic of studying multiple examples of similar situations is that it encourages a probability-based approach. Perhaps the main lesson learned from the study of history is that nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Immediate assumptions rarely hold up and history much more commonly takes unexpected, imperfect, sudden turns than it does sensible solutions. One example is the murder of Caesar, which took the Romans from being on the path from republic to empire and returned them to another round of civil war. Another example, only slightly later, is the following of Augustus by three emperors not nearly as talented as he may be considered to be. Neither outcome is necessarily the most reasonable path, but it is one historians learn to take into account. History, once in a good situation, does not remain so. Instead, it varies between periods of 10-30 or so years of either good or bad events. Any assessment of a political outcome today must include an understanding of that randomness and unpredictability in order to have a chance of accuracy.
In the end, it is the combination of all these factors – internal motivations and characteristics, honesty with oneself, an understanding of strategy and a respect for unpredictability which leads us towards a realistic estimation of political outcomes. On whatever level those politics may be found, an appreciation of the complex, weighty factors involved is fundamentally necessary if one is to be accurate in assessing their potential outcomes.
Global Retrospective 