The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past [Paperback]

This earlier work is a critique of some modern theorists and theories which threaten to turn history and the humanities at large into an intellectual wasteland. It should be placed on the shelf alongside Sokal and Bricmont's book on intellectual impostures, though unfortunately the downside of both books is that the authors have misread the philosophy of Karl Popper and so depict him as a part of the problem and not as an ally.

The first chapter "Paris labels and designed concepts: The assension of cultural studies and the deluge of social theory" provides a valuable overview of the various intellectual icebergs that are floating loose in the sealanes of discourse. Many of the key players hail from France, though the German Heidegger was a major influence in paving the way for younger generations. Marxism and socialism in various forms provide a subtext for the movement, even while Marxism in its more rigorous traditional forms has become unfashionable. Cultural studies has become the major growth area on campus, catering for the perceived grievances of various groups and political movements.

The deluge of cultural theory incudes structuralism and semiotics, poststructuralism, and various kinds of postmodernism. The latter are classified as: the Neitzsche and Heidegger version; The Paris 1980s version (Lyotard and Baudrillard); the art and architecture version; the literary version; and the popular culture version. Marxism and critical theory still eke out an existence, mostly associated with the Frankfurt School, with Jurgen Habermas as the leader. Respect for reason survives in this group, unlike most of the others, and it will be interesting to see how long its economic illiteracy can survive in the face of the growing profile of the Austrian (Menger/Hayek) school. Another major grouping is concerned with postcolonialism and heterology. Here Franz Fanon was the pioneer and Edward Said is the leading contemporary exponent.

One of the benefits of this book is that it is not all theory and readers will learn some history from the examples that the author has chosen for analysis. One of these is the Spanish conquest of South America. Some historians have depicted this as western serpents corrupting a peaceful and harmonious garden of Eden, neglecting to mention the ferocious and bloodthirsty tyranny of the major empires. In a chapter on Captain Bligh of the Bounty and Captain Cook in Tahiti, Windschuttle shows how a theorist with preconceived ideas was refuted in the one case by his own data and in the other by a more careful study by another researcher. In a long chapter on Paul Carter's account of the first settlers in Australia, Windschuttle explains how a work which appears to be intellectually formidable turns out to be replete with so many self-contradictions, factual inaccuracies and trite interpretations, and is so continuously and odiously pretentious, that it is hard to take seriously. However it displays all the characteristics of the methodological approaches that have now surged to the front in history.

In a chapter on History as a Social Science the author examines some modern developments in the philosophy of science that are attributed to the influence of Popper and Kuhn. Undoubtedly Kuhn and his followers have been a major source of obscurantism and relativism, however in the case of Popper the author does not refer to Popper's views on historical explanation by way of situational analysis and thematic narratives. These were spelled out in chapter 25 of "The Open Society and its Enemies", a book which might have accelerated Windschuttle's emancipation from the left. Instead of addressing Popper's fully-developed account of historical explanation, KW takes issue with Popper's critique of the strong form of empiricism or positivism which demands that all claims to knowledge must be sourced to an observer. Popper demonstrated that this demand cannot be met due to the problem of infinite regress. This problem applies in science and in historical studies, though in Popper's view it does not destroy either enterprise (it just destroys the credibility of strong forms of positivism and empiricism). Unfortunately KW misread this critique as an attack on the possibility of historical knowledge where we do not have access to any living observers. In fact Popper has no argument with the standard historical methods, drawing on a wide range of sources, though none can be accepted uncritically. This misreading of Popper can probably be attributed to the unfortunate influence of David Stove. For more on this search on "Stove+Rathouse". In any case it is a most unfortunate blemish in a valuable book.

You won't be bored, or - God forbid - lost in the foreign language of postmodernism and hermeneutics!

But no vacuum remains. The old objectivity is replaced by kind sounding censorship, control and quiet vendetta - a score to settle with the West. The author shows this is not isolated but permeates the West's political system, media and every university that once considered education its aim. The attack is not only on history but on knowledge, truth, the categorical separation of disciplines, and - in keeping with a perpetual incapacity of modern thinkers to grasp science - even that science fabricates its understandings of nature to serve political bias, regardless of truth. (Fortunately, nature is the final judge.)

One such "new movement" theory discussed by Windshuttle, structuralism, claims people are incapable of seeing outside structures imposed by their culture - a psychological edifice confining every thought to this structure. But structuralism cannot account for new movements outside the status quo. Insights radically outside accepted modes of thought are the mainstay of scientific and social revolutions - Einstein or Jesus. Windshuttle dismantles structuralism by showing how Sahlins and Dening not only lie about history but force-fit history to match their prejudice - the opposite of scientific method.

Double standards are glaring. New movements tell us we can never really know what happened in history then contradict themselves by telling us what really happened. Spain is morally indicted for their violence while the slaughter of women, flayed so naked Aztec priests may wear their wet skins in rituals, are not. Instead this is declared as the happy cohesive behavior of Cortez's victims. Mass murders of other peoples by the Aztecs are conveniently ignored. Instead of defeating Eurocentric bias, we find structuralists extending it. We find university professors renaming their personal political agendas as "cultural studies" in order to brainwash students their way, as students, innocent victims, parrot back striking discoveries of their feminist and/or Marxist professors who were dieing for an ally in their rejection of the West after the utter failure of Marx, finding it born, as the author shows, in French philosophers of the Sixties. Not just another transient social fad these new movements are a crisis of civilization. No external terrorist could do the damage these people have done and are determined to continue.

Windshuttle shows new movement literary critics and social theorists - like thespians defining foreign policy - are utterly out of their depth but this has not stopped their victorious assumption of power. Spengler said this would happen - the West would begin to doubt itself, find itself guilty and pronounce a verdict of its own extinction. Windshuttle shows we've already arrived. An excellent book by a man immersed in the field. If you read this book you'll find it hard to put down, but you may never sleep soundly again.