By KEVIN RICHARDSON

Political philosophers acknowledge that culture plays a powerful role in systems of governance. It is debatable whether it should or not, but it is usually granted that the customs of a society are crucial to the development of a political system. What isn’t always acknowledged is the role of historical creation in the development of political systems. The recent United States presidential election illuminates the importance of history and the historic event as related to political philosophy. I argue Obama’s rise to power indicates Americans’ willingness to fulfill the historical narrative they’ve created. First, let me explain what is meant by “history”.

Keith Jenkins makes the distinction between the past and history. Simply put, the past is what actually happened, and history is what historians produce (Jenkins 6-7). History is what you find on library shelves; “[it] is the labour of historians” (8). To understand what is meant by “past,” imagine a geographer looking out to a landscape where there are houses, roads, and a town. The landscape the geographer sees may be explained in geographical terms, using the methodologies of geography, but no one would refer to the landscape as geography (10). This is what happens when a historian looks at the past. To depict the past, the historian makes use of narratives. A narrative is a story of any type. We use narratives to make sense of our lives, but given we have limited time to spend, we outsource some of our narrative-creating responsibility to historians. Historians are people hired to make sense of the past. The common objection to a past-history distinction is that it would lead one to conclude history is, as Winston Churchill once said, “written by the victors.” Without the strength of objective validation, it is said, history would inevitably become the playground of Holocaust deniers and other revisionist ideologues. People interpret the past differently, but does that always lead to a past that doesn’t make sense? People already have conflicting views of the past, yet Holocaust Denial is an unpopular view and is even banned in some countries. The only way we can understand the past is if we interpret it on our terms. It must be intelligible to our modern sensibilities.

Let’s examine a recent narrative:

Barack Obama ascends to presidency in picture perfect fashion, defeating his rivals by a Reagan-like margin, using his message of hope and compassion to bring America back to its original values. He’s an African-American who, despite being of an ethnicity that has been historically oppressed, has made it into the driving seat of world affairs. He’s the President of the United States-the most powerful man in the world. He’s young. He’s hip. He has a way with words. He’s the Reagan of the Left. The election of Barack Obama signals progress. The American people are on the way to overcoming Bush’s neoconservative legacy and making America a beacon of liberty once again.

If you subscribe to this narrative, it is clear electing Obama isn’t simply a wise choice, but it is the natural choice. American history is backed by Enlightenment values of overcoming, of rights and liberty, of justice and rationality. John McCain could never properly demonstrate his knowledge of these values to the American public. In contrast, Obama appealed to the social justice crowd by standing up for those on Main Street. He also made an appeal to civil libertarians by claiming he will overturn all executive orders Bush passed that violated the constitution. The kind of progress Obama speaks of is truly non-partisan, as his approach is more in the Enlightenment tradition than McCain’s, viz. idealistic, optimistic, and non-combative. American citizenry voted for Obama because of his political platforms in addition to his contribution to history. The Obama Narrative fits nicely into the American Narrative, which is why Obama’s election was said to be “historic” long before it ever occurred. It makes sense to many Americans for history to proceed in this way, for the Obama Narrative is an appealing one. The truth of the narrative is irrelevant. What matters is how it fits into the American-and overarching Enlightenment-narrative.

George W. Bush didn’t fit in with the American Narrative, or at least that was the consensus of most Americans. He deprived Americans of the thematic content of their country by bucking national customs in the risky pursuit of a new conservatism. For example, he often spoke about America’s interests, as if our country was more pragmatically self-interested than idealistically altruistic. America is steeped in the discourse of universal human (and soon to be animal) rights. Rights are universal, yet the Bush Administration made no qualms about the fact that America is self-interested. That assertion undermined the moral credibility of America in the eyes of those familiar with the American Narrative. This explains the reason whole swaths of the public were ashamed to be American during the Bush era. Conservative commentators were alarmed by the self-loathing among Americans-what they saw as Anti-Americanism. What they were really seeing by this behavior was an inversion of old theses in order to meet the demands of the American Narrative. Previously, those foreign to the American Narrative were seen as inferior; but now that we’ve defied our own historical narrative, we are no better than the other “bad” countries that don’t value human rights, civil liberties, or democracy. Those loyal to the American Narrative thought of themselves as patriotic for standing up to the injustices and unconstitutional measures of the Bush administration. They were. Bush’s actions during his term were uncharacteristic of the American Narrative. Today, the angst caused by the distortion of the American Narrative is now being relieved by Bush’s polar opposite, Obama.

I’ve mentioned that the masses designate history to historians. But the masses do a large part on their own. When the masses retake the role of the historian, history becomes a democratic process. Everywhere amateur historians spoke about an election that hadn’t occurred, yet was inevitable considering the theme of the American Narrative. An overwhelming win by Obama signaled a clear consensus among Americans: America should return to their historical narrative. Americans came together to decide not only the future (and subsequent past) of the country, but also the history of the country. They elected a president and also integrated the Obama Narrative into the American and Enlightenment Narrative. History was decided by the American people-a fact so in-line with our ideal of democracy that it’s no surprise it happened. The simultaneous democratization of history and politics produces the historic moment.

The historic moment is powerful; it causes people to mistake the past for history. Obama’s election was a clear demonstration of this. To see one’s historic moment fulfilled, one has to change the past (by changing the future). The lack of a past-history distinction is the result of faith in traditional historic methodology-primary sources, empirical or analytic knowledge, objectivity and reason. Political philosophy in the twenty-first century is couched in the admittance that “the past is history,” with the caveat that sometimes the past is distorted by historians with ideological motives, who can approximate the truth but either maliciously or mistakenly don’t. Rarely is history talked about in distinction to the past. By believing they are the same thing, the political philosopher refuses to recognize the narrative he or she is likely apart of. It is tempting to object to narratives because they seem to neglect the intellectual reasoning and thought behind the votes of Americans. After all, it seems implausible that people voted for a story. However, this attitude is characteristic of the Enlightenment Narrative. Without the prestige of objectivity, narratives are thus reduced to the status of fairy tales. But they are more serious than that; they are not told for entertainment but for understanding and purpose. Whether they are true or false, narratives do exist. People live by them, and there is nothing trivial about how people live their lives.

The political philosopher must deal with the problem of history. Initial questions may be: What should be done about it? Who should control it? Who should be in charge of creating these historic moments? The narratives forged by historic moments strongly affect political developments. If it weren’t for the Enlightenment Narrative, perhaps the West would have a greater tradition of authoritarian government; an alternate narrative could support a people more obsessed with peaceful living than human rights. The political philosopher should look at the narrative being installed as of late-the Obama Narrative. It is characteristic of the American Narrative, which is why it is embraced with open arms by the American people. However, the question should now be: How much of the Obama Narrative gets us closer to the good life, and how much exists only to affirm our narratives?

Works Cited

Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London: Routledge, 2003.

Kevin Richardson (’12) is a Philosophy major at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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