" When I finished Carlyle’s French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment (and Taine and St. Simon): and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte–And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. Carlyle teaches no such gospel so the change is in me–in my vision of the evidences.
People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say that of Dickens’s or Scott’s books. Nothing remains the same. When a man goes back to look at the house of his childhood, it has always shrunk: there is no instance of such a house being as big as the picture in memory and imagination call for. Shrunk how? Why, to its correct dimensions: the house hasn’t altered; this is the first time it has been in focus."
-In a letter to William Dean Howells
Mostly yeah
One other part is what i want to take away from this, but I suppose I should give some context on the book he’s talking about. Thomas Carlyle’s work on the French revolution isnt pure aristocracy and is critical of the ancien regime, but its also heavily against the Jacobins. Edmund Burke type stuff if you follow.
However twain (with some supporting evidence and life experience) takes away an entirely different conclusion from what the prose supports.
Firstly, I find this a very relatable phenomenon. When I watched “Kraut and Tea”'s (may he forever burn in the sun’s light) tale of two borders, I didn’t take away the Whig histiography and such that kraut supported but instead the idea that no matter what changed politically, if the ruling class is still extracting value from the people then the situation doesn’t improve. This was before I was a marxist as well. So I do intensly relate to his experience.
But secondly, and I believe more importantly, is that multiple people can look at the same exact evidence and come to different conclusions. Thats…obvious when you say it out loud, yes, but I think some people have issues putting that to practice. I often see people asking for the best evidence to convince people that marxism-leninism is the correct ideology. However, it is just possible that the same evidence that convinces us will not convince them, especially in isolation. It is very rarely one thing or another that radicalizes someone, even if it seems that way to us.
It’s also a very succinct explanation as to how we can use the works of historians who are conservatives or even have conservative spins, even if we don’t particularly want to. (Note I was thinking of a better example from a genuine historian but I cannot remember his name. If I find whom I’m talking about I’ll edit it in, for now this will have to do). For example, TIK history does a lot of military history on the second world war, and is infamously…a goddamn lunatic anarcho capitalist. However to my knowledge his actual military history is good and doesn’t fall for the usual order 227 enemy at the gates type bull crap, so as long as he’s not talking about soldiers buying ammo from their own wallets then he’s decent. And consequently while he takes one idea from his studies on the war, we take another from the same evidence and some extra help from both our experience and other writers. (Again, if i can find the historian that I was originally going to talk about I’ll put him here, for now TIK is an ad hoc solution)
Again, I know it sounds obvious, but I think it’s important to think about the next time you see a liberal simp over South korea despite probably knowing similar things about the state that you do. (This isn’t to say don’t correct them and present evidence, obviously, just that to understand why they’re still the way they are even after you present it). Of course class analysis does this too but it can sometimes be too abstract to understand for some people, so a more succinct quote from a good writer also helps in explanations.
I needed to hear this right now. I’m chipping away at a demsoc and they are way more dem than soc. I had thought they were close to a break through but then they said anti-immigration and racism are just human nature, and I’m like “wow how did I think this was a good person with a few bad ideas?”
I had to try hard to not go off about how racist that is and how they are so racist there is no hope for them. Instead I managed to just point out the latent racism calmly and incorporate it into how a history of how democratic socialism is a dead end and only worked when there was a USSR to play the capitalists off.
It’s indeed good that you did not do this. Some people just see enough examples of anti-immigration and racism sentiments growing in popularity that they just cynically conclude that that’s how it is, missing the parts where there are well-funded reactionary drivers of those anti-immigrant and racist sentiments, led by a capitalist system of exploitation which is designed to set people into classes.
If your response to every time someone espouses a right-wing viewpoint (whether they harbor it personally, or believe that “that’s just how it is”) is to go off on them then you will lose that person, because they’ll stop listening to you once you’re attacking them personally.
Well that worked well. Apparently pointing out that immigration is a result of racist colonialism is “mansplaning.” This is why demsocs are called “Social fascists” or why Stalin called them the “moderate wing of fascism.” Its like this person built their political identity in university 20 years ago and never questioned any of those ideas since then. They say they “studied marx” but they have no grasp of historical materialism. They talk about the “nordic model” like it happened in a vacuum and ignore that since the fall of the USSR the Nordic nations severely eroded every advantage they had over the rest of the capitalist nations.
Classic case of scratch a lib and watch a fascist bleed. But I’ve been friends with a few people that have flipped to full-on socialism from prior reactionary beliefs. It’s possible.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation. It is helpful to keep in mind where people come from on things and not expect them to have the same lens.
It really comes down to people’s perceptions of systems in some cases. SK is a good example, right? They are a “liberal democracy” and if you’ve not lost faith in liberal democracy yet, then, you’ll likely look at the history of South Korea and think “This was necessary to stop Communism from taking over all of Korea, and eventually build liberal democracy”. You’ll look at current history, and the attempt at martial law, and the eventual impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol as evidence that those hard times in SK’s past really did ensure democracy won in the end. It’s a similar line of thinking, although not one rooted in materialism, as Parenti’s ideas about “Capitalist Encirclement”. If we were to “secularize” his thinking, it would be, “States of all stripes will engage in authoritative measures to preserve and maintain the ideological core of the state”.
Liberals can accept historical examples of “authoritarianism” if A) they believe those measures were preserving or installing “Liberal Democracy” and B) If that history created a state they recognize as a “Liberal Democracy”. In the same way that “communists” (to paint with a broad brush) will accept historical examples of “authoritarianism” as preserving or installing “socialism”. Obviously, the big difference here is how one arrives at either conclusion.
Basically, what Mark Twain is describing is the process of “Deprogramming”, or the process of a true shift in his underlying world view, which he views and interprets reality through. This process isn’t the culmination of “knowing a bunch of facts about history” as you point out. It is the ability to look at history, from a different perspective, from which new questions and understandings are drawn into “focus”.
I believe that, for most people, they do not have a concrete “world view”, or they do not understand this concept of “world view” and are not cognitive of its impacts on how they interoperate the world. Getting at the heart of “why” they believe what they believe, instead of getting mired in the mud of debunking or fact checking what they believe, is probably a better path to walk in these situations. The goal should be to draw the topic into focus, or to help them see it through a new lens.
And I say all this knowing that I’m not good at it, and if anything this is just a good reminder to myself (and others) to not get stuck in the mud.