The Paris Attacks and the Abuse of History
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Just ignore him and move on.
But all I see is a left-wing professor unhappy with insufficient PC-ness of someone's argument (too Western-centric, not afraid to use the 'us-them' language, etc).
His one real point is that the Rome collapsed because of partly internal and partly external factors. That's certainly true - but it was the barbarians who ultimately sacked Rome and not a civil war that did them in.
He then went on to point out that Ferguson black-and-white "us" and "them" was a childish crayon drawing of reality, which is a fair point, and it's not PC to point out someone massively simplifying.
He followed this up with pointing out that another source Ferguson cited, but butchered, offered observations that cut the legs out from under Ferguson.
He didn't need to point out the specific details of 5th c. Rome to point out the problems in Ferguson's article, Ferguson wasn't even writing at a point where one could say he was wrong on the topic.
May I ask what in particular is seen as wrong (factually?) with Gibbon's view of Rome by today's historians? Did new information come to light since he wrote his books that makes him unsuitable for a serious historian to cite?
Modern historians still do look to those historians, but are much more critical about vetting their reliability on topics, have more texts to work with (largely in thanks to the Oxyrhynchus discoveries - Oxyrhynchus was basically an ancient garbage dump in Egypt which thanks to the arid climate preserved a huge trove of texts.) Historians also have a lot of other material to work with - archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics that either weren't available or weren't really considered in Gibbon's time. Many of these offer more objective data about the goings on of the empire and can tell us a lot about things happening all over the empire and show how unreliable the texts discussing events can be.
Modern historiography tries to approach history from as objective and critical a stance as can be managed, rather than seeing history as a kind of tapestry to weave a preconceived narrative from. Gibbon's historiographical approach was to weave a history from the documents that while for the most part was roughly accurate in many details, was all about building a grand narrative of how the Late Empire fell due to Christianity effectively ruining everything it touched, miring the empire in "superstition," and "enthusiasms." Today historians recognize that we are better off focusing on building as reliable an account as we can while a historian should (at least attempt to) leave the moralizing and grand narratives out.
This is to say nothing about Europe's interests in preventing an influx of refugees, just that likening the West's conflict with Islamic extremists to the circumstances surrounding the fall of Rome is nonsense.
Not entirely nonsense. Halfway maybe. Europe, like Rome, has been in decline for almost a century by now. Now opportunists are taking advantage.
Of course, Roman Empire was not being pushed, to accept anyone. Europe is under intense pressure from the US and the global trade elites who believe in 'Open Borders', as a way to keep profits and power.
far easier to practice electoral 'divide and conquer' in ethnically non-homogenous populations..
This fb post doesn't belong on HN.
I'm not debating his position, which I respect, but his argument. If an argument is nothing more than talking about how angry one is and then attacking those who hold the opposing position, it's noise at best and a rallying cry to a mob at worst.
* Ferguson knows very little about the 5th Century, by his own admission
* Ferguson cites Edward Gibbon, who is a poor source by modern standards. Gibbon himself felt that he his conclusions were invalid.
* Ferguson grossly oversimplifies his other source, because that source tries to say the exact opposite of what Ferguson concludes.
I feel like you skimmed the post, found some PC-like arguments, and concluded that its weak.
Your feelings have lead you astray in this case. I read every word.
I read Humphries' claims of his own expertise in 5th century history, his claims of Ferguson's ignorance and claims and over-simplification of the same and his outright personal attack at the end and I was not impressed with either his critique or his methods. Rather than attacking the person (or even his sources), why not address the actual fallacies in his historical analogies?
What is good for a political talk show blowhard seeking ratings is not the same as what is good for a constructive discussion.
As far as I can see, PC just replaces one form of prejudice with another - I would never encourage PC from anyone. However, tolerance of the tolerant and equal respect regardless of differences (which is NOT PC) is something I promote. Simply call him racist - pure and simple. Segregating one ethnicity/religion/gender is nothing short of prejudice (eg. the woman that runs she++ falls in the same boat ... she believes genders should be treated differently, that's PC and sexist. Read her comments on Forbes - she constantly draws lines between genders with stereotypes).
>it was the barbarians who ultimately sacked Rome and not a civil war that did them in.
I would view the collapse of Rome through corruption/apathy and barbarian attacks. If Rome had the finances to support an army, the hordes would have been far less of an issue. You can read more about it here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...
Ie in this example the FB professor is unhappy that Fergusson considers the native European populations vs the muslim immigrants and concludes that "the majority hold views not easily reconciled with the principles of our liberal democracies, including our novel notions about sexual equality and tolerance not merely of religious diversity but of nearly all sexual proclivities".
He doesn't say - 'Wait, buddy, you're wrong. Muslim immigrants do hold views compatible with X,Y,Z". Instead he says "How dare you draw comparison between the two groups, that's not cool!"
> (From the article) But this is a straw man argument, producing a caricature of “us” that fails to account for the wide variety of opinions on matters of inclusion and tolerance to be found across Europe. In equal fashion, his construction of a Muslim “other” is a caricature devoid of nuance.
Just take the fact that many, if not most, terrorists before becoming radicalized are secular second generation immigrants. That is what makes them easy to recruit, because of their search of a sense of belonging and not already having conflicting views on religion. If you want to talk about e.g. honor killings those attitudes might be relevant, but they aren't relevant enough when talking about these recent events to be the single focus.
The PC factor is exactly this - Ferguson doesn't shy away from putting light on it while the FB professor is horrified by the construct of the 'other' that's devoid of nuance.
> It seems that the actions of the terrorists allow for a fairly easy us vs them categorization.
Why? For you?
> yet the terrorists all come from specific subset
What subset is that? Plenty of terrorism isn't based on religion.
> So there is some commonality between them [...]
And that is? Of course there's some commonality, but you actually have to specify which and why to have an argument.
> Ferguson doesn't shy away from putting light on it
What part of his writing does that? The part I've read very much paints with broad strokes and doesn't at all focus on "the commonality of a specific subset of terrorists". As you would expect from a history professor.
Sexes are different. In some areas, like strength, they almost form non-overlapping sets.
In others, like personality, there is not much overlap either.
See for example: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
Why do you think you can motivate women and men by using the exact same thing? Biology has made both value different things. Discernible in voting patterns and gov't preferences. Here is a paper on how giving franchise to women impacted US government..
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenn...
Do you think men enjoy the same things as women? Treating everyone the same is a very good way of not getting anything done.
And as to stereotyping. It's unavoidable. The human brain is wired so it tries to abstract and save effort. Dealing with everyone as a total unknown is not we're set up.
Furthermore, stereotypes are somewhat accurate. Moreso than social science. Obviously, if they are accurate they are useful.
See for example: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201408/st...
> Some of my fellow historians have asked the obvious question why Ferguson fixates on the fifth century, when the seventh century in the East, which saw the rise of Islam, might present more obvious food for thought. Perhaps Ferguson knows even less about that.
As the author notes, Niall Ferguson chose his Roman comparison to evoke fear of a fall from greatness, not because it is an insightful comparison. The rise of ISIS and its war with Al-Assad's Syria and Iraq should be seen in the context of an emerging revolutionary state like the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Cambodian, and Iranian revolutions. The refugees are just like those that are typically cast out during the rise of a revolutionary state.
We get much more nuanced comparisons of ISIS and the refugee influx in this context. Here is a great set of such comparisons: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/isis-rev...
> In his ‘General considerations on the decline of the empire in the west’ that concluded volume 3 of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon made this European dimension explicit by considering how a similar chain of events might impact on the Europe of his own day.
The best vaccine against alarmist predictions is looking at the previously incorrect alarmist predictions from the same source. This review is like @pessimistsarc on Twitter, except for angsty pundit-historians. Very gratifying.
Concerns about the import of ideology along with refugees might be legitimate, but comparing the downfall of modern Western civilization to the sack of a single city, Rome, is just ridiculous.
It cost more to build things than to destroy them.
ISIS has an ideology that it uses to recruit people who are willing to work for a low amount of money and do suicide bombings. Most of their weapons they stole from Iraq, and they stole oil and sold it to raise more money.
Yet the USA spends more on its military and drones and still cannot stop ISIS. We are told ISIS is contained, but right after that the Paris Attacks happened. ISIS can just recruit people and give them resources and money to carry out attacks.
We are not fighting a nation or religion, we are fighting an ideology. One that can recruit people over social media and operate on a low budget with low pay because everyone they recruit thinks they will have 72 virgins in paradise after they die.
The USA is a nation of laws and we have a separation of church and state. We have minimum wage laws and pay people more based on their skill set and value. We pay more for our military and for building bridges because we are trying to build an economy and improve our nation's infrastructure. ISIS does none of those things so they can operate on a lower income, and since their recruits can become a suicide bomb they don't have to pay them after that. They recruit so many people that life is cheap to them and they sacrifice them as pawns.
ISIS or any other terrorist group always finds a way to get an income, blackmail, stealing oil, fake Islamic charities, raiding banks for cash, forcing people to pay a tax or be killed, killing people and taking their wealth, and all sorts of things. They operate like a criminal operation and are even known to deal in drugs as well sometimes.
Defeating ISIS will be very hard indeed. You have to disprove their ideology so they stop getting recruits. You have to cut off their sources of income. You have to kill of their leaders until there is nobody qualified to be a general or leader. Then in the process make sure no innocent women and children get killed or else it will be used as propaganda to recruit more people.
You have to understand what we might be seeing World War 3 in the Middle East right now if things don't get any better.
The death of 150 people is a great tragedy. Its impact will be felt directly by tens of thousands, and indirectly by millions. But this is nothing in comparison to the events foreshadowing the sack of Rome, and there's little reason to believe it is a sign of things to come.
I think we are simply so sensitive to these acts of violence that we have lost our bearings -- there is simply no realistic series of events by which Islamic extremists can topple Western civilization.
Thankfully, an unwillingness to do what it takes to eliminate this threat is not a big problem, because it's not a big threat. The deaths in Paris were sad, but such things pose no threat to our societies as a whole. It would be nice not to have these things happen, but there's no possibility of succumbing to conquest.
If your argument is that the current US strategy is not effective against ISIS, that's one thing, but otherwise please...The US could stop ISIS in a matter of minutes if it chose to employ nuclear weapons for example. It could easily stop them in a matter of weeks or months if it chose to engage in total war without regard to resulting civilian casualties in the area. The reason the US does not engage in such actions is because it has deemed them to be morally dubious and also not politically palatable domestically or internationally.
https://eidolon.pub/barbarians-inside-the-gate-part-ii-c22c5...
Granted, he's writing about Republican Rome so it doesn't directly relate to the 5th century, but it deals with similar themes in a thoughtful way.
And I agree that it would be better for everyone if we collectively just ignored the 2015 incarnation of Niall Ferguson, but unfortunately being a tenured professor at Harvard (and now Stanford) gives you quite the bully pulpit! His first book is actually good, but it's been a downhill slide into largely fact-less political assertions and nasty ad hominem attacks since then...
I couldn't agree more. The 2011 Ferguson was pretty vapid when dealing in short-form too. He debated Zakaria and Kissinger in 2011 on the future of China: https://www.munkdebates.com/debates/china
It is hard to believe how frequently he resorts to ad hominem arguments. Furthermore, he can't seem to even acknowledge a the crux of a compelling argument made by Kissinger/Zakaria. Unsurprisingly, he drove the audience away from his argument in droves.
Every time someone tries to shoe-horn the Fall of Rome into contemporary history it's good to post Demandt's "210 Reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire" [1]. You can nicely see which ideologies have tried to fit Rome into their own crusade.
The Sunday Times has a paywall, even for a single article in the current edition. But Ferguson's piece has been syndicated.
Here's a link at the Boston Globe:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/16/paris-and-fal...