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Comment by google234123 | Hacker News Reader

Well, if you want a far-left and deeply pessimistic interpretation of history, he's you guy.

> To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. [...] If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. [0]

Doesn't sound like a "deeply pessimistic interpretation of history" to me.

[0]: You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train, Howard Zinn

This seems like a kneejerk response to a strawman version of Zinn. He's a pretty middle-of-the-road academic politically speaking and doesn't get anywhere near what I would call far-left.

As for "pessimistic", well, I'd just say that the facts don't care about your feelings. Powerful institutions are (generally speaking) violent and uncaring towards those without power; ignoring that fact does us all a disservice.

Zinn's own words (which are quoted in the article) confirm the parent's point:

From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country . . . something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society—cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.

Saying that America has deeply rooted problems is not pessimism, it's realism. Not believing in people's ability to make it better is pessimism.

And in that quote, Zinn explicitly mentions he doesn’t believe in “people’s ability to make it better”:

I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy

You're misreading him. He's talking about the ability of an ideology and a system to correct itself, not that of the people it rules to choose a different society for themselves.

He is saying a revolution is required because the people can’t change things. I’m not sure, short of outright nihilism, how one could be more pessimistic that that.

He's casting doubt that the problems can be solved through voting alone.

Yes. That's pessimistic.

About voting, sure. Not about the country at large.

He's literally saying that he believes that American democracy is fundamentally flawed and that it can't be fixed, therefore necessitating a revolution.

He said it's not self-correcting, meaning people have to take charge to build the country that they need and want. That's not the same as saying it can't be fixed.

No, he says he doesn’t believe in the “self-correcting character of American Democracy.” That doesn’t just mean that people need to fix it, it means he thinks they need to operate outside the Democratic process to fix it.

You're overfocusing on the "American Democracy" part and missing what he means about self-correction. Being an active and engaged citizen does mean being engaged beyond the ballot box. What specifically do you believe he was advocating that you find immoral or distasteful?

>He said it's not self-correcting, meaning people have to take charge to build the country that they need and want.

Yeah, and he believes that this has to happen through a revolution, because the democratic system can't fix itself _even if the people vote and try to change laws to do so_.

>That's not the same as saying it can't be fixed.

Maybe you call tearing down a system and replacing it wither another 'fixing', but I (and likely most others) certainly don't. At the very least, it's a hell of a lot more pessimistic than reformism.

Reform and revolution are a false dichotomy. Social movements and popular unrest effect the electoral process significantly.

>Reform and revolution are a false dichotomy.

Reformist and revolutionist actions aren't contradictory, but reform and revolution absolutely are. People who advocate for revolution (which Zinn does in the above quote) fundamentally reject the idea that peaceful, incremental legislative reform could be used to transform the democratic system.

>Social movements and popular unrest effect the electoral process significantly

Sure, but Zinn isn't advocating for that. This bit

>The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society

makes it pretty damn clear that he thinks real change won't come through the electoral process.

>makes it pretty damn clear that he thinks real change won't come through the electoral process.

Yeah, and that's where I break with Zinn, (because it requires a silly definition of "real" change) but you're wrong if you think he's advocating violent overthrow. He was in favor of civil disobedience. His contemporary Chomsky has been quite clear on this, especially recently, when he's even criticized leftists for defending violence at protests.

> doesn't get anywhere near what I would call far-left.

To the far-right, everything looks like far-left.

Far left is a pretty fuzzy term, but I don't think you need to be far-right to consider someone advocating for revolutionary anti-capitalism to be part of it.

I don't question Zinn's position is very much to the left, but, I've often heard people say universal healthcare is "socialism" and that makes the person sound like they are so far into the right, well past nazism, to confuse human rights with socialism.

Yep, I'd rather the rosy Disney-fied version of history that hides the truth behind indigenous/minority struggles and keeps the impoverished in their place.

Did you even read his book? Calling it “far-left” or “pessimistic” is pretty far off. If you have critiques then present them clearly with evidence.

I absolutely agree. I am as lefty as it gets but having this ideological indoctrination shoved down my throat in highschool was an awful experience. It didn't feel constructive, it didn't feel educational, it felt like an uninterrupted lambasting. It totally failed to persuade and left an awful taste in my mouth that decades have not erased.

Where did you go to high school that taught this?

Mountain View, CA

That was my point of view when I considered myself a libertarian. If you actually give the stuff a chance and read it - it’s just facts, often untold and unknown. It did shift my views far to the left, but the only thing holding me back from that was ignorance of the truth.

As a revisionist, the great thing about Zinn is that he told the lesser known side of a lot of stories. However it seemed like he had a tendency to put a ton of weight on non-objective primary sources. Just like it's healthy to question and criticize the traditional narratives, I don't think every "fact" in A People's History should be taken at face value.

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