From the White-PillBox: Part 68
“History is written by the victors”. Yes, there’s a genuine White Pill in that.
(Initial side-note: I was fortunate to be interviewed by Patrick Smith recently, and we discussed my White Pill essays.)
“History is written by the victors” is a famous expression that suggests that historical accounts are often shaped or biased by those who emerge victorious in social struggles. Their perspective tends to dominate the historical narrative.
Most commonly, it explicitly refers to military conflicts. But importantly, it also applies to ideology. Historical accounts are often shaped by the dominant values, beliefs, and biases of the time in which they are written.
But this leads to an easily overlooked fact: dominant ideologies change. One can say that certain ideologies emerge “victorious” over others.
And this means that when histories are reviewed and rewritten, they are modified to reflect those biases.
Bias – not good
Historical bias can be a problem. For example, today’s general bias against capitalism is the reason most histories look back to the 19th century and judge it negatively. These histories claim that unfettered capitalism led to sweatshops, misery and starvation. The factual reality is conveniently disregarded 1.
Bias – good
But biased historical accounts are not necessarily a bad thing. There are insights that man has gained over the centuries that are clearly superior to the views of the past. These values enable us to condemn practices that, in the past, might have been accepted and even endorsed.
Today, for example, slavery is correctly viewed as reprehensible. Therefore, histories of slavery (written today) portray it as morally evil. Our more enlightened perspective on slavery is a positive bias.
However, examine histories written hundreds of years ago. Slavery was generally portrayed as a natural or necessary part of society, and moral judgments against it were rare. These histories reflected the prevailing cultural and moral norms of the time.
Bias, like it or not
Bias is a normal part of the act of choosing. Historians bring their values to the task, just as all of us bring our own biases into our activities. Bias cannot be eliminated so long as we are humans with values.
The very act of chronicling history involves picking and choosing exactly what to write about. This itself requires judgments as to what qualifies as valuable history 2.
Current histories
We can use the above insights to examine today’s histories.
Again, using slavery as an example, the chances of the practice returning are vanishingly small. A significant reason for this is because our historians view slavery as impermissible. This serves as a reminder that keeps it impermissible…precisely because the evil of slavery is chronicled as evil.
However, current historians still believe the myth of statism. It is no surprise that their history books unquestioningly assume the validity, morality, and necessity of a State.
The White Pill
The White Pill in this analysis pertains to the resiliency of a stateless society 3. As free societies emerge and persist, they will hold the view that individual freedom is inviolable, and that there is no place for government in civilized society. They will look back and understand that the idea of government was illegitimate in exactly the way that we, today, understand that slavery was illegitimate.
The historians of that future time will share those sensibilities. Their own written histories will portray governments through the lens of this enlightened perspective. Their view of the idea of government - their judgement of it – will be analogous to the judgement of slavery in today’s histories.
The generations that learn those future histories will wonder how past societies tolerated the State, just as we wonder how our ancestors could have tolerated slavery. They will look upon a re-emergence of the State as absurd; as utterly inconceivable.
Conclusion
When eventual stateless societies document history, students will find the lessons sobering. Their own peace and prosperity will stand in stark contrast to the millennia of despair and suffering that existed due to governments. They will learn that all of it was made possible by the primitive belief that some men may rightfully rule others.
This universal lesson will be one of the many pillars that ground the stability of our future free societies.
These biased histories notably leave out important aspects of the freedoms in the west during the 19th century. Examples:
An unmatched advancement in man’s standard of living, technology, and indeed, peace.
The struggles of the working man, while extremely difficult from today’s perspective, were far more preferable (from their point of view) in comparison to their alternatives at the time.
Collusion between business and the State actually impeded better progress for the average person, and as always, favored the most influential in the private sector.
The best we can hope from historians is that they strive to examine and disclose their biases.
Many detractors of anarchism predict stateless societies will always fail - either by internal failures, or by being conquered by outside forces, i.e., aggressive neighboring States. From this they conclude anarchy is nothing more than a utopian dream.
This assumption is understandable: although stateless societies have existed many times and lasted many centuries, eventually statism replaced them.
It is notable that in most cases they were not undermined by structural defects. They were, in general, internally sustainable. Rather, outside forces conquered or destroyed them.
And one reason they were susceptible to being overtaken is that they still imagined that some sort of coercive ruling authority (a State) could have legitimacy. No stateless society (so far) has had a sufficient understanding of the supremacy of the individual over his body and property; the myth of authority was (and still is) too ingrained.
Nonetheless, many historical stateless societies persisted and were remarkably successful.
Today there is a far more sophisticated understanding of the principles of non-aggression. There is a scholarly and practical understanding of the legal underpinnings of how justice can work. There is the growing awareness that the State, in any form, is illegitimate. There is steady technological progress toward decentralized power. Taken together, these factors increase the likelihood of both an emergent and stable free society.