A Wicked Man? No, a Fool with Wicked Ideas
2010 January 31
I’ve been uncomfortable with one characterization in my blog on Howard Zinn, and have decided I want to correct and will ask our editor David Swindle to do so in the original text. This brief blog is by way of explanation. I’m uncomfortable with calling Zinn a “wicked man” and thereby putting him in the same category with child molesters such as Daniel Ortega and mass murderers like Stalin and Pot, though Zinn actively abetted and supported all three. Howard Zinn was a fool with wicked ideas and wicked allegiances which continued to his last breath.
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David, I would respectfully disagree — if someone persistently enables wickedness, then it seems fair to label them wicked. The only excuse would be ignorance of what they are enabling, but it would be a real stretch to claim that Zinn didn't understand what he was doing for so long.
I am a historian with a fair amount of familiarity with Zinn's work and activism. While some of ideals and solutions may have been misguided, it is a gross exaggeration to say he advocated some kind of communist dictatorship or ethnic cleansing. He has always been a strident critic of our government's policies concerning the exploited and underprivileged, and such criticism should be welcomed by a principled conservatism that seeks to keep government excess in check. He also exposed the dangers of extreme nationalism and ethnocentrism, which we conservatives in America should be as skeptical of as big government: the latter often follows the former, as we saw in Germany, in Italy, and have recently seen in Dubya's disastrous administration. Though Zinn's socialist tendencies would not have achieved the results he envisioned, he should be remembered as an excellent historian and ethical man as much as a misguided ideologue.
This is incoherent.
Doc is a self-defined "conservative", but he ascribes to the Marxist economic lexiconorgrahpy of class structures. True conservatism, though, understands that in the United States, there are no stratified "classes" as such, and that those with much wealth may become poor (-which we've seen quite a bit over the last eighteen months), and those that are poor may obtain great wealth. Also, in America, today the thought of "privilege" mostly applies to the governing classes, where there is almost a primogeniture emerging (the Tafts, the Kennedy's, the Bush's, the Udalls, the Bidens, the Cuomos, etc.), and where campaign laws stack the deck for incumbents. So, sadly, most of the citizenry is becoming "underprivileged", and it has nothing to do with economic might.
Further, if anyone in this existing economic structure in the United States is "exploited" based on economic wherewithal, one could make a persuasive argument that, given the fact that the top 2 percent of wage earners pay 85 percent of all taxes, that the WEALTHY are exploited, not the poor. And I say this as a man who makes less than $60,000 each year, and has paid little income taxes in the last decade (after kids, medical bills, etc.). And finally, Zinn is the embodiment of the answer that Richard Nixon gave about how history would treat him: "I don't know", he said, "It depends on who writes the history". If history is awash with leftist drivel (Arthur Schlesinger, call your office), then, certainly, Zinn as an "historian" would be chalked up as "excellent". If history, though, is objective, Zinn is a bootlicker for monstrous, dictatorial thugs who have butchered millions of innocent souls.
As for David's mea culpa about Zinn's wickedness (or not). It seems to be a distinction without much difference. But, I certainly trust his semantic judgment.
“Though Zinn’s socialist tendencies would not have achieved the results he envisioned, he should be remembered as an excellent historian and ethical man as much as a misguided ideologue.”
That is really a contradictory statement. An ideologue is by definition not an objective observer of events, but a polemicist. Mr. Zinn’s effort was not to enlighten, but to indoctrinate. He started off his People’s History of the United States” with Christopher Columbus’s landing in the Bahamas and exploitation of the native Arawak’s. Shortly after that, we are treated to Hernan Cortes and his conquest of the Aztec Empire in present day Mexico. The point in mentioning this is that Zinn intially promised not to drag out things that were so far in the past and unrelated to the United States, but then he proceded to do so just the same. Mr. Zinn could not resist “setting his scene/trajectory”, even if it was with Spaniards in the Carribean. Later on, we are balefully told that George Washington was the richest man in America, even though it was documented in the past and presently that George Washington was quite cash poor and had to borrow constantly to stay afloat. This super rich man had to borrow money to travel to New York City to claim the presidency. This stuff just goes on and on. Howard Zinn was making political points, rather than historical ones in his major work.
I am going to have to agree with Bob Cormack. A willing and enthusiastic enabler of evil designs or evil people could reasonably be called "wicked."
What "Doc C" does not see is that, although he is correct in saying conservatives should be opposed to excessive nationalism and ethnocentrism, Zinn, like so many on the left, advocated for another extremism that may even be worse. To allow the ideology of Zinn to become reality would be to create a world that no conservative would want to live in. It is not utopia, except to Zinn, it is the opposite.
As for being an "excellent historian" that would be true only if the title was meant to be conferred on historians who interpret history blinded by ideology. I would think an excellent historian, such as Paul Johnson, would find more balance in history which is has the ring of truth, not politics.
Nationalism is left-speak for patriotism.
I didn't read all of Doc's post. His retort about Dubya's disasterous administration tells me he's a leftist in diguise. Or a libertarian, as bad.
If the end result of Zinn's "teachings" was one more dead body trampled under the tank treads of a Soviet Union or Communist China or even the dead left by the Communist Ortega – Zinn's sins are clear.
Incremental socialism/communism is no less lethal than "Red October" or any subsequent communist regime taking power and enslaving millions.
If he was sincere, he would have sold his belongings and moved to Cuba in 1959.
He died where? Boston? Case closed.
If the only tool you have is a hammer; everything looks like a nail.
Zinn's only "tool" was his Stalinist point of view…the rest is (dubious) history.
I do not think that Howard Zinn was a fool. He should have been perfectly aware of what was going on in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China. As an academic at a major educational institution, he would have had more ready access to information about those societies than most people. Mr. Zinn either deliberately misrepresented the situation in both of those countries, or willfully decided to ignore the available evidence. Howard Zinn may not have had a Mosin-Nagant or AK-47 in his hands, but that was not due to a lack of sympathy for revolutionary goals. He was not a good man.
Doc C lost me with the BushHitler allusion to "extreme nationalism & ethnocentralism" – under Bush 43?!?!? Are you serious? Was the reaction to 911 and the security measures he championed – and which Congress approved – merely "extreme nationalism" (i.e., the existential right for the USA to exist & NOT be obliterated)? And did it morph into – or did the Bush Administration push it into – "ethnocentrism?" That's not what I witnessed and lived through – not what I saw happening in this country. Besides, a large portion of the population was opposed to the Iraq War, so the insinuated "nazification" of the USA really never materialized (except in the over-wrought speech of far too many leftist libtards). Anyway, Doc C can mourn the passing of Howard Zinn – I don't. He lived too long and caused too much trouble as it was.
@ David Horowitz, Thank you. While generations of Americans can banter about the wickedness of men; legions of good people like yourself can show the world that correcting the record is honorable and transcends misguided and misinformed criticism.
The above should read:
@ David Horowitz, Thank you. While generations of Americans can banter about the wickedness of men; legions of good people like yourself can show the world that correcting the record is honorable and transcends misguided and misinformed criticism; Zinn's work comes to mind.
Facts are Stubborn Things:
Nobody swims to Cuba.
In communist countries, the guns at the border point inward.
The US needs fences to keep people out.
Obama is killing the Democrat party.
Howard Zinn never lived under the communism he advocated, and nobody that lived under communism advocates it.
Civility and kindness are positive traits, and we should extend the benefit of the doubt to misguided men like Zinn. He appears to have been an honorable man with wrong, terrible, and often even wicked ideas. Zinn showed keen interest in our troubled world, wrote numerous books, and attempted to make the world better. He was also profoundly deluded, held the West to utopian ideals, and excused the worst crimes of some of the worst regimes ever.
But we shouldn't dance on his grave or give our critics easy ammunition to demonize us either. Let's keep the discourse civil, and the debate focused on facts. Everywhere the communists took power, mass murder and tragedy followed.
Yet let's keep the man and his ideas separate. If possible, let's recognize the man's humanity and expose the dangerous folly of his passionately held, leftist illusions.
Eric, I question his "humanity". I do not seek to dance on anyone's grave, however, sometimes evil comes in inocuous and pleasant enough looking packages. I view Zinn to have a deep seated hatred of mankind and sought to control,suppress,deny,and eliminate the humans that he claimed to care for. I do not believe that his "wicked ideas" were anything more than an attempt at human destruction through systemized destruction. Those in control, would then be the very evil that they championed against. Zinn was an expert student in the history and end results of Stalin,Mao and others and yet there was a part of him that chose to embrace and celebrate that evil as a template for human society.
You cannot keep a man and his ideas "separate." The argument could be made that you have no man without ideas.
Hitler had ideas too. Tragically, he was given the power to apply his ideas which resulted in the deaths of millions. If Zinn was given the same power, what would have been the result?
Freedom of speech is not speech which is restricted to only language which cannot be twisted and misinterpreted (if there is such language). My experience with the left is that you may take great pains in choosing your words carefully and they will distort the meaning anyway. I would never choose to comment where what I said would have to pass leftist muster. I would never give them that kind of control. It is sad that anyone else would.
I agree son of the house of Levi. I personally am proud of the fact that I am an equal opportunity offender and believe that truth will always bear good fruit. It is indeed a sign of last times that evil is viewed as good, and good is viewed as evil by many in this world. I usually couch my beliefs carefully on this post so that the libs, progressives and other struggling greenies can understand even the most simple of explanations and examples. When teaching the children, use simple terms and examples so that they will hopefully learn and change. You mused if Zinn had the power that Hitler had what would the result have been. Worse, I believe. Zinn's philosophical writings have become a religion, far beyond the government that sought to rectify and government build. Hitler and others have always viewed themselves as saviors. Sound familiar?We have a Maoist-based White House in place that seeks to reform our nation from our very thought processes to the ability to breathe. We are in real trouble here.
I too am a Historian and Zinn was a disingenuous hypocrite, not to mention a vicious self-loather and America-hater.
Zinn does write movingly of what Columbus and the Spanish explorers did to the Natives, but did he ever himself practice what he preached? No sireeee. He occupied Native American soil but never showed an inclination about moving back to the ghetto in Eastern Europe. Trouble is that those Nazis whom he REGRETTED bombing in World War II wiped out those ghettos and the inhabitants whose survivors he later smeared in his vicious attacks on Israel. And what the Nazis didn't do, the guy whom Zinn openly admired, one Joe Stalin, tried to finish the job.
Zinn also lied about the Civil War. But what else was new from a CPUSA hack and hypocrite?
The outcome of this politically motivated quackery and charlatanism was that our daughter fled our city in her anxiety to escape from us, and spent the next two years on the streets of uncounted North American cities, where she was routinely victimized both physically and sexually. Through a bizarre stroke of good luck (perhaps, but I strongly believe by divine intervention), my wife and I reestablished contact with her and were able to persuade her to return home. She is still very ill, and every day is a challenge for her, but she is now with us and her brothers, who will do whatever might be necessary to ensure her safety and well being.
To return to the subject of Mr. Ortega, I must tell you that my alarm bells went off when I learned that his stepdaughter had waited until she was thirty to lay her complaint. Smacks to me of "recovered memory" therapy! Contrary to the highly subjective beliefs and procedures of recovered memory practitioners, it has been shown over and over again that the consequence of childhood trauma is not robust repression of traumatic incidents, but rather constant ruminative preoccupation with them. The goal of the mental health professional ought not to be dredging up hitherto forgotten details of traumatic occurrences, but rather enabling the afflicted person to clearly acknowledge the abuses which have befallen her, relegate them to the past, and move forward with confidence into the rest of her life.
As I've said, I have no knowledge of whether Mr Ortega committed the alleged offences or not, but I do strongly believe in the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."
Warmest regards,
j.
Hello again Mr. Horowitz:
I see my second paragraph hasn't made it through cyberspace to your site. I'll attempt to duplicate it:
Our daughter was a classic overachiever; she was a 95%+ student, breathtakingly beautiful and an Olympic class athlete. Tragically, she was stricken with acute paranoid schizophrenia at the age of eighteen. As she realized that her mind was slipping away from her, she cast about desperately for help, as a consequence of which she had the tragic misfortune to fall into the clutches of a radical feminist "counselor," who convinced her that her distress had been brought about by childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her parents, the memories of which she had "repressed" and relegated to the "subconcious," where they had lurked undetected all these years, playing hob with her emotions and hindering her efforts to lead a fulfilling life.
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I'm sure your readers will recall the incredibly destructive pop psychology quackery and charlatanism of "recovered memory therapy," which destroyed thousands of families during the 'eighties and 'nineties. Those interested in the background of this phenomenon may
find complete information by googling the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
Vanity and hatred seemed to motivate much of Zinn's behavior. Stalin's throttling grasp of the human condition arguably struck a chord with Zinn's ignoble virtues. Foolish? A Useful Idiot? I doubt it. He was not a member of the "Innocents Clubs". I will venture to say he knowingly initiated evil with his own propaganda. Collectivists do not have a problem with perpetrating evils upon individuals; it is when evil becomes a collective phenomena that socialists say "mistakes were made". As an ideologue, Zinn had no love of knowledge, as with philosophy, which it intrinsic to good history. A charitable description of Zinn would be Useful Moron, for a moron can learn. And Zinn did learn — to perfect his evils. Unless one wants to argue that he was an intellectual sociopath who was not accountable for his actions, then he may be fairly described as one of many wicked men, who glut their vanities at the expense of others.
"wicked men, who glut their vanity at the expense of others"
And if that isn't wicked I don't know what is.. You are so right, Chris. He was no fool, and if a teenage girl like I was could fathom what was going on then he centrainly could. But how can it be that people would be willing glut their vanity in this way?? For most communists and marxists here in the west never come to their senses, and how is that even possible?
You made a nice trait d'union by the way to the story of Superkufr – about his poor daughter and the feminist therapist whom it pleased to dig up a false memory of abuse in a paranoid schizofrenic girl, chasing her away from the safety of home and her parents, and convicting her to the misery and sorrow of streetlife when you are ill and out of your mind
What else could make a person do that than utter vanity and abysmal silliness?
How can a person even believe that anyone can repress a life of abuse??
Surely the gods must be crazy..