Preliminary/introductory points:
1. In Barbarian
Migrations I argued (among many other things) that one thing that might have happened in the
post-imperial era was that, just as romanitas
had been something performed as a claim to a legitimate political status, so
people might also have performed their barbarism, once barbarian identities
became associated with the highest levels of secular and military power.
In classical ethnography, one of the things that distinguished the civic Roman
from the barbarian (and just about anyone else) was the control of
emotion. Barbarians had no such control. Because they could furnish
no reasoned grounds for being angry,
or happy, or sad, they swung wildly from one to the other and back again.
[Actually in my own case, as a northern barbarian, I have often thought
that this was less of a piece of ethnography mired in rhetorical topoi than value-neutral
reportage.] Thus, when barbarian kings throw tantrums or similar public
displays of emotion they are in a sense performing their identity and therefore
their right to be kings. Now,
even when I wrote that book I was aware that this was not a thesis that could
stand in any crude form, and may well (as I just learnt from an
interesting paper on weeping men in Late Antiquity) be even more
complicated than that. Nevertheless I think there's something in it.
2. In an earlier development, some historians have been discussing
the 'socially-constructed' nature of the emotions. On balance I am (as a
barbarian; see above) pretty unconvinced by all this but again the way that
emotions could be 'performed', independently of actual physiological stimuli,
was an interesting off-shoot of this on which I was (at least in part) drawing
in my views on performed barbarism.
3. Now, one reason why academics can come up with an idea as crazy
as the one that emotions are entirely socially constructed is that
academics (American academics even more than British, British even more than
mainland European) inhabit a largely emotion-free environment, in which
the expression of any sort of feelings (assuming they are actually capable of
any) is - as in the world of antique paideia
(the culture of the rhetorically-educated graeco-roman male) - viewed as very
much infra-dig. This
is one reason why I am such a rubbish academic.
4. All that said, many (perhaps even most) of the
frighteningly long list of 'incredibly dumb' things I have done in my life have
actually been the result of deliberation, rather than of 'flying off the
handle', which accounts for most of the remainder (or of being drunk, which
accounts for the rest). More evidence, perhaps, that Pliny,
Vitruvius, Strabo and the rest were right about people born too far to the
north...
[See now this post, although - despite it having done enormous damage to my career - this post is not something I have enormous regrets about.]
Performing anger at the International Medieval Congress
So ... As you know I am actually pretty angry about the way in
which some British historians have been writing books about the barbarian
migrations characterised by (at best) such an indigence of reflection that they
play straight into the hands of the Far Right, the 'anti-immigration lobby' and
what Leo Lucassen calls 'Fact-Free Politics'. As I just intimated, this
really is the most charitable interpretation of these works. [If you want
to see just how
they are playing into the hands of these people read the 'boneheaded' (J.
Jarrett) review of my book on amazon.co.uk and especially the 'comments' on
that review. Be warned, though: there are some pretty offensive
views expressed there, especially if you open the comment hidden because of
negative feedback.]
As a result of this, I organised a series (a 'strand') of four sessions
of papers at this year's International Medieval Congress on 'Beyond the
Invasion Narrative', the aim being twofold: to mobilise historians and
archaeologists who do care not only about more subtle ways of thinking about
their subject, but also about making sure that these more subtle and thus more
socially responsible readings get out beyond the academy, and to develop,
refine and publicise (within university teachers of late antique and early
medieval history) those alternative readings. For reasons beyond anyone's
control, I lost a couple of papers and one way by which the slack was taken up
was by me giving an introduction to the sessions explaining the reasoning
behind them. This focused upon the fact that sometimes it matters to get
angry. Historians aren't supposed to get angry. Partly this is
because the demonstration of anger erodes the cultural capital which is still
the most important matter in furthering a career. Principled anger has
also disappeared from the repertoire of British academic history because it has
been replaced by grubby collusion and self-interest, as a result of the
material rewards - the funding, the grants, that are now the other means by
which one rises up through the ranks (rather than actual historical creativity
and talent). Thus the absence of any real opposition to the most serious
offensive ever launched by a British government against liberal, humane
education: the absence of any leadership (in opposing this) by 'Universities
UK' (in which historians are disproportionately represented). Thus - with
the noble and notable exceptions of Mark Humphries and Ian Wood (both present
in my audience) and a couple of others - British historians have been
silent about the intrusion of political slogans into the AHRC's delivery
plan. There was, I said, a deficit of principle in the British historical
profession. But it mattered, too, to get angry about the abuse of late
antique and early medieval history by the Right. A speech in Rome by
Geert Wilders (a far right-wing Dutch politician) makes extensive use of the
barbarian invasions as an example that we, who share Europe's alleged
'Judaeo-Christian heritage' (1) must learn from in the face of the
'Islamic threat'. I adverted to the fact that a series of other
examples would be presented in Philipp von Rummel's paper later in that
session.
As a result, I decided that, in my own paper, the last in the
strand, I would to some small extent step outside the usual bounds of polite
academic discourse. I repeated the passage from my Brussels paper on
rethinking the migration debate in archaeology, about unthinking academic uses
of migration as explanation (the one concluding ‘one cannot help
but wonder whether these authors are wicked, irresponsible or merely
stupid’). I
repeated the point that (the historian we shall call) Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps' book essentially argues three
things and places these three arguments side-by-side: 1. that the Roman empire
fell because it was conquered by migrating barbarians (they might not have
meant to destroy the Roman Empire, says C.F.-P., but they did); 2: that the end
of the Roman Empire was the end of a civilisation; and 3. that we have to be
careful to preserve our own civilisation. Now, I'm not saying that C.F-P
is a fascist - he would make a somewhat unlikely fascist, I concede.
However, I did add a comment about the fact that he has nevertheless been
happy to write on this subject for Standpoint,
neo-liberal rag founded by Michael Gove (q.v.), a magazine that prints regular
attacks on multi-culturalism. Has he not thought about the company he is
keeping there?
Now, as I just said, I'm not saying that he subscribes to the
views of the xenophobic Right but, if you want to argue that he
does, while that position at least credits him with intelligence, it
could hardly be said to make for a rosy picture of our author. If you
don't want to suppose that, you might suggest that he is pandering to
those who do hold these ideas simply to sell copy and make money. This
seems to me to be the least likely option, I admit, but if that's your
view, it paints C.F-P in the least flattering colours: smart enough to put
together a convincing argument for that audience but lacking even any
conviction in his argument. More positive, perhaps (and the option
I have heard most often) is that he is simply putting these ideas about out of
a sense of mischief, because he wants to 'wind people up'. This credits
him with enough intelligence to put together a stylish argument (and it is
stylish, I admit). Furthermore, no one ought to be more receptive to a
bit of mischief and stirring than me. But this does not seem to me to be
a charitable reading because it simultaneously suggests that he is
so irresponsible that he is peddling ideas to the general public that
could cause serious damage to
real live human beings
(cp. my 'Unbearable Weight' posts) in the brutal world outside the groves
of academe, simply as a form of silly academic parlour game, as some sort
of ridiculous macro-scale Oxbridge tutorial sophistry.
If you leave these aside, what other interpretative options
are available? One is that he actually thinks that this is the historical
'truth'. I don't actually believe that, because the argument contains
distortions that he must know are distortions (most notably the misrepresentation
of the South Etruria Survey). So, all told, the most charitable readings
of this argument turn on the fact that this is a writer who just didn't think
that these were arguments that could be seized upon by the xenophobic far Right
as a historical, factual buttress to their nasty ideologies and the equally
unpleasant policies they want to adopt (cp. Wilders' Rome speech),
or notice that he had presented these arguments in a particular
way that meant his book hardly even needed editing to support these
views. This writer, having presented those arguments in those ways in a
book aimed at the general public (without, remember, realising the damage
this could do) then wrote for a notably anti-multi-cultural magazine, without
realising what the audience of the piece would be or in what ways they could
use his views (although to be fair, he does not push his own view in this
piece, the readers would surely go back to his own contribution to the
'Industry'). If you accept all that, then the shocking but actually,
by the foregoing process of elimination, as we've seen most charitable
alternative is that this is someone who has not thought very hard about things
at all. People with well-paid university jobs are paid to think - well,
they used to be; now they seem to be paid to make money. Thus, in someone
with a publicly-funded university post, you might say that that suggests,
relatively-speaking of course, a bit of a deficiency 'between his
ears'. That might be shocking but it is, actually, the most charitable
reading. But you decide.
There were audible intakes of breath. This was,
incidentally, quite different from the Brussels response, which was much
more of the 'yay: go Guy!' variety. I think history ought to make you
uncomfortable, and I did do this deliberately, because I knew that this - this
performed stepping outside the bounds - would shock that audience. But
that was deliberate. What I hoped it would - or at least might - make
them reflect upon is what we ought to get shocked or angry about. Is it a
senior British academic 'taking the gloves off' in response to what is at best
a sort of irresponsible abuse of academic position? Or is it the
fact that someone with a nice cosy job in the hallowed halls of one of the
wealthiest, most prestigious and most privileged of British HE institutions
can't (or can't be bothered to) think hard enough about what he's writing to
see what it might do outside those halls?
Or is it the fact that a British historian, one who earns (I
guess) in excess of £70k of public money a year to occupy an
established chair of medieval history in a leading British university, a
chair previously occupied by a usually extremely ethically-minded medieval
historian [actually I would not say that any more...], can publish the following sentence?:
'the connection between immigrant violence and the collapse of the western Empire could not be more direct'
Let's think about that. Presumably, and assuming, because it
would be uncharitable not to, that when (the historian to whom we shall refer as) Gussy Finknottle decided to
commit those words to paper some form of thought-process was involved, the
option was available to him to write this sentence:
'the connection between barbarian violence and the collapse of the western Empire could not be more direct.'
That would have been fair enough as a sentence. One might or might
not have agreed - one might want to debate it historically - but
it would remain firmly locked within the discussion of the past, and
within that discussion's terms of art. Now, there would of
course be nothing to stop some loony right-wing reader making a link between
that sentence and modern immigrants but it would be difficult to blame the
author for that. No. At some point Finknottle chose (chose) to write:
'the connection between immigrant violence and the collapse of the western Empire could not be more direct'
What sort of person can choose, can decide, to use that
word - 'immigrant' - without being aware of its status within modern
political discourse, and write it (as with C.F-P) not in an obscure learned
journal but in a book aimed at a wide public, outside academe? Without
being aware - without (one hopes) even having thought, at all - about the serious human
damage it could do? What sort of person? The occupant of
handsomely-remunerated academic chair of history?
Note
1: This attempt at an alliance between the xenophobic European far
right and the Israeli Zionist right is one of the most grotesque aspects of the
current anti-Islamic immigration debate. Seventy years ago no one would
have described Europe as having a 'Judaeo-Christian' inheritance, largely
because the political precursors of Geert Wilders were trying to herd the
ancestors of the Zionist Right into the gas chambers. It also, the
historian must point out, ignores the vitally important Islamic input into
European culture (in Spain especially), not least in preserving many of the Graeco-Roman
classics.
