Readers will be aware that the Dunning School was cancelled by the Marxist historian Eric Foner, but it is worth revisiting the details of exactly how Foner achieved this momentous feat. The reference to “Dunning” usually refers to the distinguished historian William A. Dunning, but it is also used more broadly as a label for his PhD students and the wider school of history that for decades was considered to be the “established” history of the reconstruction era.
After their “long march” through the institutions, Marxists became the new academic establishment. Foner is now well known as a leading establishment historian, and a recipient of numerous awards and accolades:
“Eric Foner is one of a handful of historians who have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes within the same year. His widely acclaimed 2011 study The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery also earned the Lincoln Prize. At the beginning of our conversation in his office at Columbia University, where Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, I commented on his wall of awards, including a sword and a handsome bust of Abraham Lincoln.”
Historical Revisionism
In his 1988 book Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, Foner set out to revise the Dunning School. So far, so good. It is good for established history to be constantly questioned and revised where necessary. That is how we expand our knowledge and understanding of history.
Foner’s language is consistently tendentious, for example where he claims that Dunning saw Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson (who had no racial equality plans) as “magnanimous” but regarded the Radical Republicans (who wanted to promote black power) as “irrational”. But being rather unfair in his summaries of the Dunning interpretation does not, in itself, mar his attempt to revise history. After all, scholars often do this when attempting to debunk their opponents. Without going so far as to construct straw arguments, they tend to portray their opponents’ arguments in as unfavorable a light as possible. The aim is, by means of judiciously chosen language, to mock and deride the opposing claims.
Most people tend naturally to do this in debate. It actually takes concerted and determined effort to be scrupulously fair to one’s opponents. So, it is not surprising that Foner would be rather unfair to the Dunning School. All’s fair in love and war, as they say. Foner is certainly not unusual (or unusually unfair to the Dunning School) in this regard.
Setting aside the overstated and ungracious language that peppers his book, when Foner confines himself to discussing history he does give a reasonable representation of the Dunning School. For example, he explained that according to Dunning,
“When the Civil War ended, the white South genuinely accepted the reality of military defeat, stood ready to do justice to the emancipated slaves, and desired above all a quick reintegration into the fabric of national life.”
It is fair enough to say that Dunning did see the immediate aftermath of the war more or less in that way. You could quibble over Foner’s summaries of the Dunning School interpretations, but they are not entirely fabricated.
Here Comes the Revolution
Matters are rather different when Foner shifts to the main purpose of his book, which is to advance a political theory of racial conflict as a revolutionary struggle that was instrumental in the re-founding of America and in heralding a new era of racial equality.
Here the reader is at once informed that the Dunning scholars were racists. The black commentators who criticized Dunning are described as “survivors.” The Dunning School is depicted as a roadblock that must be dismantled in order for social justice to triumph.
Foner’s book at that point leaves the realm of history and launches itself full swing into the Marxist revolution. His book is the Black Lives Matter “summer of love” of academic history. Having abandoned all pretense of being engaged in studying history, he announces that his revisionist movement was tantamount to a civil rights movement, saying, “Reconstruction revisionism bore the mark of the modern civil rights movement.”
Foner avers that after decades of peddling racism to history scholars, the Dunning School was finally toppled by “objective historians” such as himself, who recognize that Dunning was racist. Foner explains:
“Once objective scholarship and modern experience rendered its racist assumptions untenable, familiar evidence read differently, new questions suddenly came into prominence, and the entire edifice of the Dunning School had to fall.”
He toppled the Dunning School simply by denouncing it as racist. An incredible feat! He explains,
“It required, however, not simply the evolution of scholarship but a profound change in the nation’s politics and racial attitudes to deal the final blow to the Dunning School.”
In Foner’s opinion, decades of work done by the Dunning school have now been “discredited” – by himself – because readers have undergone a “profound change” in their racial attitudes. They woke up and realized that actually everything is racist. As Foner explains:
“Racism was pervasive in mid-nineteenth-century America and at both the regional and national levels constituted a powerful barrier to change.”
Yes, everything is racist
Although we are informed that Dunning was motivated by “racist assumptions”, we are not given any independent evidence of that – the allegation itself is all the evidence we need, because we already know for a “fact” that everything is racist.
Foner treats allegations of racism as a fact too obvious to even require substantiation, because he is engaging in a practice known as presentism. Presentism judges the past based on contemporary moral standards. It is certainly a fact that people in the past held views that are today regarded as morally unacceptable. But exercising moral judgement over the past – declaring that people should not have thought as they did – is not history. It is a form of politically-driven ideology, a point often made by the historian Clyde Wilson.
Foner explains that his goal is to advance the revolution of American society and address “the inequalities that still afflict our society.” Unlike Foner, the Dunning scholars were not revolutionaries. Their goal was to document the history of the Reconstruction Era, not to share their personal political and moral opinions on social justice.
In his book “Theory and History”, Ludwig Von Mises explains that the moment a historian pivots to informing us of his moral opinions concerning the subjects of his study, he is no longer speaking as a historian. This does not mean that if a historian sticks to the task before him it should be impossible to discern his personal opinions from his writing, but it does mean that his personal opinions should not be treated as historical facts.
“It is not the task of the historian qua historian to pass judgments of value on the individuals whose conduct is the theme of his inquiries.… It is a fact that hardly any historian has fully avoided passing judgments of value. But such judgments are always merely incidental to the genuine tasks of history. In uttering them the author speaks as an individual judging from the point of view of his personal valuations, not as a historian.”
A more recent edited collection of essays on the racist nature of the Dunning School follows up on Foner’s original allegations, by clarifying that the Dunning scholars were indeed “systemically racist.” In his Foreword to this collection, Foner describes his revisionist insights as “a sad reminder of the price paid when racial prejudice shapes historical judgment.” Oh, that collection of essays praising your revolution is indeed a very sad reminder of your moral opinions, Mr Foner.
Foner reminds us that the Dunning scholars “took as a given black inferiority”, though again he does not explain how he knows this. He solemnly announces that,
“Of course, the fundamental flaw in the Dunning School was the authors’ deep racism.”
Ah, yes, of course it was, Mr Foner.
He further explains that because Dunning was not merely “deeply racist” but also systemically and structurally racist, one cannot simply excise his historical work from his racism. You cannot just read his books and ignore any racist comments, as his entire methodology is infused with racism. Whatever Dunning writes, his racist pen cannot help leaking racism onto the racist page.
“the Dunning School’s racism cannot simply be bracketed, leaving the rest of their volumes intact, for racism shaped not only their interpretations of history but their research methods and use of historical evidence.”
Foner’s argument is circular. The conclusions drawn by the Dunning School show that they are systemically racist, and the fact that they are systemically racist is evidence that their research methods and use of historical evidence were systemically racist – how else would they have derived their racist interpretations, other than by deploying racist research methods? It is obvious. We know that systemic racism exists – everything is racist – and that is how we know that the Dunning School is systemically racist.
An example of this obvious racism is found in the first paragraph of Dunning’s preface to his now cancelled book on Reconstruction, where he observed that
“few episodes of recorded history more urgently invite thorough analysis and extended reflection than the struggle through which the southern whites, subjugated by adversaries of their own race, thwarted the scheme which threatened permanent subjection to another race.”
Dunning’s comment is – obviously – “racist” because it claims white Southerners did not want permanent subjection to black people. If white Southerners were not racist, they would be perfectly happy to be ruled over by their former slaves. This is obvious. We do not claim that Africans were racist for not wanting to be ruled over by white colonialists, because in Marxist theory only the oppressor race can be racist – also an obvious point. White is obviously the oppressor race, and that is how we know that if white Southerners did not want to be ruled by their former slaves it proves they are racist.
That being the case, why on earth would Dunning choose to make that racist observation? Again, the answer is obvious. Only a racist would choose to make racist observations. It follows that Dunning’s research methods must have been racist.
The question that Foner never asks is: is it true that white Southerners were against subjugation to black people? If it is true, perhaps Dunning report it because it is the truth?
According to establishment historians, only a racist would ask such questions. After all, searching for truth may distract you from being aware of exploitative systems and structures in society. That is how the Dunning Scholars managed to overlook all the important points about black oppression when they wrote their books. It explains why only racists are interested in the pursuit of truth, and, to that end, occupy themselves in documenting what actually happened. It shows why racists have failed utterly to grasp what matters most, namely the Revolution.
As Marxist revolutionaries often inform us, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”
The views expressed at AbbevlleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
