Abbeville Institute Press recently (2025) published my book–Sally Hemings, Race, and Song-and-Dance Historiography: The Corruption of Jefferson Scholarship by Institutional Wokeism. The book has 24 short, easily digestible essays—inasmuch as my writings can be construed as easily digestible!—in three sections. I proffer some comments on why I wrote the book.
In the introduction I define “wokeism” roughly as “being awake to social injustices.” That rough definition is serviceable for the aims of my book, and I acknowledge that awareness of social injustices is important—action directed toward correction being also important. Yet I say nothing about “institutionalized wokeism,” which is part of the secondary title. Here I want to proffer a definition of institutionalized wokeism, which shows why the book is vital. By “institutionalized wokeism” let us grasp “being awake to social injustices in a historiographical climate that is progressivist or postmodernist”—viz., one which is Rortian (in which amelioration of social injustices is the sole aim of history and truth plays no role because truth, or even its approximation, is an impossible ideal due to the taint of subjectivism).
“Progressivist” historian Carl Becker made famous historical subjective-relativism much before philosopher Richard Rorty in his 1932 essay “Everyman His Own Historian.” There are, for Becker, no historical facts on which to craft historical accounts of some person or some event, for each person’s perception of things is stiflingly unique. Truth thus is passé because it is impossible, and anyone is as fine an historian as any other person—hence, the title of his influential essay. Consequently, historical narratives are equivalent to fictional novels. So “true” is the Progressivist thesis that it even refutes itself! Yet that for Becker is unproblematic. Strange….
Why then do we care about writing history, if it is vacuous?
Becker is not nonplussed. He is ready with an answer. He writes:
Every generation, our own included, will, must inevitably, understand the past and anticipate the future in the light of its own restricted experience, must inevitably play on the dead whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind.
There is, it seems, some necessity (biological?) that mandates each generation to come up with intriguing fictions concerning who past figures were and why they did the things that they did—tricks on the dead, to suggest that the dead, were they capable of hearing what “historians” say of them, would rise up in revolution. Yet is this historical relativism merely generational, or is it subjective, as his title strongly suggests? If the former, then it seems that each generation has some capacity for loose communication about past events and what the future might bring. If the latter, even loose communication is impossible.
Today’s Postmodernist historians—and in Jeffersonian circles they include Pete Onuf and Annette Gordon-Reed—are theoretically committed to the “progressive” development of historiography. There is Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern History.
Progressive Historiography
- Premodern: to 1650 (religio-authoritarian)
- Modern: 1650-1950 (scientific: facts, reason & logic)
- Postmodern: 1950-present (epistemically pluralistic)
Premodern history is from the beginning of writing history to the Enlightenment. Early historians followed a religio-authoritarian model (certainly Aristotle and the Church) and had their narrative drafted in conformancy with the parameters religio-authoritarianism.
The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on scientificity (observations, hypotheses gleaned by or consistent with those observations, and testing of hypotheses), made impossible the Premodernism, which was supplanted by Modernism. And so, we came to the demise of Premodernism.
Last, when even more informed scholars realized that Modernism was needlessly and suffocatingly reductive, the cancer of scientificity was replaced by Postmodernism, which preached the gospel of epistemic pluralism: There is no one right way to study the world. All methods—hunches, intuitions, tarot cards, religious enthusiasm, utterances while feverish, and science, etc.—are equally reasonable. A poet who writes on Thomas Jefferson tells us as much as any historian and does so in a sonorous style much more pleasing.
This Postmodernist model, however, persuades sobersided thinkers as much as Marx’s dialectical materialism, which was to usher in the dictatorship of the proletariat and replace capitalism en route to pure socialism. That never happened, even when prompted by revolutions.
Yet there are albatrosses. The Postmodernist model presupposes progress of some sort: that the Postmodernist stage is (somehow) an improvement over the Modernist stage. That improvement Postmodernist-epoch thinkers come to recognize, and hence their disavowal of Modernism. Yet such normativism is just what historical progressivism, which can claim only descriptive validity, disallows.
Moreover, we hear nothing about how epistemic pluralism is better than scientificity. What is the gain when we rid ourselves of the shackles of logic? If we disavow veridicality and rush to tackle social ills, how are we to recognize social ills as social ills? Furthermore, without truth, would not any proposed solution to any “social ill” be discretionary, arbitrary? Modernism, at least, gave us the promise of grasping, in some measure, ourselves and the world around us.
Yet this is the world of epistemic nonsense in which we today live. Postmodernism, which predominates in Jeffersonian scholarship, is bunkum! That has been my motivation for my new book by Abbeville Press.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily the views of the Abbeville Institute.
Postmodernist thought is a blight upon mankind, particularly in history. To have the likes of Eric Foner and his ilk reduce history to nothing more than competing narratives (and Foner’s is, of course, the morally superior narrative) is nauseating. All of this stems with the postmodern claim that truth is not knowable, and if knowable, is not communicable. It is mere absurdity dressed up in flowery language. Thank you for defending both Mr. Jefferson and evidence-based history!
“It is mere absurdity dressed up in flowery language”
And where I come from, we call that a LIE.
Right on the money, Earl!
An objective reality exists irrespective of any ‘observers’ subjective opinion about it. It is the tangible and actual truth of that reality that makes any explanation of it to or by the observers even possible. Absent that fundamental truth the distinction between fictional and non-fictional narratives becomes superfluous and irrelevant. And history becomes not a subject for study to better understand and achieve wisdom but just a puerile indulgence for pointless amusement and self gratification.
Some very interesting things said in this article.
One: “There are, for Becker, no historical facts on which to craft historical accounts of some person or some event, for each person’s perception of things is stiflingly unique.”
I wonder how many spouse’s would be ok with their spouse writing a biography of them? Few, I think; even a spouse they love, childhood sweethearts they were. But, why not? Who “knows” them better? But, I know. Way too much subjectivity and emotion there. Harry Truman’s daughter wrote a biography of her father. Someone told me it was good, relatively impartial. I’m not sure when Margaret wrote it. After the death of her father?
Putting aside for the moment the legitimate issue of intellectual property rights for the sake of thoughtfully considering the following sentiment, a writer told me not long ago that he wouldn’t trust anyone to revise one of his history books except someone very close to him (it wasn’t his wife). Why not? What if the reviser was a “Modern” historian? I don’t argue with that writer’s view, it was just interesting to me he feels (and thinks) that way.
“…without truth…” That makes me wonder why Pilate asked, “What is truth?” I assume Pilate was intelligent, educated, powerful, wealthy, etc. Yes, he was ruling in the midst of tremendous religious zealotry. Nevertheless, in spite of the situation he found himself in, his question about truth still seems to suggest he wasn’t so sure about anything in general. He seemed disenchanted, cynical. Pilate didn’t wait for an answer to his question, either. But what? That was thousands of years ago and man has come a long way since Pilate’s day?
I thank all for kind, insightful comments!
History begins with the passing of the present. All the nuances of an event aren’t immediately evident. As time passes and more becomes known about the particular circumstance its history may become modified to fit new information. At some point it’s likely to become “revisionist” history and an irritant to those who were happy with the earliest version. As further time elapses more information about the event is produced by speculation and conjecture which irritates more people, who were willing to accept an earlier version.
A problem with post modern communication is that details of events are broadcast immediately after they take place. The media doesn’t wish to take the time to reflect on what has occurred in its entirety. The first version is almost always unreliable and erroneous. After examination, if it occurs, the story can be modified and corrected. As more time passes analysts with a preconception or an axe to grind are able to further confuse the historical record. That’s modern communication.