Historical lessons or ‘culture wars’?

To look for historical parallels is always valuable as it serves to remind us that, despite the attempts to shape past, present and future into analyses and narratives that suit particular ends, in practice discontinuities have always been a factor in history. Moreover, history provides resonant images for the present. To consider, for example, the current controversy over the Brexit referendum in the light of Abraham Lincoln’s affirmation at Gettysburg in 1863 about government ‘by the people…’ is instructive. At one level, to overturn the result instead would be to deliver a triumph ‘by the minority…’.

All historical comparisons invite qualification, which is part of the grit of reality. At the same time, comparisons capture the role of the past in presenting and affirming senses of identity. That role has been greatly challenged by the mixture offered, even enforced, by the diminishment of identity, the denial of identities, and the attempt to create new identities. These processes can all be seen in partisan terms, notably the critique of nationalism and patriotism from the Left; of Britishness from separatists; and of the continuity of national life and institutions by attempts to locate us within a European ‘project’.

There are obvious tensions within this smorgasbord: Jeremy Corbyn’s almost obsessively anti-patriotic internationalism is not as one with that of advocates of membership of the European Union. Yet, in each case, history also plays a role in the ‘culture wars’ that lie at the heart of the assault on identities.

It is in this respect that the partisan nature of the British historical profession as an academic body is noticeable. It is apparent from considering their comments on matters of public policy that this is the case with the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association, and with panjandrums such as Sir David Cannadine, the President of the British Academy, and Sir Richard Evans, the Provost of Gresham College and a major critic of Michael Gove. To suggest that impartial comments about, for example, Brexit, can be anticipated from such figures might be seen to fly in the face of experience. The nature of patronage by historical bodies might also repay investigation in the sense that projects that are supported are not necessarily across the full range of historical expertise and opinion. In short, culture wars are already here, and seem to have been won by those who are certainly not on the Right.