McNeill (1986) - Mythistory, Or Truth, Myth, History, And Historians

8/10/2019 McNeill (1986) - Mythistory, Or Truth, Myth, History, And Historians

1/11

Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians

Author(s): William H. McNeillSource: The American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 1 (Feb., 1986), pp. 1-10Published by: Oxford University Presson behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1867232.

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2/11

Mythistory,

r

Truth, Myth,History, nd Historians

WILLIAM H. McNEILL

Myth nd historyre close kin nasmuchas bothexplainhowthingsgotto be the

waythey re by telling ome

sort f

story.

ut

our common parlance

reckons

myth

to be

false

while

history s,

or

aspires

to

be,

true.

Accordingly,

historianwho

rejects omeoneelse'sconclusions alls themmythical, hile

claiming

hat

his own

views re

true.

But what seems true to one historian

will

eem false

to

another,

o

one historian's

ruth

becomes another's myth, ven

at

the moment

of

utterance.

A

century

nd more

ago,

when

history

was first

stablished

as an

academic

discipline,

our

predecessors recognized

this dilemma and

believed

they

had a

remedy.

Scientific ource criticismwould

get

the

facts

straight,

whereupon

a

conscientious nd carefulhistorian eeded only oarrangethefacts nto readable

narrative

o

produce genuinely

cientific

istory.

And

science,

of

course,

ike the

stars

bove,

was

trueand eternal,

s

Newton

and

Laplace

had demonstrated o

the

satisfaction

f all

reasonable

persons everywhere.

Yet,

in

practice,revisionism ontinued to prevail

within

he

newly

onstituted

historical

profession,

s

it had

since the

time of

Herodotus.

For a

generation

or

two,

his ontinued

volatility

ould be attributed o

scholarly

uccess

n

discovering

new facts

by diligent

work

n

the archives;

but

early

n

this

century houghtful

historians

egan

to

realize

that

he arrangement

f

facts o make

a

history

nvolved

subjectiveudgments

and

intellectual hoices

thathad little

r

nothing

o do

with

source

criticism,

cientific

r

otherwise.

In

reacting gainst

an

almostmechanicalvision

of scientific

method,

t s

easy

to

underestimate

ctual

achievements.

or

the

deal of

scientific

istory

id allow our

predecessors

to

put

some forms of bias

behind

them.

In

particular,

cademic

historians f

the nineteenth entury ame close to transcending lder

religious

controversies.

Protestantand Catholic

histories of

post-Reformation

urope

ceased

to

be

separate

and distinct raditions f

learning-a

transformation

icely

illustrated n the Anglo-Americanworld by the career of Lord Acton,a Roman

Catholic who

became

Regius

Professor f

History

t

Cambridge

and

editor

of

the

first

Cambridge

Modern

History.

his was a

great accomplishment.

So was

the

accumulation

f

an

enormous

fund

of

exact and reliable

data

throughpainstaking

From

Mythistory

nd

Other

ssays y

William

H.

McNeill.

Reprintedby arrangement

with he

University

of

Chicago

Press.

C) 986

by

The

University

f

Chicago.

All

rights

eserved.

1,

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3/11

2

WilliamH.

McNeill

sourcecriticismhat

llowed the

writing fhistory

n

the westernworld to

assume

a new

depth, scope,

range,

and

precision as compared

to anythingpossible in

earlier

times.

No

heir of

that

scholarly

radition hould scoff t

the faithof

our

predecessors,which nspired so much toiling n archives.

Yet the limits f

scientific

istorywerefar more

constricting han its

devotees

believed. Facts that

could be

establishedbeyond all

reasonable

doubt remained

trivial

n

the sense that

they did

not,

in

and of

themselves,give

meaning

or

intelligibility

o therecord of the

past.

A

catalogue ofundoubtedand

indubitable

information,ven

if

arranged

chronologically,

emains

catalogue.

To

become a

history, actshave to

be put together nto a

pattern

that s understandable

and

credible; and when

thathas been

achieved,

the

resulting ortrait

f

the

past

may

become useful as

well-a fontof

practical

wisdom

upon

which

people may

draw

whenmaking decisionsand taking ction.

Pattern

recognitionof the sort historians

ngage

in

is the chef

d'oeuvre of

human

intelligence. t is achieved

by paying selective ttention o

the total

nput

of stimuli

that

perpetually

swarm

in

upon

our

consciousness.

Only by

leaving

things ut,

that s,

r

elegating hem o

the tatus f background

noise

deserving nly

to

be

disregarded,

an what

mattersmost

n

a given

ituation

ecome

recognizable.

Suitable action follows.

Here is the

great secret

of

human

power

over

nature and

over

ourselves

as

well. Pattern

recognition

s what

natural scientists

re up

to;

it

is

what historianshave

always

done, whether hey

knew t

or

not.

Only

some factsmatterfor

any given pattern.

Otherwise,

useless

clutter

will

obscure what we are

after:

perceptible

elationships

mong important

acts.That

and

that alone

constitutes n

intelligible

attern,giving

meaning

to

the

world,

whether t

be theworldof

physics

nd

chemistry

r

the world

of

nteracting

uman

groups through time,

which

historians

take

as

their

special

domain.

Natural

scientists

re ruthless

in

selecting aspects

of available

sensory

inputs

to

pay

attention

o,

disregarding

ll

else.

They

call their

atterns

heories nd

inheritmost

of

them

from

predecessors.

But,

as

we

now

know,

even

Newton's truths

needed

adjustment.Natural science sneither ternalnoruniversal; t sinsteadhistorical

and

evolutionary,

because

scientists

ccept

a

new

theory only

when the

new

embraces a wider

range

of

phenomena

or achieves a

more

elegant

explanation

of

(selectively bserved)

facts han its

predecessor

was able to do.

No

comnparably

irm

onsensus

prevails

among

historians.

Yet

we need not

despair.

The

great

nd

obvious difference

etweennatural

cientists

nd

historians

is

the

greater

complexity

of the behavior historians

eek

to

understand. The

principalsource

of

historical

omplexity ies

in

the fact

that

human

beings react

both

to

the natural world

and

to

one another

chiefly

hrough

the mediation

of'

symbols.This means, amnongtherthings, hatanytheory bout human life, f'

widely

believed,

will

alter

actual

behavior,

usually by nducing

people

to

act

as if'

the

theory

were true.

Ideas and

ideals

thus

become

self-validating

within

remarkably lastic imits.Ani

xtraordinary

ehavioral

motility

esults.

Resort

to

symbols,

n

eff'ect,

oosened

up

the

connectionbetween

xternal

reality

nd human

responses,

freeing

us

from nstinct

y setting

us

adrifton a

sea

of

uncertainty.

Human

beings thereby

cquired

a new

capacity

o

err,

but also

to

change,

adapt,



4/11

Mythistory

3

and learn new ways

of

doing things.

nnumerableerrors, orrectedbyexperience,

eventuallymade us

lordsof creationas no other species

on

earth

has

ever been

before.

The price of this achievement s the elastic, nexact character of truth, nd

especially

of truths bout

human

conduct.

What

a

particulargroup

of

persons

understands, believes,

and acts upon, even

if

quite

absurd to outsiders, may

nonetheless cement

social relations nd allow the members

of the group to act

together nd accomplish feats otherwise

mpossible.Moreover, membership n

such a

group

and participation

n

its

sufferings

nd

triumphs

give meaning and

value to individual human lives. Any other

sortof life s not worth iving, or we

are social

creatures.As such we need to

share truthswith ne another,

nd

notjust

truths bout atoms,

tars, nd molecules

but abouthuman relations nd the people

around us.

Shared

truths hat

provide

a

sanction

forcommon effort ave obvious survival

value.

Without such social cement

no

group

can

long preserve

itself.

Yet to

outsiders,

ruths f this

kindare

likely

o seem

myths,

ave

in

those relatively are)

cases when the outsider

s

susceptible

o

conversion

nd finds welcomewithin he

particulargroup

in

question.

The historicrecord

available

to

us

consistsof an

unending appearance

and

dissolution

f human

groups,

each

united

by

tsown

beliefs,

deals,and traditions.

Sects, religions,

ribes,

nd

states,

from ancient Sumer

and

Pharaonic

Egypt

to

modern

times,

have based their ohesion

upon

shared

truths-truths hat

differed

fromtime

to

time

and

place

to

place

with

rich

and reckless

variety. oday

the

human community

remainsdivided among

an enormous

number of

different

groups,

each

espousing

its own version

of truth about itself

nd

about those

excluded from its

fellowship.Everything

uggests

that this sort of social and

ideological fragmentation

will

continue ndefinitely.

Where,

in

such

a maelstromof

conflicting pinions,

can we

hope

to locate

historical ruth?Where indeed?

Before modern communications hrustfamiliarity ith the variety f human

idea-systems pon

our consciousness,

this question was

not

particularly cute.

Individualsnearly lwaysgrew up

inrelativelysolated

communities

o

a more or

less

homogeneous

world view.

mportant

uestions

had been settled

ong ago by

prophets

and

sages, so there

was little eason to

challenge

or

modify

raditional

wisdom. ndeed there

were

strong ositive

estraints

pon any

would-be nnovator

who

threatened

to

upset

the

inherited onsensus.

To be

sure,

climates

of

opinion

fluctuated,

ut

changes

came

surreptitiously,

usually disguised

as

commentary upon

old

texts

and

purporting

merely

to

explicate the original meanings. Flexibilitywas considerable, as the modern

practice

of the

U.S.

Supremne

ourt should

convince

us;

but

in this

traditional

ordering

of

intellect,

ll

the

same,

outsiders

who

did not share the

prevailing

orthodoxy

were shunned

and

disregarded

when

they

ould

not be converted.Our

predecessors'

faith

in

a scientific

method that

would

make

written

history

absolutely

nd

universally

rue

was no more than a recent

xample

of such a belief

system.

hose

who embraced it felt

no

need

to

pay

attention o

ignoramuses

who



5/11

4

William

H. McNeill

had not accepted the truths

f "modern science." Like

other true believers, hey

were therefore pared the

taskof taking thers'viewpoints

eriously r wondering

about the limits f their

own vision of

historical ruth.

But we are denied the luxury of such parochialism.We must reckon with

multiplex, ompeting

faiths-secular as well as

transcendental, evolutionary

s

well as traditional-that resound amongst

us.

In

addition, partially utonomous

professional dea-systems

ave proliferated n the pastcentury r so. Those most

important

o historians re the so-called

socialsciences-anthropology, sociology,

political cience,psychology,

nd economics-together

with he

newer disciplines

of

ecology

and

semeiology.

But

law, theology,

nd

philosophy

also

pervade

the

field

of

knowledge

withwhich historians

may

be

expected

to

deal.

On

top

of all

this, nnumerable ndividual authors, ach

withhis own assortment f ideas and

assumptions, compete for attention.Choice is everywhere;dissent turns into

cacaphonous confusion;

my

truth issolves nto

yourmyth

ven

before can

put

words on paper.

The liberalfaith, f course,holds that

n

a freemarketplace

f

ideas, Truth

will

eventually revail.

am not

ready

to abandon

that

faith,howeverdismaying

ur

present confusion may be. The liberal experiment,

fterall,

is

onlyabout two

hundred

and

fifty ears ld,

and

on the

ppropriate

world-historical

ime

cale that

is

too

soon

to be

sure.

Still,confusion

is

undoubted.

Whether the

resulting

uncertainty

will

be bearable for

arge

numbers

of

people

in

difficult imesahead

is a

question

worth

sking.

ranian

Muslims,

Russian

communists,

nd American

sectarians

religious

and

otherwise)

ll exhibit

ymptoms

f acute distress n

face

of moral

uncertainties, enerated by exposure

to

competing

truths.

Clearly,

the

will

o believe s

as

strong

oday

s at

any

time

n

the

past;

and

truebelievers

nearly

always

wish

to create a community

f the

faithful,

o as

to

be able to live more

comfortably,

nsulated

from

troublesome

dissent.

The prevailing response

to an

increasingly osmopolitan

confusion has been

intensified ersonal

attachment,

irst o national and then

to subnational

groups,

each with tsown distinct deals and practices.As one wouldexpect,the historical

professionfaithfully eflected

nd helped to forward

hese shifts f sentiment.

Thus,

the

founding

fathers

of the American

Historical Association and

their

immediate successors were

intent on

facilitating

he

consolidation

of a

new

American

nation

by

writing

national

history

n

a WASPish

mold, while also

claiming

ffiliation

ith

tradition

f Western

ivilization hat ran back

through

modern

and medieval

Europe

to the ancient Greeks

and

Hebrews.

This

version

of our

past

was

verywidelyrepudiated

in

the

1960s,

but

iconoclastic evisionists

felt

no

need to

replace

what they ttacked

with

ny

architectonic

ision of

their

own. Instead, scholarly nergy oncentrated n discovering hehistory fvarious

segments

f

the

population

thathad been

left ut

or

ill-treated

y

older historians:

most

notablywomen,

blacks,

nd

other ethnic

minoritieswithin he United

States

and the ex-colonial

peoples

of the world

beyond

the national

borders.

Such

activity

onformed o our traditional

rofessional

ole

of

helping

to

define

collective dentities

n

ambiguous

situations.

onsciousness

of

a common

past,

fter

all,

is

a

powerful supplement

to other

ways

of

defining

who "we"

are.

An

oral



6/11

Mythistoay

5

tradition,

ometimes

lmost

undifferentiated

rom he practical

wisdomembodied

in

language

itself, s

all people

need

in a stablesocial

universe where

in-group

boundaries

are self-evident.

But

withcivilization,

mbiguities

multipled,

and

formalwritten istory

ecame

useful

n

defining

us" versus "them."

At first, he

centralambiguity

an between

rulers

and

ruled. Alien conquerors

who lived

on

taxes

collected

from

heir ubjects

wereat best

necessary

vilwhen

ooked at from

the

bottom

f civilized

ociety. et in some situations,

specially

when

confronting

natural

disaster

or externalattack,

case

could be made

for

commonality,

ven

between

taxpayers

nd

tax consumers.

At

any

rate,

histories egan as king

ists,

royalgenealogies,

nd

boasts

of divine

favor-obvious

ways

f

consolidating

ulers'

morale and

asserting

heir

egitimacy

is-a-vis

heir ubjects.

Jewish

historymphasized

God's

power

over

human

affairs,

arrowing

he

gap

between rulers and ruled by subjectingeverybody o divine Providence. The

Greeks

declared all

free men

equal,

subject

to no

one,

but

bound

by

a

common

obedience

to law.

The survival

alue

of both these

visions

f

the

human

condition

is

fairly

obvious.

A people

united

by their fear

and

love

of

God have an

ever-present

elp

in time of trouble, s Jewish

history urely

proves.

Morale can

survive

disaster,

time

and

again;

internal

disputes

and

differences

diminish

beneaththe

weight

of

a shared

subjection

to God. The Greek

ideal

of freedom

under

law

is

no

less

practical

n the sense that

willing

ooperation

s

likely

o

elicit

maximal

collective

ffort,

whether

n

war

or

peace.

Interplaybetween these two ideals runs throughoutthe history f Western

civilization,

ut

this is not

the place

to enter into a

detailed

historiographical

analysis.

Let

me

merely

emark

hat

ur

professional

eritage

from

he iberal nd

nationalist

historiography

f the

nineteenth entury

drew

mainly

on the Greek,

Herodotean

model,

emphasizing

the supremevalue

of political

freedom

within

territorially

efinedstate.

World

War

I constituted catastrophe

for that

iberal

and

nationalist

ision

of

human

affairs,

ince freedomthat permitted

uch costly nd

lethal

combat

no

longerseemed a plausibleculmination f all historic xperience.Boom, bust, nd

World War

II did nothing

o clarify

he ssue, nd

the

multiplication

f subnational

historiographies

ince

the

1950s

merely

ncreased

our

professional

onfusion.

What

about

truth midst ll

this

weakening

f old

certainties,

lorescence

f new

themes,

nd

widening

of

sensibilites?What really

nd truly

matters?

What should

we pay

attention

o? What

must we

neglect?

All human

groups

ike to

be

flattered.

istorians re

therefore

nder

perpetual

temptation

o conform

to

expectation

by portraying

he

people

they

write bout

as

they

wish

to

be. A

mingling

of

truthand

falsehood,

blending

history

with

ideology, esults.Historians re likely o selectfacts o show thatwe-whoever "we"

may

be-conform

to

our cherishedprinciples:

that

we

are

free

withHerodotus,

or saved

with

Augustine,

or

oppressed

with

Marx,

as

the case

may

be.

Grubby

details ndicating

hat

he

group

fell

hort

f

ts

deals can

be skated

over

or

omitted

entirely.

he

result s

mythical:

he

past

as we want

t to

be, safely

implified

nto

a contest

between

good guys

nd

bad

guys,

us"

and

"them."

Most national

history

and

most

group

history

s

of

this

kind,

though

the

intensity

f

chiaroscuro

varies



7/11


8/11

Mythistory

7

pasts simply erve

to

intensify

heir

apacity

for

onflict.With he

recent

uantum

jump

in

the destructive ower of weaponry,hardening of group cohesion at the

sovereign state level

clearly

threatensthe survival of

humanity; while,

within

nationalborders, hecivic rderexperiencesnew strainswhen subnationalgroups

acquire a historiography

epletewith ppressors ivingnextdoor

and,

perchance,

still njoying the fruits f

past injustices.

The great historians

have always responded to these difficulties y expanding

their ympathies eyond

narrow n-groupboundaries. Herodotus

set

out

to

award

a due meed of

glory

both to

Hellenes and

to

the

barbarians; Ranke inquired

into

whatreallyhappened to

Protestant nd Catholic,Latin and German nations like.

And

other pioneers

of

our

professionhave

likewise

xpanded

the

range

of

their

sympathies nd sensibilities eyond previouslyrecognized limitswithout ever

entirely scaping,or evenwishing oescape,from he sort fpartisanshipnvolved

in

accepting the general

assumptions

nd beliefs

of

a

particular

ime

and place.

Where to fix one's loyalties s the supreme question

of

human life and is

especially cute

in a

cosmopolitan ge

like

ours

when choices abound.

Belonging

to a

tightly nit group

makes life worth

iving by giving

ndividuals

something

beyond the

self

o serve

and to

rely

n

for

personal guidance,

companionship,

nd

aid.

But the stronger uch

bonds,

the

sharper

the

break with

he rest

of

humanity.

Group solidarity

s

always

maintained,

t east

partly,

yexporting sychic

rictions

across the

frontiers,

rojecting

nimosities

nto an

outside foe

n

order to

enhance

collective ohesionwithin hegroup itself. ndeed, something o fear, hate,and

attack

s

probablynecessary

for

the

full

expression

of

human

emotions;

and

ever

since animal predators eased

to

threaten,

uman

beings

have

feared,hated,

and

fought

one

another.

Historians,by helping

to

define "us" and

"them," play

a

considerable

part

in

focusing

ove

and hate,

the two

principal

ements f collective ehavior

known

to

humanity.

ut

mythmaking

for

rival

groups

has

become

a

dangerous game

in

the

atomic

age,

and we

may

well ask

whether

here s

any

alternative

pen

to

us.

In principle the answeris obvious. Humanityentirepossesses a commonality

which

historiansmay hope

to

understand ust as firmlys they an comprehend

what unites any lesser group. Instead of enhancing

conflicts,

s parochial

historiographynevitably

oes,

an

intelligible

world

historymight

be

expected

to

diminish

the

lethality

f

group

encounters

by cultivating

sense

of

individual

identification ith the

triumphs

nd

tribulations

f

humanity

s

a

whole.

This,

indeed,

strikes

me

as

the

moral

duty

of

the historical

rofession

n

our

time. We

need to

develop an ecumenical

history,

with

plenty

f room for

human

diversity

in

all

its

complexity.

Yet a wise historianwillnotdenigrate ntense ttachment o smallgroups. That

is essential o

personalhappiness.

In

all

civilized

ocieties, tangle

of

overlapping

social

groupings ays

claim

to human

loyalties.Any

one

person may

therefore

e

expected

to

have

multiple

commitments nd

plural public

identities,

p

to

and

includingmembership

n the

human race

and

the wider

DNA

community

f life

on

planet

Earth. What we need to do

as

historians nd as

human

beings

is to

recognize thiscomplexity nd balance our loyalties o that

no one

group

will be



9/11

8

WilliamH. McNeill

able to command total ommitment. nly so

can we

hope

to make

the world

safer

for all the different uman

groups that

now

exist and may come

into

existence.

The historical rofession

has, however, hied away from n ecumenical viewof

the human adventure. Professional areer patterns ewardspecialization; nd in

all the well-trodden ields,where pervasiveconsensus

on importantmattershas

already

been

achieved,

research and innovation necessarily

oncentrate upon

minutiae. Residual faith

that truth somehow resides

in

original

documents

confirms his direction of our energies. An easy and commonly

unexamined

corollary s the assumption

that world history s too vague and

too

general

to

be

true, hat s, ccurateto the ources.Truth, ccording o this

view, sonly ttainable

on

a tiny cale when the diligent

historian ucceeds

in

exhaustingthe relevant

documents before they

exhaust the historian.But as my previous

remarkshave

made clear,thisdoes not strikeme as a valid view of historicalmethod. On the

contrary, call

it

naive and

erroneous.

All truths

re general.

All truths bstract

rom he

available

assortment

f

data

simply y using words,which n theirverynature generalize

so as tobringorder

to the ncessantly luctuating

low f messages n and messagesout that

onstitutes

human consciousness. Total reproduction

of

experience

is

impossible and

undesirable.

It

would merely

perpetuate the

confusion we seek

to

escape.

Historiography hat aspires to get

closer

and

closer

to

the documents-all

the

documents

and

nothingbut

thedocuments-is merelymoving

closer

and

closer

to ncoherence, haos,and meaninglessness. hat isa dead endfor ure. No society

will

ong support a profession

hat produces arcane trivia

nd calls it truth.

Fortunately

or

the

profession,

historians' racticehas

been betterthan

their

epistemology. nstead

of

replicating onfusion by paraphrasing

the

totality

f

relevant nd available documents,

we have used our sources

to

discern, upport,

and reinforce

group

identities

t national, transnational,

nd

subnational evels

and,

once

in

a

while, o

attack

or

pick apart

a

group

identity

o whicha

school of

revisionists as taken a

scunner.

If we can now realize that our practice already shows how truths may be

discerned

at

different evels

of

generalitywith equal precision

simplybecause

different atterns merge

on

different ime-space cales,

then, perhaps, repug-

nance forworld

historymight

iminish nd ajuster proportion

etweenparochial

and ecumenical

historiography

might egin

to

emerge.

t is

our

professional uty

to

move toward ecumenicity,

however real the

risks

may

seem to timid and

unenterprising

minds.

With

more rigorous nd

reflective pistemology,

emight lso attain better

historiographical alance between

Truth,truths, nd myth. ternal

and universal

Truth about human behavioris an unattainablegoal, however delectable as an

ideal. Truths are what historians

chieve when

they

bend their

minds as

critically

and

carefully

s

they

can to the task

of

making

their

account of

public

affairs

credible

s well as intelligible

o an audience that hares enough

of their

particular

outlook

and

assumptions

o

accept

what

they ay.

The result

might

best

be called

mythistoryerhaps (though

do not

expect

the

term o catch on

in

professional

circles),

or the same

words that

constitute

ruth or ome

are,

and

always

will

be,



10/11

Mythistory

9

mythf(or

thers,who inherit

r embrace

different ssumptions

and organizing

concepts

about

the world.

This does

not mean that there

is no difference

etweenone mythistory

nd

another.

Some

clearly re more adequate

to the

facts

han

others.Some

embrace

more time

and space and

make sense of

a

wider

variety

f humanbehavior

than

others.

And some,undoubtedly,

ffer

less treacherousbasis

forcollective ction

than

others. actually

believe

thathistorians' ruths,ike

those

of

scientists,

volve

across the

generations,

o that

versions

of

the past acceptable

today

are

superior

in

scope,

range,

and accuracy

to versions available

in

earlier

times.

But such

evolution s slow,

and

observableonly

on

an extended

time

scale,

owing to

the

self-validating

haracter

of myth.

Effective ommon action

can rest on quite

fantasticbeliefs.

Credo

quia

absurdummay

even

become

a

criterion

for

group

membership, equiring nitiates osurrender heir ritical aculties s a signoffull

commitment

o the common

cause. Many

sects

have

prospered

on

this principle

and

have served

their members

well

for

many

generations

while

doing

so.

But faiths, bsurd

or not, also

face

a

long-run

estof survival

n

a

worldwhere

not everyone

cceptsany one

setof beliefs

nd where humnan eingsmust

nteract

with

xternal

bjects

nd nonhuman

forms

f

ife,

s well

s

with

ne

another.Such

"foreignrelations" mpose

limits

n

what any group

of'

people

can

safely

believe

and

act

on, since actions

thatfail

to secure

expected

and

desired

results re

always

costly nd often

disastrous.

Beliefsthatmislead

action

are

likely

o be

amended;

too stubborn n adherenceto a faith hat ncouragesor demandshurtful ehavior

is likely o lead to the disintegration

nd disappearance

ofany group thatrefuses

to

learn

from

experience.

Thus one may, s an act

offaith, elieve

that ur historiographicalmyth

making

and

myth

reaking

s bound to cumulate cross

time, ropagating

mythistories

hat

fit

xperience

better nd

allow

human

survival

more

often,

ustaining n-groups

in

ways

hat re less

destructive

o themiselves

nd

to

theirneighbors

han

was

once

the case

or is the case today.

f'

o,

ever-evolving

mythistories

ill

ndeed

become

truer nd moreadequate to public ife, mnphasizinghereally mportant spects

of human encounters

nd

omitting

rrelevant ackground

noise

mnorefficiently

so that men

and

women

will know

how

to act

more

wisely

han

is

possible

for

us

today.

This is not a groundless

hope.

Future

historians

re

unlikely

o eave out blacks

and

women

f'rom

ny

future

mythistory

f the United

States,

nd

we

are

unlikely

to exclude Asians, Africans,

nd Arnerindians

rom

ny

future

mythistory

f the

world.

One

hundred

years

ago

this

was not

so.

T[

he

scope

and

range

of

historiography

as

widened,

and that

change

looks

as

irreversible

o me as the

wideningof physics hatoccurredwhen Einstein's quations proved capable of

explainingphenomena

that

Newton's

could

not.

It

is far ess

clear whether

n

widening

he

range

of

our sensibilities

nd

taking

a broader

r

nge

of

phenomena

into ccount

we

also

see

deeper

into

the

reality

we

seek

to

understand.

But we

may.Anyone

who reads historians

f

the sixteenth

nd

seventeenth

enturies nd

those of

our own time

will notice a

new

awareness

of

social

process

that we

have

attainied.As

one

who

shares

that

awareness,

find

t



11/11

10 William . McNeill

impossible not

to

believe that it represents an

advance on older notions that

focused attention

xclusively,

r almost exclusively, n human intentions nd

individual actions, ubject only

to

God

or to a

no

less inscrutableFortune, while

leaving out the social and materialcontextwithinwhich ndividual actions took

place simplybecause that contextwas assumed to be uniform nd unchanging.

Still,what eems

wiseand true

o

me seems rrelevant bfuscation

o

others.Only

time

an

settle

he

ssue,presumably youtmodingmy

deas and

my

ritics' s well.

Unalterable

and

eternal

Truth

remains

like

the

Kingdom

of

Heaven,

an

eschatologicalhope. Mythistory

s

what

we

actually

have-a

useful

nstrument or

pilotinghuman groups

in

their ncounters

with ne

another

nd with he natural

environment.

To be a truth-seeking ythographers therefore high

and

serious calling,for

what a group of people knowsand believes about thepastchannels expectations

and

affects hedecisions

on which heir

ives,

heir

ortunes,

nd their acred honor

all

depend.

Formal written

istories

re not the

only hapers

of a

people's

notions

about the

past;

but

they

re

sporadically owerful,

ince

even

the most

bstract nd

academic

historiographical

deas do trickle

own to the evel

of'

he

commonplace,

if

they

fit

both what

a

people

want to hear and

what

a

people

need

to know well

enough

to be

useful.

As members

of

society

nd

sharers

n

the historical

rocess,

historians an

only

expect

to be heard

if

they ay

whatthe

people

around them

wantto

hear-in some

degree. rhey

can

only

be

useful

f

they

lso

tell the

people

some

things hey

re

reluctant

o

hear-in

some

degree. Piloting

between

this

Scylla

and

Charybdis

s

the art of the serious

historian,helping

the

group

he or

she addresses and

celebrates o

survive nd

prosper

n

a treacherous

nd

changing

world

by knowing

more about

itself

nd others.

Academic

historians have

pursued

that art

with

extraordinary nergy

and

considerable success during

the

past century. May

our heirs and

successors

persevere

and do even better

Documents

McNeill (1986) - Mythistory, Or Truth, Myth, History, And Historians