COSTS OF CHRONOLOGICAL ETHNOCENTRISM
Chronological ethnocentrism deadens social studies/history classes. Because it excuses and minimizes past wrongdoing, it leads to genial shallow treatments even of gripping problematic topics. Because our present forms are better, everything seems to have led to our present situation naturally, so there’s no real suspense. Because outcomes that were struggled over now seem appropriate, ordained, even commendable, textbooks are bland. They convert things that are worth thinking about into things that are taken for granted. Boring textbooks have payoffs for publishers. Their books will not offend, so they will not lose sales. Meanwhile, students fall asleep reading them.
Chronological ethnocentrism results in bad history, especially about the distant past. It distorts even the terms that we use. Europeans “explored,” while earlier peoples “wandered.” Europeans “settled,” while the first settlers “roamed.” Essays on Oregon, Kansas, Ohio, and Rhode Island in my Lies Across America attack these and other chronologically ethnocentric terms.23 Students might critique their own textbook by comparing the frequency of these verbs when paired with Native American actors and European American actors. Or they might compare illustrations. Chapter 7 shows how our culture uses nearly naked images of American Indians to connote that nonwhites are “primitive.” Conversely, the first Europeans appear triumphal, such as Hernando de Soto “discovering” the Mississippi River while wearing armor and carrying flags. Any competent historian knows de Soto did not approach the river in triumph. By the time he reached it, his forces had lost 40 men and most of their equipment to a Choctaw attack in Alabama, his men and women were near revolt, and he had to post guards at night to keep his followers from defecting to the Indians. Not one textbook shows the Spaniards in their makeshift boats, looking far more bedraggled than the Natchez Indians who chased them down the Mississippi in their canoes. Such a portrayal would not fit with chronological ethnocentrism.
The problem goes beyond twisted terms and triumphal images. Just as ethnocentrism makes it hard to learn from other cultures, chronological ethnocentrism takes away the ability to learn from other eras. We wind up profoundly ignorant about primitive societies, past or present. For example, Americans believe without thinking that modern times give us unparalleled life expectancies—perhaps twice as long as those of people thousands of years ago. We do now live much longer than people did a century ago. In the U.S., the average life expectancy in 1900 was 47 years. Five centuries earlier, however, life expectancy in North America was not very different from now. Childbirth was riskier, but once people reached 1 year old, they typically lived to be 70. Not just Native Americans, either. Psalm 90 in the Bible tells us: “The years of our lives are three score years and ten. Yet if by reason of strength they be four score, yet is their strength labor and sorrow …” So people routinely lived to be 70 and even 80 in Old Testament times.
Agriculture, especially when it included livestock, decreased life expectancy. This seems counterintuitive. Didn’t agriculture assure a steadier food supply? Rarely did gathering and hunting peoples live on the edge of starvation, however. Many people mistakenly think they did, partly because today people gather and hunt only in the most difficult places on Earth, like the Arctic and the Kalahari Desert, where more modern peoples find it too difficult to live at all. Even there, starvation is rare, because gathering and hunting peoples rely on a variety of food sources. Famines are recent developments, resulting when people rely too much on one crop, and it fails. Even without famines, agricultural societies, far denser, are more vulnerable to disease, including pandemic outbreaks. Nor did gatherers and hunters spend all their time desperately seeking food, clothing, and shelter. Anthropologists have shown that they met these basic needs in as little as two hours per day, less than many people spend now.24
In 1651 in The Leviathan, social philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously wrote about the state of mankind, absent government and law:
In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.25
Hobbes and his readers projected that condition backward onto the distant past. Primitive life was not like that. We should view his sentence not as a summary of our rise from savagery to civilization, but as an instructive example of chronological ethnocentrism.
Here at the start, treating the primitive societies that first came to the Americas, teachers can get students thinking complexly about this complex topic of progress.26 In what ways might their societies have been more fun than ours? More interesting? Healthier? Better—leading to a discussion of the meaning of “better”? Do textbook authors recognize such possibilities? Or do they treat these societies as “other,” not really to be empathized with—“wanderers,” for example, rather than “explorers”?
A major goal of anthropology is to present primitive cultures as reasonable and understandable societies. A way to get this across to students is to compare our maternity wards to how Mbuti people in central Africa (whom Americans know as Pygmies) give birth. Anthropologist Colin Turnbull notes that expectant Mbuti mothers do not take leave from their jobs or lie in bed for weeks or even days before giving birth.
A few days before her time is due, the mother may restrict her activities and perhaps refrain from going off on the hunt each morning, though it is common enough for a girl to give birth while actually on the hunt, merely staying back either by herself or with a friend and rejoining the hunt an hour or two later.
When she goes into labor, she does not lie on her back in bed, legs elevated for the benefit of the obstetrician. Instead, she typically puts a specially chosen vine around a tree at whose base is a soft bed of moss. She then squats, facing the tree, holding onto the vine, in the same position as if having a bowel movement. A friend familiar with childbirth attends her.
The infant emerges easily … and is immediately placed to the mother’s breast as she lies down. The umbilical cord is cut in anything from a few minutes to as much as an hour or more later. At that time or soon after, the father and close friends may be invited to see the child, who by then is happily suckling.27
Students might contrast this with our “scientific” birthing system, which is modeled on having an abdominal tumor removed. Even in a “normal” birth, Western doctors remove the baby uphill, against gravity, sometimes with forceps. Although no one is ill, this operation takes place in a hospital, a place for the very sick, rife with infectious diseases. Often the “patient” is sedated, at least from her waist down. Almost one-fourth of all births in the U.S. are genuinely surgical: Caesarean sections. Increasingly, these operations are done at the behest of the mother or for the convenience of the physician.28 Whether Caesarean or “normal” delivery, the baby must be brought to consciousness, having been sedated along with the mother. Often the father does not snuggle his baby but only gets to look at it through a window.29
To be sure, modern medicine has cut infant and maternal mortality, even though Turnbull states that Mbuti birthing rarely results in death. Nevertheless, we may have things to learn from “less advanced” societies, and not just about childbirth. Our ways of rearing children, for example, may not promote happy, well-adjusted, effective members of our society as well as the Mbutis’. Certainly our children mostly play indoors and have become estranged from nature, which may have bad long-term consequences both for them and nature.30
Even our technology, though assuredly more powerful, may not be better in that it may not meet our needs over the long term—not if, for instance, it leads to global warming, ozone depletion, or other planetary changes that prove cat
astrophic for our descendants. Chapter 1 pointed to the need for every topic in U.S. history to relate to the present. This very first topic—most distant from the present in time—turns out to be intensely relevant. Not only is prehistory fiercely debated today, but how students think about primitive cultures may have ramifications for our society’s future. Two anthropologists who specialize in studying gathering and hunting peoples, Richard Lee and Irven DeVore, put the question baldly: “It is still an open question whether man will be able to survive the exceedingly complex and unstable ecological conditions he has created.”31 We cannot go on forever increasing our use of Earth. Yet we still do not act urgently about environmental concerns. Possibly we must move quickly to a steady-state use of energy worldwide. Certainly we must change those behaviors that otherwise portend no long-run future.
Surely our educational system should help students address Lee and DeVore’s “open question.” Indeed, this is the most important question students could possibly consider. To take it seriously—to ponder thoughtfully the likelihood of global warming, other forms of pollution, and the accidental or even purposeful annihilation of human life on Earth—Americans need to rid our thinking of chronological ethnocentrism. Unfortunately, whether discussing forms of government, medical practice, or our technological future, our history textbooks are useless, because they are infected by the uncritical belief in progress that results from chronological ethnocentrism. As chronological ethnocentrism distorts our understanding of the primitive past, it blinds us about the future and makes it hard to face the possibility of ecocide objectively. So we hurtle ahead, secure that our past has led us to this point, basking in chronological ethnocentrism. Students who learn the term here at the start of their U.S. history course can apply it appropriately to later passages in their textbook.
We are also moving toward a one-culture world, because our ethnocentrism has convinced not only us but also many less advanced societies that our culture is the best. Native American writer Russell Means warns, however, that a one-culture world is a likely route to species suicide. If everyone does everything the same way, then we have no alternative models if that way fails. Again, planting a seed here at the start makes it easier for students to see that chronological ethnocentrism is problematic, that other cultures should survive, and that even we Americans may need some of their ideas.32
Perhaps the worst effect of chronological ethnocentrism is that it discourages student involvement in civic life. Not only does presenting our world as if it was bound to come out as it did leave little room for individuals to make a difference. Also, instead of explaining the present, chronological ethnocentrism absolves and celebrates the present. If things are fine, and getting better by themselves to boot, what’s the point? That makes chronological ethnocentrism a particularly enervating form of presentism. When students realize that things don’t get better automatically (which most already question in some rhetorical contexts), then they can take steps as individuals or within their history or social studies class to make something get better. So, from the start of the course, civic activism can be a component.
In another way, chronological ethnocentrism interferes with civic life. It promotes a general deadening of our moral sense. All Americans want to be good people. Progress provides today’s secular equivalent of salvation. Belief that our nation leads the world can invest citizens’ mundane roles with a moral purpose, even though they may be doing nothing worthwhile. Then they can imagine that doing their job well, whatever that job is, has meaning. Somehow it advances society. The man who drills seven holes in a road grader frame is not just drilling holes. He is building the American future. Viewed that way, almost every job conveys this extra legitimacy. It gives our lives meaning.
Nothing is wrong with drilling holes in road grader frames. Until people developed robot drill presses, someone had to do it. When people rely on chronological ethnocentrism to legitimize their jobs and their lives, however, they are unlikely to question societal policies. Not every job contributes to society. The idea of progress should not be a matter of belief, but of inquiry. To live a morally satisfying life, people need to assess the effects of the society within which they live upon the world, as well as the effect upon others of the jobs they do and the lives they lead. As the great American architect Louis H. Sullivan put it almost a century ago, “In a democracy, there can be but one fundamental test of citizenship, namely: Are you using such gifts as you possess … for or against the people?”33 Chronological ethnocentrism makes it harder to answer this question honestly.
This first topic in a U.S. history course can set the tone for an important, rich, and deep experience. Students who come to their own conclusion—based on evidence—about how and when people first got to the Americas will likely remember that conclusion—and the evidence and competing views—for years. Some will acquire a lifelong interest to keep up with the discoveries that continue to pour forth from the many disciplines that study prehistory. Students will also realize that textbooks are imperfect and can be challenged. They will grasp that we comprehend the past with difficulty, sometimes based on scant evidence. Then they can appreciate how pressures from the present intrude upon that evidence and distort what we might learn from it. Now they are doing historiography. Finally, students who understand chronological ethnocentrism have gained a concept that can help them think through the thoughtless assumptions that historians, politicians, and the public make every day.
FOCUSED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vine Deloria, Red Earth, White Lies (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1997). Pages 45–80 query the Beringia hypothesis, raising questions that are all the more interesting coming from a Native American.
Boris Weintraub, “A Seagoing Human Ancestor?” National Geographic, 11/98, unpaginated. This short article throws into question the received dogma from earlier archaeology about Beringia.
CHAPTER 6
Why Did Europe Win?
IT IS NOT ETHNOCENTRISM—chronological or any other kind—to teach that European societies (and their extensions, like the United States and Australia) became powerful and effective. If one looks over the Earth in, say, 1892, every country except perhaps three was dominated by the West.1 Surely the most significant development in world history during the last millennium is Europe’s dominance over the planet.
THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
Why did Europe win? This is perhaps the most important question a world history course might address. Yet it usually goes unanswered, because it goes unasked. In a U.S. history course, the related question is, Why did the United States become the dominant country on Earth? It, too, usually goes unasked.
Perhaps history teachers and textbook authors don’t ask these questions because they don’t see them as problems. They take the importance of the West for granted, and the rightness and growth of Christianity, and within that dominion, the supremacy of the United States. In particular, teachers may feel reluctant to discuss why Christianity spread so widely, because the answers they might give would be secular.2 Giving secular answers to what some will view as a religious question may strike some parents as irreligious. Teachers know this and don’t want to get into an argument about religion.3 Whatever the reason, since they were never asked these questions, teachers can think it odd—almost a violation of some unspoken norm—to bring them up at all.
Teachers must ask them, however. Otherwise, their courses are not competent. Not asking these questions makes the present dominance of the West seem foreordained and natural. That is a classic case of Whig history, as defined in the last chapter. Not asking these questions leaves a vacuum at the center of the story. Like nature, minds abhor a vacuum. Racism sneaks in to fill it. The unspoken answers that emerge in response to these unasked questions are: Europe won “because whites are better.” Christianity is winning “because it is right.” The United States is dominant “because we’re the best.” If teachers ignore these questions, then these answers go unchallenged, even though wrong, with
harmful consequences for society.4
Students can address these questions historically. Doing so becomes a way to decrease ethnocentrism, which, as pointed out in the introduction to this book, is higher in the U.S. than anywhere else.
LOOKING AROUND THE WORLD
One way to get students to ask the question themselves is to invite them to participate in a mental experiment. Imagine they are visiting Earth from a distant planet in 2000 BC. Obviously, having developed space travel, they come from a society with advanced technology. Like space travelers of yore, they want to land and say, “Take me to your leaders.” Where should they land?
Looking around the world in 2000 BC, our visitors would probably choose Egypt. At that time, Egypt had agriculture, writing, a large population, and a unified government. Even more obvious were its immense public structures, including the pyramids. Mesopotamia—modern Iraq—also had agriculture, writing, and a fairly large population. A bit later, Hammurabi would have his famous system of laws chiseled in stone. In the Indus River Valley in Pakistan and western India, people had built cities, some laid out in rectangular grids. They had also developed writing, agriculture, and mathematics, complete with a zero. All three of these civilizations had mastered the art of making objects from bronze. All had trading networks stretching for hundreds and even thousands of miles. Nothing in Europe compared. As historian R. R. Palmer summarizes,
Europeans were by no means the pioneers of human civilization. Half of man’s recorded history had passed before anyone in Europe could read or write. The priests of Egypt began to keep written records between 4000 and 3000 BC, but more than 2000 years later the poems of Homer were still being circulated in the Greek city-states by word of mouth.5
Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History Page 18