On ‘Erasing History’ –– Why?

Review by Bill Doughty

Why –– throughout history –– do fascists and authoritarians attack schools, ban books, and try to whitewash or erase history?

Deep thinker Jason Stanley explains the phenomenon and answers “the Why” in an easy-to-read and yet comprehensive examination, “Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future” (One Signal Publishers / Atria; Simon & Schuster, 2024)

From the preface:

“One lesson the past century has taught us is that authoritarian regimes often find history profoundly threatening. At every opportunity, these regimes find ways of erasing or concealing history in order to consolidate their power. Why is this? What does history do that is so disruptive of authoritarian goals? Perhaps most importantly, it provides multiple perspectives on the past. Authoritarianism's great rival, democracy, requires the recognition of a shared reality that consists of multiple perspectives. Through exposure to multiple perspectives, citizens learn to regard one another as equal contributors to a national narrative. And they learn, we learn, to accept that this narrative is open to continued collective reflection and re-imagination, constantly taking into account new ideas, new evidence, new perspectives and theoretical framings. History in a democracy is not static, not mythic, but dynamic and critical.

Erasing history helps authoritarians because doing so allows them to misrepresent it as a single story, a single perspective. But it is impossible to erase a perspective entirely. When authoritarians attempt to erase history, they do so through education, by purging certain narratives from the curricula taught in schools, and perhaps by forbidding their telling at home. However, authoritarians cannot erase people's lived experiences, and their legacies written into the bones of generations. In this simple fact lies always the possibility of reclaiming lost perspectives.

All of this is true of authoritarianism generally, but it is especially true of one specific kind of authoritarian ideology: fascism, which seeks to divide populations into ‘us’ and ‘them’ by appealing to ethnic, racial, or religious differences.”

Stanley’s “Erasing History” examines the history of fascism and presents some illuminating insights: a link between U.S. colonization in Hawaii and education of freed slaves in the antebellum South, the Soviet Union’s erasure of the history of the Holocaust, and Putin’s lies and manipulation used as justification for the violent invasion and ongoing attacks in Ukraine.

Stanley outlines what he calls “supremacist nationalism” where exceptionalism and patriotism can become toxic and often cruel, usually with a religious or racial component galvanizing an effort to separate and “otherize” and ostracize. These fascists lead efforts to control what people can read.

On May 10, 1933, the Nazis conducted a massive book burning in their campaign to create a nation of ideologues devoted to racial purity and antisemitism. Nazi educational policy called for a separation of gender roles, glorifying motherhood for girls (including offering medals for multiple babies), and promoting straight white male domination. Also,“The Nazis regarded (Aryan) abortion as murder, and hence were staunchly ‘pro-life’ in current terminology.”

Countless contemporary examples throughout this book shine a light on how, today, politicians and national leaders are attacking institutions of Higher Education, concepts of the Enlightenment, and the principles of Diversity, Equity [better: Equality], and Inclusion, replacing liberating ideals with a “culture of hierarchy.”

From the epilogue:

“Cultures of hierarchy— such as colonialism, nationalism, or fascism— involve practices that place one group above others. And as is the case with all other cultures, or forms of life, these practices are in large part shaped and reinforced by schools.

Every education system involves erasure — one simply cannot teach everything. There are, however, certain kinds of erasures that are constitutive of authoritarian systems. For example, erasures of social movements for democracy, such as the Chinese government's erasure of the Tiananmen Square protest and massacre of 1989, or the state of Florida's erasure of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings from a social studies curriculum. By removing the history of uprisings against the current status quo from the curriculum (or never allowing that history to be taught in the first place), authoritarians leave students with the impression that the status quo has never been—and cannot be challenged.”

Fascists wish to foment division in the population and create myths about a nostalgic past where minorities and women as “outgroups” were “relegated to second-class citizenship, at best.”

And they attack education, in general, and schools in particular.

“Schools and universities allow for critical inquiry into these myths,” Stanley writes, “and so attacks on them are always the canaries in the coal mine of authoritarianism.” He adds, “There is a reason there are no American-style liberal arts colleges in authoritarian countries.”

Ultra-nationalists also want to discard the rule of law, destroy the balance of power in democracies, deploy the military as homeland police, disrespect the judiciary, and prevent free and fair elections.

So, what can be done to counter attempts to erase history, ban books, demean a free press, and attack norms? 

The answer, Stanley says, is “civic compassion” and people power.

“Social protest movements have traditionally been an engine by which the people try to make those in power see reality. Participating in these movements is an exercise of democracy. Cracking down on them is an exercise of authoritarianism.” In other words we must defend freedoms of assembly, expression, and the press.

People must be able to exercise critical thinking, even in a new age of AI, to discern truth from lies. “The protection of democracy requires measures that will ensure people’s continued ability to distinguish between true and false.”

As we consider “why” fascism is rising, it’s remarkable to note that among the hundreds of books removed from the U.S. Naval Academy this year, Mein Kampf was not on the list of purged books. But the following books were among several anti-fascism titles removed: “America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence” by Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Hate on the Net: Extremist Sites, Neo-Fascism On-line, Electronic Jihad” by Antonio Roversi and Lawrence Smith, and “The second coming of the KKK: the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition” by Linda Gordon.

Why?

‘Origins of Totalitarianism’ in Context

Review by Bill Doughty

Seventy-five years ago, in her preface to the first edition of “The Origins of Totalitarianism,”  Hannah Arendt warned of the rise of authoritarianism. She decried the complacency of people in accepting and even supporting antisemitism, imperialism and totalitarianism.

Her preface to her first edition, written in 1950, describes dark clouds of pessimism just five years after World War II and in the heart of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The dark clouds in these excerpts (from the preface) sound familiar today:

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest - forces that look like sheer insanity…”

“Desperate hope and desperate fear often seem closer to the center … than balanced judgment and measured insight.”

“To yield to the mere process of disintegration has become an irresistible temptation…”

“The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.”

“And if it is true that in the final stages of totalitarianism an absolute evil appears (absolute because it can no longer be deduced from humanly comprehensible motives)…”

We have reviewed Hannah Arendt’s remarkable book several times over the years. In this review, we are focusing on Arendt’s preface to the first edition as well as a compelling introduction by historian Anne Applebaum in the recently reprinted Mariner Classics HarperCollins paperback (2024). 

Applebaum puts Arendt’s warnings against autocracy and authoritarians in context, including those who lie, grift, and threaten to invade neighboring nations as well as promote inequality in society.

The world has experienced an increase in inequality, xenophobia and extremism in recent years. That combination has led to a rise in autocracies, kleptocracies, and oligarchies over free-thinking, people-powered, and liberal democracies. 

According to Applebaum, the rule of power and force wants to overtake public order and rule of law. Even the antisemitism and imperialism Arendt writes about, along with totalitarianism, is on the rise. Unfortunately, complacency, submission, and blind obedience have allowed those anti-freedom (what Arendt calls “evil”) forces to take hold. Applebaum writes:

“And yet the questions Arendt asks remain absolutely relevant today. She was fascinated by the passivity of so many people in the face of dictatorship, by the widespread willingness, even eagerness, to believe lies and propaganda— just consider the majority of Russian people today, unaware that there is even a war going on next door and prevented by law from calling it such. In the totalitarian world, trust has dissolved. The masses ‘believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. To explain this phenomenon, Arendt zeroes in on human psychology, especially the intersection between terror and loneliness. By destroying civic institutions, whether sports clubs or small businesses, totalitarian regimes kept people away from one another and prevented them from sharing creative or productive projects. By blanketing the public sphere with propaganda, they made people afraid to speak with one another. And when each person felt himself isolated from the rest, resistance became impossible. Politics in the broadest sense became impossible too: ‘Terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other.. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result.’ 

Reading that account now, it is impossible not to wonder whether the nature of modern work and information, the shift from ‘real life’ to virtual life and the domination of public debate by algorithms that increase emotion, anger, and division, hasn't created some of the same results. In a world where everyone is supposedly ‘connected,’ loneliness and isolation once again are smothering activism, optimism, and the desire to participate in public life. In a world where ‘globalization' has supposedly made us all similar, a narcissistic dictator can still launch an unprovoked war on his neighbors. The twentieth. century totalitarian model has not been banished; it can be brought back, at any place and at any time.”

Military leaders have long studied the wisdom of Hannah Arendt and other thinkers. Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” is on the DOD Overdrive Professional Reading List. It was listed on the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings site as a recommended book in 2008. In 2013, retired U.S. Army General, Stanley McChrystal, discussed his book, "My Share of the Task: A Memoir,” at the Hannah Arendt Center.