Presentism is a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas and perspectives are
anachronisticallyAn anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος —is an error in chronology, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
introduced into depictions or interpretations of the past. Some modern historians seek to avoid presentism in their work because they believe it creates a distorted understanding of their subject matter.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first citation for
presentism in its historiographic sense from 1916, and the word may have been in use in this meaning as early as the 1870s.
Presentism is a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas and perspectives are
anachronisticallyAn anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος —is an error in chronology, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
introduced into depictions or interpretations of the past. Some modern historians seek to avoid presentism in their work because they believe it creates a distorted understanding of their subject matter.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first citation for
presentism in its historiographic sense from 1916, and the word may have been in use in this meaning as early as the 1870s. Historian
David Hackett FischerDavid Hackett Fischer is University Professor and Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University. Fischer's major works have tackled everything from large macroeconomic and cultural trends to narrative histories of significant events to explorations of...
identifies presentism as a logical fallacy also known as the "fallacy of
nunc pro tuncNunc pro tunc is a Latin expression in common legal use in the English language. It means Now for then. In general, a court ruling "nunc pro tunc" applies retroactively to correct an earlier ruling.-Definition:...
". He has written that the "classic example" of presentism was the so-called "
Whig historyWhig history presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians stress the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress...
", in which certain eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British historians wrote history in a way that used the past to validate their own political beliefs. This interpretation was presentist because it did not depict the past in objective historical context, but instead viewed history only through the lens of contemporary Whig beliefs. In this kind of approach, which emphasizes the relevance of history to the present, things which do not seem relevant receive little attention, resulting in a misleading portrayal of the past. "
Whig historyWhig history presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians stress the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress...
" or "whiggishness" are often used as synonyms for presentism, particularly when the historical depiction in question is
teleologicalTeleology is the philosophical study of design and purpose. A teleological school of thought is one that holds all things to be designed for or directed toward a final result, that there is an inherent purpose or final cause for all that exists.As a school of thought it can be contrasted with...
or
triumphalistTriumphalism is the attitude or belief that a particular doctrine, religion, culture, or social system is superior to and should triumph over all others...
.
Presentism and sociological analysis
Presentism has a shorter history in sociological analysis, where it has been used to describe
technological deterministsTechnological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values...
who interpret a change in behavior as starting with the introduction of a new technology. For example, scholars such as
Frances CairncrossFrances Anne Cairncross CBE is a British economist, journalist and academic.Cairncross read Modern History at St Anne's College, Oxford, graduating in 1965, and holds an MA in Economics from Brown University, Rhode Island....
proclaimed that the Internet had led to "the death of distance" without realizing that most
communityIn biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment.In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of...
ties and many business ties had been transcontinental and even intercontinental for many years.
Presentism and moral judgments
Presentism is also related to the problematic question of history and
moralMorality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief concerning matters of what is moral or immoral...
judgments. Among historians, the orthodox view may be that reading modern notions of morality into the past is to commit the error of presentism. To avoid this, some historians restrict themselves to describing what happened, and attempt to refrain from using language that passes judgment. For example, when writing history about slavery in an era when the practice was widely accepted, some believe that using language that condemns slavery as wrong or evil would be presentist, and should be avoided.
There are many critics of this application of presentism. Some argue that to avoid moral judgments is to practice
moral relativismIn philosophy moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect universal moral truths . Instead, Moral Relativism makes claims relative to social, cultural, or historical circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an...
, a controversial idea. Some religious historians argue that morality is timeless, having been established by God, and therefore it is not anachronistic to apply timeless standards to the past. (In this view, while
moresMores is the Latin term for societal norms, customs, virtues or values. Mores derive from the established practices of a society rather than its written laws...
may change,
moralityMorality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief concerning matters of what is moral or immoral...
does not.) Others argue that historians, like all humans, cannot truly be objective, and so moral judgments will always be a part of their work. David Hackett Fischer, for his part, writes that historians cannot avoid making moral judgments, and indeed they ought to make them, but that they should be aware of their biases, and write history in such a way that their biases do not create a distorted depiction of the past.
Disambiguation: The term "presentism" is also used in Ethics, to indicate an attitude that since the present is the only thing that really exists (the past being being made up of nothing but present memory traces and the future being made up of nothing but present anticipations), ethical judgments need to weigh actual present good on a different scale than hypothetical past good or future good. This ethical use of "presentism" and the historical use of the term seem to have little in common.