Rating: 
Summary: Where relativism came from and why it doesn't make sense
Review: Don't let the title of the book fool you. While the title may seem to be something of an exaggeration, I think Windschuttle makes his case. He argues that relativism (the idea that there is no absolute, universal truth or knowledge) is making history, a discipline that seeks to discover the truth about the past, impossible.He starts the book by showing where relativism came from. Primarily, relativism was thought up by a number of French intellectuals in the 1960's. These philosophers and theorists (e.g. Derrida, Foucault, etc) also drew some of their ideas from 19th century philosophers such as Nietzsche (who is frequently quoted as saying, "There are no facts but only interpretations.") and Heidegger. The theories that these thinkers came up with have several different names (e.g. structuralism, post-structuralism, post-modernism etc...) but they all have a common commitment to relativism. The fact that relativism is an incoherent, self-contradictory philosophy should be obvious to all after some reflection on the topic. I would recommend, "Relativism: Feet planted firmly in mid-air," by Francis Beckwith and Gregory Koukl (which I have reviewed) for a book length treatment of why relativism is false. Windschuttle focuses on the cultural relativism (i.e. the idea that all cultures are equal and that there are no ideas or truths which transcend culture) whereas Beckwith and Koukl focus on moral relativism (i.e. the idea that there is no universal morality). Windschuttle makes his case by examining a number of theorists and their writings about specific historical events. For example, Windschuttle discusses the death of James Cook in Hawaii, early Australian history, the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Columbus' discovery of America and the like. Windschuttle demonstrates that all these "historians" (who are often trained as literary critics or some other discipline) take their theory or ideology and force it upon the evidence to the point of fudging important details, ignoring the research of other historians and even in a few cases to the out-right fabrication of information. Although parts of the book can be difficult to follow, Windschuttle endeavors to make his work understandable to most intelligent readers in contrast to many of the intellectuals now in favor who deliberately engage in obscurantist writing. The author also makes several interesting observations regarding the motives of many academics. For example, one of the reasons that cultural relativism is so popular is due to the fact that academics wish to seen on the side of oppressed native peoples and other disfavored people (Michael Focault's books are good example of this). Also, these academics could be accused of taking these positions simply because they wish to be seen to be fully politically correct. At one point, Windschuttle says that writing history in this new politically motivated, theory-laden fashion is easier than traditional research. He says, "[t]ackling the main issues of human experience no longer requires the hard work of steeping yourself in the writings of all those practitioners of your discipline who have gone before you, and then putting the even harder slog of doing your own research. Instead all you need to do is take a small selection of of the more prominent and familiar authors, label in terms used by the currently fashionable theoretical guru, add some linguistic speculation about the textuality of everything, and then wait for the self-same guru or his acolytes to recognize your genius and lavish you with hyperbole." (page 118) The last chapter of the book entitled, "The Return of Tribalism: Cultural relativism, structuralism, and the death of Cook," is one of the most interesting chapters of the book. In addition to showing in a final flourish that relativism is self-contradictory, the author shows further, that the Western tradition of the scientific method and Western historical discipline are the best way for indigenous people to understand their past. Further, the adoption of relativism resurrects tribalism (the idea that every society is completely different from all others) that has wrecked so much havoc in Rwanda, Bosnia and other parts of the world.
Rating:
Summary: Better than "The Closing of the American Mind"
Review: If you have ever tried to read the endless columns of the New York Review of Books and been puzzled and/or confused by terms like: semiotics, hermeneutics, posthistory structuralism and poststructuralism; if you recognize and feel that you should know more about people like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas et al, then friends the answer is near at hand. If you have the vague feeling that a lot of people have been pulling your leg with obtuse jargon disguising outlandish theories, then I would like to introduce you to a brilliant new book written by an Australian academic who has felt your pain and explains it all in crystal clear, easy to understand English prose.It's "The Killing of History --- How a discipline is being murdered by literary critics and social theorists." It's by Keith Windschuttle (KW) and published by Macleay Press (ISBN 0-646-26506-7) 300 pages. It was favorably reviewed recently in the Wall St. Journal. For my money it's the equal, or better, of Alan Bloom's bestseller, "The Closing of the American Mind." What makes this book particularly interesting for Catholics is that the author has the temerity to insist that there is something like Truth (in history) and that historians have an obligation to incline in that direction rather than the other way. There isn't enough room here to fully explain this rich and revealing book but I'll try to pass along a few samples. Remember a few years back the furor caused by Francis Fukuyama and his article/book "The End of History and the Last Man?" Everybody felt they should have an opinion on it but were not such exactly what was going on. Here is your reward. KW lays it all out with wit and Rand McNally clarity. Let me give you a sample: "Though the Left claimed Hegel as one of their own, they regarded his liberal politics not as something of great weight in itself but simply as one of the ideological stages through which universal history had to pass before it manifested itself in Marx's grand scheme. Hence Fukyyama was doubly provacative. He not only declared socialism the dead end of a blind alley but he used the very methodology that has produced socialism to do it. By vaulting backwards over the head of Marx to land on the shoulders of Hegel, Fukyyama performed a feat of dazzling intellectual gymnastics. Most of the Left looked on, stunned, like supporters of a team just thrashed in the final round. "One of the very few Marxist who appreciated the performance was Perry Anderson, the former editor of the London journal "New Left Review," and now pastured, like a number of his old English stable mates, in a university in California. Though he disagrees with the end, Anderson applauds the means the author used to reach it." Hey, how can you beat that? There's more. The author takes us on a tour of postmodernism and then sums it all up with this delicious para.: "In this light, we can see those English-speaking academics who are investing their time, energy and personal endorsement in the concept of postmodernism as sorry figures indeed. They thought they were participating in an exciting and new theoretical movement. Instead, all they are producing, albeit unwittingly, is an English-language version of a French theory from the 1980s, which itself derives from a German thesis from the 1940s and 1950s that was originally developed by a group of ex-Nazis to lament the defeat of the Third Reich." ALL I CAN SAY IS BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT. THINK OF IT AS AN INVESTMENT IN SELF-ESTEEM.
Rating:
Summary: A modest suggestion that this book should be read
Review: In case any reader might be put off by "Ray from Victoria" writing on 12 Jan 2003 "its author is less concerned with the purity of history than with defending a right-wing, white view of the world and denigrating people like Henry Reynolds" it should be noted that the former Marxist historian (and former journalist) Windschuttle makes just three references to Henry Reynolds, two neutral and one favourable. Ray should read the lucidly written and thoroughly researched 1996 book, The Killing of History, instead of rushing into print because Vol 1 of Windshuttle's three volume "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History" has just been published with much ?clat and dealt a well aimed blow at "historians" like him. It is in that book that Henry Reynolds' failures of scholarship are scrupulously detailed. But "The Killing of History" does skewer perfectly some other deserving targets.
Rating: 
Summary: Icebergs in the sealanes
Review: Keith Windschuttle was a young radical who grew up to become a scourge of the progressive intelligentsia and intellectual fraud. He is a courageous advocate for his causes and he is prepared to venture into the "lions dens" of his opponents to engage them in face to face debate, most recently in connection with his book "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History". This earlier work is a critique of some modern theorists and theories which threaten to turn history and the humanities at large into an intellectual wasteland. It should be placed on the shelf alongside Sokal and Bricmont's book on intellectual impostures, though unfortunately the downside of both books is that the authors have misread the philosophy of Karl Popper and so depict him as a part of the problem and not as an ally. The first chapter "Paris labels and designed concepts: The assension of cultural studies and the deluge of social theory" provides a valuable overview of the various intellectual icebergs that are floating loose in the sealanes of discourse. Many of the key players hail from France, though the German Heidegger was a major influence in paving the way for younger generations. Marxism and socialism in various forms provide a subtext for the movement, even while Marxism in its more rigorous traditional forms has become unfashionable. Cultural studies has become the major growth area on campus, catering for the perceived grievances of various groups and political movements. The deluge of cultural theory incudes structuralism and semiotics, poststructuralism, and various kinds of postmodernism. The latter are classified as: the Neitzsche and Heidegger version; The Paris 1980s version (Lyotard and Baudrillard); the art and architecture version; the literary version; and the popular culture version. Marxism and critical theory still eke out an existence, mostly associated with the Frankfurt School, with Jurgen Habermas as the leader. Respect for reason survives in this group, unlike most of the others, and it will be interesting to see how long its economic illiteracy can survive in the face of the growing profile of the Austrian (Menger/Hayek) school. Another major grouping is concerned with postcolonialism and heterology. Here Franz Fanon was the pioneer and Edward Said is the leading contemporary exponent.
One of the benefits of this book is that it is not all theory and readers will learn some history from the examples that the author has chosen for analysis. One of these is the Spanish conquest of South America. Some historians have depicted this as western serpents corrupting a peaceful and harmonious garden of Eden, neglecting to mention the ferocious and bloodthirsty tyranny of the major empires. In a chapter on Captain Bligh of the Bounty and Captain Cook in Tahiti, Windschuttle shows how a theorist with preconceived ideas was refuted in the one case by his own data and in the other by a more careful study by another researcher. In a long chapter on Paul Carter's account of the first settlers in Australia, Windschuttle explains how a work which appears to be intellectually formidable turns out to be replete with so many self-contradictions, factual inaccuracies and trite interpretations, and is so continuously and odiously pretentious, that it is hard to take seriously. However it displays all the characteristics of the methodological approaches that have now surged to the front in history. In a chapter on History as a Social Science the author examines some modern developments in the philosophy of science that are attributed to the influence of Popper and Kuhn. Undoubtedly Kuhn and his followers have been a major source of obscurantism and relativism, however in the case of Popper the author does not refer to Popper's views on historical explanation by way of situational analysis and thematic narratives. These were spelled out in chapter 25 of "The Open Society and its Enemies", a book which might have accelerated Windschuttle's emancipation from the left. Instead of addressing Popper's fully-developed account of historical explanation, KW takes issue with Popper's critique of the strong form of empiricism or positivism which demands that all claims to knowledge must be sourced to an observer. Popper demonstrated that this demand cannot be met due to the problem of infinite regress. This problem applies in science and in historical studies, though in Popper's view it does not destroy either enterprise (it just destroys the credibility of strong forms of positivism and empiricism). Unfortunately KW misread this critique as an attack on the possibility of historical knowledge where we do not have access to any living observers. In fact Popper has no argument with the standard historical methods, drawing on a wide range of sources, though none can be accepted uncritically. This misreading of Popper can probably be attributed to the unfortunate influence of David Stove. For more on this search on "Stove+Rathouse". In any case it is a most unfortunate blemish in a valuable book.
Rating: 
Summary: amusing
Review: One reviewer, Bruce H, in agreeing with Windschuttle remarks "Windschuttle makes his case...". This makes me laugh in the context of an attempt to vindicate universal truth.
Rating:
Summary: Thank you for this book
Review: Thank you for The Killing of History, an intellectual, historical, and literary treat. I am giving copies for Xmas, both for their enjoyment and hoping they will help parents and kids counter some of the nonsense students are exposed to. Your examples of fraudulent, incompetent history accepted at universities in the name of political correctness and diversity demonstrate the undermining of true education.
You mention Foucault's neglect of crediting sources he likely drew upon and you discuss his argument that the medical model applied to psychology has been used to repress unconventional attitudes and lifestyles. Dr. Thomas Szasz argued against the misuses of the medical model much more cogently and accurately in his The Myth of Mental Illness, published in 1961, two years before the Foucault work you cited. Moreover, Szasz was not trying to argue that minds are incompetent tools.
I appreciate the discussion of the issue of theory coloring observations, and in particular history. It occurs to me that those who maintain that theory is controlling in every observation, must also maintain that, since dogs observe, dogs must have theories? Else, they are maintaining that only beings with theories (conceptual thought) are unable to accurately observe reality? Whereas, beings with only perceptual thought can do quite well? I suppose they want to say that anyone who puts an observation into language necessarily uses theory and cannot distinguish perception from conception? The implication is that reason is not a means of knowledge, subject to error and error correction, but is necessarily a distortion of reality. This in essence seems the view of Kant and all of his various followers, who, while usually touted as supporters of reason, are actually anti-reason -- reversing cause and effect, and encouraging a reliance on emotions as knowledge.
An issue you did not address is what makes these intellectually dishonest fools influential in our culture? Thinkers like yourself are self-made, through years of effort in building a hierarchy of objective values, in refining methodologies, and in identifying and resolving confusions. How is it that a seemingly increasing percentage of people in universities fail to develop these virtues and values?
Obviously, their failure is not an act of effort, but of lack of effort. What these people have is a default, non-intellectual morality of tribal collectivism and altruism. This cannot be defended rationally; so, only irrationality will do for them. Their emotions tell them so. To paraphrase Ayn Rand: They cannot build, but they must act; so, they only destroy.
I suggest that the central influence in the last hundred years in intellectually and morally crippling students is the increasing government support for schools and universities. With financial support comes political influence on textbooks, teacher qualifications, teacher unionization, and forced attendance in approved institutions.
It is government influence that creates the jobs and pulpits for fools and intellectual failures, whether in the arts, science, or education. In a degenerative cycle, with progressive generations the citizens, the government, and the schools get worse. The resulting culture is one which has degenerated into fostering postmodernism philosophy. Would any of the promoters of such nonsense find jobs and pulpits if they had to rely on support from private citizens?
In the Europe of past centuries, government money and influences supported religions and schools that promoted religious teachings, else these teachings would not have been so influential. Today, governments are promoting the religions of environmentalism, multiculturalism, relativism, collectivism, etc.
Rating:
Summary: The Totalitarian Era of Political Correctness
Review: The essence of history, writes the author, is that it once tried to tell the truth, to describe as best as possible what really happened. Not anymore. No longer is there a distinction between history and fiction in this, one of many fronts, in the culture wars against Western Civilization. We find a war of atrocities committed by the West upon itself. As the Australian Windshuttle carries us through the wreckage we find objectivity has been abandoned, truth hopelessly politicized. But no vacuum remains. The old objectivity is replaced by kind sounding censorship, control and quiet vendetta - a score to settle with the West. The author shows this is not isolated but permeates the West's political system, media and every university that once considered education its aim. The attack is not only on history but on knowledge, truth, the categorical separation of disciplines, and - in keeping with a perpetual incapacity of modern thinkers to grasp science - even that science fabricates its understandings of nature to serve political bias, regardless of truth. (Fortunately, nature is the final judge.) One such "new movement" theory discussed by Windshuttle, structuralism, claims people are incapable of seeing outside structures imposed by their culture - a psychological edifice confining every thought to this structure. But structuralism cannot account for new movements outside the status quo. Insights radically outside accepted modes of thought are the mainstay of scientific and social revolutions - Einstein or Jesus. Windshuttle dismantles structuralism by showing how Sahlins and Dening not only lie about history but force-fit history to match their prejudice - the opposite of scientific method. Double standards are glaring. New movements tell us we can never really know what happened in history then contradict themselves by telling us what really happened. Spain is morally indicted for their violence while the slaughter of women, flayed so naked Aztec priests may wear their wet skins in rituals, are not. Instead this is declared as the happy cohesive behavior of Cortez's victims. Mass murders of other peoples by the Aztecs are conveniently ignored. Instead of defeating Eurocentric bias, we find structuralists extending it. We find university professors renaming their personal political agendas as "cultural studies" in order to brainwash students their way, as students, innocent victims, parrot back striking discoveries of their feminist and/or Marxist professors who were dieing for an ally in their rejection of the West after the utter failure of Marx, finding it born, as the author shows, in French philosophers of the Sixties. Not just another transient social fad these new movements are a crisis of civilization. No external terrorist could do the damage these people have done and are determined to continue. Windshuttle shows new movement literary critics and social theorists - like thespians defining foreign policy - are utterly out of their depth but this has not stopped their victorious assumption of power. Spengler said this would happen - the West would begin to doubt itself, find itself guilty and pronounce a verdict of its own extinction. Windshuttle shows we've already arrived. An excellent book by a man immersed in the field. If you read this book you'll find it hard to put down, but you may never sleep soundly again.
Rating:
Summary: Dreams of an Elemental Theory
Review: The more I read historians write about their craft, the clearer it becomes how little there actually is to say about historiography. If Historiography is the study of the principles, theories, or methodology of historical research, then that study seems both at its infancy and at a dead end. We know that the past happened; We can know discreet facts about it and can write compare account of it based on how well they account for the known historical facts and documents. These statements can be clarified and elaborated, but that is, essentially, it.
The real questions in history - What is important and what is marginal? How do historians construct an account by selecting data, and how they divide the past into discreet units ('The American Revolution', 'World War II', etc), how is causation defined and explained - these, and many other questions, remain unanswered. We can identify good history when we see it, but no matter how sophisticated and learned, historians' theories of history (other then empiricism, that is, getting the facts right) are, well, close to non existent.
Starting with the late sixties, and increasingly during the eighties and the nineties, a related series of ideas started to form that did offer, in a way, a theory of history (and of the social sciences, and of human knowledge generally). This movement, essentially a French take on Nietzsche and Heidegger's ideas, is known by many names: critics Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, after rejecting the neo-log "New Rage Intellectuals", called the movement "the Academic Left". In this book, Keith Windschuttle refers to it as "Literary critics and social theorists". But the most common term is "Postmodernism".
Essentially, what all brands of Postmodernism share is a deep distrust of the existence of objective knowledge about reality. Speaking broadly, Post-modernists deny that we can know the world for certain. Rather, the sciences and history are social constructs - the myths of Western society, called forth to serve the interests of the hegemony, and to dominate and dispossess "The Other": Women, Homosexuals, non-Western cultures, etc.
Like many other critics, Windschuttle is opposed to this movement, believing (in somewhat of a hyperbole, in my opinion), that it is a "lethal process well underway" (p. xii). He argues that relying on these theories leads historians ashtray; and he offers a series of "road tests" to examine how reliable the Postmodern histories are (ibid).
Windschuttle does a commendable job both at describing and differentiating between the different threads that constitute Postmodernism - 'Structuralism', 'Post-Structuralism', 'Anti-humanism', 'Semiotics', etc. His is the best account of the writings of Michel Foucault I've ever read (pp. 131-171), and he generally makes the case for his opponents better then they would themselves. Indeed, it often seems that Windschuttle finds things of value in these works - whether it is Greg Dening's research into flogging in the British Navy (p. 73). In a moderate and much watered down form, Windschuttle can even agree with some of the conclusions. He reasonably accepts that culture played a "highly influential" role in the warfare of the Mexica against the Spanish, as the Postmodernist claim, but demonstrates that culture was not the primary cause of their defeat (p. 59).
While Windschuttle's case studies about Postmodern history are most illuminating, he is on less even ground where he discusses theory. In a chapter about history as a social science, Windschuttle takes us through the entire Popper/Kuhn/Feyerabend debates, in account that is not so much wrong as unfocused. As Amazon reviews demonstrate, the most controversial aspect of Windschuttle's book is probably his attack on Karl Popper who is seen as one of the 'good guys' - that is, a strong advocate of science and no supporter of relativism. Although I see where Windschuttle is going with his critique, I prefer more subtle accounts, such as the one offered by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont in chapter four of 'Intellectual Impostures'.
Windschuttle, like other critics, demonstrates that, yes, the king is naked. Given the gross inaccuracies, defect logic, and questionable morality of Postmodernism, let alone the periodical humiliations that come when some respected vehicle of Postmodernism is exposed (Heidegger and Paul De Man's relations with Nazism, Sokal's hoax, etc), why does Postmodernism still have adherents within the academy? How come so many educated people, who should have known better, don't? Although many historical, political and institutional factors are involved, one answer stands out of Windschuttle's account: Postmodernism seduces with theory.
Paul Krugman, explaining why he is an economist, wrote: "Economists may make lots of bad predictions, but they do have a method - a systematic way of thinking about the world that is more true than not, that gives them genuine if imperfect expertise". Other social sciences don't have such a method. As Krugman puts it "other social sciences are still waiting for their Adam Smiths". (Paul Krugman "Why I am an Economist (sigh)" www.pkarchive.org/theory/serfdom.html)
At least part of the appeal of Postmodernism, I believe, is that it promises such a method - a theory that will give a systematic outlook, that will allow glimpses at the bigger picture. But such a theory is nowhere in sight, and the fools will rush in where angels fear to thread.
Rating:
Summary: well reasoned, methodical, and intellectual refutation...
Review: This book is a well reasoned, methodically supported, and intellectually stimulating argument against the relativist doctrines so common in academia at the moment. Windschuttle's case, no matter how unpopular or politically incorrect, systematically demolishes relativistic notions of history with both abstract arguments, and specific concretes. Windschuttle really pulls the Postmodern Ostrich's head out of the sand and slaps it in the face with this book! Of course, most of the points he makes are really not surprising to those who have not been corrupted by the pluralists, relativists, and other postmodernists of recent years.
Rating:
Summary: Forget the academic terminology -- that's the whole point!
Review: This is a book for a GENERAL audience - the widest possible reading public - because it's nothing short of a backlash against political correctness. I truly believe that wildly revisionist histories at least make us THINK, and can even throw new light on old stories (however dim that light might be). But we also need books like this to skewer obscurantist writing and the semiotic worldview - and I'm still not absolutely sure what semiotics is, which is part of Windschuttle's point. This is a stern check to a pendulum that might otherwise fly off the pin. He doesn't dismiss our elegiac feelings for the pre-Columbian world, he redirects it to the tribes that suffered genocide under the Mexica sacrificial knife. On the other hand, there are sections of his book difficult to read only because they're so hilarious. Structuralism? One of Windschuttle's unfortunate targets cites Captain Bligh's threat to make his crew "eat grass like cows." The author, Greg Dening, apparently goes on in his book to explain the crew's cultural understanding of those words, and I could hear the squeaky wheels of Monty Python's Trojan Bunny approaching. I find it very difficult to laugh helplessly and continue reading at the same time. You won't be bored, or - God forbid - lost in the foreign language of postmodernism and hermeneutics!
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