
The Paris Attacks and the Abuse of History - diodorus
https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-humphries/the-paris-attacks-and-the-abuse-of-history/919018744800165
======
jacobolus
Niall Ferguson’s argument style is tendentious and question-begging, painfully
oversimplified and predictable in the extreme, which he tries to paper over
with rhetorical flourish. It seems like every other sentence he says something
jaw-droppingly wrongheaded. Nothing of his I’ve ever read has contained even a
shred of insight, and he’s infuriating and frankly exhausting to read. His
“success” owes to his ability to effectively flatter a particular group of
rich men, but I don’t know anyone of substance who takes him seriously.

Just ignore him and move on.

~~~
ysilver
I have tried to take his work seriously. At first glance it looks like it
should be thorough and center-right -- not a bad way to read history when read
along-side differing accounts. However, he can't help himself from reducing
his voluminous work to strangely simple political jabs. Maybe if he stuck to
long-form topics from long-ago periods he could keep his credibility.

------
omonra
I was hoping to see more specific criticism from someone claiming to be an
expert in 5th century Rome.

But all I see is a left-wing professor unhappy with insufficient PC-ness of
someone's argument (too Western-centric, not afraid to use the 'us-them'
language, etc).

His one real point is that the Rome collapsed because of partly internal and
partly external factors. That's certainly true - but it was the barbarians who
ultimately sacked Rome and not a civil war that did them in.

~~~
rtl49
I think the fact that he posted this on facebook gives us reason to believe
this was intended for a very general audience. Yes, his criticism is not so
far from mere insult. But it remains true that Ferguson's argument is
laughable, and perhaps the author's frustration with its absurdity has leaked
into his writing.

This is to say nothing about Europe's interests in preventing an influx of
refugees, just that likening the West's conflict with Islamic extremists to
the circumstances surrounding the fall of Rome is nonsense.

~~~
xiaoma
What good does responding to a laughable argument with a angry laughable
argument do?

This fb post doesn't belong on HN.

~~~
rtl49
One possible reason is that Ferguson's words lent credibility to a social
movement the author considers destructive. Even if the remarks were absurd in
the context of the available evidence, few people will read further than to
see they were written by a Harvard professor.

~~~
xiaoma
Does lashing out against something one feels is destructive without a reasoned
argument accomplish anything positive? I have my doubts that it does. It might
even lend weight to the very arguments he's attacking since he's made such a
weak argument.

I'm not debating his position, which I respect, but his argument. If an
argument is nothing more than talking about how angry one is and then
attacking those who hold the opposing position, it's noise at best and a
rallying cry to a mob at worst.

~~~
nindalf
The argument in the facebook post appears reasoned. He points out that

* Ferguson knows very little about the 5th Century, by his own admission

* Ferguson cites Edward Gibbon, who is a poor source by modern standards. Gibbon himself felt that he his conclusions were invalid.

* Ferguson grossly oversimplifies his other source, because that source tries to say the exact opposite of what Ferguson concludes.

I feel like you skimmed the post, found some PC-like arguments, and concluded
that its weak.

~~~
xiaoma
> _I feel like you skimmed the post_

Your feelings have lead you astray in this case. I read every word.

I read Humphries' claims of his own expertise in 5th century history, his
claims of Ferguson's ignorance and claims and over-simplification of the same
and his outright personal attack at the end and I was not impressed with
either his critique or his methods. Rather than attacking the person (or even
his sources), why not address the actual fallacies in his historical
analogies?

What is good for a political talk show blowhard seeking ratings is not the
same as what is good for a constructive discussion.

------
ysilver
My favorite line:

> Some of my fellow historians have asked the obvious question why Ferguson
> fixates on the fifth century, when the seventh century in the East, which
> saw the rise of Islam, might present more obvious food for thought. Perhaps
> Ferguson knows even less about that.

As the author notes, Niall Ferguson chose his Roman comparison to evoke fear
of a fall from greatness, not because it is an insightful comparison. The rise
of ISIS and its war with Al-Assad's Syria and Iraq should be seen in the
context of an emerging revolutionary state like the Russian, Chinese, Cuban,
Cambodian, and Iranian revolutions. The refugees are just like those that are
typically cast out during the rise of a revolutionary state.

We get much more nuanced comparisons of ISIS and the refugee influx in this
context. Here is a great set of such comparisons:
[https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/isis-
rev...](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/isis-
revolutionary-state)

> In his ‘General considerations on the decline of the empire in the west’
> that concluded volume 3 of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
> Empire, Gibbon made this European dimension explicit by considering how a
> similar chain of events might impact on the Europe of his own day.

The best vaccine against alarmist predictions is looking at the previously
incorrect alarmist predictions from the same source. This review is like
@pessimistsarc on Twitter, except for angsty pundit-historians. Very
gratifying.

------
rtl49
I always find it surprising how many academics at prestigious institutions
manage to get away with professing such obviously risible ideas. There is no
meaningful analogy to be drawn between the sack of the city of Rome and
Western civilization's current conflict with Islamic extremism. The imbalance
of power, resources, and organization between the West and Daesh is not
remotely comparable.

Concerns about the import of ideology along with refugees might be legitimate,
but comparing the downfall of modern Western civilization to the sack of a
single city, Rome, is just ridiculous.

~~~
mikeash
I always wonder if people don't understand the massive disparity between the
economic and military power of first-world countries and organizations like
ISIS, or if they do understand but still somehow think it makes sense to
compare it with Rome or be paranoid that they're going to conquer Europe or
whatever.

~~~
rtl49
There was an article on HN a few days ago that put the financing of ISIS into
perspective. The US spends more on a typical large bridge than ISIS would earn
over the course of several years at their peak income. Comparing this to, say,
the GDP of the United States alone, or even the US military budget, it's easy
for even a layman to see how silly this professor's argument is.

~~~
orionblastar
That is because the USA is building things and ISIS is destroying things.

It cost more to build things than to destroy them.

ISIS has an ideology that it uses to recruit people who are willing to work
for a low amount of money and do suicide bombings. Most of their weapons they
stole from Iraq, and they stole oil and sold it to raise more money.

Yet the USA spends more on its military and drones and still cannot stop ISIS.
We are told ISIS is contained, but right after that the Paris Attacks
happened. ISIS can just recruit people and give them resources and money to
carry out attacks.

We are not fighting a nation or religion, we are fighting an ideology. One
that can recruit people over social media and operate on a low budget with low
pay because everyone they recruit thinks they will have 72 virgins in paradise
after they die.

The USA is a nation of laws and we have a separation of church and state. We
have minimum wage laws and pay people more based on their skill set and value.
We pay more for our military and for building bridges because we are trying to
build an economy and improve our nation's infrastructure. ISIS does none of
those things so they can operate on a lower income, and since their recruits
can become a suicide bomb they don't have to pay them after that. They recruit
so many people that life is cheap to them and they sacrifice them as pawns.

ISIS or any other terrorist group always finds a way to get an income,
blackmail, stealing oil, fake Islamic charities, raiding banks for cash,
forcing people to pay a tax or be killed, killing people and taking their
wealth, and all sorts of things. They operate like a criminal operation and
are even known to deal in drugs as well sometimes.

Defeating ISIS will be very hard indeed. You have to disprove their ideology
so they stop getting recruits. You have to cut off their sources of income.
You have to kill of their leaders until there is nobody qualified to be a
general or leader. Then in the process make sure no innocent women and
children get killed or else it will be used as propaganda to recruit more
people.

You have to understand what we might be seeing World War 3 in the Middle East
right now if things don't get any better.

~~~
rtl49
I maintain that, even if one were to grant everything you've written, the
disparity in economic and military power is so significant that there would
still be no comparison to be made between the fall of Rome and the current
circumstances of Western civilization.

The death of 150 people is a great tragedy. Its impact will be felt directly
by tens of thousands, and indirectly by millions. But this is nothing in
comparison to the events foreshadowing the sack of Rome, and there's little
reason to believe it is a sign of things to come.

I think we are simply so sensitive to these acts of violence that we have lost
our bearings -- there is simply no realistic series of events by which Islamic
extremists can topple Western civilization.

------
benbreen
For those looking for more concrete information about Roman history, a
classics professor I know has written a really in-depth two part series about
immigration in the Roman Empire over at a new online classics journal called
Eidolon:

[https://eidolon.pub/barbarians-inside-the-gate-part-
ii-c22c5...](https://eidolon.pub/barbarians-inside-the-gate-part-
ii-c22c5becd228)

Granted, he's writing about Republican Rome so it doesn't directly relate to
the 5th century, but it deals with similar themes in a thoughtful way.

And I agree that it would be better for everyone if we collectively just
ignored the 2015 incarnation of Niall Ferguson, but unfortunately being a
tenured professor at Harvard (and now Stanford) gives you quite the bully
pulpit! His first book is actually good, but it's been a downhill slide into
largely fact-less political assertions and nasty ad hominem attacks since
then...

~~~
ysilver
> And I agree that it would be better for everyone if we collectively just
> ignored the 2015 incarnation of Niall Ferguson, but unfortunately being a
> tenured professor at Harvard (and now Stanford) gives you quite the bully
> pulpit! His first book is actually good, but it's been a downhill slide into
> largely fact-less political assertions and nasty ad hominem attacks since
> then...

I couldn't agree more. The 2011 Ferguson was pretty vapid when dealing in
short-form too. He debated Zakaria and Kissinger in 2011 on the future of
China:
[https://www.munkdebates.com/debates/china](https://www.munkdebates.com/debates/china)

It is hard to believe how frequently he resorts to ad hominem arguments.
Furthermore, he can't seem to even acknowledge a the crux of a compelling
argument made by Kissinger/Zakaria. Unsurprisingly, he drove the audience away
from his argument in droves.

------
a_bonobo
I've posted this on HN before:

Every time someone tries to shoe-horn the Fall of Rome into contemporary
history it's good to post Demandt's "210 Reasons for the decline of the Roman
Empire" [1]. You can nicely see which ideologies have tried to fit Rome into
their own crusade.

[1]
[http://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html](http://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html)

------
WildUtah
There's no link to the Ferguson article in Humphries's attack piece.

The Sunday Times has a paywall, even for a single article in the current
edition. But Ferguson's piece has been syndicated.

Here's a link at the Boston Globe:

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/16/paris-and-
fal...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/16/paris-and-fall-
rome/ErlRjkQMGXhvDarTIxXpdK/story.html)

------
nickbauman
Niall Ferguson's pseudo-scholarship ignores the fact that Karl Popper's entire
career was based on debunking the myth of historicism Gibbon and Spengler
espoused. Today nobody takes the latter two seriously, while Popper is still
standing tall.

------
known
If you're not from my caste/religion, you're non-human to me;
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings)

