-/jLnd so the world lurched ahead. The cultural tremornbrought on by the Great War and the rise to power ofnBolshevism, fascism and nazism shattered the faith held bynliberal historians that human progress was not only inevitablenbut also the theme which gave order to the past. The result hasnbeen sixty years of muddled scholasticism and the degenerationnof the West’s historical consciousness to the level of ajohnJakesnnovel. Clio—the mythical goddess of history and the queen ofnthe disciplines during the bourgeois age of progress—hasnbecome this century’s whore. “Scientific socialism” andn”scientific racism,” the great historicist heresies of Westernncivilization, turned the past into a justification for the exterminationnof millions in the pursuit of “necessity” and humannperfection. More subtly, “revisionist” historians in the UnitednStates, beginning with Charles Beard and running throughnWilliam A. Williams, Gabriel Kolko and other devotees of thenart during the debunking 1960’s and 70’s, transformednhistorical writing into an ideological club with which tonbludgeon the American Experiment.nEven the one fresh breeze in historical method which rose innour century, that school of interpretation formed aroiind thenFrench journal Annates, has been regularly twisted into anlascivious instmment. At their best. Annalists such as FernandnBrandel, Philippe Aries and Pierre Goubert have offered annexhaustive vision of the density of past European social andneconomic life. Characteristically, though, Aries’s near-classicnCenturies of Childhood dtsctnds by its end into a mere tractndefiling the bourgeois family, including the author’s mildly incriminatingnapologia for such “prebourgeois” practices as thensexual abuse of small children. Similarly, Emmanuel Le RoynLadurie’s widely praised history of a 13th-century hereticalnFrench village, Montaillou, owes its popularity in large part to anvoyeurish fascination with the sex lives of peasants and thenbook’s meticulous, admiring dissection of an alternative (readn”nonbourgeois”) lifestyle. Despite their flashes of brilliance,nthe Annalists too often provide litde more than colorful picmresndevoid of moral content. Their work is thus a near-perfectnreflection of the West’s contemporaneous loss of identity andnmoral purpose and, ultimately, a betrayal of historical consciousnessnitself.nL Ln our day, the task facing those historians still loyal to thenWestern inheritance is to reconcile a sense of history as progress,nborn out of a hard-won cultural balance between order andnliberty, with unblindered recognition of the evil loose in thenworld that threatens that balance each step of the way. Thenaloof, priestlike pose which Ranke cherished (“You are in thenfirst place a Christian,” the German mentor once wrote to anclerical follower. “I am in the first place a historian. There is angulf between us.”) seems to be a luxury the West can no longernafford. Instead, with Schopenhauer, modern scholars need ton• HISTORY & LIFE ‘nreassert that historical-mindedness is what distinguishes thencivilized man from the barbarian; and, with Froude, affirmnthat the eternal tmths and the right and wrong of things existnindependent of individual thoughts and wishes, being inherentnin the very nature of man and the world.nThere are contemporary works which approach these standards.nStanley Jaki’s masterful The Road of Science and thenWays to Gods a richly documented analysis of the Westernnscientific revolution that, through its unfeigned interpretationnof human motives, supersedes the secularist treatments thatnhave long dominated and distorted the history of science.nEdward Shorter’s 1976 study, The Making of the ModemnFamily, synthesizes the wealth of social, economic andndemographic data on the Western family generated by thenAnnates school over the past fifty years and ultimately affirmsnon the merits of evidence the unfabled moral and materialnprogress that marked the oft-derided 19th century.nThe greatness of an epoch or cause, Burckhardt once suggested,ndepends on the quota of those men and womenncapable of making sacrifices in its behalf. The restoration ofnmoral vision and historical-mindedness in our unsettled agenwill exact such a measure of courage. And only then will our intuitionnof the past be reunited with the enduring truths thatnalone provide human life with dignity and purpose.n—Allan CarlsonnDr. Carlson is editor o/Persuasion At Work.nSocial RegisternFinally! We’re all done with thentraumas of a violated personality!nNo more spiritual torment ornpsychological turmoil caused by anrefashioned nose, adjusted abdomen,nuplifted eyelids. Downnwith the artificiality of smoothedoutnwrinkles! Victimized socialitesnfrom sea to shining sea, from thenlofts of Soho to the boutiques ofnRodeo Drive, may emit a tendernsigh of victory as the Women’snWear Daily crowd celebrates itsnfinest hour. According to a NewnYork magazine ad:nnnNow You Can Have FullnNatural Breasts in Only OnenDaynWhat a magnificant triumph ofnscience! One Dr. Gilbert Eiseman, “board certified plastic surgeon,”nhas put naturalness—the ultimate luxury —up for sale. He “hasncreated and perfected the transaxiUary procedure, the ultimate andnmost highly refined procedure for creating the full, natural,nbeautiful breast.” Which means that he is not only a cosmetician butnalso a creator. What hosannas in Studio 54! DnOnJuly/August 198Sn