David Barton is a Dolt (No, I’m a Historian! edition)

I’ve written a number of times about David Barton — author, evangelical minister, and political activist. He’s the zany guy who thinks Click, Clack, Moo! is anti-Bible, that the Bible proves the Minimum Wage and other employment laws are against God’s will, the Constitution quotes the Bible extensively, and that Thomas Jefferson was a devout Christian who wanted to found a Christian nation.

The latter point he makes about all of the Founding Fathers, but his assertion about Jefferson is the most fantastic. Barton makes this claim, though, in a lengthy (and thoroughly debunked book) The Jefferson Lies — and by portraying himself as an historian.

This portrayal has been laughed at long and hard by the professional historic community, for a variety of reasons.  First, because Barton is not a professional historian.  He has no degree in the field, no formal chain of study, and he doesn’t work in the academic arena. He reads a lot, he says, and he likes to look at primary sources.  But that doesn’t make him a professional historian.

That’s not a cardinal sin, of course, but it does relegate him to being an amateur historian at best.  Someone who finds the field interesting, who reads about it, and who can make some self-educated conclusions.  And that’s fine, but just as there’s a difference between a professional psychologist and an amateur psychologist, and between a professional biologist and an amateur biologist, so, too, is there a difference between a professional historian and an amateur historian.

I, for example, am an amateur historian. I actually do have a degree in history (BA, Pomona College, 1983).  I read a lot of historic non-fiction.  I enjoy the field. I try to keep myself informed.  I’m an amateur — literally, it’s my love.

But it’s not my profession. It’s not how I earn my living, and it’s not what I’ve invested the time and effort in my life to demonstrate to other professionals that I know whereof I speak. When I do pass on and comment upon historical facts, I do try to do the research first, but I don’t claim to be an expert.

Barton does.

The second reason professional historians laugh at Barton’s work is that it’s just plain wrong.  He cherry-picks the quotations he likes, he spins the ones he can, and he ignores the rest.  Even as an amateur historian, he’s a bad one. He approaches his history with a foregone conclusion — America is a Christian Nation, Thomas Jefferson was a devout, orthodox Christian as a founding father, the Bible dictates free-market capitalism as God’s design, etc. — and, with little effort, manages to find the “history” that makes it all real.

In the face of criticism over his book and his self-proclaimed credentials, Barton’s published a lengthy screed to “take on his critics.”  It’s long … boy, is it long … and I’ll let you review some excerpts here for more detail, as well as the inevitable re-debunking that will be done by people who approach these matters professionally and/or honestly.  But I do want to address the first portion of his essay, in which he stomps his foot over not being accepted a professional historian.

For generations, America recognized an equality of individualism that made the carpenter as important as the university president and the shopkeeper the equal of the statesman.

When it comes to the right and ability to vote and participate in society, Barton is pretty correct (though, of course, there were substantial portions of society during the Founder’s era who were not considered equal or as important as others — women, blacks, Indians.

And we’re talking here of a philosophical concept of who gets to be part of the nation, not professional credentials — a carpenter may be “as important” as a university president (though would you want your sister to marry one?), but if you wanted a table built, you wouldn’t go to the university president, but to the carpenter, because that’s his profession.  On the other hand, if you wanted someone to run a university, you’d be more likely to hire someone who had already done it, or who had gone to university, or who had shown himself capable of running a large organization, versus, say, a carpenter.

“All men are created equal” means that everyone should be able to speak their mind, but it doesn’t mean that what they say on any topic is equally likely to be accurate or given as much weight.

But today, under the influence of Poststructuralism, America has begun to divide itself into groups based not only on identity (e.g., black/white/Latino, straight/gay, union/right-to-work, conservative/liberal, etc.) …

Because, of course, the Founders had no concept of identity — Catholic / Protestant (or Episcopalian vs. Presbyterian vs. Methodist vs. Catholic vs. Baptist vs. Quaker …), black / white, English / Irish / French / Spaniard, Federalist / Anti-Federalist, rich / poor, landowner / landless, man / woman …

… but also on distinctions such as economic income, social standing, …

Everyone who thinks the Founding generation did not divide itself on matters of economic income or social standing.  Read some of the Founders who worried about more pure forms of democracy lest the “mob” get their way. Look at laws about only landholders being able to vote.

… and even degree of academic knowledge – and especially in the latter category as pretentious scholars in law and academics claim exclusive knowledge they believe places them above ordinary citizens.

I suspect that there are, in fact, scholars “in law and academics” who consider themselves superior to “ordinary citizens.”  More likely, there are such scholars who think that they have superior (not exclusive, but broader and deeper) knowledge about their selected field than folks who are not such scholars.  Sometimes that can be presented in a pretentious fashion.  Sometimes not.  And sometimes a university president may be a damned fine carpenter or tailor, if they’ve taken the time to learn the trade — but by and large, one expects that a professional in a field (law, astronomy, sociology, carpentry, farming, football) is going to know more than an amateur, or an “ordinary citizen”.

For example, I repeatedly hear legislators urge that a bill be passed so that they can find out from the judges whether or not it is constitutional. They apparently believe that only a small group is capable of unraveling the meaning of the Constitution …

Given that a large percent of legislators are, themselves, lawyers, that seems to contradict Barton’s earlier point. Regardless, legislators who say, “Let the courts decide,” are simply passing the constitutional buck.  They aren’t, childlike, unsure of themselves.  They either think that the measure they are supporting is, in fact, constitutional (correctly or not), or they are seeking the law to be passed (even if unconstitutional) so as to score points with the folks back home.

… and have forgotten that it is actually a very simple document that can be read in its entirety in less than twenty minutes. In fact, it is so easy to understand that for decades, school children took an annual written exam to demonstrate their mastery of its content; and popular texts included the 1828 Catechism on the Constitution by Arthur Stansbury – a work for elementary students.

Barton takes a Biblically conservative point of view of the world and of the Constitution.  There is Right and there is Wrong. There is Clearly Constitutional and there is Clearly Unconstitutional — and anyone who disagrees with his opinion about it is simply wrong, misguided, delusional, malicious, or perhaps under the influence of Satan.

That is, of course, hogwash — as evidenced by the broad array of opinions about what something like, say, “cruel and unusual punishment” means. And not just means to lawyers and judges and jurisprudential academics, but to individual citizens. And not just today in 2012, but in 1912, and 1812.

I have my opinion about the meaning of an array of passages from the Constitution. But aside from agreeing what the words are in the document, you won’t find two people on the street (let alone in the courtroom) who fully agree on every nuance of how all the various passages (some of the technically specific, some poetically broad) of the Constitution should be applied to the many-faceted world.

Thankfully, citizens have begun bypassing America’s frequently haughty academic aristocracy …

Spiro Agnew used to call them “pointy-headed intellectuals.”  Great turn of phrase that man had.

… – evidenced by the fact that two recent modern-language editions of The Federalist Papershave become national best-sellers.

Three things here. First off, I applaud that the general citizenry are interested enough in history and politics in this nation to pick up and read the Federalist papers.  And I don’t think there’s a single academic aristocrat who would object to such an event.

Second, I note that the Federalist Papers were actually a series of documents for common consumption — to sway popular opinion about a particular view of government.

Third, is this David Barton touting a modern language version of an older document?  What sort of distortions has such a translation inserted?  And how does he feel about modern language versions of, say, the Bible?

Fourth, speaking of the Bible, it remains the all-time best-seller out there — but, again, there are a huge array of opinions about what it says and what it means, not just among biblical scholars (and other such haughty theological aristocrats), but among different Christian sects and among the wide array of Christians around the globe.

And just as they have done with the Constitution, academic elitists have also tried to make themselves the sole caretakers of historical knowledge, holding that history is too complicated, with too many intricacies for the average person to understand. They even become intolerant of those who try to break through these false barriers and open history to the average citizen. I personally know this to be true, for I often find myself the object of their attacks.

David Barton, Professional Martyr. And historian.  Because he says so.

Are there academic snobs and elitists?  Sure, of course.  Any profession has its collection of folks who think that they know it all, know it better than anyone else, and that the hoi-polloi are clueless goons.  Bankers, doctors, ditch diggers, and, yes, historians.

But by the same token, those who are immersed, day-in and day-out, in a field, do have an experiential advantage. They may very well understand the intricacies of their profession better than the amateur or the “average person.”  What’s the right shovel to use  for digging a particular kind of ditch? How does the soil type come into play, and the weather? What sort of bracing do you need when you get below what particular depth?  How does one type of back-hoe compare to another? Even if you successfully dig a ditch of your own, that doesn’t make you a professional.

I have penned numerous best-selling history works, …

Reality is not subject to a majority vote, let alone one influenced by ideological sales campaigns.

… and characteristic of each is a heavy reliance on primary-source documentation.

Which are only as useful as they are complete, representative, and objectively evaluated.

Across the past twenty years, I have amassed a collection of some 100,000 originals (or certified copies of originals) predating 1812, including hand-written documents and works of those who framed and signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Not many individuals in America have read more original works (or fewer modern ones) than I have; and the general public has responded enthusiastically to this history based on original documentation.

Or based on Barton’s interpretation of original documentation (and what he selects from that original documentation to support his points).

In fact, notice how these types of history books regularly appear on the New York Times bestseller list. Whether it is David McCullough’s John Adams, Glenn Beck’s Being George Washington, Newt Gingrich’s Valley Forge, or my own The Jefferson Lies, people are willing to pay good money to learn the simple uncomplicated history that used to be taught in school.

Again, reality — historical reality — is not based on majority vote.

Nor is “simple, uncomplicated history” necessarily accurate.  Such history used to portray the American Indians as savages  and the movement of whites across their lands as a necessary and just expansion under America’s “Manifest Destiny.” Oh, wait, that’s what Bryan Fischer still says.

Conversely, typical history works by modern elitist professors generally sell very poorly; and seeing their own influence wane, they often lash out and condescendingly criticize the more popular documentary works. But this practice is not new. After all, when the Apostle Paul began to attract a growing following, some of the intellectuals of his day who were losing standing “went wild with jealousy and tore into Paul, contradicting everything he was saying,” “sowing mistrust and suspicion in the minds of the people” (Acts 13:44-45, 14:2).

Remarkably enough, a lot of focused academic works don’t appeal to ordinary New York Times bestseller readers — be it technical manuals by professional engineers, geopolitical studies by foreign policy experts, or specific academic works by, yes, historians (which tend to be very narrowly focused on particular themes).  That doesn’t mean they are wrong, just that they are not easy or pleasant reads.

Which brings up another issue: people tend to read and see what they want to read and see.  If someone is already inclined to think of American as having been founded as a Christian nation — not through academic research, but through their own gut and maybe casual conversation with others, then they are going to be more likely to buy and read a book touted as “proving” such a point, vs. a book that claims otherwise … and do so regardless of which view is “real” and which one is simply a comforting polemic.

After The Jefferson Lies, rose to a New York Times best-seller, similar attacks were launched against it from academic elitists.

Largely because Barton’s history was bad.

I will address three of these attacks below, but first, I must tackle their oft-repeated talking-point that I am not a qualified historian – a claim they make to cast a shadow of doubt over all the facts I present. However, this charge, like their others, is completely false. After all, I am:

• Recognized as an historical expert by both state and federal courts;
• Called to testify as an historical expert by both the federal and state legislatures;
• Selected as an historical expert by State Boards of Education across the nation to assist in writing history and social studies standards for those states;
• Consulted as an historical expert by public school textbook publishers, helping write best-selling history texts used in public schools and universities across the nation.

Each and every one of those points is true.  And each and every one is beside the point.  Because Barton gets pulled in — by attorneys, by legislators, by boards of ed, by textbook publishers — not for his academic credentials and historical wisdom, but because he talks a great talk with a thesis they want to hear.  A board of education that wants to instill the idea that this country was founded as a Christian nation will pull Barton in to testify to the fact, and call him a historian because they want him to be.

Their real objection is that I make history uncomplicated, and thus make them irrelevant.

Hey, you don’t need to use a professional carpenter to make your table! I can show you simple, uncomplicated instructions to let you make your own table.  And you can trust me, because I’ve seen lots and lots of tables!

In fact, the very point of The Jefferson Lies was to allow Jefferson to speak for himself through his 19,000 letters, thereby eliminating the need for the educational elitists who for the past fifty years have anointed themselves as Jefferson’s sole interpreters.

No, the “very point” of The Jefferson Lies was to create a mythological Thomas Jefferson who supports Barton’s thesis that America was founded as a Christian Nation, because Jefferson was a devout and (by modern standards) orthodox Christian.  And it was presented as a simple and popular book largely to convince the populace it’s true, not necessarily because it is.

The rest of Barton’s document is an attempt to dismiss, malign, or mock the various academics and other critics who have addressed problems with the various facts, interpretations, and conclusions that Barton puts forward in his book.  I’ll leave it to them to reply, as they see fit.  My concern in this post is simply that Barton’s initial thesis in his screed is that professional historians and the academic study of history is irrelevant — indeed, downright counter-productive — because it violates the principle of all men being created equal, and because people like to buy popular histories vs. academic treatises.

I think such a position is ludicrous.