Perceptions and Prophecies in Johan Huizinga's America

44 PERCEPTIONS AND PROPHECIES IN JOHAN HUIZINGA'S AMERICA Augustinus P. Dierick When in 1917 the Dutch historian Johan twenties and thirties, such as for example Hendrik Huizinga accepted the task of presenting a course Willem van Loon. His own field was the history of on American history at the University of Leiden, he culture, to which he brought a complex moral and had not yet visited the U.S., and, as he tells us in the aesthetic norm. His Mennonite background taught foreword to the published version of his lectures, him a certain "modest morality",2 but he abandoned he felt considerable hesitation. American history any kind of rigid, formal dogma. He claimed little had held no attraction for him so far: "I did not knowledge of philosophy and science, and in any expect to find in it," he says, "any of the things by case abhorred systematizing and the mechani which the grandeur of the European past holds us zation of the spirit. in its grasp."1 But he changed his mind when he All these characteristics can be seen in Hui began to study the subject, and became interested zinga's first work on America, Man and the Masses in enough to visit the U.S. itself in 1926. From this visit America.3 The subtitle of the work, "Four Essays in there resulted in fact a second book on America. the History of Modern Civilization," not only draws Huizinga's misgivings about writing on America our attention to the typical form in which Huizinga are understandable enough if one considers his wrote the essay, but it also alerts us to the angle career up to 1917, and the course it took later. For from which Huizinga approaches his subject. We one thing, Huizinga was not even a historian by are dealing with history from the point of view of training. Born on December 17, 1872, in Gro civilization; and Huizinga makes the assumption ningen, he was the son of a professor of physio that what holds for America holds (with perhaps logy at the university there. His father was the last some delay) for modern western civilization in of a long line of Mennonite preachers in the general. This motif indeed runs through the whole Huizinga family: Johan chose neither theology nor work. science, but first studied literature, in particular old At the same time, America immediately con Hindu literature. However, his first teaching ap fronted this typical European historian with a for pointment was in history, at a secondary school in midable problem. Can we apply the criteria worked Haarlem, and when he became instructor of Hindu out from European history to the subject of Ame studies in Amsterdam in 1903 he was soon called rican history? That Huizinga was himself aware of to the chair of history in Groningen, thanks to the this problem he showed by setting out to test two of support of his teacher, P. J. Blok. the most important frameworks in European his In 1915 Huizinga was called to Leiden and re tory: the conflict between the old and the new, and mained there until the university was closed by the the struggle between individualism and associ Germans during the occupation, in 1940. It was ation (or collectiviSm). during these years at Leiden that Huizinga rose to As is to be expected, the conflict between the prominence through such famous books as The old and the new did not have much significance in Waning of the Middle Ages (1919), a biography of America. In a country where everything is new, Erasmus (1924) and various books on the history of there are no conflicts of this kind. Certainly the the Low Countries, including Dutch Civilization in the conflict between the progressive and conservative 17th Century (1923, German edition). He was ar forces did not apply to American politics, since rested in 1941 by the Germans and sent to a con both Republicans and Democrats called them centration camp. Released because of illness, he selves progressive. But while Huizinga concludes was sent into quasi-exile in De Steeg, near Arnhem, that the struggle between the old and the new is where he died, February 1, 1 945. almost absent, that between association versus By background and training, Huizinga was very individualism is of extreme importance, though it is much a European historian, steeped in the cultural less of a contradiction than in Europe, where the values of Europe. But though he was influenced collectivism of the Middle Ages was superseded particularly by the German school, by Jacob Burck dramatically by the individualism of the Renais hardt and Wilhelm Dilthey, Huizinga developed an sance. Indi~idualism is one of the great threads individual style. For one thing, he rejected the running through American history, Huizinga claims. methods of physical sciences, because history for But it is quite different from European individu him was not a matter of theories, hypotheses and alism, considered by Burckhardt to be the essence proofs, but rather the discovery of the past from of the Renaissance. American individualism is old sources, combined with vision and insight. One fashioned because, in colonial days, it expressed could almost say that Huizinga worked intuitively, itself as an intolerant spirit against interference, guided by his own sensibility and feelings. At the and this quality has persisted. "America was won same time, however, he rejected the efforts of and maintained by the dogged old-fashioned indi popularizing historians and biographers of the vidualism of the small town," Huizinga writes, "we 45 could almost say by medieval individualism." (17) In even more important than these considerations, this sense the American Revolution itself could be however, is the fact that socialism is only one considered conservative, because it was intended among many political organizations and did not to preserve liberties already acquired, and to pro grow organically, as a typical American movement, tect them from interference by the homeland. with specific lobbying goals in mind. Here Huizinga I n the drafting of the Articles of Confederation of returns to the notion of collectivism in American 1776 individualism again showed its strength, be history. cause it was the particularism of the states that Collectivism in America, like individualism, is a carried the day. Ten years later the Constitution set primitive force. Associations come about for con up a much more centralized system of government, crete goals, and they have strong emotional and to be sure, but this did not denote a triumph of spontaneous characteristics. Already in colonial community spirit and unity overriding individualism times there was a basis for such organizations, first and particularism, but was, according to Huizinga, in Calvinism, then/in the 18th century Enlighten the result of economic interests, which required a ment, with its Cilibs and societies. Because of the strong federal government. In fact, the struggle presence of such specific organizaitons, Ameri between particularism and collectivism can usually can politics often take on the quality of sports, be seen to express itself in commercial and eco complete with organized applause and cheerlea nomic terms. ders. Whereas the typical economic organization Economic factors even determine the American in America completely lacks this emotional qua perception of the state. Alexis de Tocqueville, the lity. Huizinga writes: great French historian who visited the U.S. in the Economic and political organizations had common roots 1830's, thought that the central government's au in the native feeling for association on behalf of pur poses which were ethical as well as profitable. But while thority was on the decline. By Huizinga's time the the political organization /<ept its spontaneity and emo opposite was of course true. Huizinga attributes tionality, in brief its human character, economic organiza this to the economic expansion after the Civil War. tion, under the pressure of capital, did without such It was the unsatisfactory state of the economy feeling from the beginning. Only in its more recent anti which created the demand for a strong federal au capitalist form of trade unions has economic organization again shared in the emotional element of the primitive thority, though of course not primarily to regulate sense of association. (59) business, but to make its expansion possible. State Of course America always showed at the same boundaries were virtually eliminated by trade, time in its history various stages of individualism which in turn led to their disappearance in a poli and collectivism, because there was always the tical sense. Later in the century, American com pioneer West, outside the grasp of the increasingly mercial imperialism led to political imperialism, and collectivist East. "The pure type of pioneer," Hui this is still true today. Much of the aggressiveness zinga writes, "is the man who cannot stand any of the U.S. in the political field has to do with the type of government authority, and flees the limi securing of energy supplies and markets for pro tations of civilization." (27) But does this mean then ducts. Many issues in American history are com that the East, or capitalism itself, is exclusively col mercial interests, such as the establishment of a lectivist? Again, the contrast which we can so national bank, protectionism, the issue of slavery clearly perceive in European history does not work (not a moral issue for Huizinga), the conflict over in America, for the individual capitalist, at least in ranching and the establishment of corporations the initial stages of capitalism, is extremely impor- ' and trustsA tant. Even here, individualism as the predominant Because of the importance of economics, there tendency of American history is at work to counter is a twofold development to be observed in U.S.

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