One of the questions history asks is which is more important: the times or the person? Are there inexorable forces that so determine circumstances that leaders, or persons, are so constrained that anyone would be compelled to make the same decision, no matter who? Or does the person always make the difference. Among those historians willing to take a stand, some argue that history is indeed the product of individual judgments which reflect different capabilities, that whoever is in the leadership, or circumstance, makes all the difference. Some add that serendipity plays a role, i.e., had someone else been the player, things would have developed differently than they did. Others argue the times make the person, that no matter who might have been the leader, or present at a given moment, larger forces constrained and shaped whatever judgments that person might have made. The former notion is much more favored in popular culture than is the latter.
Franklin Roosevelt is often suggested as an example of the former. His insistence in 1932 that the only thing the nation had to fear was fear itself getting out of hand, followed by his commanding measures to bring the banks under national control, changed the mood of the country, and the financial sector, in a way no one else could have. Winston Churchill is often cited, also, as a person whose presence made a substantive difference.
On the other side, many historians argue once the Manhattan Project was put in motion, when a nuclear bomb became operational it would have been used, no matter who was U.S. president in 1945. By the same token, it has been argued already that no matter who had been in charge in 2011, the ramping up of security measures, including the global roundup, interrogation and incarceration of persons considered security risks would have been ordered.
Most historians would probably demur, arguing that both theories are correct, depending on the circumstances. And one can have it both ways, almost. The American founding fathers serve as an example. Several historians have argued that Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison in particular, along with Franklin, Washington and John Jay constituted an unusually extraordinary collection of greatly gifted minds who together translated into a workable and sustainable system of government ideas that had been swirling around in various literary tracts for a century. Without the happy coincidence of their leadership, we would not have the Constitution we do, but that nonetheless, the ideas were there and would have become manifest in some sort of new system, no matter who had taken the lead.
The question is germane to the attacks in recent Paris. Do they represent just a quid pro quo to the French and allied attacks on ISIS in Syria, as some of the attackers seem to have shouted? Or are they a manifestation of a larger inevitability, the clash of civilizations Samuel Huntington argued must take place in his 1993 Foreign Affairs article? ISIS would argue it has reason to retaliate against the French, who have been leading the attacks on its strongholds in Syria and beyond, mostly through airstrikes, intensified since the Paris murders. At the same time, the memory of the Crusades continues to motivate Muslims across the Middle East where, unlike in America, old injuries live long lives. Moreover, the Crusades were hardly the only Christian assault on human sensitivities; the Spanish Inquisition had many victims, and the expulsion of the Moors from Iberia has not been forgotten, either.
Is the clash of civilizations a matter of religion? Or is it a reaction to the resolute march of secularism, with its insistence on the innate dignity of every individual, including women, and its commitment to human freedom, which both President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the central point of their remarks about the Paris attacks? And are the attacks the consequence of the decisions and acts of particular individuals without whose agency the attacks would not have taken place? Or are the players merely actors on a larger stage, whose identities are essentially interchangeable as they act out the inevitable?
History can't answer its own questions; what it does is provide insight in the asking.
Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary@alaskadispatch.com