There's a persistent idea in modern historiography that there were no "individuals" in the Middle Ages (you know, "artists were just craftsmen that's why they didn't sign the altarpieces they made" or whatever). This is not true, but that's not the point I'm pondering 1/...

Depending on whom you ask, Individuals, in this version, were born with the Renaissance/Enlightenment, when MAN struggled to free themselves from - the Church I guess..? Using SCIENCE and RATIONALITY. 2/...

#MedievalTwitter

Anywhoozle, this, once again, doesn't really pan out in the sources, but it was part of the Dark Ages/Enlightenment dichotomy that scholars in the 19-20-21c loved so very very much. And it somehow feeds into popularising notions about freedom vs institutions. 3/...

With the advent of the idea that early modern history = birth of rationality came the idea that rationality = individuality.

And that that was A Good Thing.

4/...

Now I don't mean to blame the Early Moderns for this (neither contemporaries nor the current crop of scholars :-)). I also don't mean to imply that the Medievals were all socialists living in autonomous collectives. Whatever. People are gonna people. It's all complex. 5/...

But the historiographical fallout of this particular bit of mythmaking, I feel, might lie at the root of the current problems in Western Society, where hyper-individualism runs rampant and Caring For Other People is something only idealists or villains do. 6/...

"We" have decided that Enlightenment and Science are Good (I guess they are :-)). But that same "we" seems to have forgotten that all this need not mean that it's the ONLY good thing. It has been pointed out time and again that to be "social" actually IS "rational". 7/...

(don't aspire to be "king of the world" if you don't care for the world I guess is what I'm saying)

(also, just assume "scare quotes" around all the "first person plurals")

Instead, we are stuck with a discourse that SO values the rational individual over the power of institutions (fed, I think, in some part by some kind of anti-medieval mythmaking) that it seems all but impossible to Make. People. Care. 8/...

...and this is not because of shift that actually happened between the 15th-19th century, but because of the way those developments have been written into our collective memory in the 19th-21st century. Most recently, I reckon the 1980s...? 9/...

Two culprits with pithy quotes -- by no means the only guilty parties, but they are endemic for the times.

(I became politically aware when I noticed, as a pre-teen already, that I REALLY DID NOT CARE for these two or their Dutch counterparts)(blegh) 10/...

We're still reaping what we sowed right now. It's become more noticeable than ever in a way.
But as much as I think this is a societal problem, I feel that part of the solution should be a rigorous (and accessible) rewriting of the historiographies that fueled this rhetoric 11/..

Many people on #MedievalTwitter (and other #TwitterStorians) are already doing this - hooray!

Keep up the good work! It is so important.

12/...

But it does seem as if the rhetoric historians employ is still mostly about a correct/more current representation of "The History *I* Care About". It's sometimes not nearly as self-aware as it could be.

13/...

I wonder if we should not actually be even more pro-actively presentist as well, given the circumstances.

At least, I wonder how we can show show that it's not about "history" per se, but about "Learning History, and What That Does To An Individual"

14/...

Because if I know one thing about "medieval" ways of learning history: they cared about showing how every individual was part of a larger, inevitable collective. And how breaking from that collective should be to improve that collective, not just to improve yourself. 15/...

We can learn a thing or two from that way of regarding the individual in history.

16/...

Question mark.

.../fin