> I wonder if you find E.H. Carr's version of the argument
> ridiculous as well?
>
> "And if anyone cavils at the statement that it is not our
> business to pass judgement on Hitler or Stalin - or,
> if you like, on Senator McCarthy - this is because they
> were the contemporaries of many of us, because
> hundreds of thousands of those who suffered directly
> or indirectly from their actions are still alive, and because,
> precisely for those reasons, it is difficult for us to
> approach them as historians and to divest ourselves
> of other capacities which might justify us in passing
> judgement on their deeds: this is one of the
> embarrassments - I would say, the principle
> embarrassment - of the contemporary historian.
> But what profit does anyone find today in denouncing
> the sins of Charlemagne or of Napoleon?"
Actually, yes, I do find this ridiculous. For one thing, Carr is addressing the work of historians-- and not the exercise of moral judgement by ordinary people. Second, if an historian wishes to evaluate a person or an event as "evil," then that is his or her perogative; and if the reader wishes to separate his moral observations from his historical analysis, that is _their_ perogative.
Givem Carr's comments, one can't help but find him a little ridiculous. His "principal embarassment" (yes, it's "principal," meaning primary, not "principle") is that he must somehow examine history while refusing to give it any degree of moral imperative. If Carr truly followed this approach, he must have found his subject withering away before him, all the spectacle and horror and outrage dissolving in a kind of "well, they were only doing what their societies wanted them to do..." Sort of takes the pizzazz out of the pageant of history, doesn't it? (And it takes away the incentive to fight injustice-- after all, if our leaders are merely following cultural or institutional dictates, then we cannot hold them responsible, nor can we punish them in good conscience.)
As for denouncing the sins of Charlemagne or Napoleon, I can't say there's much benefit... but denounce the sins of Joseph Stalin, and there'll be morons crawling out of the woodwork to nitpick you unto infinity.