A Room With a ViewrnDebunking the Whig Theory of Historyrnby E. Michael JonesrnOnce, before giving a speech in Cincinnati, I met thernchairman of the history department at Xavier University.rnI told him that I was going to talk about the sexual revolutionrnand how it had been used to destroy Catholic political power inrnthe period following World War II (the thesis of Part III of myrnbook Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control).rnMy rendition of this chain of events culminated in a descriptionrnof a July 1965 conference at the Vatican between JohnrnD. Rockefeller III and Pope Paul VI. During this meeting, organizedrnby the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then-president of thernUniversity of Notre Dame and a member of the board of directorsrnof the Rockefeller Foundation, Mr. Rockefeller volunteeredrnto write the Pope’s encyclical on birth control (knowing,rnI suppose, what a busy man the Pope was). In a letter composedrnshortly after the meeting, Mr. Rockefeller said that the Popernand “his church” were no match for the tide of history, whichrnwould sweep away the Catholic Church if it did not get with therncontraceptive propaganda campaign being organized by Mr.rnRockefeller’s Population Council.rnThe history department chairman’s jaw dropped, and he finallyrngasped, “You mean it was guys in a room somewhere?”rnYes, as a matter of fact, it was. I had just named the guys, and —rnsince the Pope holds audiences in certain chambers set asidernfor that purpose—the room as well. The chairman, however,rnwas having none of it. If this were true, he wanted to know, whyrnE. Michael Jones is the editor of Culture Wars.rnhad none of the distinguished historians at the University ofrnNotre Dame brought it out in their writings? The answer wasrnsimple: Notie Dame had committed itself to a certain view ofrnhistory, in which the Irish (as the paradigmatic Catholics) camernto this country and found discrimination, which they overcamernby dint of hard work and a benign cultural climate that rewardedrnindustry, talent, etc.rnThe type of history generally practiced in academia is knownrnas “whiggish” history, which regards history as the result ofrnbroad forces. Ultimately, the broadest forces take predictablernforms, and so history becomes the triumph of freedom over oppressionrnand of the light of scientific understanding over therndarkness of religious (read: popish) obscurantist superstition.rnCombining both variations in his recent history of the sexualrnrevolution, John fieidenry claims that, during the 1960’s, “moleculesrnof liberation coalesced.”rnI mention this incident to show not just the extent to whichrnwhiggish history is the regnant dogma in academia these days,rnbut also the extremes to which this ideology can be taken. LikernDarwinism in biology departments and Lysenkoism in the psychologyrndepartments of Soviet universities, it has become arncondition of employment. Whiggery is, in effect, the Englishrnideology. Even when it clearly was guys in a room somewherern—Alexandra Kollantai was in the room when the OctoberrnRevolution was being plotted by people she said could havernfit on one sofa —the standard explanation for everything isrnbroad historical forces. Those who believe otherwise are writ-rn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn