Good morning,
We all love a good story. Often it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not—just that it’s engaging. And if there’s a moral to the story, even better. We rely upon stories to teach our children, to inform our decisions, and to elevate ourselves through the examples of others.
Today, stories that cast historic figures in a heroic light are under attack. It is not enough that someone accomplished something or achieved greatness through a body of work. Those accomplishments are either being ignored or white-washed over by those who see the past as an unremitting parade of horribles. The behaviors of people in past eras must ascribe to the moral rectitude of modern times. Much of the time, people with a particular political view or axe to grind want to recount history in a manner that serves their agenda. Somehow, denigrating the accomplishments of those in the past validates their narrative.
This “presentism” denies us our history—our stories. If we don’t have stories to tell our children about great people of the past—people they can look up to and emulate (or at least achievements to which they can aspire)—we are left to teach them instead with vague concepts and theoretical ideas.
ARE THERE ANY GREAT MEN LEFT?
We recently celebrated the birthdays of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. These were all great men, whose words and deeds shaped our country and shaped who we are as a people. Today, the curricula in our schools and colleges are under attack and are being shaped and manipulated to serve prevailing narratives of one group or another. Left in the wake of these debates are the stories of some great, albeit often flawed, people.
For us not to study their lives and accomplishments of imperfect people, or to throw them in the dustbin of history because of views that were prevailing during their lives, is to deny our own history and to deny our youth of learning the rich, generally upward arc of history. If one is learning only the negatives in America’s story, without an appreciation of this nation’s great accomplishments is to deny our children the foundational myth of this country as a light among the nations and dedicated to the sanctity of the individual and the right of every person to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Certainly, we have fallen short in achieving some lofty goals, but that’s part of the story too.
When I was growing up, figures from our history often were revered. Certainly, they were subject to criticism—Lincoln didn’t embrace abolition fast enough, Jefferson owned slaves, JFK was a womanizer, King wasn’t faithful. They were all flawed—because they were all human. Today, it seems we no longer honor the stories of their greatness, but focus on their shortcomings.
Much has been written about how we have elected to judge figures from the past through the prism of “presentism.” That pernicious practice takes people from history and the times in which they lived and subjects them to the knowledge and mores of our current time. Under such a harsh light, it is difficult to see how any reputation survives such scrutiny. But we also judge them with a scale that does not fairly balance their accomplishments and their shortcomings. In fact, the idea that there is even a scale on which to judge is ignored. There is no balancing of plusses and minuses. Find a minus and that’s it. Even if not measured by today’s standards, we also tend to forget is that these people in history were just people—flaws and all—and many of our current leaders might well fail a similar test.
I worry that we are teaching our children that there are few examples in history of role models worth emulating, and that, in the end, one really can’t believe in anything. In appreciating the shortcomings of shining too harsh a light on people who lived before us, one need only look to the Bible. One of my favorite verses is that “Noah was a righteous man in his time.” The word choice is instructive. The writer is acknowledging that Noah—the fellow who lived in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, after all—may not have been perfect when his story is being related to future generations. But within his time he was a good man. He is to be adjudged through the lens of his time—not of the present.
NOT LEARNING THE COLD, HARD TRUTHS
There is another attack on history taking place in many states and being fought on many school boards. How the past is related to children can go the other direction—venerating a past that was flawed, or that never was. Southern history and the “nobility” of the old South is a notion to which some cling, characterizing the “war between the States” as a conflict of high ideals, rather than a war for the preservation of slavery. One does not have to embrace the tenets of the New York Times’s 1619 Project or the claims of Ibram X. Kendi to acknowledge that slavery and the economy created around it is a critical factor in American history. It may not be the primary foundation upon which America was built (indeed, I believe it was not), yet one cannot study American history without acknowledging the cruelty of that institution and studying the various attempts to eradicate it. Equally important is the story of the Jim Crow era and how, little by little, the wall of hatred has been chipped away and the civil rights have been expanded. Similarly, one cannot learn of the American expansion west without studying the Indian policies that decimated whole nations, or the Battle of Wounded Knee, the last great battle between white settlers and a Native American tribe.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE TEACHERS ARE GONE?
Daniel Bessner wrote in the January 15, 2023 New York Times about “the end of history”—not in the intellectual sense but in the sense that the profession of historians and history professors is dying. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, only 0.7% of the research dollars that go to STEM are going to humanities. Fewer and fewer people are majoring in history. According to Bessner, “Entire areas of our shared history will never be known…” And, due to the current climate, with the ongoing war on curriculum, “It’s implausible to expect scholars with insecure jobs to offer bold and innovative claims…when they can easily be fired for doing so.”
I have always found it comforting that, working on college campuses throughout the world, there is a group of men and women who have studied the minutiae of our human story, and that there are experts around on every possible subject. The interpretations of the very human stories in our past—and the relaying of these stories to our youth—are maintained, nurtured, and expanded in an academic setting (of course that setting now is one fraught with peril, as students play “gotcha” each time there is a foot fault by a professor or a theory is expounded that doesn’t meet with modern orthodoxy). What a pity that that setting, like so many others in our time, has become a political setting. Who will be the “keepers” of these stories generations from now? It is not enough that these stories reside in books or are catalogued online. To interpret the story of humankind requires humans dedicated to that task.
THE VALUE OF MYTH AND A SHARED SET OF STORIES
All societies have myths. As do all religions. I do not believe myths are untruths. They may well be true, yet we may be unequipped to establish their veracity. But that which cannot conclusively be proven is not necessarily untrue. Even stories that stretch credulity can be acknowledged as imperfect metaphors, yet imbued with important foundational lessons. Their actual truth is less important than the message.
I can’t tell you whether the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, whether there was a burning bush, or whether Moses led the slaves to freedom. These may not be actual facts but they are emblematic of a people and their history and these stories may be analogs to actual events, retold in a manner that could be preserved, passed down, and understood by children. And I can’t tell you whether Jefferson was a moral man, or whether any number of other people were kind or enlightened. But studying their positive contributions, within the context of the moment, is critical to understanding human behaviors and our current world.
I worry about the continued denigration and diminishment of our “heroes.” Certainly, one can teach about moral bravery as an abstract concept, but it has “meat on the bones” when one can tell that story within the lives of Lincoln and King, and the personal struggles and difficult decisions faced by each. And while we’re pretty sure George Washington never chopped down that cherry tree, the parable is one that speaks to honesty and forthrightness—attributes the Father of our Country possessed and were demonstrated, if not so mythologically, in his behaviors as general and president.
BEATING UP ON HEROES
There is a difference between the utter abandonment of the greatness of an individual (see, e.g., Columbus, Jefferson, et al.) and seeing them with all their blemishes. One can share in the myth and yet see a broader picture. But today, we seem to want to dispose of heroes out of hand. John Agresto speaks in The Wall Street Journal of the denigration of the past and an unwillingness to see historic figures within context: He says it’s “a way of puffing ourselves up. Students can say, “Jefferson? What a hypocrite, I’m better than he is. . . . Back then, they were benighted and not so smart. We know more than that.”
Agresto says students “have gone from docile to uninterested to fiercely combative.” The people who are destroying the universities, who have killed the liberal arts, they’re not relativists,” Mr. Agresto says. “They ‘know’ what’s true, and they’re going to impose it.”
TELLING STORIES IMPARTS VALUES
We need to believe in things. Concepts are hard to grasp, particularly for young children. Aesop and Dr. Seuss understood that it is through stories concepts come to life. In the case of our collective history as Americans, Columbus in fact braved the elements and antiquated conceptions about the world. Jefferson devoured the writings of great philosophers and led the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Lyndon Johnson tackled civil rights. Jack Kennedy pointed us to the stars. These stories, as well as the stories of marginalized groups along that road, all deserve to be told.
And if we don’t tell these stories based upon the actual facts from history, stories will be told anyway. But instead of the considered study of events by historians, we will be informed by historical fiction, Facebook and Twitter fights, and disinformation. As Brenner says, “Without professional historians, history education will be left more and more in the hands of social media influencers, partisan hacks and others unconcerned with achieving a complex, empirically informed understanding of the past.”
He concludes, “Americans must do everything in their power to avert the end of history. If we don’t, exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies will dominate our historical imagination and make it impossible to understand, and learn from, the past.”
Have a great day,
Glenn
From the archives:
good one