History is what it is. Erasing it only assures its repetition.
This is an opinion article submitted by a reader like you. As a crowdsourced platform, we value respectful debate and the free market of ideas and will consider all article submissions.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
-George Orwell, 1984
The attack on American history by the self-proclaimed prophets of political correctness began several years ago, but the recent round of assaults is hitting new thresholds of extremism. High profile statues destroyed in the last week include Christopher Columbus, Robert E. Lee, George Washington, and Ulysses S. Grant, to name only a few.
There is no coherent line of reason or morality driving these protests. It is only rage. Across the country, activists are caught up in the emotional toppling, beheading, or vandalizing of statues that depict images of former heroes and icons of American history who failed the modern tests of righteousness. These actions provide momentary thrill and a sense of accomplishment for the activists but accomplish more harm to their cause than good. If we genuinely want to build a more perfect future, we need to start by forming a better understanding of our past – not obliterating it.
Recognizing the men memorialized in these monuments were products of their times is not a pardon for their lapses in judgment or outright failures on many important ideological and moral fronts. But the great sin of the vandalizing activists today is the sin of self-righteousness, an assumption that our current era and society has attained a presumed level of moral superiority over the past. In reality, our descendants in the next century will likely look back and shake their heads at our failings and notions of moral norms. Such progress will only be guaranteed if we continue to learn from the past instead of erasing it.
Among the great lessons the monuments toppled today could offer America is, not what the memorialized individuals contributed to history, but insight into the societies that heroized such men. Robert E. Lee, for generations, was considered the standard of honor in the South – even though he tolerated and fought for the right to own slaves, not to mention treason against his country. It is all too easy to judge the confederate general nearly two centuries after the fact for his mistakes. Still, we stand to learn more by considering how a society could tolerate and promote such duplicity since then.
When we observe the sins of history, we should be far less concerned by the individuals who rose as the historical leaders and icons of such moments than the societies that enabled and uplifted them. From the perspective of personal moral development, the more significant consideration is, “How did we allow this?” Let us not be naïve and believe it could not happen again. A measure of personal responsibility reminds us that we also could be deceived and led astray.
Why did the Germans tolerate the rise of Hitler and the oppressions of European Jewry? How could people not see the wickedness of the American South’s Jim Crow ordinances? Did they see, or did they just not care? The issues we perceive as wicked today were once condoned by the citizens who memorialized the famous individuals we are seeking to erase from history today. We can cancel that memorialization by toppling statues, or we can improve as individuals and societies. We can learn from the sins of our past.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) documented more than 4,400 terror lynchings of black men and women between Reconstruction and World War II. Today these terrible crimes are mostly forgotten in the communities where they occurred. They also occurred in many of the same regions where activists topple monuments today. Instead of destroying century-old monuments, a far more impactful approach to raising awareness and understanding of American history and crimes against humanity would be to erect memorials for the victims of these acts of white terrorism.
Imagine the paradox of honored confederate generals memorialized alongside lynching victims. What do the two realities say about our history and our culture? Certainly, such considerations could spur significant discussions within our communities, our schools, and even our families. How did this happen? How did our ancestors miss this? How do we keep this from happening again?
The toppling of statues provides a momentary outlet for rage and excitement in the present, but it does nothing to improve our future. We should not erase, forget, or deny our past. We should seek to consider and understand it better.
- Stop Tearing Down Statues and Start Building Understanding - July 3, 2020
- Rights and Responsibilities - May 25, 2020
- Medicare for All and the Pandemic - April 27, 2020