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Samuel Johnson once defined a lexicographer as a
harmless drudge
who, like Dr. Johnson, produced
dictionaries. Historians always seemed similar. Their work
-- tedious research and arcane theorizing -- was mostly for
other historians, and certainly not the stuff of
politics.
Political debate concerns practical matters like defense, welfare, medical care, taxation, housing, transportation, environment -- not historical methodology.
But then came a controversy about revisionist
commentary with Western
paintings in Washington.
There was a flap over the Enola Gay exhibit at the
Smithsonian. Recently, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the
front-runner for the Republican nomination for the
Presidency, denounced liberal academic elites
who
teach and write history and sow doubt about the nobility
of America in the minds of our children.
Historians have become a campaign issue, although they really aren't as necessary as Dole suggested. Any literate child can grow considerable doubt about the nobility of America just by visiting the library.
The young scholar may encounter Mark Twain's accounts of
the brutal American suppression of Filipino independence
after the islands were liberated
in the
Spanish-American War. Or the pupil might find An
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United
States
by Charles Beard.
Perhaps the studious youth will read Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant's memoirs, wherein he calls the Mexican War one of
the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker
nation,
and goes into detail about how the Army got
orders to provoke Mexico into firing the first shot, thus
providing an excuse for politicians in Washington.
All this happened to me during my formative years,
without any personal help or guidance from the liberal
academic elite.
All over America, to this day,
potential country-club members are subverted by
libraries.
In theory, we could prevent this by adopting the methods
that George Orwell explained in 1984
: establish a
Ministry of Truth to define the official history, and
revise all texts accordingly, taking care to eliminate
earlier versions which sow doubt about the nobility of
Oceania.
It does seem odd that no Republican candidate, not even Patrick Buchanan, has proposed to solve the problem: Purge the public libraries, send agents in jackboots to purify private collections, establish propaganda ministries that ignore honest inquiry and promote the party line, subject any citizen to a search at any time for any reason, impose lengthy prison sentences on violators. Any nation that can run a War on Drugs can certainly fix its history.
But even if the solution is obvious, there's still the
question: Why does revisionist
history bother the
right-thinkers so much?
In our part of the world, one facet of the New
Western History
is that it can be
place-centered.
Imagine two possible history books for your local schools. One is the usual indoctrination that I call Eastern Seaboard Standard History. Its major theme is that America began in Boston and moved westward. If there was anything in the way of this manifest destiny, the obstructions (Indians, Mexicans, squatters, etc.) were barriers to be surmounted, or just invisible.
The other is a Place-Centered History. Salida's might begin with Utes, who repelled Comanche invaders and worked out accommodations with the Spanish and Mexicans, as well as American trappers and traders. But they couldn't withstand the Midwest Industrial Invasion, and they had to move on. Our Midwestern culture flourished for a century, but may be displaced by the California Amenity Encroachers.
Follow the Eastern Seaboard Standard, and you will see yourself as part of a great nation that brings the blessings of liberty to an ever greater domain. Follow Place Centered History, and you see yourself as just another in a long line of folks who lived in this place and who suffered from invaders. Sometimes you repel them, sometimes you cut a deal, and sometimes you get expelled or exterminated.
Those are profoundly different ways of regarding yourself. Place Centered History, which must treat the Yankees, not as the heroes of the story, but as just another bunch of land-grabbing invaders, is not going to inspire much patriotism, or even feelings of union with other parts of the nation -- those people are in different places with different histories, so how much could you have in common with them?
Pursue this approach very far, and you end up with Serbs and Croats at each other's throats in the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia, Quebecois trying to secede from Canada, Protestants and Irish shooting at each other in Ireland.
The United States may have avoided those problems by avoiding Place Centered History. With Eastern Seaboard Standard History, we can all see ourselves as victors in a righteous cause, rather than as mere indigenous rabble to be displaced by invaders who have more lawyers, guns and money.
So perhaps Traditional History is necessary to prevent another civil war, and that's certainly a worthy goal of government. But the only honest discussion of this important matter will come from historians, rather than candidates, who will move on to the next item that their pollsters tell them might be a hot-button issue.
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