We don't need to stop telling our own stories - we need to start including the perspectives of those we have wronged in the stories we tell.
This! And we need to listen when those we wronged tell their stories without drowning them out or slapping on tactless coats of whitewash' hoing but he was really good for us you know!'
And again to morally equate righting this kind of wrong with the racist Hellscape of the Trumpist purge of public history and representation designed to bolster white supremacy is absolutely wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong. It's counteracting supremacist narratives not enforcing them.
FWIW, it's not just historical figures whose philanthropy has to be weighed up against their wrongdoing. It's still going on right now.
Case in point: the Sackler family. At this stage, I think there is widespread agreement that their part in creating, and profiting from, an opioid crisis that has resulted in thousands of deaths largely outweighs their charitable giving.
I think, over the 20th century, "the south" has vastly expanded its reach in the USA, and it has mutated into something different than what it was in the Civil War.
And it's not exclusively geographical. You can find racism and white anxiety all over the damned place, even in Chicago.
Perhaps I’m not quite sure what you mean about “‘the south’ has vastly expanded its reach in the USA,” but I think it’s more what you get at in your second paragraph—an acknowledgment that the South never had a monopoly on racism. While the white South undoubtedly had its Lost Cause Mythology and the Jim Crow racism that went hand-in-hand with it, other parts of the U.S., not to mention the federal government, had their own white mythologies that took pride in ending slavery and that often pointed fingers at the white South, all while maintaining their own, often just as severe and sometimes more subtle, forms of racism.
We all want to come off well in the stories we tell ourselves and that others tell about us. We often try to do that by sacrificing honesty.
I suspect Bullfrog is suggesting that " the South" is a way of mind rather than the states that comprised the Confederacy.
That may be true but I'm not sure it's a helpful framing. Surely it would be better to frame it in terms of Confederate rhetoric, which recognises it as an ideological issue, albeit an ideology associated with a particular group in a particular place and time. The flying of the stars and bars by racists far beyond the South would seem to support this.
I have to say, a lot of this is sounding to me like an approach to the academic subject of history that seeks to teach children only the parts (and interpretations) that are necessary in order to push them towards the beliefs it wants them to hold. But that's not history, it's indoctrination, and if it's wrong for the MAGA crowd to do it for their ends then it's also wrong for progressives to do it for their ends.
Isn't that precisely how religion operates, and from where the whole idea of 'indoctrination' comes? If it's bad on the part of MAGA, and bad on the part of Progressives, is it not bad on the part of Religion?
I'm well into my second stint of school teaching in Mississippi which began in 2012 (my first stint began in the mid-1990s. Throughout either time in both public and private systems down here, I've never once heard the American Civl War called anything other than that. I have no idea what you're talking about, @Gramps49. I couldn't claim that it never happened, but I'd wager a hell of a lot that it's a pretty wild anomaly.
As far as something in US History that persists in its rose-coloredness across public education, The First Thanksgiving may be the worst offender, at least in lower schools.
If our stories are told only by those we have wronged, none of us will be remembered as good.
You say that like it'd be a bad thing. I think it might be good for us all to inspire future generations to "do better."
I think I'm passing honest, but I am not comfortable being remembered as a paragon of virtue, because I'm not. And I'd rather be remembered for what I am, which is not - in my eyes - good. I hope my kids do better than I have.
And as a society, we are garbage right now. I think if I were capable of becoming a ghost and haunting future generations, I'd be spooking the hell out of anyone who wanted to defend this present fallen generation. We should all be ashamed.
Caissa is closer, but I'm thinking of both people and an evolving way of thinking. And this is complicated because a lot has happened over the past 150 years. It's hard to capture it all. But I live in Chicago, so let's use Indiana for a case study.
In high school, we learned that Indiana was (as is common knowledge in some circles) KKK central back in the early 20th century, and this was used to warn us that belonging to the Klan was not a purely "Southern" phenomenon, nor was racism and prejudice. And this is all true, but there are more nuances.
For one thing, per a friend of mine who lives in Indiana, a lot of Indiana's farm country was settled by southern expats after the war was over. And they brought their ideas with them. He told me that once you crossed south of I-90, you were in "the south," culturally speaking. And I'm sure there are nuances now between south-central Indiana and Kentucky and Alabama, but there is also a general culture that many Americans recognize.
Another thing about the Klan in the 20th century was that they were nativist as well as racist, and targeted Jewish folks and immigrants at least as viciously as they targeted black folks, especially in the north. This is another example of how white supremacy is, indeed, not limited to "the south." It picks up a few new inflections, but it's the same rotten game of "My People First," which gets fuck-ugly when your people were already first in the first place.
To the Civil War, I think White Supremacists may find it convenient to argue that slavery - and the suffering it entailed - was merely a footnote to the civil war, collateral damage as it were. The real problem was the financial anxiety of white people, because that's what white supremacy is always about, I think. There isn't enough to slake white people's greed. And a lot of folks like us don't see any way to build ourselves up, so it's just so much easier to kick "those other people" down. And this is not uniquely southern, or I suspect even uniquely American. Denying the fundamental role slavery played in the Civil War is just a disturbing kind of psychological expedience for white people. You can find it anywhere. Hell, I've even heard it, rarely, from non-white people.
Watching current events (see my previous post,) I get the impression that ideology is rather secondary to a lot of these people, even tertiary, if it matters at all. Fascism is not an ideology. It's a grasping at power and ideology is only an organizing tool to be applied to that end, whether it's capitalism or socialism. And a lot of this ugly stuff is just people rationalizing their own shameful self interest.
I may give some credit to Albert Memmi's Colonizer and the Colonized for giving me that notion 20 or so years ago in undergrad. It's a pretty compelling notion.
I also think it is way beyond my powers to explicate the flower of people and power over 150 years of American History in a single ship post, but I hope y'all appreciate the attempt.
I could go on, but I think this is enough for now.
Thanks, @Bullfrog. I see where you’re coming from, and I agree. That said, I also agree that framing that as “the south” isn’t particularly helpful. (Among others reasons, again, African Americans are an integral part of “the South.”) I’d say call it what it is—White Supremacy.
The flying of the stars and bars by racists far beyond the South would seem to support this.
Pedantic point: The flag I’m almost sure you’re thinking of isn’t the Stars and Bars. This is the Stars and Bars, the first national flag of the Confederate States of America.
I say this is pedantic, but the way these flags were used in creating and sustaining an ahistorical Lost Cause Mythology to support Jim Crow societies in ann interesting topic on its own.
Thanks, @Bullfrog. I see where you’re coming from, and I agree. That said, I also agree that framing that as “the south” isn’t particularly helpful. (Among others reasons, again, African Americans are an integral part of “the South.”) I’d say call it what it is—White Supremacy.
Thanks, @Bullfrog. I see where you’re coming from, and I agree. That said, I also agree that framing that as “the south” isn’t particularly helpful. (Among others reasons, again, African Americans are an integral part of “the South.”) I’d say call it what it is—White Supremacy.
The flying of the stars and bars by racists far beyond the South would seem to support this.
Pedantic point: The flag I’m almost sure you’re thinking of isn’t the Stars and Bars. This is the Stars and Bars, the first national flag of the Confederate States of America.
I say this is pedantic, but the way these flags were used in creating and sustaining an ahistorical Lost Cause Mythology to support Jim Crow societies in ann interesting topic on its own.
Thank you - I was vaguely aware of there being a distinction but was too lazy to look up the correct descriptor, so much appreciated.
You say that like it'd be a bad thing. I think it might be good for us all to inspire future generations to "do better."
I'm not sure how teaching future generations that human history is entirely a tale of people being shits to one another is supposed to inspire them to do better. Seems to me it's more likely to teach them that to be human is to be a shit.
And even if they did do better, they would in turn be remembered by subsequent generations only as being shits. As, in their turn, would those subsequent generations. There would never be a generation that could be remembered as being good, because "good" would be an impossible standard to achieve this side of the Pearly Gates.
I think I'm passing honest, but I am not comfortable being remembered as a paragon of virtue, because I'm not. And I'd rather be remembered for what I am, which is not - in my eyes - good. I hope my kids do better than I have.
Nobody is a paragon of virtue, any more than anyone is the very essence of evil. We are all - ALL - made up of both good and evil. I find it very hard to believe, based on what I've read from you here over the years, that you have done nothing that's worthy of being called good, or even that your good does not outweigh your evil.
And as a society, we are garbage right now. I think if I were capable of becoming a ghost and haunting future generations, I'd be spooking the hell out of anyone who wanted to defend this present fallen generation. We should all be ashamed.
I cannot agree. Our lifetimes have seen unprecedented increases in liberty and freedom for all kinds of previously oppressed or disadvantaged people, be they LGBTQ+, of non-white ethnicity, disabled, female, or any other category. Since the turn of the millennium, both the UK and US have had their first ever non-white political leaders. Are things perfect? No - but I doubt many of those listed would freely choose to go back to the way they were treated in the 70s or 80s. Our generation may not be getting everything right, but I think it's reasonable to say that - as per your wish for your own kids - we are on average doing better than our parents.
1st: Telling people they're ontologically "good" makes them complacent, in my experience, and that's certainly the lesson I learned watching my generation come of age. We were told, growing up, that our country was a good place because of the good people our parents were and the good people we would become, and I think it taught a lot of us to take "we're so ethical" for granted. Civil Rights was won, environmentalism was something people took seriously, etc.
And then, to use an old Christian term that I'm not usually fond of, you start backsliding because complacency sets in, and you find that those darker impulses were always there. This is, of course, not to encourage the kind of self-abasing anti-pride of "I am a rotten irredeemable piece of crap whose every good work is a tainted tumor," which isn't healthy either, but on the margins I think it's better to keep one's demons where once can see them.
2nd: I don't think I'm a fair assessor of anyone, which is one reason I don't think of myself as "good." Basic Christian "I'm not the judge" stuff. But I do think, looking hard at myself, that a lot of my better side comes out of my willful resistance of my worse side. It's an act of will and a discipline to be ethical. It's not a product of inherent goodness. It's work. Over time, I think that work becomes habit and, sure, I've cultivated some good habits over the years, but I think that my first paragraph still suits me. If I start thinking I've got it, I'll start losing it for taking it for granted. It's like a relationship that way. If you're not the theistic sort, maybe it's keeping a relationship with your "self."
3rd: We had one black leader and immediately a critical mass of us stabbed his legacy in the back and took a figurative dump inside the open wound to make sure it likely wouldn't happen again. I'm also seeing similar backlashes against all the other "progress" you vaunt. I think freedom in America, for many of us, is "my freedom to do as I please without regard for you," and for a lot of people, that model leads to the opposite.
Once again, I think the "oh, we're so woke!" attitude just leads to complacency. We thought we had it in the 1970s, then Reagan got elected. We thought we had it in the 1990s, sorta, then Dubya got elected. Obama was a flash in the pan, achieved a few small steps, and now we're looking at what might be the end of American democracy. Best of times, worst of times.
I was raised in a culture of tempered optimism, both church and family, so I don't think I really get this out of my religion, but I think there's something to be said for pruning.
DJT has signed a new Executive Order stating his office is the only authorized office to determine truth and sanity in American history. Didn't this happen in fascist countries?
What ever happened to freedom of speech? Whatever happened to freedom of the press?
Does this mean historiography needs to take into account a theory of human behaviour?
If the discipline of constructing historical narratives emerges from the human desire to tell our own stories, it seems likely that it will be addressed in some form.
It strikes me that we (in western democracies) as informal tellers of our own stories, have become rather bad at it, for a variety of reasons.
I think the commercialisation of story-telling for entertainment plays a role - many of our stories (and everyone else's) have been turned into heavily-processed commodities, as beneficial to our well-being as ulta-processed "foods". This relates to way our stories are employed as idealised transactional artefacts on social media (or the ironic push-back) - our stories have become debased and detached from any inner notion of who we are.
Maybe there's an extent to which we've outsourced our own story-telling to qualified professionals, who are then criticised for telling the parts of our stories that we don't want to hear. As with journalists and climate change scientists, historians are going to increasingly find themselves in the firing line. On which note...
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History enters the realms of the absurd. (It sounds like the premise for a satirical parody.) It is all too easy to be appalled by this, which itself could be understood as a deliberate mechanism for obscuring a more critical and analytical attitude to what is happening.
This was part of the thinking for including scapegoating in the framing of the OP. The "anti-woke" net is being cast astonishingly wide.
DJT has signed a new Executive Order stating his office is the only authorized office to determine truth and sanity in American history.
What language in the EO do you think says that? I’m not seeing anything that appears to say that the president’s office is the only office authorized to determine truth and sanity in American history.
The EO says:
It is the policy of my Administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.
The EO is aimed at and applies to the Smithsonian and National Parks and Historic Sites. It doesn’t, unless I’m missing something (always possible) purport to apply to private institutions, nor does it claim any authority over private institutions.
The EO is unquestionably very problematic. But I don’t see where it goes as far as you’ve described.
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History enters the realms of the absurd. (It sounds like the premise for a satirical parody.) It is all too easy to be appalled by this, which itself could be understood as a deliberate mechanism for obscuring a more critical and analytical attitude to what is happening.
This was part of the thinking for including scapegoating in the framing of the OP. The "anti-woke" net is being cast astonishingly wide.
The problem is that if records are removed and hidden in store-rooms – or worse, destroyed – then there is no way for future historians to re-evaluate the records. That knowledge is lost. And so is the ability of anyone outside the groups that are excluded from the restoration of “truth and sanity” to see themselves in the past.
The EO is aimed at and applies to the Smithsonian and National Parks and Historic Sites. It doesn’t, unless I’m missing something (always possible) purport to apply to private institutions, nor does it claim any authority over private institutions.
But many other institutions will follow that lead to stay out of trouble or avoid unwanted attention. If you use DEI as an example, many US firms have walked back their initiatives even though they didn’t have too. But so have firms elsewhere.
GSK is a British company, headquartered in London and quoted on the London Stock Market. Its DEI programs were paused in February as it claims it has to comply with the executive orders because the US is its largest market, and the US government is its No 1 customer. It has removed references to diversity on its website and paused women’s mentoring groups and social mobility programmes. It is also reviewing its charitable activities.
It’ll be interesting to see how that works out. So far it looks like attempts to please one set of consumers has completely pissed off another set. With the pissed off group deciding to take their money elsewhere or reduce their spend.
The EO is aimed at and applies to the Smithsonian and National Parks and Historic Sites. It doesn’t, unless I’m missing something (always possible) purport to apply to private institutions, nor does it claim any authority over private institutions.
But many other institutions will follow that lead to stay out of trouble or avoid unwanted attention. If you use DEI as an example, many US firms have walked back their initiatives even though they didn’t have too. But so have firms elsewhere.
Absolutely! I’m in no way denying the magnitude of the EO or the effect it is likely to have; I tried to make that clear. I was simply questioning the characterization of the order as “stating” that Trump’s office “is the only office authorized to determine truth and sanity in American history.” (Emphasis added.). I don’t see where the EO states that.
The Trump administration has raised disinformation to an art form. I don’t think it helps those opposing the Trump administration to engage in their own disinformation or mischaracterization; to the contrary, I think that makes it easier to dismiss opposing views as “misinformed,” “hyperbolic” or “wrong.”
@Nick Tamen ok, I will amend that statement to say the Executive Branch--which includes the Vice President (who will be acting on Trump's orders)--will be tasked with determining what the Smithsonian and other federal sponsored museums and national parks, and monuments will display. But, as others have said if the Smithsonian is forced to change--other museums will follow suit out of fear of losing federal funding, if any.. And museums in many red states, even private ones, will be pressured to comply with the rewhitewashing of American history.
Here is a breakdown on how public museums are funded in the United States.
But here is a scenario on how it can even impact private museums (my granddaughter mentioned this.) Say a private museum is sponsoring an archeological dig in New England. like at one of the Revolutionary forts in the area and they discovered how British POWs were maltreated, but the Executive Branch does not want that information published. If the museum went ahead and published it, they might just lose their permission to do any follow-on digs there as well as losing the chance to do similar digs on other federal property. See this information from the American Alliance of Museums. https://www.aam-us.org/2025/01/28/impact-of-executive-orders-and-pause-on-disbursement-of-federal-funds/
One result I would hate to see changed, though it has to do more with science than history, would be how the Trump administration would want to rewrite how the formation of the Grand Canyon developed, I could see how young earthers would want to say it happened as a result of the great flood of Noah's time.
Is it any wonder prominent historians and scientists are wanting to go to Canada or Europe or elsewhere to continue in their disciplines without interference from the Trump administration?
DJT has signed a new Executive Order stating his office is the only authorized office to determine truth and sanity in American history. Didn't this happen in fascist countries?
What ever happened to freedom of speech? Whatever happened to freedom of the press?
They've always been under pressure, and they've broken before. Read about what America did during WWI to itself, it wasn't great then and it won't be great now.
And yeah, fascism has also been perennially popular in the USA. We're the ones Hitler cribbed a bunch of his ideas from, so I've read.
Another way private museums can be impacted by this Truth and Sanity Executive Order: if they seek to borrow a display from the Smithsonian or any of its affiliated museums, they could be denied if the powers that be believe the private museum promotes Critical Race Theory. Either that, or they would have to agree to the terms outlined in the Truth and Sanity order.
And they might lose their tax-exempt status if they are listed as a not for profit.
Point is Trump wants to dictate the type of history that is being shown in Amer--ica.
Could he be going after the History Channel next? Not to say the history channel is a credible source any way. but it could be a channel for his fascist propaganda.
Does this mean historiography needs to take into account a theory of human behaviour?
If the discipline of constructing historical narratives emerges from the human desire to tell our own stories, it seems likely that it will be addressed in some form.
Is the theory of human behavior an object of historical narratives, or a lens through which all historical narratives are constructed?
It strikes me that we (in western democracies) as informal tellers of our own stories, have become rather bad at it, for a variety of reasons.
I think the commercialisation of story-telling for entertainment plays a role - many of our stories (and everyone else's) have been turned into heavily-processed commodities, as beneficial to our well-being as ulta-processed "foods". This relates to way our stories are employed as idealised transactional artefacts on social media (or the ironic push-back) - our stories have become debased and detached from any inner notion of who we are.
Maybe there's an extent to which we've outsourced our own story-telling to qualified professionals, who are then criticised for telling the parts of our stories that we don't want to hear. As with journalists and climate change scientists, historians are going to increasingly find themselves in the firing line. On which note...
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History enters the realms of the absurd. (It sounds like the premise for a satirical parody.) It is all too easy to be appalled by this, which itself could be understood as a deliberate mechanism for obscuring a more critical and analytical attitude to what is happening.
This was part of the thinking for including scapegoating in the framing of the OP. The "anti-woke" net is being cast astonishingly wide.
Does this mean historiography needs to take into account a theory of human behaviour?
If the discipline of constructing historical narratives emerges from the human desire to tell our own stories, it seems likely that it will be addressed in some form.
Is the theory of human behavior an object of historical narratives, or a lens through which all historical narratives are constructed?
Good question. I had been thinking of it similarly to a lens - recognising one's own biases. But extending that idea to recognising the biases of others only gets you so far - one could examine the extent to which biases affects the evidence and the availability of evidence, for example.
As this hardly seems an original idea, I started searching to see what was already being done in this field - such as through the application of critical theory. From wikipedia:
Critical historiography approaches the history of art, literature or architecture from a critical theory perspective. Critical historiography is used by various scholars in recent decades to emphasize the ambiguous relationship between the past and the writing of history. Specifically, it is used as a method by which one understands the past and can be applied in various fields of academic work.
While historiography is concerned with the theory and history of historical writing, including the study of the developmental trajectory of history as a discipline, critical historiography addresses how historians or historical authors have been influenced by their own groups and loyalties. Here, there is an assumption that historical sources should not be taken at face value and has to be examined critically according to scholarly criteria. A critique of historiography warns against a tendency to focus on past greatness so that it opposes the present as demonstrated in the emphasis on dead traditions that paralyze present life. This view holds that critical historiography can also condemn the past and reveal the effects of repression and mistaken possibilities, among others. For instance, there is the case of the counter discourse to the so-called hegemonic epistemologies that previously defined and dominated the Black experience in America.
Another way private museums can be impacted by this Truth and Sanity Executive Order: if they seek to borrow a display from the Smithsonian or any of its affiliated museums, they could be denied if the powers that be believe the private museum promotes Critical Race Theory. Either that, or they would have to agree to the terms outlined in the Truth and Sanity order.
And they might lose their tax-exempt status if they are listed as a not for profit.
Point is Trump wants to dictate the type of history that is being shown in Amer--ica.
Could he be going after the History Channel next? Not to say the history channel is a credible source any way. but it could be a channel for his fascist propaganda.
It's not just the history, it's the identities of anyone deemed unacceptable by the terms of the Truth and Sanity order. If I've understood it correctly.
Trump is now banning any negative signage in national parks and monuments. His administration ordered the national parks and hundreds of other monuments and museums supervised by the Department of the Interior to ensure all of their signage reminds Americans of our "extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing." Trump called out signs that "undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light."
This is a little uncomfortable when one is trying to explain what happened at Manzanar, or many civil rights sites.
Comments
If you went around wronging people, are you sure you're good?
Btw your characterisation of Colston reminds me of that seminal work of historiography 1066 and All That - a Bad Man but a Good Thing.
We don't need to stop telling our own stories - we need to start including the perspectives of those we have wronged in the stories we tell.
This! And we need to listen when those we wronged tell their stories without drowning them out or slapping on tactless coats of whitewash' hoing but he was really good for us you know!'
And again to morally equate righting this kind of wrong with the racist Hellscape of the Trumpist purge of public history and representation designed to bolster white supremacy is absolutely wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong. It's counteracting supremacist narratives not enforcing them.
Case in point: the Sackler family. At this stage, I think there is widespread agreement that their part in creating, and profiting from, an opioid crisis that has resulted in thousands of deaths largely outweighs their charitable giving.
We all want to come off well in the stories we tell ourselves and that others tell about us. We often try to do that by sacrificing honesty.
That may be true but I'm not sure it's a helpful framing. Surely it would be better to frame it in terms of Confederate rhetoric, which recognises it as an ideological issue, albeit an ideology associated with a particular group in a particular place and time. The flying of the stars and bars by racists far beyond the South would seem to support this.
Isn't that precisely how religion operates, and from where the whole idea of 'indoctrination' comes? If it's bad on the part of MAGA, and bad on the part of Progressives, is it not bad on the part of Religion?
I'm well into my second stint of school teaching in Mississippi which began in 2012 (my first stint began in the mid-1990s. Throughout either time in both public and private systems down here, I've never once heard the American Civl War called anything other than that. I have no idea what you're talking about, @Gramps49. I couldn't claim that it never happened, but I'd wager a hell of a lot that it's a pretty wild anomaly.
As far as something in US History that persists in its rose-coloredness across public education, The First Thanksgiving may be the worst offender, at least in lower schools.
You say that like it'd be a bad thing. I think it might be good for us all to inspire future generations to "do better."
I think I'm passing honest, but I am not comfortable being remembered as a paragon of virtue, because I'm not. And I'd rather be remembered for what I am, which is not - in my eyes - good. I hope my kids do better than I have.
And as a society, we are garbage right now. I think if I were capable of becoming a ghost and haunting future generations, I'd be spooking the hell out of anyone who wanted to defend this present fallen generation. We should all be ashamed.
Yay Lent!
Caissa is closer, but I'm thinking of both people and an evolving way of thinking. And this is complicated because a lot has happened over the past 150 years. It's hard to capture it all. But I live in Chicago, so let's use Indiana for a case study.
In high school, we learned that Indiana was (as is common knowledge in some circles) KKK central back in the early 20th century, and this was used to warn us that belonging to the Klan was not a purely "Southern" phenomenon, nor was racism and prejudice. And this is all true, but there are more nuances.
For one thing, per a friend of mine who lives in Indiana, a lot of Indiana's farm country was settled by southern expats after the war was over. And they brought their ideas with them. He told me that once you crossed south of I-90, you were in "the south," culturally speaking. And I'm sure there are nuances now between south-central Indiana and Kentucky and Alabama, but there is also a general culture that many Americans recognize.
Another thing about the Klan in the 20th century was that they were nativist as well as racist, and targeted Jewish folks and immigrants at least as viciously as they targeted black folks, especially in the north. This is another example of how white supremacy is, indeed, not limited to "the south." It picks up a few new inflections, but it's the same rotten game of "My People First," which gets fuck-ugly when your people were already first in the first place.
To the Civil War, I think White Supremacists may find it convenient to argue that slavery - and the suffering it entailed - was merely a footnote to the civil war, collateral damage as it were. The real problem was the financial anxiety of white people, because that's what white supremacy is always about, I think. There isn't enough to slake white people's greed. And a lot of folks like us don't see any way to build ourselves up, so it's just so much easier to kick "those other people" down. And this is not uniquely southern, or I suspect even uniquely American. Denying the fundamental role slavery played in the Civil War is just a disturbing kind of psychological expedience for white people. You can find it anywhere. Hell, I've even heard it, rarely, from non-white people.
Watching current events (see my previous post,) I get the impression that ideology is rather secondary to a lot of these people, even tertiary, if it matters at all. Fascism is not an ideology. It's a grasping at power and ideology is only an organizing tool to be applied to that end, whether it's capitalism or socialism. And a lot of this ugly stuff is just people rationalizing their own shameful self interest.
I may give some credit to Albert Memmi's Colonizer and the Colonized for giving me that notion 20 or so years ago in undergrad. It's a pretty compelling notion.
I also think it is way beyond my powers to explicate the flower of people and power over 150 years of American History in a single ship post, but I hope y'all appreciate the attempt.
I could go on, but I think this is enough for now.
Pedantic point: The flag I’m almost sure you’re thinking of isn’t the Stars and Bars. This is the Stars and Bars, the first national flag of the Confederate States of America.
The flag I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of is variously called the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Battle Flag of the Army of Tennessee, the Confederate Jack, and “the Confederate Battle Flag.” That flag became part of the second and third national flags of the CSA.
I say this is pedantic, but the way these flags were used in creating and sustaining an ahistorical Lost Cause Mythology to support Jim Crow societies in ann interesting topic on its own.
Thank you - I was vaguely aware of there being a distinction but was too lazy to look up the correct descriptor, so much appreciated.
I'm not sure how teaching future generations that human history is entirely a tale of people being shits to one another is supposed to inspire them to do better. Seems to me it's more likely to teach them that to be human is to be a shit.
And even if they did do better, they would in turn be remembered by subsequent generations only as being shits. As, in their turn, would those subsequent generations. There would never be a generation that could be remembered as being good, because "good" would be an impossible standard to achieve this side of the Pearly Gates.
Nobody is a paragon of virtue, any more than anyone is the very essence of evil. We are all - ALL - made up of both good and evil. I find it very hard to believe, based on what I've read from you here over the years, that you have done nothing that's worthy of being called good, or even that your good does not outweigh your evil.
I cannot agree. Our lifetimes have seen unprecedented increases in liberty and freedom for all kinds of previously oppressed or disadvantaged people, be they LGBTQ+, of non-white ethnicity, disabled, female, or any other category. Since the turn of the millennium, both the UK and US have had their first ever non-white political leaders. Are things perfect? No - but I doubt many of those listed would freely choose to go back to the way they were treated in the 70s or 80s. Our generation may not be getting everything right, but I think it's reasonable to say that - as per your wish for your own kids - we are on average doing better than our parents.
And then, to use an old Christian term that I'm not usually fond of, you start backsliding because complacency sets in, and you find that those darker impulses were always there. This is, of course, not to encourage the kind of self-abasing anti-pride of "I am a rotten irredeemable piece of crap whose every good work is a tainted tumor," which isn't healthy either, but on the margins I think it's better to keep one's demons where once can see them.
2nd: I don't think I'm a fair assessor of anyone, which is one reason I don't think of myself as "good." Basic Christian "I'm not the judge" stuff. But I do think, looking hard at myself, that a lot of my better side comes out of my willful resistance of my worse side. It's an act of will and a discipline to be ethical. It's not a product of inherent goodness. It's work. Over time, I think that work becomes habit and, sure, I've cultivated some good habits over the years, but I think that my first paragraph still suits me. If I start thinking I've got it, I'll start losing it for taking it for granted. It's like a relationship that way. If you're not the theistic sort, maybe it's keeping a relationship with your "self."
3rd: We had one black leader and immediately a critical mass of us stabbed his legacy in the back and took a figurative dump inside the open wound to make sure it likely wouldn't happen again. I'm also seeing similar backlashes against all the other "progress" you vaunt. I think freedom in America, for many of us, is "my freedom to do as I please without regard for you," and for a lot of people, that model leads to the opposite.
Once again, I think the "oh, we're so woke!" attitude just leads to complacency. We thought we had it in the 1970s, then Reagan got elected. We thought we had it in the 1990s, sorta, then Dubya got elected. Obama was a flash in the pan, achieved a few small steps, and now we're looking at what might be the end of American democracy. Best of times, worst of times.
I was raised in a culture of tempered optimism, both church and family, so I don't think I really get this out of my religion, but I think there's something to be said for pruning.
What ever happened to freedom of speech? Whatever happened to freedom of the press?
It strikes me that we (in western democracies) as informal tellers of our own stories, have become rather bad at it, for a variety of reasons.
I think the commercialisation of story-telling for entertainment plays a role - many of our stories (and everyone else's) have been turned into heavily-processed commodities, as beneficial to our well-being as ulta-processed "foods". This relates to way our stories are employed as idealised transactional artefacts on social media (or the ironic push-back) - our stories have become debased and detached from any inner notion of who we are.
Maybe there's an extent to which we've outsourced our own story-telling to qualified professionals, who are then criticised for telling the parts of our stories that we don't want to hear. As with journalists and climate change scientists, historians are going to increasingly find themselves in the firing line. On which note...
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History enters the realms of the absurd. (It sounds like the premise for a satirical parody.) It is all too easy to be appalled by this, which itself could be understood as a deliberate mechanism for obscuring a more critical and analytical attitude to what is happening.
This was part of the thinking for including scapegoating in the framing of the OP. The "anti-woke" net is being cast astonishingly wide.
The EO says:
The EO is aimed at and applies to the Smithsonian and National Parks and Historic Sites. It doesn’t, unless I’m missing something (always possible) purport to apply to private institutions, nor does it claim any authority over private institutions.
The EO is unquestionably very problematic. But I don’t see where it goes as far as you’ve described.
Yep.
@Nick Tamen
But many other institutions will follow that lead to stay out of trouble or avoid unwanted attention. If you use DEI as an example, many US firms have walked back their initiatives even though they didn’t have too. But so have firms elsewhere.
GSK is a British company, headquartered in London and quoted on the London Stock Market. Its DEI programs were paused in February as it claims it has to comply with the executive orders because the US is its largest market, and the US government is its No 1 customer. It has removed references to diversity on its website and paused women’s mentoring groups and social mobility programmes. It is also reviewing its charitable activities.
It’ll be interesting to see how that works out. So far it looks like attempts to please one set of consumers has completely pissed off another set. With the pissed off group deciding to take their money elsewhere or reduce their spend.
The Trump administration has raised disinformation to an art form. I don’t think it helps those opposing the Trump administration to engage in their own disinformation or mischaracterization; to the contrary, I think that makes it easier to dismiss opposing views as “misinformed,” “hyperbolic” or “wrong.”
@Nick Tamen ok, I will amend that statement to say the Executive Branch--which includes the Vice President (who will be acting on Trump's orders)--will be tasked with determining what the Smithsonian and other federal sponsored museums and national parks, and monuments will display. But, as others have said if the Smithsonian is forced to change--other museums will follow suit out of fear of losing federal funding, if any.. And museums in many red states, even private ones, will be pressured to comply with the rewhitewashing of American history.
Here is a breakdown on how public museums are funded in the United States.
But here is a scenario on how it can even impact private museums (my granddaughter mentioned this.) Say a private museum is sponsoring an archeological dig in New England. like at one of the Revolutionary forts in the area and they discovered how British POWs were maltreated, but the Executive Branch does not want that information published. If the museum went ahead and published it, they might just lose their permission to do any follow-on digs there as well as losing the chance to do similar digs on other federal property. See this information from the American Alliance of Museums. https://www.aam-us.org/2025/01/28/impact-of-executive-orders-and-pause-on-disbursement-of-federal-funds/
One result I would hate to see changed, though it has to do more with science than history, would be how the Trump administration would want to rewrite how the formation of the Grand Canyon developed, I could see how young earthers would want to say it happened as a result of the great flood of Noah's time.
Is it any wonder prominent historians and scientists are wanting to go to Canada or Europe or elsewhere to continue in their disciplines without interference from the Trump administration?
They've always been under pressure, and they've broken before. Read about what America did during WWI to itself, it wasn't great then and it won't be great now.
And yeah, fascism has also been perennially popular in the USA. We're the ones Hitler cribbed a bunch of his ideas from, so I've read.
And they might lose their tax-exempt status if they are listed as a not for profit.
Point is Trump wants to dictate the type of history that is being shown in Amer--ica.
Could he be going after the History Channel next? Not to say the history channel is a credible source any way. but it could be a channel for his fascist propaganda.
Is the theory of human behavior an object of historical narratives, or a lens through which all historical narratives are constructed?
As this hardly seems an original idea, I started searching to see what was already being done in this field - such as through the application of critical theory. From wikipedia:
It's not just the history, it's the identities of anyone deemed unacceptable by the terms of the Truth and Sanity order. If I've understood it correctly.
This is a little uncomfortable when one is trying to explain what happened at Manzanar, or many civil rights sites.
Full story here.
https://news8000.com/news/politics/national-politics/trump-bans-negative-unpatriotic-signage-at-national-parks/article_ef3fb5e9-2645-5db6-a519-55dfc1f2e6f8.html
If we do not know our history, we are bound to repeat it.