Monday, November 28, 2005

 

History Creates Perspective

When I was a kid there was a lot of talk in "real" Christian circles about how Christmas was a Christianized pagan holiday and that really true Christians might find something better to do with their Decembers. In just 30 years time, the holiday is so heavily identified with Christianity that it is a violation of church/state for the Post Office to sell Madonna and Child stamps or to wish patrons a "Merry Christmas." And Christians are up in arms about it. (Rightly so, but I am going somewhere else with this post so we'll leave that be.)

The idea that concerns me is that the meaning of the holiday is defined by the history that one chooses to attach to it. As a young Christian I and my friends attached that old, old pagan history and got all balled up in it. Now, secularists attach the Christian history to it and get all balled up. And so, as rationalists, we turn to our scholarly historians and we try to determine what is the "true" history and attach that to give the holiday its "true" significance.

The fact of the matter is that the pagan history is real and true and the Christian history is real and true. I attach the significance to the holiday that I choose and I then choose to focus on the history that implies that significance. I don't deny the other history, I just don't care all that much.

It matters to me; however, which history gets told, where and how, because that has a great deal to say about what significance others attach to the holiday and how that significance will shape society's behavior.

I reflected on this fact over the Thanksgiving holiday as we had our Thanksgiving meal with some people that were very well traveled and the subject of my visit to Chernobyl came up. There is a school of thought that says that Chernobyl was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. The idea is that it was a huge problem that could be detected outside of the Soviet Union. Thus, unlike other major mistakes on the part of the Soviet regime, they lost control over the telling of the tale, that is to say the writing of the history, and thus the people of the Soviet Union, for the first time, saw the incompetence of the regime, confidence eroded, until finally the events of 1991 brought it all crashing down.

But, like with most historical events, there is the prevalent bad side of the story, but there is also quite a good side. The Soviet Union's response to the disaster would be hard to match in the western world. There is no way this nation could accomplish an evacuation as readily, quickly and peacefully as they did the exclusion zone. The heroism of the first responders and of those that followed to contain and control the disaster is remarkable -- again, most of them in direct service to the Soviet state. But this good side of the story, equally as true as the accident itself, got lost in the shuffle and the USSR fell.

The same can be said for the issue of America's Founding Fathers and slavery. You can tell the true history of what great men they were, or you can tell the true history that they were slave owners. Depending on which history you tell and promote America is a great nation or it is a purely exploitative experiment in elitism.

So, what are we to do? Are we to deny "the truth" for the sake of preserving greatness? No, we don't deny the truth, but we do decide how and where to tell it. The slave ownership of the founding fathers has never been a fact hidden from public view. Anyone that chose to read serious history books would have known the fact. Serious history books were, in fact, the best place to record and acknowledge that uncomfortable fact. It was when the popular and populous media in this country picked up the fact, and trumpeted it like the great "gotcha" that the fact became problematic and began to truly reflect on people's perceptions of this nation.

Well, wasn't the press, as the great truth teller, as the first draft of history, obligated to report that fact? Report? - perhaps, but given that it was reported in the historical literature the obligation of reportage was in fact met. Trumpet? - not at all. The only service to be offered by trumpeting that fact is to destroy our otherwise good perception of the Founding Fathers and by extension our perception of the nation. In this case, I would argue that the reporting of the historical fact in the popular American media was not an act of truth reporting, but done in the purpose of furthering a political agenda, and a purely destructive one at that.

In the American tradition role of the journalist and the role of the historian are intertwined but they are quite distinct, we confuse them at grave risk.

Sometimes Hollywood gets it right. In the 1960's they got this particular question absolutely right in the John Wayne classic "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence." It's the story of a greenhorn lawyer (Jimmy Stewart) that moves to the Old West determined to bring civilization to the lawless land. He ends up in an enormous dispute with the enforcer (Lee Marvin) for the local ranchers. He fights for statehood for the territory, something that would rob the ranchers of many of their land priviledges. The Stewart character tries to do it "right," all the while his grizzled old rancher ally (and competitor for the hand of the local beauty), John Wayne, tells him the dispute can only be ended with gun play. Of course, Wayne is right and a gunfight happens. It appears that the notoriously poor shot Stewart kills Marvin. On the strength of this great blow for justice, Stewart is elected to go to Washington to fight for statehood and ends up being the Governor and and Senator for the new state.

But this story is told in flashback. As Senator, Stewart has returned to the two-bit town for the funeral of some old nasty ranch hand. The press shows up to ask why, and Stewart tells the story. The funeral is for Wayne, and Stewart reveals that he did not in fact shoot the Marvin character (Liberty Valence) that Wayne did from a hiding place. Stewart reveals that his public life, all the good he had accomplished, from statehood, to infrastructure development for the new state, to peace and prosperity was built on a sham.

Can't you just see the press drooling? But this movie gets it right. The reporter stands to leave and tears up his notes. When Stewart questions him, the reporter just says, "This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

This reporter understands his role. He knows that to write a huge expose would only harm the career of a man that has accomplished many, many good things. That the story he would write could serve only to tarnish that which shone brightly. If the reporter was smart, he would remember the story Stewart told, and when Stewart was dead, he might write a nice little biography, just to make sure history was "right." But he would not trumpet the book in his paper, nor sensationalize the story. The facts are the facts, but the facts of what the Stewart character accomplished were so much more important than the fact that it was built on a bit of a sham, that he knew it was best to keep that fact in the dark corner of history, visible to those that chose to look hard enough, but not so visible that it changed the general perception of the Stewart character and by extension his great accomplishments.

Sometimes, we got to choose history. We don't lie, but we do tell the story in the way and in the venue, that will provide maximum benefit for the most people. I think that is an important thought as this season, with its battles about its "true" meaning, commences.

|

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Site Feed

Blogotional

eXTReMe Tracker

Blogarama - The Blog Directory