Without our history and shared experiences, who are we as a nation? Without the lessons history teaches, who will we become?
“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
George Orwell’s 1984 may have seemed a bit excessive at the time it was published. but given the erawe’re living in, some aspects of this fiction don’t seem fictitious at all.
In Orwell’s 1984, published in 1949, the story’s protagonist, Winston Smith, belongs to the Outer Party. It’s his job to rewrite history in the Ministry of Truth, bringing it in line with current political thinking. The Party has created a propagandistic language known as Newspeak. It’s designed to limit free thought and promote the Party’s doctrines.
Fast forward seventy years. The news is full of headlines attacking our Nation’s history, our national symbols, and our institutions.
The problem with judging history.
If we judge history as a static, black-and-white entity, then we don’t leave much room for acknowledging our progress. More frighteningly, we leave ourselves vulnerable, as Winston irrevocably learned, to indoctrination.
It is quite normal to debate our history, to discuss it, and learn from it. At the same time, we should not be so quick to glorify only the heroic deeds and the heroes of the past, while downplaying their darker side or vice versa. History does not require a predetermined narrative to be interpreted or understood. Rather, it reveals itself, just as we as human beings are revealed through our choices and our actions.
As we have grown and evolved as a country and as a society, our ideals have grown with us. And while things that were once commonplace in our past but that are no longer accepted today attest to that evolution, eradicating the history books of their existence is a dangerous and slippery slope to embark on.
History can and often is, interpreted, tweaked, even fabricated to further a cause or an agenda. If repeated often enough, it then becomes fact regardless of its origin and/or its accuracy.
Studying history requires patience.
The study of history requires research, asking hard questions, and acknowledgment of the humanity contained within each story to see past the proscribed narrative. It takes a great amount of patience and is a responsibility that ultimately requires us to place ourselves in the shoes of those who lived it.
Historical context is a key component of a thorough and unbiased examination of history, enabling us to place events within the social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed at the time they occurred.
Historical context is critical because, without it, our memories, the stories, and the events as a whole have less meaning and importance. Examining history in the context in which the events took place enables us to accurately interpret them rather than simply judging them.
The same applies to the symbols that represent history.
National symbols confirm and celebrate our national identity. They honor the past, the sacrifices made, the groundwork laid, the lessons learned, and the people who came before us. Removing these monuments leads to forgetting and opens us up to further rewriting of the very history that got us here.
I recently read an article about Cornell University removing a bust of Abraham Lincoln and a plaque of the Gettysburg Address from their library following a complaint. Though I can only surmise that the complaint fell in line with other such grievances that resulted in the removal of the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has stood in front of the Museum of Natural History in New York since 1940 or the statue of Robert E. Lee that has stood on the grounds of the United States Capitol since 1909, the result is the same. The statues represent the country’s history, no matter how complicated. Taking them down is to censor, whitewash, and potentially forget that history.
There’s danger when history fades.
What happens to a society whose history fades either from lack of curiosity or perceived irrelevance or as a result of darker motives, as Winston witnessed in 1984?
Without our history, our past, and our shared experiences, who are we as a nation? Without the lessons our history has taught us, the wisdom each generation has earned, the knowledge we bequeath to future generations, who will we become?
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984
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JN Fenwick is a Florida-based former American history teacher and writer. She is the author/editor of In the Eye of the Storm.
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