0 comment Sunday, November 30, 2014 | admin
"The past is another country, they do things differently there". - L.P Hartley, 'The Go-Between'
Oddly, the very same people, liberals, who moralize to us about not 'judging' other cultures and countries devote a lot of time and energy to judging the past. According to their bizarre worldview, we are not only free to impose our present-day standards on the past, but in fact morally bound to do so. And in doing so, we inevitably weigh our ancestors in the scales and find them wanting. Now this should simply show us that human beings are flawed; we are imperfect. Our Christian ancestors knew that we humans are a fallen race, and not perfectible. But liberals hold our ancestors (and our own modern Western society) to an impossible standard of perfection, thus they are perpetually scolding and moralizing and preaching and warning and denouncing.
When there are not sufficient outrages in the present, our busy liberal neighbors exhume corpses from the past, dredging up some past wrong as a moral object lesson for us. According to the liberals among us, we, or more accurately they themselves are the epitome of human moral development. They are the first enlightened generation ever to grace the planet, while our ancestors were benighted, backward, and bigoted. Such were the 'dead white males' they favor as whipping boys, those same dead white males who somehow founded our country. On the one hand, they quote phrases like Jefferson's 'all men are created equal', while denouncing Jefferson for his supposed moral lapses, a slander which has somehow become accepted as truth.
Liberals, especially those whose lives are dedicated to historical revisionism, never rest from disparaging our Founding Fathers, and it seems that Simon Schama, a British-born transplant to the US, has been busy writing yet another of his revisionist morality plays. This time, it's about race and the American Revolution. The book is called '"Rough Crossings" and H.D.S. Greenway at the Boston Globe writes a column about it.
Schama apparently thinks, according to Greenway, that his 'daring' revisionism makes him some kind of heroic dissident, at risk of being put in irons and whisked off to Guantanamo for his less-than-respectful views of our history. Somehow this is laughable, and pathetic at the same time.
Revisionist histories, slandering our Founders, are a dime a dozen these days; scribbling yet another such work is hardly likely to put anyone in a gulag. Do Schama and Greenway really believe we live in such a country?
Greenway implies that we Americans read mostly worshipful biographies of our founders. I don't know what he is reading, but I am aware of far more hit pieces on the Founders than hagiographies. But he solemnly concludes,
''Do we, as a nation of immigrants, need whitewashed founding legends to unite us? Do Americans, in these morally ambiguous times of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the secret prisons into which our prisoners disappear without trial or hope, long for heroes and heroic times? Perhaps Americans feel the need to hang onto the glory days of our national youth, when all our leaders were brilliant, brave, and beyond reproach, even if it is not always entirely true.''
Yes, Mr. Greenway, we do need founding legends to unite us. Whether our traditional images were 'whitewashed' as you say is a matter of opinion. Why should I choose to believe Schama's work over the work of the traditional historians, especially knowing that he is a leftist with a definite axe to grind? And where does this revisionism and deconstructing of America's past lead us? To a country full of self-doubt if not shame, to a country which disdains its past and has no confidence in its future. To a country which has no core; to a disunited, disaffected shell of a country.
But then that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Oddly, the very same people, liberals, who moralize to us about not 'judging' other cultures and countries devote a lot of time and energy to judging the past. According to their bizarre worldview, we are not only free to impose our present-day standards on the past, but in fact morally bound to do so. And in doing so, we inevitably weigh our ancestors in the scales and find them wanting. Now this should simply show us that human beings are flawed; we are imperfect. Our Christian ancestors knew that we humans are a fallen race, and not perfectible. But liberals hold our ancestors (and our own modern Western society) to an impossible standard of perfection, thus they are perpetually scolding and moralizing and preaching and warning and denouncing.
When there are not sufficient outrages in the present, our busy liberal neighbors exhume corpses from the past, dredging up some past wrong as a moral object lesson for us. According to the liberals among us, we, or more accurately they themselves are the epitome of human moral development. They are the first enlightened generation ever to grace the planet, while our ancestors were benighted, backward, and bigoted. Such were the 'dead white males' they favor as whipping boys, those same dead white males who somehow founded our country. On the one hand, they quote phrases like Jefferson's 'all men are created equal', while denouncing Jefferson for his supposed moral lapses, a slander which has somehow become accepted as truth.
Liberals, especially those whose lives are dedicated to historical revisionism, never rest from disparaging our Founding Fathers, and it seems that Simon Schama, a British-born transplant to the US, has been busy writing yet another of his revisionist morality plays. This time, it's about race and the American Revolution. The book is called '"Rough Crossings" and H.D.S. Greenway at the Boston Globe writes a column about it.
Schama apparently thinks, according to Greenway, that his 'daring' revisionism makes him some kind of heroic dissident, at risk of being put in irons and whisked off to Guantanamo for his less-than-respectful views of our history. Somehow this is laughable, and pathetic at the same time.
Revisionist histories, slandering our Founders, are a dime a dozen these days; scribbling yet another such work is hardly likely to put anyone in a gulag. Do Schama and Greenway really believe we live in such a country?
Greenway implies that we Americans read mostly worshipful biographies of our founders. I don't know what he is reading, but I am aware of far more hit pieces on the Founders than hagiographies. But he solemnly concludes,
''Do we, as a nation of immigrants, need whitewashed founding legends to unite us? Do Americans, in these morally ambiguous times of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the secret prisons into which our prisoners disappear without trial or hope, long for heroes and heroic times? Perhaps Americans feel the need to hang onto the glory days of our national youth, when all our leaders were brilliant, brave, and beyond reproach, even if it is not always entirely true.''
Yes, Mr. Greenway, we do need founding legends to unite us. Whether our traditional images were 'whitewashed' as you say is a matter of opinion. Why should I choose to believe Schama's work over the work of the traditional historians, especially knowing that he is a leftist with a definite axe to grind? And where does this revisionism and deconstructing of America's past lead us? To a country full of self-doubt if not shame, to a country which disdains its past and has no confidence in its future. To a country which has no core; to a disunited, disaffected shell of a country.
But then that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Labels: Country
0 comment Wednesday, May 14, 2014 | admin
Should future archeologists find and read today's histories of early America, they could reasonably conclude that our country had been conquered by an enemy, and that the histories had been rewritten to discredit the founders of our country. Considering the hostility exhibited by many of today's historians to the American past, this would not be too far off; in essence, America has changed hands. Once, American history was written by those who actually felt a connection to the past, and who knew themselves to be a part of it, and indebted to it. Now, our academics and writers are mostly alienated people who consider themselves sophisticated citizens of the world, above naive patriotism and petty national allegiances. My recent post, 'The past is another country' dealt with revisionist history as purveyed by Simon Schama, whose revisionism is his stock-in-trade. Another such history seems to be 'Mayflower' by Nathaniel Philbrick. David Gates in the May 1 Newsweek writes a review of this book, (via MSNBC). In his piece, entitled 'Pilgrims' Bloody Progress', Gates says, in describing early conflicts between settlers and Indians, "[t]his is about how American history went during the next three centuries, and white Americans haven't felt a lot of shame."
Now Gates (and presumably Philbrick) seem to think that white Americans should feel a lot of shame. Much as the Puritan preachers of old instilled a sense of guilt and shame in their congregations, today's writers seem to feel ordained to preach guilt and the need for repentance to modern Americans. Americans, so goes their refrain, are a racist, bigoted people, and must confess their sins and submit to punishment, must atone endlessly for not only their own sins, but those of their fathers, back many generations.
Now I'm the descendant of many of those English settlers of Massachusetts, as well as Jamestown colonists. My Massachusetts ancestors came with Winthrop's fleet in the 1630s. So no doubt they are the sinners of Philbrick's narrative. And I as their 7th-generation descendant am as guilty as they are, apparently, and ought to feel appropriately guilty, And so, good reader, should you, if you are a white American.
One of the charges Philbrick apparently makes is that the English colonists were guilty of 'ethnic cleansing'. How, I ask, can we apply 20th and 21st century concepts like 'ethnic cleansing' to the 17th century? The English colonists, like their Indian adversaries, knew that their interests were antagonistic and that they both fought for survival and for a way of life. Unfortunately only one side could prevail. Multiculturalism or two disparate cultures existing in the same space was no more realistic then than now. They fought for themselves, their families and homes. Is this 'ethnic cleansing'?
Apparently in the liberals' parallel universe, it is.
Why, incidentally, are only white European people held to an impossibly high standard of behavior, while the Indians and other such Rousseauian 'noble savages' are held to a very low standard? Do liberals secretly think that non-Europeans are not capable of the same high standards of behavior? Such must be the case, because Indians committed atrocities for which they are not held accountable; Indians practiced slavery, and they practiced 'ethnic cleansing', in Philbrick's terms. Yet they are blameless, and the English settlers are guilty. Double standards are a liberal specialty. And the double standards employed by liberals betray a condescending attitude, a paternalism.
Since so many of our modern 'historians', with their noisy axe-grinding, give only one side of the story, I will share an account involving some of my ancestors, my 7th great grandfather, Samuel Varnum, who came from Dracutt, England to Massachusetts:
" On March 18, 1676, two sons of Samuel Varnum were shot and killed by Indians while crossing the river with their father and sister in a boat to tend their cattle on the other side. One of them fell back dead into his sister's arms. Samuel shouted to the stupified soldiers who accompanied them, "Don't let dead men sit at the oars!" The young men were buried by the river, on the Howard farm. The guard of soldiers with them were so taken by surprise that the Indians escaped." See "Indian Wars of New England": Sylvester, Vol. II, p. 293. Undoubtedly he was ready to avenge their deaths in a war which was destined to break forever the Indian power throughout New England. He enlisted in the famous campaign against King Phillip, and is credited in the accounts of the Colonial Treasurer, John Hull, 24th of April, 1676, for military services..."
I suppose Samuel Varnum, after the tragic killing of his two young sons, was guilty of 'ethnic cleansing' when he took up arms against their killers.
Now, I have Indian ancestry as well as English; but as an American, the air that I breathe, and all that I hold dear, the traditions I honor come from my colonist ancestors; they founded this country as we know it, and bequeathed us the enlightened ideals America is known by. Let the revisionists do their worst, they can't destroy the accomplishments of our forefathers.
Now Gates (and presumably Philbrick) seem to think that white Americans should feel a lot of shame. Much as the Puritan preachers of old instilled a sense of guilt and shame in their congregations, today's writers seem to feel ordained to preach guilt and the need for repentance to modern Americans. Americans, so goes their refrain, are a racist, bigoted people, and must confess their sins and submit to punishment, must atone endlessly for not only their own sins, but those of their fathers, back many generations.
Now I'm the descendant of many of those English settlers of Massachusetts, as well as Jamestown colonists. My Massachusetts ancestors came with Winthrop's fleet in the 1630s. So no doubt they are the sinners of Philbrick's narrative. And I as their 7th-generation descendant am as guilty as they are, apparently, and ought to feel appropriately guilty, And so, good reader, should you, if you are a white American.
One of the charges Philbrick apparently makes is that the English colonists were guilty of 'ethnic cleansing'. How, I ask, can we apply 20th and 21st century concepts like 'ethnic cleansing' to the 17th century? The English colonists, like their Indian adversaries, knew that their interests were antagonistic and that they both fought for survival and for a way of life. Unfortunately only one side could prevail. Multiculturalism or two disparate cultures existing in the same space was no more realistic then than now. They fought for themselves, their families and homes. Is this 'ethnic cleansing'?
Apparently in the liberals' parallel universe, it is.
Why, incidentally, are only white European people held to an impossibly high standard of behavior, while the Indians and other such Rousseauian 'noble savages' are held to a very low standard? Do liberals secretly think that non-Europeans are not capable of the same high standards of behavior? Such must be the case, because Indians committed atrocities for which they are not held accountable; Indians practiced slavery, and they practiced 'ethnic cleansing', in Philbrick's terms. Yet they are blameless, and the English settlers are guilty. Double standards are a liberal specialty. And the double standards employed by liberals betray a condescending attitude, a paternalism.
Since so many of our modern 'historians', with their noisy axe-grinding, give only one side of the story, I will share an account involving some of my ancestors, my 7th great grandfather, Samuel Varnum, who came from Dracutt, England to Massachusetts:
" On March 18, 1676, two sons of Samuel Varnum were shot and killed by Indians while crossing the river with their father and sister in a boat to tend their cattle on the other side. One of them fell back dead into his sister's arms. Samuel shouted to the stupified soldiers who accompanied them, "Don't let dead men sit at the oars!" The young men were buried by the river, on the Howard farm. The guard of soldiers with them were so taken by surprise that the Indians escaped." See "Indian Wars of New England": Sylvester, Vol. II, p. 293. Undoubtedly he was ready to avenge their deaths in a war which was destined to break forever the Indian power throughout New England. He enlisted in the famous campaign against King Phillip, and is credited in the accounts of the Colonial Treasurer, John Hull, 24th of April, 1676, for military services..."
I suppose Samuel Varnum, after the tragic killing of his two young sons, was guilty of 'ethnic cleansing' when he took up arms against their killers.
Now, I have Indian ancestry as well as English; but as an American, the air that I breathe, and all that I hold dear, the traditions I honor come from my colonist ancestors; they founded this country as we know it, and bequeathed us the enlightened ideals America is known by. Let the revisionists do their worst, they can't destroy the accomplishments of our forefathers.
Labels: Country