âMy main point was to warn against the weaponization of history.â
"The âfirst step in liquidating a people,â he [Kundera] wrote, is âto erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.ââ
âThere is a demon named âNumbness to Nuance.â And it can only be cast out with subtletyâand the scholarly equivalent of fasting and prayer.â
"The key question for me is âCan we learn from the imperfect dead?ââ
Iâve read the material provided and listened to the podcast with interest. There is little I could add to what Burton and Warfield have already said, but I will attempt a few points.
First, the âweaponization of historyâ did not begin with those Anderson characterizes as âangry iconoclasts,â âzealotsâ and âstatue topplers.â It began with white people who used their power to shape a national narrative favorable to their ambitions. They were the first âweaponizeâ American history. Indeed, African Americans know first-hand the âliquidationâ of which Kundera speaks They know what it means to have the memory, culture, and history of their people erased and to have new books and a new history written overtop their suffering and accomplishments. âMint julepâ versions of American history books did just that. How could a historian could express alarm over the âerasureâ of history and not once mention attempts, both past and present, to do that very thing with BIPOC history? It is stunning, really.
Second, I applaud Spectrumâs choice of a title image for this article, which offers a helpful critique. Anderson seems to hold to an outdated âgreat manâ view of history. I am certain he realizes that history is about more than great men doing great things, but that gets lost in his presentation. To his credit, he does acknowledge that the statues of these âgreat menâ have their own distinct history, apart from the men themselves. I wish he had explored that further. In my view, monuments as a form of memory lack the nuance and subtlety Anderson calls for. They do an injustice to the many âminorâ characters and non-dominant narratives that hold up Suhâs monument.
Third, to Andersonâs question, âCan we learn from the imperfect dead?â I would answer unequivocally, yes. However, learning from an imperfect life and memorializing it are not the same thing. Indeed, the idealization involved in the latter may make the former more difficult. Furthermore, there is a pedagogical ethics that must be considered when working with âimperfections.â For instance, those who have experienced racial or sexual trauma in their past may be more affected by interacting with the history of those who have perpetrated these acts. We must be sensitive to that reality. An excellent reading for those who are interested in exploring Andersonâs question further is Karen Guthâs Ethics of Tainted Legacies: Human Flourishing after Traumatic Pasts (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Finally, Anderson quotes an unnamed editorial: âA society that rummages through history
to hold those of the past to the woke standards of today will soon have no heroes to honor.â Should we really fear the loss of heroes to honor? Perhaps, we should thrill at the prospect of discovering new, unsung heroes. Indeed, If we were to ârummage through historyâ with âthe scholarly equivalent of fasting and prayerâ (as Kevin Burton has admirably done in his research), I believe that is exactly what we would find.
P.S. If you wish to read some nuanced historical journalistic prose from another perspective, I highly recommend Clint Smithâs How the Word Is Passed (Little, Brown & Co., 2021)