Clio's Wars: How We Interpret Our Past Will Determine Our Future

Epoch Times

21-04-2025

In his Introduction to his 11-volume 'The Story of Civilization,' Will Durant
Teacher and historian Wilfred M. McClay delivers a similar
Like most historians, Durant and McClay recognize the crucial necessity for this passing of the baton from one generation to the next. Moreover, while they recognize that this exchange can take place through such venues as parental teaching, language and customs, literature, art, and music, both men would also likely argue the primacy of Clio, the muse of history, as the captain of our culture and the chief custodian of our libraries, museums, and liberal arts.
'Clio, Muse of History,' 1800, by Charles Meynier. Oil on canvas. Cleveland Museum of Art.
Public Domain
Consequently, how we unpack and interpret the treasures and trifles of history, that most colossal of attics, is crucial for the survival of a civilization. History, with its wars and rumors of wars, can itself become a battlefield, just as it has today.
The Battleground of History
In 2019, The New York Times Magazine launched the
Women, men, and children stand in front of a church, possibly Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Tulsa, Okla., circa 1919. The '1776 Unites" project states that Tulsa became a famous African American entrepreneurial enclave by 1921. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Public Domain
This attempt to steer the interpretation of American history away from such central icons as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution brought a swift reaction. Historians from across the political spectrum denounced the project for its faulty history, while others defended and promoted it. One of those opposed was Robert Woodson, a black activist and community organizer who founded the '
The Greenwood section of Tulsa, Okla. was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street." It was common for residents, such as this 1929 photograph of Samuel and Eunice Jackson (L), to be 'dressed to the nines' and boast luxury motorcars. Little of early 20th-century black wealth is recalled today. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Public Domain
More recently, conflict has flared up on a different front. On March 27, 2025, Donald Trump
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These and other interpretative battles over the meaning of the American past raise questions, such as: Can history in our museums and classrooms be presented in some pure, objective form? What are the costs and benefits of revisionist history? And should the American past depicted in museums, books, and classrooms aim to amplify patriotism?
Historical Interpretation Is a High-Wire Act
The short answer to the first question above is an absolute no. We can learn and disseminate facts about history—the dates of the Spanish-American War, the construction of a Conestoga wagon, the numbers of American soldiers who participated in the Normandy Invasion—but these in and of themselves are trivia, nice to know but with little real value in giving us an understanding of our country's heritage. Once detectives, otherwise known as historians, begin to examine these facts, human subjectivity comes at once into play.
But there's a solution. Historians, museum curators, and teachers can consciously put aside their prejudices and strive for objectivity. They can enter into the past with their eyes wide open, fully aware of its nuances and cultural proclivities, and work these realities into their approach to historic figures and events. They may point to slavery as our nation's shame, but balance then demands that they call attention to the forces that eradicated slavery, which is one of our nation's great glories.
The statue of Robert E. Lee, which has towered over Monument Avenue since 1890, was removed from its plinth in Richmond, Va., on Sept. 8, 2021.
Pool/Getty Images
Here's a recent case in point of the damage done to our past by ideology, imbalance, and lack of nuance. In the last few years,
This is a classic instance of presentism—that is, the interpretation and judgment of the past solely through the lens of the present. Those demanding the removal of the statues, and those who acquiesced, knew little of Lee's personal history and nothing of nuance.
This iconoclasm is also a prime example of revisionism gone amok.
Edits and Rewrites
The worst-case scenario of presentism is extreme revisionism or, in some cases, attempts to blot out the past altogether. The Cultural Revolution unleashed by the Chinese Communist Party in the mid-1960s is a classic case of erasure of the past to invent a particular present. The regime and its minions, many of them young people, waged war against the 'Four Olds'—old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits—and sought the total eradication of China's classical civilization. This violent purgation of the past also saw up to 2 million people executed as well.
In his article '
Shen Yun master of ceremonies Leeshai Lemish speaks at a press conference highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's transnational repression activities targeting the company, at Lincoln Center in New York City on March 26, 2025.
Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
On the other hand, valid reassessment is a necessary and ongoing part of historical interpretation. New evidence from archives or new methods for interpreting data, for instance, can in turn shed new light on past events, changing their meaning. Only when this revisionism becomes ideological or ignorant, unmoored from historical realities and common sense, does it pose a danger to culture and civilization.
What So Proudly We Hailed
And what of patriotism? Should our history books, museums, and educational institutions help build pride among Americans, or is teaching the love of country somehow a sellout?
In his blurb on the back cover of McClay's 'Land of Hope,' prominent historian and teacher Gordon S. Wood writes: 'This generous but not uncritical story of our nation's history ought to be read by every American. It explains and justifies the right kind of patriotism.'
By 'the right kind of patriotism,' Wood is likely referring not just to 'Land of Hope' in general but also to the Epilogue, titled 'The Shape of American Patriotism.' Here, McClay writes at length about this subject. After noting that some today regard 'patriotism as a dangerous sentiment,' which he calls 'a serious misconception,' he examines two different concepts of American patriotism. The first is made up of those universalizing ideals applicable 'to the well-being of the whole world,' an idea going all the way back to Alexander Hamilton in 'The Federalist' No. 1. The second is what McClay calls particularizing sentiments, which constitute such commonalities as history, tradition, culture, and the land itself.
First edition printers' proofs for the sheet music to "God Bless America," 1938, by Irving Berlin. Library of Congress.
Public Domain
McClay then shows how these two ideas often blend together by pointing to Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America.' This popular song with its touching images—'Land that I love!' and 'My home sweet home!'—was composed by a Jew born in czarist Russia who immigrated to the United States and experienced firsthand the universal ideals of American liberty. The song and the man display both the universality of American ideals and a sentimental love of the nation that produced them.
Moving Forward
In Will Durant's earlier reflection, we see that he defined education as the 'technique of transmitting civilization.' If we wish our children to inherit American values and love of country, we must follow the example of those who came before us and ensure that the young are well-versed in our nation's history. After all, they cannot love what they do not know.
Nor can they love their country if they are taught to belittle or ignore its accomplishments, to permit the blemishes of our past to smother its beauties. Here is where our museums, historians, teachers—and for that matter, all of us—must act as preservationists and promoters of that heritage and those ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that mark each one of us as Americans.
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