History. It takes many shapes. It’s documented in various forms. Photographs, letters, journals, books, buildings, battle sites, monuments, statues, and plaques all come together to mark the passing of time, trials, troubles, progress, victories, and the existence of a human society. These things tell our tale, both the good and the bad of our journey. The American portrait has been painted with brush strokes which offer both amazing colors and dark shadows. Collectively, our tale mixes the sweetness of freedom and liberty with the bitterness of prejudice and tartness of ignorance. Throughout our history, we’ve taken and conquered, we’ve given and shared, we’ve protected and defended. We are what we are, but we are not what we were.
Our founding documents claimed a hope for “A More Perfect Union,” but they never claimed perfection.
As we reflect on America, as we recognize her accomplishments and her impact upon those who found hope within her land, we have to accept her weakness and the pain which haunts her past. She is not a perfect nation, but she is our nation. Her victories and exceptionalism among nations, are shadowed by her struggles. Yet, she has faced those struggles; she faces some still. Our constitution, which forms the basis for a free and fair society, has been altered to acknowledge those weaknesses and to rectify her wrongs.
Much like a family which must acknowledge there are members of which we aren’t proud, we don’t give up on them. We work to bring them along, showing the love and concern which is needed for their full acceptance of the inheritance. As a society, we recognize where we fail, but we don’t erase the picture, we build upon the image. We don’t discard our past, we learn from it. When we reflect, the images of the past can bring pain, but that pain is a sign that we continue to move beyond.
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Maya Angelou
The recent destruction of monuments, the defacing of precious history, the defiling of the resting grounds of patriots and pioneers — this is all an antithesis to that which makes us better as a society. Only by preserving our history, even the painful parts, do we learn, develop, lead, and progress from what we once were. Humanity has never been perfectly human, perfectly compassionate, or perfectly forgiving. We as people are works in progress. We develop. We learn. We grow. We feel, and become from those feelings. We use knowledge as a tool to improve ourselves and our world.
Our founders, while ingenious in their vision for a nation and a government of the people, were not perfect, and were a product of their time. The ugly blemish of slavery with which they’ve been stained was imported from a old world, an acceptance which dominated the conquest culture of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Unfortunately, history and rear vision frequently tempt us to judge them upon standards which have developed over two-hundred-forty-four years. It is a luxury they didn’t have, and a handicap we should not place upon them. Taken from their time into ours, their visions may have been more greatly enhanced, their equations of equality greatly different, their passions for freedom more inclusive. Perhaps they would be as enlightened as the self-described Anti-Fascists which have disturbed our country for the past year
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must resist this unfounded need to sterilize our society from all reminder of our past. We must suffocate those emotions which are driving the madness within our society with reason, understanding, and measured thought. The recklessness which has been allowed to roam and rule must be contained by rule of law and the will of a strong, thoughtful citizenry. We must choose to use history as a tool to improve who we are and who we choose to be. Preserving for our posterity means passing on all of our riches, including the knowledge of our past.
Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
Arnold J. Toynbee
As we move on from where we are, where we have been in the past months — we must elect as a society to return to reason rather than being fueled by emotion. Regardless of who leads, we are an educated, civil society. We have laws which we choose to implement so that we can function as a group of individuals. The rule of law cannot be picked at. To be effective, it must be followed universally. If we don’t like the law — then change the law, but we cannot ignore the law to vent our frustrations or effect change. The concept of “Peaceful Disobedience” popularized by Martin Luther King, Jr. is not resembled within the wanton destruction of the current resistance. This desire for lawlessness by individuals or segments of our society (a sort of libertarian utopia), while appealing to some, is unreasonable within a functioning society. Personal responsibility, although both desirable and necessary, is not a strong enough barrier to the lawlessness, destruction, thievery, violence, and incompatibility which threatens to sever the adhesion of a culture and a society.
We are a people — The American Society, but we are also individuals. We will never fully agree. We will always find points of difference, and some of those will be hard points, contentious points – moral – passionate disagreements – which will cause difficulties, but we must not silence those opinions. We must allow for speech and beliefs with which we don’t agree. We must demand of ourselves, our society, our government, our social media, our news media and anyone who seeks to control, modify, alter, or challenge the speech of our people to honor this code which has been chiselled within the cornerstone of our society. Rather than censoring and controlling speech on their platforms, our social media should act as an empty chamber, a tunnel of passage, within which the voices of our people echo and reverberate. Only in cases of terror, threats of violence, clear and recognized foreign influence, and documented subversion should they enter the realm of restriction. They should allow the electorate, a reasonable and knowledgeable people, to research, discern, and educate themselves on misinformation concerning the issues which they find important.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.
“History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.”
― Robert Penn Warren
It is because of our past that we have a future. It is because of where we have been that we have a path forward. We are the blazers of trails. We are the miners of gold. We are the explorers of the universe. We are the rescuers of the weak, the tears of the broken, the strength of the downtrodden, the food for the hungry. We are the compassion in a heartless world, and we are the warriors of the defenseless. We are America, and we will overcome our past to prevail in our future.
“The more you know about the past, the more you can prepare for the future.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
