What should be remembered?

From The Problem of Remembering by Alma T. C. Boykin. Some musings on remembrance.

How important is it to remember unpleasant things from the past? Should they be forgotten, left alone to fade away and disappear? Or do we need to recall, to acknowledge them, and then move on? For individuals the answer varies based on the events and the individual. But for nations, the questions are tied to politics, to national identity, and even to how a country understands itself and its place in the world.

The UIL* social studies test this year is based on a book about the end of the USSR and remembering and forgetting. It seems especially apt, at least to me if not to the students, because western Europe is in the process of trying to decide if they will remember or forget, and if so how much and why. Should Western European civilization, especially German and Scandinavian, disappear? Is the past so specially terrible that it is better for humanity if Western Civilization goes away, bowing to demographics and the need to atone for that past? If not, what should be remembered, and how? For the people of the USSR, especially in Russia proper in 1989-1992, the question was one of memory and survival. Do you ignore Stalin or do you bury him? A few would prefer to praise him.

[snip]

Can you be a good person and not focus on the sins of the past? Should Western Europe look only at the shadows and dark places in its history, dwelling on them in self-abnegation and flagellation, giving everything to “make up for” history? Because you will notice that it is only the western end of Europe that dwells on the need to atone for colonialism, Christianity, and high standards of living. The Old East (as I call it) has looked at that past and said, “No way, no how. We are proud of what we’ve been through, proud of our faith, and have no reason to join you in self-destruction.” They like Western Civilization, and have defended it more than once. Ask a Pole or Hungarian about 1683 and be ready to have your ears talked off.

In the Christian scriptures, it is understood that “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of G-d.” So with nations. China’s history, even before 1900, is not exactly without incidents that make people gulp and stare in shock. Look at the role of women and their treatment after 1100. Or the massacres of aristocratic families and city-dwellers at the end of the Tang Dynasty in the 900s. Erk. The Taiping Rebellion was and its aftermath left Europeans queasy, those who saw a river choked with bodies. The Ottoman Empire called the shots in much of Southern Europe well into the 1800s, and modern Turkey sees nothing wrong with having taken over chunks of Europe. I get the feeling that a number of Turks would be pleased as punch to recreate the Ottoman Empire. And that empire was not known for peace, harmony, toleration, and pacifist foreign policy.

[snip]

What should we forget? What should we remember? How should we recall the past? There are no easy answers to those kinds of question, unless you let the government, or the religious leaders, or yes, determine what the past is. And then, as they said in the USSR, “The future is certain, it is the past that keeps changing.”

She has no conclusions and nor do I.

The totalitarian racism of critical theory and postmodernism are heinous but they do force deep questions. In particular, here in the US, postmodernist SJWs have invested great energy in whether state flags ought to be allowed to include allusions to the heritage of the Confederate States and to whether memorials to the history and memory of those who died should be allowed to remain in the forms of statuary. Postmodernism and totalitarianism are evil and yet evil can frame valid questions.

Having lived in Europe in the shadow of the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War and seen the Communist proclivity for air-brushing people and events out of history books, I am immensely opposed to that approach. It is a breach of some of the most basic precepts of the classical liberal world view and an attack on natural rights (freedom of expression). Transparency and access to knowledge are critical for our capacity to understand and to progress. Obliterating history is not how you go about progressing.

And yet, we do not, should not, celebrate failure, error, and evil. The titanic and bloody effort to resolve the moral inconsistencies of our own compact with ourselves, our Constitution, was tragic. We should not forget.

But what about people who take offense. We should also be respectful of the feelings of others.

The challenge is that "the questions are tied to politics". Some people are indeed offended. Others choose to take offense in order to advance a cause. How do you distinguish? My sense is that most of the current wave of opposition to confederate memorials is nearly entirely shadow play, the tactics of small groups of ideological advocates reflecting nothing of the concerns of real citizens. And indeed, most surveys I see indicate that concern about the harm of statuary is nowhere on anyone's top 100 list of concerns, and that, when asked, majorities from all demographics are either unconcerned or think it is a distraction from focusing on consequential matters.

We should not concede attention to self-appointed anarchists seeking to divide and destroy through the heckler's veto but we should also not ignore the legitimate question of what should be remembered and how it should be remembered.

I think it is best to leave things to the most local level of decision-making and ensure that it is done with transparency and through consensus. The worst outcome is when decisions are made in the shadows, by some self-appointed committee, far away from those affected. What should be remembered? What people themselves choose to remember. Self-appointed totalitarian ideologues should not set the agenda for everyone else.