History — well, history done right — is simply a fair analysis of the past, an analysis that usually involves an argument. Whether the argument is stated outright or embedded in the presentation of facts, it is an argument nonetheless. The idea that class is the primary driver of change is a historical argument. It is an argument that President Abraham Lincoln was shaped by the personalities and opinions of his cabinet members. It is an argument that Robert E. Lee was morally upright in principle, opposed to slavery but coerced into fighting for it.
However, in studying history, we have to remember these things are just that: arguments — and therefore, inherently fallible. Sure, there are some unalienable facts in every history lesson: where something happened, or when or who was there at the time. But the why and the how are a little more difficult to put your finger on.
A marxist historian might argue that class was the most important factor. An economic historian might argue that spending habits, consumer behaviors and market trends mattered most. An intellectual historian might argue that ideas and influence were the most important. Everyone has an opinion, and most everyone can find facts and evidence to justify that position. However, it is only when an opinion is supported with powerful sources and air-tight a priori and a posteriori arguments that the academic community accepts something as history. Not as unadulterated truth, but as a probable likelihood. That is, of course, until a more convincing argument comes along.
We also have to remember that history is told by humans, who are incredibly fallible beings, easily influenced by forces, be they intellectual, economic, political or something else entirely.
So here’s the problem with confederate monuments: when we put people on pedestals, both figurative and literal, we do ourselves a monumental disservice. Through the act of celebration, we prescribe objective truth to people and things, without question or objection. When a historian makes an argument, it is analyzed and critiqued, even beat down if it’s unfounded or misguided. That’s not the case when we memorialize someone in marble. We don’t have those necessary debates. Rather, we dangerously build historical figures into demigods rather than what they were — people, capable of wrongdoing. History shouldn’t glorify. It should analyze, critique and contextualize.
So, you know what, tear down the freaking statues! They don’t belong in parks, or state houses or courtyards. They belong in museums, their subjects in books and papers and documentaries. Furthermore, there are even more straightforward arguments for the removal of the statues than this. For one, the confederate statues were largely erected during the Jim Crow era in an attempt to re-segregate the South — or the fact that those who fought for the Confederacy committed treason in taking up arms against the government, something that shouldn’t be celebrated — or that half of them aren’t even good statues, anyways.
When we demand the removal of confederate statues, President Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters (what little still remain) raise a tired point: what about George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? We’ve immortalized them with statues, though they too owned slaves.
Here’s the thing: I’m all for tearing those down, too. And I realize that’s a controversial point to make.
It’s hard to grow up learning about the cherry tree, about the Declaration of Independence, about the greatness of these men, and then to have to accept the fact that they were but men, acting on good and evil intentions. They sat down and built a government based on the ideals of liberty, equality and freedom, though they certainly didn’t walk that walk in their own affairs. They fought tooth and nail for the rights of men, but neglected women’s rights entirely. They founded a country, but took one away from millions of Native Americans there before them. That’s tough to hear, and even tougher to understand, especially when all we are taught of these men is their greatness. These are men who have universities named after them, whose texts and writings we study in elementary school, the men who’ve shaped and inspired us as a sovereign people.
We move forward when we begin to evaluate, and I mean truly evaluate, our history — something we’ve done a terrible job of thus far. For the greater part of American history, we’ve buried the evils of our past under thin veils of patriotism, as if recognizing the evil for what it was will destroy the very fabric that binds us together as Americans. It won’t. In fact, what binds us together isn’t the reverence of great men, it’s the shared belief in higher ideals, ideals that supersede fallible people like George Washington, Thomas, Jefferson and others — ideals that are worth aspiring toward.
