20 Aug 2017

The Beehive of History

Current events in the USA, starting with the dreadful  alt-right/alt-left confrontation  in Charlottesville prompted this comment from me to a friend:

"One makes distinctions in history and of historical figures and does not study it as a comic strip of white and black hat characters. If one says the least non-derogatory remark about one of history's "predetermined villains", historical activists swarm onto one like a hive of angry bees, piling on the stings without bothering to ponder why they are agitated.

 Lee was so highly considered an officer that Lincoln offered him command. He did not "declare war on America" - he resigned from the US Army after Virginia left the Union , which left him the choice of fighting Virginians or the non-Virginians who soon invaded it - and he saw himself first as a Virginian and secondly as a US citizen, like a majority of people did in those days when the Federal government was miniscule and  younger than Virginia's. It is plain from his writings he saw the coming war as a tragedy, not as a yahoo event to impose more slavery, lunike Gen Bedford Forrest and others. 

He is not guilty of "war crimes", did not order the massacre of black soldiers  and worked after the war to urge reconciliation. He celebrated the end of slavery and made it plain he had never fought for that, but for his State. There are numerous parallels in history of people like Lee, who fought for ignoble causes because of misplaced duty or tragedy in their situation. Rommel is perhaps a parallel and militarily there are many others. They are complex beings with many motives.

It is possible to study, read about, debate about and even view statues of Lee (gasp!) and similar complex figures without automatically becoming a racist, slave supporter and despicable human being. That is  modern politics devising  a judgement on the unchangeable past. Just as it is possible to view a statue of Cromwell or debate his complexities without becoming a regicide.

University students taking a hammer to Lee's statue is nothing more than ahistorical barbarism and a sign of parallel  extremist minds as the very people who stupidly and malignantly take a Lee statue as a rallying point for neo-supremacy. The past is dead, and is not coming back - but if we cannot study it, if it is erased entirely or only a single,totalitarian view of it or anyone in it permitted, then we really will re-live it."