Tom's Thoughts and Ideas

Last week I found myself wanting to feel patriotic and decompress somewhat, so I watched a classic, Lincoln. Other than being Daniel Day Lewis’s best role, the film makes an interesting point about American History.

The movie revolves around Lincoln and his administration trying to get the 13th amendment passed in order to abolish slavery before the end of the Civil War. This then must clearly be a story extolling American liberalism and success in the face of immense evil and horror. Oh fictitious strawman, how wrong you are. I think that it is one of the most effective films at critiquing the normal view of American history that most Americans, myself included, learned.

What do I mean by that? What Americans learn in school goes something like this:

“British people are mean and make religious zealots flee to the New World, and thus we have the amazingly tolerant places of Boston and New England. Then for a while things are good, then the French start a war over Ohio for some reason. Then Britain is broke and gets mad at America for no reason and wants it to pay outrageous sums of money that the colonists do not have since they are all broke and have no money. Then the tea party, massacre, Paul Revere, Shot heard round the world yada yada yada. Then cut to Valley Forge, crossing the Delaware, 1776 and we are technically free, then some stuff happens with Ethan Allen in the North and Greene in the South, then we have the surrender at Yorktown and America is free!!!!!”

Then after that war we skip to the signing of the perfect and unproblem having Constitution. Then the war of 1812 which we totally did not lose, because that would be silly. Then some stuff happens, wagons go West and find open lands, then the South (or the North depending on where you went to school) got uppity and caused the civil war for either slavery or states rights (see previous aside). Then boom boom boom, Grant and Lee pew pew pew, and then Lincoln is shot and slavery is gone and race relations were chill again.

Then the gilded age, something about robber barons and capitalism being great and not at all cringe, also Upton Sinclair is evil and not at all a really good writer. Then we have World War One, which is Europe being majorly cringe until the USA comes and makes things right. Then that war ends and we have gangsters and scantily clad women for ten years, but then oh shit the entire economy crashed for reasons that have nothing to do with lax regulations of the banking sector. Then FDR and the New Deal enter the White House and save America from the failure of Republican tariffs (most subtle subtext, I know, I am truly a master of the unsaid), and then World War Two which is bad because Pearl Harbor but good because Nazis are bad. Then we spent 40 years fighting the communists because they were clearly scary and more powerful than us. Highlights include, Berlin, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Berlin, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China, Angola, Chile, Cambodia, Panama, Nicaragua, Israel, Afghanistan, and Berlin again. Then we get to the present where things become far too political to teach in schools, we can not show our kids the horrors of 9/11 and George Bush, they will think America has issues!!!

As I am sure you can see, this is not a real understanding of history. This is the equivalent of painting a piece of art with only broad brush strokes and no detail, without any impressionist flair or quality. It is a problem because it creates an image of American history that is so far from true that it actually is hurting us right now in the present. It is one of the most pressing national crises, along with having a government who seem determined to one up themselves on how stupid they can be every morning. People do not think critically about American history, so they are easily swept up into nationalistic fervor over stupid things, like a tan suit, which is clearly a national security threat. (All I know is that if anyone ever catches any Fox News anchor not clad in a suit they should lose their job, they seem rather concerned about the whole affair)

But yeah, thank you for reading my TED Talk about American history. Back to the interesting stuff with Lincoln. Watching the movie made me consider something about how Americans view themselves. There is an element of even my mind that feels like this. When the amendment is passed (spoilers, sorry) part of me feels that it is a great triumph of the American system and that we did a good thing. We did do a good thing, that is true. But the movie spends two and a half hours showing the corruption, horse trading, pain, and luck that went into passing the amendment. It is not a victory for Americans, it is us somehow managing to overcome our selfishness for one moment to do something good and decent.

America then spent the next hundred and sixty years enforcing segregation, redlining, and gerrymandering in every place possible to make the 13th, 14th, and 19th amendments, and Brown vs Board, as close to meaningless as legally possible. All the work done by the nation’s forefathers to overcome the hate and fear at the center of our nation’s history wiped out by people who think they are doing the right thing. It makes one angry to the same degree as sad. There is so much potential for America, yet it is often squandered to appease the ghosts of dead men and a history so red with blood that from sea to shining sea all you can see is red.

I often find myself in awe at how people can truly love this nation. All the horrible things it has done to everyone it can really make it unlovable. Yet, when I hear The Battle Cry of Freedom, I feel my heart glow bright and my chest feel full. I do believe that even with all the horrors in the nation’s past, there is still a chance for America to become the nation upon the hill spreading goodness into the world that the earliest colonists thought that it could be.

I do believe that most Americans are good and honest people. It has always been that way, our glorious leaders just always seem to find a way to wiggle out of doing the right thing unless absolutely forced. The ideas we must contend with today are not new, they are just repackaged old hates and fears covered with a new gloss. Breaking through that wall is what needs to be done in order to make this country truly live up to its charter. I doubt my parents would be all that keen if I took 248 years to find myself, but better late than never.

We will need to drag the country to its ideals kicking and screaming I suspect.