How Do We Remember the Past

this

is a statue of robert e lee and his

horse traveler

in charlottesville virginia as we

probably know

lee was the top military leader of the

confederacy during the civil war and at

first glance it might seem

fairly innocuous the world is full of

statues of dead people

but there is a growing movement to

remove confederate statues throughout

america

arguing that they represent racism and

celebrate the enslavement of african

americans

in fact this particular statue was

slated to be taken down

in february of 2017 the charlottesville

city council

voted to remove it and in june of that

same year

the mayor and city council unanimously

decided to change the park’s name

from lee park to emancipation park which

is a huge change

but in august of 2017 a unite the right

rally organized by neo-nazis and white

supremacists

took place in charlottesville its stated

goal

was unifying the american white

supremacist movement and opposing the

removal of this statue

on the night of august 11th a tiki torch

lit

procession marched through the nearby

university of virginia campus

then the day after this march the rally

encountered

counter-protesters violence ensued

culminating in a self-identified white

supremacist

ramming his car deliberately into a

crowd of pedestrians

at 28 miles per hour one person heather

hayer was killed

19 others were injured he was convicted

of violent crimes

but how did we get here how is it

possible for a statue to be the catalyst

for so much

violence and anger how could a civil

statue represent so powerfully such

different things to

different people whenever we get into

debates about the removal of confederate

statues one argument that always seems

to come up is that

by removing them we are destroying

history

and i want to talk about this today

because i think the questions i’ve

raised are related to the larger

question of how we remember the past and

what exactly

history is i am joe mcmenamin i teach

history here at saddle river day school

and i want to talk a little bit about

monuments memorials and museums

in many ways these are the most public

ways in which we encounter history

and they tell us a story but before we

get into that we need to take a step

back

and consider the question what is

history

we often think of history as simply

everything that’s happened before the

present

world war ii the big bang ancient china

and neanderthals are all part of what we

might term history

but i want to challenge that idea

history isn’t simply what’s come before

now it’s a story we tell ourselves about

those events

when we study history we’re not really

studying

some objective past or a list of factual

events what we’re studying

is the stories we tell ourselves about

the past that we often claim to be

objective

and true we can even see this

distinction

in the etymology of the word our word

history comes from the ancient greek

historia which

literally means both finding out as in

truth and

narrative as in fiction uh it’s true

even in some languages today in spanish

historia means both story and history

same as true in german though it’s a

different word so

history isn’t simply the past it’s how

we remember

the past we even have a word in english

prehistory for events in the past that

are not

given to us orally or in writing so

world war ii and ancient china

that’s history that’s passed down to us

as a story

the big bang and neanderthals that’s not

those are known to us through science

when we talk about the quote-unquote

history of the big bang

we’re really talking about the history

of that theory

the history of the big bang’s discovery

which is more to do with belgium in the

1920s

than with the event itself 14 billion

years ago

and language is important here because

we may be thinking that of course

history is an objective event

no one disputes that the 13 colonies

fought a war against great britain

which resulted in their independence but

part of what gets mixed into these facts

is a

value judgment about those facts by the

language we use

the american revolution for example is

known as the war for american

independence in great britain today

not the american revolution so was it

not

revolutionary then this is a minor

point but it does make a difference the

way we tell a story

changes what it means just as the way we

depict historical figures matter

and the details we emphasize matter

let’s look at a recent example

this is a screenshot from wikipedia

which is a great indicator of how

culture views an historical event and

the page for the recent events in

minneapolis is titled

twin city riots note that in the first

line

the article clearly says they are also

called the floyd protests

is it a riot or a protest these words

mean drastically different things

history is obviously written by the

winners so who will win

in the end which of these terms will

become its title

now it’s time to take a look at what all

this means for museums monuments and

memorials

architect walter gropius once said that

architecture is the most

public of arts in this thinking people

are exposed to more

art through architecture than any other

means we may talk a lot about paintings

and sculpture and theater

but the vast majority of people aren’t

really exposed to those arts that often

more we have to pay to go see them but

we can see beautiful buildings

constantly as we simply go about our day

i think the same argument can be made

about public monuments

and memorials with history majority of

us don’t read historical books

but many of us have passed by a statue

in a park

or a historical marker or been to a

memorial

in many ways this is how the public is

exposed to history

but what are they teaching us what

stories are they telling

and do we read them critically let’s

look at museums

sociologist tony bennett has argued that

museums were created literally to build

modern citizens in 1848 almost every

city of europe saw a popular revolution

spring up in an attempt to topple the

government

they wanted to fight repression

censorship and autocracy

if we flash forward to the 19th century

in some circles

this became known as the museum age all

across europe governments were inviting

all of its citizens into these

institutions

to look at precious objects from around

the globe why

what would possess a government to allow

these ordinary citizens the rebel

who just recently have been have risen

up in revolt

to come in close proximity to their

treasures

the answer simply was control by going

through a museum you are told a story

about your culture

in america and europe this story was

often about your empire

and this empire was the end of a long

line of great civilizations

ancient egypt gave way to ancient greece

which gave way to rome

which gave way to industrialized western

empires

it was a progress narrative that shows

the poorest citizens

to have pride in their nation not fight

against it it argued that they were

superior to the rest of the world

despite their low status in their home

country

and this engraving shows it perfectly a

well-to-do gentleman

shows a shabby working man art in a

museum

by doing so the shabby man becomes more

refined

it was a way to instill higher class

attitudes in the lower classes which of

course includes decorum and politeness

the very antithesis of revolutionary

traits

and all of this gave the government

greater control so stories of remarkable

power

and the classic institutions that we

tend to think give us an objective view

of history actually

are designed to tell a specific story

they aren’t objectively true but then

neither is history itself let’s shift to

a memorial

this is the vietnam memorial perhaps the

most famous in america today

it consists of two identical walls each

stretches about 250 feet

includes 72 panels of reflective black

granite

and on them are etched the names of over

58 000 american service members killed

or missing

in the vietnam war what’s it telling us

first it’s somber it doesn’t highlight

the victories in the war the sole

criteria for including a name

is only that they’re missing or deceased

war is about

loss in this reading survivors aren’t

listed

the amount of names also culminatively

reveals the event’s tragic scale

it might seem common now to have names

listed but this was revolutionary

at the time it’s also about these

individuals

the names are not listed alphabetically

they’re listed by the date

they were deceased why the designer

maya lin argued this would make people

with a common last name like smith

feel less special if they were

alphabetized so by upsetting our

expectation

it forces a deeper engagement with the

memorial we have to search out the names

the reflective wall forces the visitor

to see themselves reflected back among

the names you become part of the

memorial

all of this is interesting right

most interesting perhaps is the color

it’s not

white marble that we often associate

with war memorials like the washington

monument the lincoln memorial and a

scene here

the world war ii memorial which are all

white

the vietnam memorial is black it reminds

us of mourning

these are funeral colors and it doesn’t

express

triumph as you walk along it you begin

to slowly be overtaken

by its walls you’re taken literally

underground

at the very center of it where the wall

is about 10 feet high and you become

buried as behind the wall is solid earth

there are subtle hints of glory each of

the two

walls points to a specific other

memorial

one the lincoln memorial the other the

washington memorial

so these soldiers are pointing to our

two greatest president

president presidents

this memorial however was heavily

criticized

at the time tom carhart a vietnam

veteran and the main antagonist of the

wall

wanted a grand white marble memorial

which glorified the soldiers

famously he called the wall a black gash

of

shame when he saw the designs the line

was meant as a criticism but in many

ways it’s true

but it’s also a feature not a flaw

the wall is something of a scar

and that tells us about the story the

wall is telling

let’s take a look at the three soldiers

statue this was erected two years

after the wall it represents a

compromise between

people like tom carhart and people like

maya lin

the two the two designers it depicts

three young soldiers of varying races

and services

carrying weapons what’s it telling us

about the war though

the soldiers are alive looking off in

the same direction they’re doing their

duty

not just about those who died or went

missing about everyone

it’s about carrying forward but it’s not

joyous or triumphant either

though again it’s not somber or mournful

in some ways it passes less judgment on

the war

but the collective american imagination

doesn’t remember this memorial

as well as the wall and that’s important

this takes us back to general lee

there’s no one way to view the past our

history isn’t objective and fixed

the generally statue was completed in

1924

the height of kkk membership in the

united states

the statue doesn’t really represent lee

it represents

how lee was remembered in 1924

which is to say the statue is a

testament to the white supremacy

movement of that decade in many ways

of course this is controversial after

the civil war

robert e lee told an interview quote i

am rejoiced that slavery is abolished

conversely before the war abraham

lincoln had said quote

if i could save the union without

freeing any slave i would do it

which is the exact opposite of what we

imagine each of these people to say

so what do we do with this information

the key

it seems to me is to embrace the

uncertainty of history

remembering that history isn’t an

objective account of the past

and neither are our monuments or museums

which celebrate that

we sometimes think that we are though

that they are though and we sometimes

demand that history offer a certainty on

what happened unfortunately that’s not

possible

we have to decide for ourselves how we

remember the past we

get to decide what’s in our history

what’s not in our history

and how we tell the story and as

uncomfortable as it might be

we might want to be more willing to

accept the uncertainty

of the past