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