The Fight Over America’s Past Endangers America’s Future
Some years ago, I routinely took government executives to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. I preceded each visit with a talk about Jefferson’s life and contributions. On one occasion, I focused on Jefferson as a slaveholder. Yes, I acknowledged, he wrote the soaring words that “all men are created equal,” but he also held 600 human beings in bondage over the course of his life. After my talk, one angry executive told me I ruined the visit for him by trashing his idol. He is certainly not alone. As the “1619 Project” of the New York Times sought to chronicle slavery and its impact on America, the “1776 Commission” created by President Donald Trump sought to promote “patriotic education” and end efforts that "vilified [the United States'] Founders and [its] founding."
Given America’s diversity, it’s not surprising that contrasting views of our history exist. Social groups form around these views, which are shared pools of memories, knowledge and information that forge the group’s distinct and desired identity. These differing collective memories fuel public discourse, provide launching pads for social action and encourage those seeking power to serve as champions of a particular group’s beliefs. American elections are often anchored in differing collective memories.
Collective memories satisfy psychological needs. They reduce anxiety and ambiguity in an uncertain world by offering narratives of who we are, where we’ve come from and where we need to go. They enfold us in groups that provide feelings of belonging and self-esteem (even at the cost of differentiating “us” from “them”). Collective memories help us feel our group has made a special difference in the world. Researchers label this collective overclaiming. In one study, for example, when participants were asked what percent of American history their state was responsible for, the collective answers from those in all fifty states added to 907 percent.
When a society shares a collective memory, it is more cohesive. That can be destructive when leaders shape or build on a collective memory. Germans who shared Hitler’s narrative of Aryan superiority and Jewish perfidy led to the Holocaust. Yet a collective memory can be helpful. When Germans accepted responsibility after their defeat, their new collective memory fostered a major campaign to remember the victims and educate children to prevent future atrocities.
Whether collective memory helps society is tied to its basis in fact and the willingness of leaders to honor historical accuracy. Historians remind us that a collective memory is not necessarily true. Supposed “facts” can be wrong. We celebrate July 4th as the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, but that did not happen until August 2nd. We remember the Civil War as abolishing slavery, though enslaved labor of tens of thousands of African Americans through peonage was not abolished until the 1940s. Most forget that Native Americans were in North America thousands of years before Columbus “discovered” it. As Mark Twain put it: “What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.”
Disagreements about our history stoke political divisions in America today. Gun rights proponents recall the Second Amendment was ratified to protect an unrestricted “right to bear arms”. Gun control advocates recall that it was only intended to ensure “a well-regulated militia.” Evangelical Republicans insist we began as a Christian nation. Liberal Democrats insist the Constitution enshrined the separation of church and state. Many Americans view Supreme Court decisions as demonstrating the Constitution is a living document, allowing interpretation to take account of changing times, while others view the Court as needing to hold to the “original” meaning of what the founders understood the words of the Constitution to mean. Thus, battle lines are drawn, with collective memory as both the touchstone and weapon for political discourse.
Avoiding the seductive danger of collective memory requires a willingness to face the truth of the past. History requires objective, unbiased evidence. Collective memory does not. History emerges from debate among scholars who contest each other’s conclusions. Collective memory may be tied to history but is often an inaccurate view, resulting from selective forgetting, oversimplification and the social contagion that lifts emotion over reason. History fights the tendency of groups (even groups of historians) to cling to accepted narratives. Collective memory ostracizes those who challenge them. In short, facing the truth requires a willingness to admit to error. Yet, as economist John Kenneth Galbraith once put it: “Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, most everybody gets busy on the proof.”
A nation that cannot come to a shared collective memory of its most searing past fosters division and conflict. It cannot heal. Social progress is held victim to untested recollections. Germany surmounted this barrier in its program of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, “working through the past”. South Africa faced it with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In America, we still wait for national leaders to call forth such efforts and help them succeed.
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