Historical Perceptions- The Argument

Historical Perceptions

Simply put, perception is more important than history.

Let me explain, while understanding what actually happened in the past is very important, that is not what people react to. People react with what they think happened. For example, the American Founding Fathers were men who rose to a challenge and did great things. They were not demigods, yet often what they did and wrote is considered lay-scripture. We add that hero-worship image on top of the actual story. I feel that understanding the myth is important, because it says more about the aspirations and beliefs of our society than that of the founders. The history of how we tell this story is more revealing about us than the actual story.

The Lincoln Memorial is a great example. First, what are we trying to say about ourselves when we create a monument in the style of a classical Greek temple and seated in the place of the Greek god is our 16th president?

The Lincoln Memorial also fits into the rest of the D.C. landscape, Roman columns, arches, and marble everywhere. Here there ceases to be a difference between Roman and Greek. A statement is being made about republicanism and how we are the successors to that ancient legacy. We perceive ourselves as heirs to a 2000 year old tradition of republicanism and constitutionalism. (More on constitutionalism later.)

Lincoln’s words have literally been carved in stone on each side of the temple. Every time I visit I make it a point to read the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural. Upon reflection, it means I too have accepted his deification.

Each time I read the Gettysburg Address at the Lincoln Memorial I am struck by two things. First the phrase “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.”

If Lincoln can use “that that” in a sentence, as part of a speech, and that speech be considered one of the greatest ever given and even get it carved in stone, than I can too can use the same word twice and not be grammatically incorrect.

My reasoning: Well, Lincoln did it.

While amusing, this underlies my point. For me, Lincoln is an authority. His words have weight. They are worth reading, while standing under the watchful gaze of a marble 19ft figure of the man. This tells a bigger story than “Lincoln did great things and is worth considering.” I have accepted the appropriateness of his veneration as a foregone conclusion.

 

The second phrase I am struck by, while reading the words carved on the wall in marble is:

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

It is one thing to be amused by this reading the speech online, or in an anthology, but literally carved into a wall. Here we begin to see the disconnect. Lincoln’s words were not important- that is what Lincoln thought. He thought it was more important to honor the battle, and the sacrifice of life that occurred there.

One might argue that it is through his words we honor the battle, and there is truth to this. But the fact remains we are still buying into the myth of Lincoln.

I do not want to underplay the importance of Lincoln at all. I do believe his reputation is deserved, but I also want to understand how it is we as a society thought it appropriate to literally deify him with his own temple?

This story is not often told, but I do know it begins immediately after his assassination, when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton uttered the words, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

Someone decided to put Lincoln on the Penny, and the Five Dollar Bill. Someone decided to put his face on Mt. Rushmore. Someone decided to build a memorial to him in the style of a Greek temple. This was all as a result of how the image of Lincoln made them feel and how that legacy inspired them. We are not talking about the real man who, though an abolitionist, did not want to emancipate the slaves because he still hoped to unify the nation, and only did so after years of deliberation. We remember the “Great Emancipator:” An ever truthful giant of a man who through his words and actions decisively ended the greatest injustice in this nation’s history. The resolute President, who against great odds, and by force of will reunified a divided nation, and finally was martyred because of his beliefs.

This story, understood within the context of the actual history, again tells us much about how we as Americans think about and perceive ourselves.

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Now, a short note on constitutionalism.

History is complicated. Very complicated. Yet we have shortened the general narrative of western history. The following is the version we tend to embrace:

The first ancient people of real note are the Greeks. Unlike other societies of the ancient world (Egypt and Babylon) The Greeks (and let’s be honest when we say Greeks we mean Athenians) created democracy. Every citizen could vote, and this time in history was known as the Golden Age of Greece. Lots of things were thought of, and invented. The Greeks began to lose power, but the Roman sprang up and kept the ball rolling with “Republicanism.” People voted for Senators to represent them and this system worked, and Rome expanded. Because of Julius Caesar, Rome became an Empire, spread through the rest of Europe. Rome then converted to Christianity, and then “Fell.” Nothing major happed for the next thousand years, excepts the Magna Carta, which insured the individual rights of English barons. Then in the 1400′s people started reading the stuff written by the Greeks and the Romans. This led to the “Renaissance.” – A rebirth of these old ideas. This was followed up with the Age of Exploration and The Enlightenment. The Enlightenment led to science and in America the idea of Democracy. We fought our revolution and won. The French then had a revolution. Democracy is the best government, and that is why over time more and more countries became democracies and this is a key reason why we won WWI WWII and the Cold War.

The history we tell ourselves is the history of constitutionalism, how history led to the awesomeness that is the USA.

What is my point?

If you visit the National Archives to look at the “Charters of Freedom” (Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights), on the left side of the main hall, there on display is a 13th century copy of the Magna Carta on permanent loan from England. By placing the Magna Carta in the same room as these other documents, we declare that THIS and the Charters of Freedom are CONNECTED! We can draw a straight line from one to the other.

We actually can’t, but we do.

By understanding how we construct and perceive our history, we can be introspective. We can stop and say, “Hey wait a minute…” We can ask “Why do we believe this? Should we believe this?

 

So the question I ask is how has perception altered how we understand history?

How did people in the past perceive their history?

I am much more interested in how people in the past thought about their own past.

What did people in medieval England, living along Hadrian’s Wall think of the Romans?

What did the pope in the Middle Ages think of the Coliseum?

What did George Washington think of the Magna Carta… What did George III?

How did the Founding Fathers sell the idea that George III was a tyrant, when it was the democratically elected English Parliament that was really passing all the new taxes?

How did places get their names? In the United States, many names tell stories about the people that named it. Virginia- The Virgin Queen Elizabeth, Jamestown/The James River- King James I, Maryland-Queen Henrietta Maria, Wife of Charles I. These stories are half buried but they tell us about what our ancestors thought was important. How they perceived the world.

I know I have a deified view of Lincoln, did Lincoln have a deified view of Washington, of Jefferson?

It all starts with a proper question.

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For example, this is one question I had:

Mt. Rushmore- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt.

What did Roosevelt do that people thought was so important to put him on par with those other three individuals? I did not know. But I knew someone perceived Roosevelt on the same level as the other three.

To find out I read the Edmund Morris Theodore Roosevelt trilogy. I discovered a facet of our history that I never knew. Roosevelt was almost superhuman in his vitality. He had a presence and a will that molded the age around him. He remade the presidency into what it is.

 

Now knowing what I know, I found it awkward that at Nationals games, they do the “Running of the Presidents” (The Mt. Rushmore President’s race each other) and part of the joke is that “Teddy” never wins the race (Or he didn’t until the end of the 2012 Baseball season when the Nationals made the playoffs for the first time.) People have forgotten about T.R., what he did, and his accomplishments. He is simply “the other guy on Mt. Rushmore.” (Though in this case it should be noted that though Teddy had never won the race,he was by far the most popular racer.  That being said I hardly think that had anything to do with history and more being the “lovable loser.”)

Roosevelt was put on Mt Rushmore for a reason. We forget that. We just need to listen to the explanations of our forefathers.