The news that some in Arcadia, California wish to tear down a statue of President McKinley, and students at New York State’s Hofstra University are seeking to tear down a statue of no less an American hero than Thomas Jefferson himself, should come as no surprise.
After all, it was less than a year ago that some Chicagoans defaced a bust of the Great Liberator himself, Abraham Lincoln. And, of course, as reported in The Hill last fall, memorials to George Washington were removed from a church he attended in Alexandria, Virginia.
This follows the move to essentially erase recognition of Christopher Columbus, whose voyages initiated the America we now know.
We are told, by advocates of these actions, that these historical figures had flaws. Of course they had. They were men of their times, not ours. By the standards of these nihilists, no figure in world history, of any nation, race or creed, deserves any recognition, because all fail to live up to the self-imagined image of perfection that today’s protestors believe they have attained. Don’t think it will stop with a few explorers or leaders. Some accuse Shakespeare of antisemitism. Critics of Buddha say he didn’t condemn slavery. Some will say Moses allowed his people to escape slavery in Egypt only to conquer others. Jesus failed to confront Roman imperialists, and so on. Great historical philosophers, scientists, writers, all had character traits that, by modern standards, were seriously wrong.
There is danger in all this. Many actual and would-be dictatorial regimes share a common impulse to criticize all that came before and hold themselves up as the only path to fair and rational leadership. Following the Bolshevik usurping of the Russian Revolution, the Communists became intent on establishing the new “Soviet Man.” Cultural norms, religion, vital parts of Russian culture, were all denigrated as roadblocks to the effort to build a new society.
Similarly, the infamous Nazi habit of book burning was an attempt to erase and reconstruct history in an image more conducive to Hitler’s outlook. Michael Roth, in a Washington Post opinion piece . examines Anders Rydell’s study of the Nazi attempt to eliminate portions of European culture. “The Nazis were bent on creating new knowledge and not just on destroying their enemies. This was not an issue of mere facts.”
Just as the current center of gravity in the present American trend to erase the past comes from an educational system that deemphasizes or rewrites history, and the students inspired by that effort, so too in the major tyrannies of the 20th Century.
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(Important note: It is absolutely not my intention to compare those who seek to knock down American statues to historical Communists or Nazis. We seek, rather, to outline how their goals and methods have in the past led to disaster.)
In his description of early Soviet educational moves, Angela Marie Cox, in her study “Policy and Practice: Russian and Soviet Education during Times of Social and Political Change” writes:
“As the first Commissar of Education, Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky led a policy of educational revolution to match the comprehensive restructuring taking place in society as a whole. In a speech to the First All-Russia Congress on Education, Lunacharsky declared, “we had to wipe out everything; it was absolutely clear that the school was due for a revolutionary shake-up.”
The United States Holocaust Museum Encyclopedia . notes that “Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view…Schools played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas to German youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, German educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism.”
Americans should be vigilant against those who seek to denigrate historical figures of great importance. Those who do so may not understand how dangerous their acts are.
Photo: US Holocaust Museum photo of Nazi book burning