Burns reminds me of the adage that history isn't so much written by the winners as it is taught by the winners. Or at least taught by those who want to keep in the good graces of the winners. Saying in 2025 that we need to focus more on the negative of America's history is like saying McCarthy should have spent more time focused on Communism. At this stage, the negative is all that most, especially the young, ever hear. From our schools and their curriculums, the media and press, Hollywood, and even churches. After all, a growing number of such venues as Evangelical churches are led by younger and younger leaders who have, for most of their lives, heard that there is scant difference between the Swastika and the Stars and Stripes.
As my sons said from their time in public school, and that was in the 2000s: Pretty much everything America was a negative. And what heroism, or 'glorious' chapters as Burns says, was mentioned at all was wrapped in the assumption of malice, bigotry, and ulterior motives. In other words, we might have beaten the Nazis, but it had nothing to do with anything other than our own lust for power, empire, money for arms manufacturers, or other nefarious reasons. And that was going on 20 years ago.
For those who spent years wondering what they would do if a force of tyranny ever rose and sought to destroy our nation, our heritage, our values and our freedoms, now we can see. Someone like Burns either knows what he is doing, or is so oblivious to his own place in our historical context that it’s no longer profitable to care what he says.
There was a controversy in 2006-07 when three young man at Duke University were accused of raping a stripper. They were eventually cleared by the state attorney-general, but their families were out several hundred thousand dollars each in legal fees and they'd endured a campaign of vilification that lasted for months and included national media, local media, the local prosecutor, and Duke faculty. Even after they were cleared, they were subject to vitriolic denunciations by the world's scolds for having been present at a four minute strip show. (Julie Ponzi of the Claremont Institute was one of these).
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Ken Burns referred to their legal ordeal as 'an inconvenience'. Here is Prof. KC Johnson's critique of Burns' public remarks. (https://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2012/12/ken-burns-history-lesson.html)
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The man doesn't know justice from tiddlywinks. (It's also been remarked that its rather pretentious for Burns to lecture the rest of the country on race matters while living in Vermont).
That was early when the Left was making its move to insist only white people can be racist or particularly evil for that matter. That it blew up in their face was merely a hiccup, as the press embarked on a weeks long crusade to find out anything those Duke Players might have done wrong. It was also when watching a Duke professor say that all white American boys are hardwired to want to assault black women, my second oldest quipped that 'apparently we can always tell a racist by the color of his skin.' It had more punch then than now, where now we are told we're racists if we're not prepared to judge and discriminate based on ethnic identity.
DeleteHe could have replaced "American" with "human" and spoken more true.
ReplyDeleteUnless there is some group he has in mind who's history is clean which.... I haven't found any yet.
By now the Left is openly at a post-human era where only the demographic identity matters, and when it matters may vary. The point is to insist there was nothing in history more wretched and villainous than white people in the Christian West and its bastard child America. That is something almost everyone must confess and some, like Deacon Greydanus, have learned to confess it with gusto, using the requisite tactic of simply looking away if any suffering can't be used to serve that template.
DeleteI was born a contrarian with real problems with authority. And this attitude of mine offends authoritarians like Greydanus and his buddy Mark S.
ReplyDeleteSo I will say that in the entire history of humanity the Christian West is the best. Our advances in culture surpass all other cultures. And that has nothing to do with 'whiteness', our color being what I think Aquinas would call an 'accident'.
Show me the contributions to humanity achieved by the Zulus. Or by the Aztecs. Or by the Muslims.
Show me.
David:
DeleteDinesh De Souza raised the same challenges years ago. Fr. Stanley Jaki long argued that it was the unique Christian view of Creation and sacred history: a Creator God with covenants, including a stable rational universe in which free-willed men sharing in His rational nature and with immortal souls participate. When Islam conquered Christian North Africa and the Middle East, the Faith became (temporarily) a "white thing", but that wasn't our doing.
(Tom New Poster)
DeleteThat was me answering Dave. Some day I gotta register.
To repeat the old paraphrase, the Christian Democratic West is the worst civilization in history - except for all the others. Part of what the Left has done to convince young people this isn't the case has been to literally ignore or downplay the horrors of the world today and through history. So you have someone like Deacon Greydanus clinging to some bishop who pulled the old 'Slavery might be a universal fact of history - but it was only truly horrible in America.' Which I know from my time with the Orthodox that such reasoning goes over like a lead balloon. Nonetheless, to convince youngsters we're the worst they must either downplay, excuse or outright ignore the sins of the world.
DeleteBurns is a proponent of Black Armband History: focus almost entirely on the negative in order to bring Leftist change in the present. He lucked out with Shelby Foote in the Civil War documentary. Left to his druthers the forgettable black female herstorian, with an extremely hostile view of the country, would have been the center piece and his Civil War would have been as forgettable as almost all PBS drek.. The amusing thing about Burns is he is entirely a product of his time, and he wants history to reflect his current preoccupations. His only use for the past is to condemn it for not being the Leftist utopia he longs for.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I just watched his Civil War documentary for one of her classes, and I totally agree.
DeleteYes, it's shocking to see how fast and far he has fallen. Not that I always agreed with him in the past. But the thing about Burns is that he isn't alone. I've been shocked at how many of my old Protestant minister colleagues have gone the same way. Back in the 90s they were still all about God Bless America. Now, I've seen over the last several years that not a few have adopted the Left's preferred God damn America. I think this is what happens when we raise a generation that lacks the conviction, courage or character to defend what is right and good, who then surrenders at the first slightest resistance.
DeleteKen Burns should have stuck with baseball.
ReplyDeleteHeh. It's a shame, but sadly Burns isn't alone.
DeleteI honestly don't think Baby Boomers like Burns understand what they are doing because of the background they come from. Having been completely steeped in religion and post-WWII patriotism, it's easy for them to be dismissive of such things because they have experienced what they are dismissing while still having benefitted from the foundation. It's a little like a lovely woman saying beauty doesn't matter, when in fact, it does give you a leg up in life. But those attitudes passed down sans experience of the opposite turn into something nasty and ugly and destructive.
ReplyDeleteAnd with each generation, of course, it gets worse. My sons have said many times about how not small number of their peers believe we've grown up in practically a discount Nazi state. Or as some, like Burns, insist on hinting at, we might have been the big inspiration for the Nazis all along. That's because things tend to get more with each generation, whether more good or bad, but almost never the same.
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