The Ignominy of Our History

Almost immediately after the confirmation of Kavanaugh, the Federalist demonstrated its utter gracelessness by calling for a defamation suit against Christine Blasey Ford and the Washington Post. Not only would the suit be politically ridiculous, but it reflected the absolute worst of faith by the extreme right.

Former Astronaut Scott Kelly was possessed of a bigger spirit. He twitted:

One of the greatest leaders of modern times, Sir Winston Churchill said, “in victory, magnanimity.” I guess those days are over.

Was the reaction applause? Appreciation? Approval? Oh, sweet summer child, you haven’t been paying attention. He quoted Churchill. Churchill!

As it wasn’t Kelly’s purpose to engage in the War Over How Churchill Was Literally Hitler, he backed down. He then apologized for triggering the woke.

Scott Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy Captain, NASA engineer, and veteran of four spaceflights, was brought low on Sunday by those possessed of neither his accomplishments nor talents for the crime of advocating Churchillian generosity of spirit. “Did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill. My apologies,” the astronaut wrote after what must have been a withering assault on social media. “I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I do not support.”

Noah Rothman asks whether we’ve “all gone insane?”

This is only the most recent example of a menacing phenomenon. In the name of historical literacy, an absurd form of pseudo-academic reductionism has become the preferred means by which we “interrogate” Western (and only Western) history. We are told that we must abandon discretion, compartmentalization, and basic good sense if we are to be taken seriously by the self-appointed arbiters of such things. Nuance is for the naïve. Sensibility is found only in simplicity.

The question isn’t whether Churchill was good or evil. There is no historical figure other than Harriet Tubman who passes muster under social justice revisionist history, and she wasn’t on the ballot for Prime Minister in Great Britain in 1940. Everyone else, everything they did, was not merely wrong, but violated some tenet of racism and/or sexism. The world we inhabit today is the product of their atrocities, which is why it’s such a horrible world.

It’s not that Churchill was perfect, or that anyone was perfect in retrospect, but that they were judged by history by their contributions at the time and given the norms and circumstances of their time.

In a sane society, we would weigh these offenses against propriety against his accomplishments, foremost among them being the resolve he exhibited and inculcated in his countrymen in the face of the Nazi onslaught. Churchill resisted the demands of his less resolute colleagues in government to strike a separate peace with Hitler and stood alone against the Blitz until the United States was compelled to enter the war. Had he wavered, Western civilization and contemporary definitions of liberty would be quite different.

It’s not that Churchill’s legacy needs to be justified anew, but that Scott Kelly’s merely proffering a benign and generous quote was sufficient to bring down the ignorant pissants upon him. And, from a less-than-generous perspective, his acquiescence by assuming his fault was not being sufficiently aware of Churchill’s “atrocities.” Had this come from a lesser man, it might be called cowardice. I prefer to think of it as deflection, that he sought to put off the outrage of the children’s brigade.

But this isn’t about Churchill at all. It’s about history. All of history. The woke have parsed the conduct, whether real or imagined, of every historical figure and imputed evil to their every act.

All of this amounts to more attention than history’s revisionists deserve. Few genuinely believe that exponents of Aristotelian philosophy are also endorsing classical presumptions surrounding racial hierarchies and the inferiority of women. Fewer still honestly think that citing the revolutionary ideas contained in the Declaration of Independence or George Washington’s farewell address amounts to a ratification of the practice of black slavery in America. Almost no one with a vested interest in the preservation of Western civilization believes a man partly responsible for its salvation is irredeemable because of his intellectual and character flaws. No one worth taking seriously, at least.

Rothman touches on the worst of the worst, Western civilization, the only purpose of which was to oppress all other civilizations with its inherent racism and sexism, colonization and conquest. That Western civilization bears rather heavily upon who and what we are isn’t a good thing. It isn’t even a matter of our undeniable history. It’s a reflection of the horrors of our history and why every tradition, every hero, every value that America holds dear is merely a remnant of the atrocities of our past.

At least, that’s the new interpretation of history.

It’s not just a matter of society evolving, improving upon the things that aren’t going well enough, correcting what we now understand to be the errors in our history. This isn’t about learning from the past, but destroying the past by reinventing it under the guise of “presentism,” as if the moment’s values should have dictated the actions, the choices, of every figure in history.

Yesterday was Columbus Day. Did you hear anyone mention it? Columbus has not only been knocked off his pedestal, but destroyed as a rapist and colonizer. He discovered nothing, because one can’t discover a place where others already live. Rather, he’s a remnant of white European myopia at the expense of the natives whose world was destroyed as a consequence of his actions. Is this a person worthy of honor or derision and disgust? Tear down his statues. Remove his name from the map.

You can hate Churchill all you like for his treatment of India. You can despise Columbus for his rape of a native woman. But you can’t change history. We are what we are today, for better or worse, because of the people and choices that were made at the time, and the society that agreed with, and appreciated those choices, at the time and under the norms that existed.

The arrogance that pushed someone like Scott Kelly to apologize, to prostrate himself before angry children, has yet to do anything more than besmirch everyone who came before them. If history is written by the victor, they would do well to consider why Cleveland isn’t one large concentration camp today. They can thank the atrocious Churchill for that, for if they were in charge, they wouldn’t have had the fortitude to defend their country, their society, and fight for freedom.

24 thoughts on “The Ignominy of Our History

  1. Scott Jacobs

    Kelly: “in victory, magnanimity.”

    Idiot: “OMG Churchill was evil!”

    Kelly: “You’re right. Forget I said anything. Spike the fuck outta that football.”

    1. SHG Post author

      Grown ups don’t want to fight with the idiot children, particularly on their turf where idiocy reigns.

          1. David

            In Wilbur’s defense, that Neil Young live version is pretty far from the original album version he posted. Me, I love the Built to Spill version best. Sorry to further veer off the actual topic here, but at least I am doing the reply in the right place (I hope).

  2. PseudonymousKid

    Dear Papa,

    We need to take History back to its roots: “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” That’s not Heinlein, oh no, but Thucydides, the Father and Shitlord of all History.

    Who are these kiddies to question dear dead Churchill? He’s neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. He at least had more wit than all of them combined. It should at least take a snarky and sourced infographic to get an astronaut to back down, and if the infographic doesn’t include Gallipoli, it’s a failure.

    Why should we be educating ourselves when we can be reeducated? Or do the woke not know what they claim to?

    Best,
    PK

    1. SHG Post author

      Try rewriting this comment in such a way as to offer a cogent point or I’m going to have to send you to your reddit room. Last chance.

      1. PseudonymousKid

        The woke cannot keep Churchill from history as much as they try. What he said and did matters even if he also acted like an aristocrat from his time would act. It’s infantile and regressive to discredit his whole body of work without much more reason for it. It’s worse to rage against someone quoting something he said without even engaging with the idea.

  3. Lee

    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was a complex man, with many virtues and many faults. He was also one of the first men to (1) recognize the utility of aircraft in modern warfare; (2) recognize the threat of Adolf Hitler to the western democracies, and (3) recognize the threat of the Soviet Union after World War II.

    Was he a racist? By today’s standards, yes; by the standards of his day, no. Was he a warmonger? No, he did his best to avoid war but realized that appeasement was not a viable strategy against Hitler. Was he a sexist? Not by the standards of the day – he advanced the cause of suffrage in the UK.

    So basically, he was a human being who cannot be understood by the average Social Justice Warrior because of his complexity and his willingness to change his views based on facts and events. (One of my favorite Churchill quote is “I’d rather be right than consistent).

    But he may have been the only man that could save the United Kingdom from the Nazi threat in World War II (and who could have drastically shortened World War I, if he had been listened to).

    I would strongly suggest William Manchester’s three volume work “The Last Lion” to any who are interested in this complex man. But that would be asking too much for the SJW crown. Wouldn’t want the facts to get in way of the feelz. 🙁

      1. Lee

        I know. It is much deeper (or wider) than Churchill.

        It is also ironic that the revision of history warned against in Orwell’s 1984 is not being conducted by the government, but by the SJW activists. 🙁

  4. Mark Brooks

    Mr. Greenfield, your mention of Harriet Tubman, who as you wrote, “passes muster under social justice revisionist history”, makes me wonder how she manages to do this. After all she as a Republican and carried a pistol. Apparently she had no issues to use it if need be.

    As for Churchill, maybe one of the the jokes with him is needed here. In an encounter with Labour MP, Bessie Braddock this conversation apparently took place.

    Braddock – “Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more you are disgustingly drunk.”
    Churchill – “Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”

    Cheers
    Mark Brooks

    1. Kurt

      “Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink.”

      “Madame, if you were my wife, I would drink it”

      Kurt

  5. DaveL

    I’m sure you’ve run into a certain brand of Biblical Fundamentalist before, the kind who declare the Bible is the only book anyone will ever need*. They reason that the Bible is divinely inspired, and thus free of the error and sin that necessarily infect any product of us fallible humans.

    There’s a certain whiff of this in today’s Social Justice scolds. I can see why it would be tempting. It’s intellectually easier not to have to sift flawed works and people to find their worthy ideas and deeds, nor screen one’s chosen canon for errors. The main difference is that they have no set canon, only whatever buzzwords are fashionable today.

    * How they do without even a decent cookbook is beyond me. The Bible’s recipes leave much to be desired.

  6. Hunting Guy

    I find it hard to believe a Navy Captain would back down like he did. All the field grade officers I knew would tell them to pound sand with words that would send them home in tears.

  7. Fubar

    Yesterday was Columbus Day. Did you hear anyone mention it? Columbus has not only been knocked off his pedestal, but destroyed as a rapist and colonizer. He discovered nothing, because one can’t discover a place where others already live. Rather, he’s a remnant of white European myopia at the expense of the natives whose world was destroyed as a consequence of his actions. Is this a person worthy of honor or derision and disgust? Tear down his statues. Remove his name from the map.

  8. B. McLeod

    I spent a few days in Savannah, GA this summer, and had a few drinks in a nice little pub there, which is named after Churchill. I’ve never seen a pub named after any of the childish asshats who attack history on the Internet, and I don’t expect I ever shall.

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