Perspectives: Resisting the temptation to rewrite history to our liking

September 16, 2018 Utah Channel 3

OPINION — What is it that makes some people so intent on either erasing or rewriting history to fit their current ideological fads?

It’s bad enough to have sort through the politicized accounts of court historians whose purpose is to rewrite history in a way that compliments whomever is currently in power. Recognizing the fact that the winners most often end up writing the history books is not so difficult to accept.

What’s unacceptable is the idea that we must surrender our commitment to reality itself regarding what actually did or didn’t happen. That’s where the whitewashing of history crosses the line into unreasonable demands that we surrender our values or beliefs.

For instance, activists in Virginia have been agitating for Washington and Lee University to divest itself of any historical connection to the Confederacy. At the top of a list of 31 demands, disguised as “recommendations,” they wanted school officials to convert Lee’s Chapel into a museum.

The official demotion of the final resting place of Robert E. Lee, the most iconic Confederate symbol of all, might have been seen as striking a decisive blow for the cause of diversity.

Thankfully, university officials declined the opportunity to pander to the so-called Coalition for Campus Change and chose to keep Lee’s Chapel as it is. In the past, the school had made concessions to critics who argued that symbols of the Confederacy are synonymous with slavery and racism.

These same critics conveniently forget that more generations of slaves lived and suffered under our beloved Stars and Stripes than ever did under the Confederate flag. Clearly, the court historians have done their work well.

Few of those protesting are aware of historical facts that would show how misguided their agenda has become. Their understanding of who Robert E. Lee was and what he actually stood for is as incomplete as it is unreasonable.

Writer Steve Byas fills in some of the more noticeable gaps:

Lee opposed secession, but eventually, he reluctantly resigned his position in the U.S. Army rather than participate in an invasion of his home state. Once Virginia seceded, Lee offered his services to the new Confederate government. He certainly did not join Virginia to save slavery, as he freed his own slaves, which he had inherited from his father-in-law.

Anyone who has actually ever read any of Lee’s personal writings and correspondence can immediately grasp that he was among the most honorable men of his time. Of course, that requires a willingness to step away from textbooks and to instead examine original sources.

Not many are willing to put forth the effort required to engage in intellectually honest study. It’s much easier to demand that others change their viewpoint to fit whatever the activists are demanding.

A similar battle for the identity of another school has been going on in Utah’s Dixie for many years as well. In this case, however, school officials have proven to be much more desirous to win the approval of their self-centered critics.

When I first visited the campus of Dixie College in early March 1985, I understood immediately why it was loved by Southern Utah locals as well as visitors.

After all, how many places in the Intermountain West can a person comfortably throw on a pair of shorts and flip flops and play frisbee in the warm sunshine before spring officially arrives? The Dixie Rebel brand had not yet become a political frisbee for those who feel the need to rewrite history to suit their own preferences.

Since then, the school has undergone a very public and puzzling bout of schizophrenia as it struggles to become whatever those-who-know-best are demanding. One by one, the school’s Confederate symbols have been banished, only for more demands to be made of it in the name of tolerance.

But these demands to banish American history have not transformed the school into a model of tolerance. Instead, they have made it a playground for anyone with a pathological need to control others.

Skyler J. Collins offers a simple but effective test of what constitutes authentic tolerance:

If you will abide, then congratulations, you are being tolerant. If you will not abide, if you are unwilling to either permit them in your presence or permit them their life or liberty, then you are being intolerant. Whichever characteristic it happens to be, only when it truly bothers you, yet you abide their expression of it, can you be said to be a tolerant person relative to those people.

History is not always comprised of things with which we agree. It’s no one’s job to sanitize it to protect our fragile psyches.

Instead of pretending that certain things never existed, we should be learning from what worked as well as what didn’t. For this to happen, we need an honest, factual accounting.

Bryan Hyde is an opinion columnist specializing in current events and liberty viewed through what he calls the lens of common sense. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: bryanh@stgnews.com

Twitter: @youcancallmebry