It will come as no surprise to anyone that has taken the time to get to know me or read any of this blog that I am a huge fan of The West Wing, As I re-watch series on Netflix I remember why I liked it so much. My world view has changed since this show was on TV. I can now see how my conservative friends could still watch this, and how it also simultaneously drove them up the wall. Of course, now I'm running up the other wall.. It amazes me to see how conservative the show has become to the world view I now subscribe to. And how conservative it wasn’t back then, and for a litany of reasons, (one glaring one) how we chose not to see it.
Who cannot love waxing nostalgic on the technology gap the show provides today. In season one a story breaks that is not something the White House likes, the mention of it “being on the web now, so it'll be on the news tomorrow” just made me laugh and yearn for the lovely time that was the late 90s. The early Internet, when we didn’t quite know what all it could do.
It truly brought progressive issues for the time. There were episodes covering Gay rights, women's rights, education, taxes, the list goes on… intelligent arguments, some before their time. Just go watch it, it's a good show, with good actors. It's corny and remarkably preachy at times but still good. I find myself now both punching holes in the “progressive at the time” stances, and asking the rhetorical question “how did we not see this then?” Of course, the glaring answer I spoke of earlier is, we didn't want to see it. A number of people did and have seen it and spoke about it. They were the “radical fringe” of the time. Our country and culture was focused on other things. I also know and have to take into account this was a show that started before, survived, and ended on the other side of 9/11.
While I could pontificate for hours on this show, its merits, it's wit, its charm… But what it really got me thinking about is history. How much perspective and time have on situations and poeple. History gets all sorts of bad wraps but, one that is doesn't ever deserve is its attempts at bettering itself. It's not easy to admit mistakes. It's even more difficult to expose dishonesty and atrocities. But if we don’t, what are we here for.
I had a discussion with my youngest son the other day about what he was doing in school and what subjects he liked. He enjoys history and loves learning and hearing about new things. I love it because I get to talk about stuff I enjoy. The other day he asked the question about the “the other side of the story”. One of my favorite quotations that always finds itself on my syllabi is the African Proverb “Until Lions have their historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. We talked about that for a while and it reminded me, while things don't change, they always do. We have a responsibility to the truth and honoring all of history and its actions, or at least, as much as possible.
We have to be careful about this, and we aren’t going to make everyone happy. Some love to take any tinkering as sacrosanct to the history they were taught. And while “what you learned was wrong” is a harsh statement, it's hard to validate “Andrew Jackson Frontier patriot and hero” or “Christopher Columbus exploration hero” as legit history now. To look back at the “things” that were and are legal, is a tough pill to swallow. Discomfort is not enough of a disqualification to reduce the severity of actions. Embarrassment is not cause enough to keep events true magnitude muted, especially when that willful blindness continues to cause problems.
Part of what we have to understand is history is us, and us is mistake-prone. It's you and me, and everyone else, doing things. Some of those things are awesome, some are awful, and really, most if it is boring… But when we realize it's us, we should also realize that should come with an understanding. That understanding is it's not always going to be perfect and we must own our mistakes if we are to expect credibility on the issues we did and do get correct.
Another element of our dilemma is time. Or our lack of respect for it. We move fast, and that is a statement to our progress. But the rapid production of information does not always provide the appropriate amount of time for context and understanding to be reached. This dilemma is tough because some things cannot be rushed, and when we do, it doesn't end well.
This process doesn’t come with a lot of instructions or comfort. But it is the right thing to do. When should we do it? When it's called for. I get that’s not a really good answer, but I don't have one. I'm just one teacher, that's what we all have to do. That's what we all have to work towards. I’ve mentioned this often, since it's a big part of what I am instructed to teach. We have to find that balance again. Somewhere between abiders of wisdom, and agitators of the cultural norm. Surely we can find it, we are pretty smart…
