Re-Writing History is a Bad Idea

By Larry Chandler, PhD

Colonel (Ret) USAF

The African-American Black Lives Matter and Aitifa groups rioting to take down any and all confederate monuments seems little different from the Taliban frenzied destruction of the historic monuments in Afghanistan. The Black Lives Matter and Antifa groups argue the confederate era monuments celebrate slavery and the Tailban argue there must be no statues or monuments because they represent gods other than Allah? Of course the same logical response to both these arguments is that confederate monuments and relics of antiquity in Afghanistan are historical artifacts, not current policy statements. Once anyone starts trying to re-write history to make it more politically correct, the lessons learned from that history will soon be lost.

In 1948, Gorge Orwell wrote a book titled 1984 and his main character [Winston] was described as working in the “Ministry of Truth” in the history correction department. Orwell was warning us about how a all powerful government could control the information available to its citizens and the slippery slope from socialism to communism and dictatorship. Orwell probably never imagined his fiction would become so close to reality. The quotes below from his book should scare us all but, unfortunately, few will read or think about his cautions. Orwell wrote:

The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any value. One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets—anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered. (Orwell, 1948, pp. 221-222).

The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Every sound Winston [Smith] made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it [the state’s listening devices]; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. (Orwell, 1948, pp. 22-23)

It is important to preserve and to learn from history, both good and bad. It is foolish to try to erase history that might be currently out of favor.

Reference

Orwell, G. (1948). 1984. New York: Signet Classic.