History

"Who controls our past?"
-Calder

Answer: those who tell the version most aligned with the ideals of whoever pays them. Or doesn't kill them, depending on the time and place. Basically: those in power control the past (control the present, control the future, etc.). This shouldn't be news to any of you, even before Calder's presentation. The question then becomes: how do we reclaim our past? I won't describe a comprehensive plan here as I believe Jonah addresses that quite well in his most recent blog, but I do have a place to start.

We must first learn to accept our ugliness.

A few weeks ago I sat patiently through some previews before watching a movie at the theater. One was for a television show on the Kennedy assassination. As the preview ended, I heard a woman behind me say, "How can they do that?", implying deep disrespect of the man's ghost. The thought I had then was the same when Calder told us of the Enola Gay exhibit: "How can you not do that?"

Every psychologist knows the dangers of repression for the individual. Running from one's problems does not solve them, it only gives them time to fester and in the process consume the mind. Cultural repression is far more sinister in that it consumes the past. By refusing to look ourselves in the mirror and face the ugliness of our previous actions as a species, we are only running. That reflection is an uncomfortable one to face. No one is pleased to see their own flaws or consider they may be less than worthwhile. It is that reflection that people are only too relieved to abandon to authorities who twist it into something that looks fairer, but feels much fouler. They turn war into justification, betrayal into initiative, slaughter into sacrifice.

I don't presume we could ever come close to an unbiased reporting on any of the great atrocities of the past. Even calling something an "atrocity" is subjective. But these events, these Berlin Bombings, these Hiroshimas, these Libraries of Alexandria, clearly affected us. I don't ask for an interpretation. I ask for an observance, an awareness. I wish to force people to look away from the aeroplanes and laser surgery and towers reaching to Heaven and say, "We are this too."

If we are to reclaim our past, we must reclaim all of it.