Nationalism is refusing to own your nation’s mistakes? (Sept 17-23)

This week’s snapshots:

Happy Saturday, nerds!

I have slept in my bed for 7 nights! I haven’t done that since May! While I will be sleeping in hotel and bnb beds for the next 20-some-odd days hence, this week has been a much-needed taste of home. I got to go climbing, start and finish an art project, and make brownies (because we have eggs that need using xD). I am happy to get to call this square state my home - the cooling weather has been delicious and allowed me many happy nights snuggled under three layers of blanket.

We are nearing the end of our adventure into politics! But I broke this question into multiple parts because it was actually too many questions. So without ado~

2a. Why is there a trend today of tearing down our nation's past?

I struggled with this question because of the underlying assumptions. The phrasing makes it sound like our nation’s past is actually full of glory, and that modern historical interpretations are diminishing or tarnishing said glory. But the assumption that historians and history teachers are actively trying to diminish or tarnish the United States through their telling of history is problematic to me, because it takes a healthy patriotism (enjoying+appreciating your country’s exploits) and turns it nationalistic (ignoring/demonizing those exploited). And nationalism is (according to my European education) the gateway drug for totalitarianism in every case (:

As someone who learned American history from Europeans… the “problem” seems simple to me. The generation that feels like today’s history is “tearing down” our nation’s past were taught a history of propaganda: written during and after WWII with the narrative purpose to bring an impetus for stopping Japan and Germany, and to keep us united enough to retain global power out of Russian/Chinese hands. Of course such history books would paint every part of American history as glorious, noble, and righteous! They had to convince We The People that we are a shining beacon against the darkness of the world, and that our actions were absolute and necessary to continue bringing other nations out of the shadow! This is a valid but incomplete narrative. And the gaps of this older narrative are painful in light of the narrative kids are being taught today, which is an attempt to vulnerably and honestly find reconciliation for the fact that We the People have been as genocidal as Leopold II, as heartless as Mao Zedong, as stubbornly unrelenting as Putin - because “today’s trend” is that Americans want to honor human life in a way that, historically, Americans have not.

If we look at “today's trend” with as rosy a tint as the glorious assumption of our nation's past, you'll see that the trend is attempting to be about counting the true cost of the wars we have fought - the Revolutionary War, the US-Mexican War, the Civil War, the World Wars, the Cold Wars. It’s attempting to give voices to the voiceless. It’s attempting to engage people to think critically about the stories they tell themselves. It’s an attempt at glory. 🤷‍♀️

And odds are good that if you don’t like the way history is being rewritten, you probably disagree with the way that the current generation wants to “establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility.” Doesn’t it make perfect sense that in a reinterpretation of history where war is an unacceptable violence (as it dishonors human life), you might be tempted to go overboard and silence the primary weapons used to wage American wars: capitalism, congress, and Christianity?

Acknowledging that racism/slavery didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation is not tarnishing US history. Admitting to the inhuman ways we eliminated First Peoples is not tarnishing US history. Confessing that the Founding Fathers (let alone leadership during the Civil Rights Movement) weaponized their religion is not tarnishing US history - it's allowing the facts to be reassessed through the next generation’s desire for love, peace, justice, and mercy.

I submit to you that one of the biggest markers of nationalism over patriotism is the ignoring, erasing, and downplaying of your nation’s historic crimes.

Now as to the trend of “erasing Christianity from US history”... it’s not? American Christianity is being treated historically - that is to say, it is taught as a belief system that informed the decisions made by past people. Maybe there's some hidden, violent agenda associated with a narrative that refuses to glorify religiosity, but I also submit to you this: Christianity is, as often as not, the hidden, violent agenda in this country. I prefer to think modern curricula are doing modern Christians a kindness by dissociating our religion from the violence waged by our religious forefathers against human bodies in an attempt to dull the edge of the swords the American Church can’t seem to stop swinging. I realize that Christ’s apocalyptic tongue is a sword that strikes down the nations, that his Word is described as a double-edged sword that divides spirit from body and reveals man’s innermost thoughts... And I hear Jesus’ warning to Peter that “those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

All that treads hopefully on the situation. U.S. history is being rewritten (this is how all history is written, after all; it is rewritten according to our new understanding/cultural moments/to justify whoever won the war), and it is being rewritten by “We the Young People” according to a desire for domestic tranquility, establishing justice, and mercy that “We the Not-Young People” may or may not see as such… but inasmuch as I have eyes to see, is all I can call it.

At the end of today, our entire political moment/trend is about weaponizing belief. Regardless of how you write U.S. history - patronizingly, patriotically, or nationalistically - the trend is occurring because we can’t agree about what it means to love our neighbor, how to take care of widows/orphans/aliens, and how to police people into lovingkindness. There are undoubtedly pitfalls in today’s telling of history, and the new narrative is (like all history) a kind of propaganda that I am both graciously ignoring and/or haven’t seen in real life. But however you would prefer to write our nation’s story, it benefits us to address a more important question: how does my understanding of history create access to the Kingdom in my home? My neighborhood? My city? My state? And, of course, my nation?

And if there are other ways to interpret the historical narrative, how could that interpretation (even offensive interpretations) be used to create access to the King I claim allegiance to? After all, my passport may be American, with all the privilege and responsibility assigned to that, but my citizenship is in Heaven, with all the privilege and responsibility that Christ purchased for that.

I don’t know if I don’t see people “tearing down” our nation’s past because I’m blind, because it’s not happening, or because of some other kind of misunderstanding on my part - what does “tearing down our nation’s past” mean to you? Where is it happening? If you had to write an interpretation of our nation’s history that “most honors human life,” how would you do it? And how do you define the line between nationalism and patriotism?

Please tell me your thoughts,

-Beth