Individualism part two
In reflecting on individualism, I’m constantly coming back to the two quotes from Winton Churchill. “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” and “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” For me, this sums up the mentality of individualism really well. There is a deep focus on individual recognition and accomplishment all while having some disguise at having community benefits.
When we learn from history, we have the opportunity to improve the lives of others not just ourselves. However, if we look at from an individualistic view, you focus on being able to write history to your whim, which enhances a false image of what really happen and obscures how we can learn and improve future situations. If you need evidence, just take a look at how we teach history in America. Check out the interview with James W. Loewen the author of Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Sean Illing
What’s the most consequential lie we teach?
James Loewen
That’s an interesting question. I’d go back to 1892, 400 years after Columbus is said to have discovered America. If you looked around the world at that time, white people dominated most of it. The big lie is our failure to ask how that came to pass. We simply assumed that we dominated because we were better, or smarter, or worked harder.
So much of what has passed as “history” since has been invested with white supremacy, even though the reasons why history unfolded the way it did are extremely complicated and have to do with luck, and geography, and all sorts of factors that aren’t captured in our oversimplified narratives.
We never seriously asked the question, and so white supremacy became the default answer. What could be more consequential than that?
Since Lies My Teacher Told Me was published, we have other publications that look to fill out the question, “why did history unfold the way it did?” You can read Stamped from The Beginning (or any of the other versions of it), Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Caste, How the South Won the Civil War, Black Fatigue, and other books that provide a much richer perspective on history. They all spell out how racism, sexism, and capitalism plays are role in the founding and continuation of this country. Teaching that in our schools, however, has been controversial.
There I said it. There are a number of good articles about Critical Race Theory (CRT). I recommend reading the one by Crystal Fleming. Crystal does a really nice job breaking down what is CRT and the implications on her life as well as the role of white supremacy in education. Here’s a quote from her:
Once established as an ideological and political system, white supremacy reproduces itself through repertoires of silence, denial, misrepresentation, disinformation, deflection, willful ignorance, justification, and — when all else fails — brute violence and force.
Going back to Churchill, it strikes me that I hear the repeats of history in people pushing back against CRT. Many of us just want a fuller history and the lack of playing own the role of oppression on the shaping of our system. So, yes, let’ talk about the role that white supremacist ideology played in even the writing of our history. My son mentioned the notion being taught to him that slaves were treated well and the settlers just wanted more land and asked the natives for it and the natives moved. That is fundamentally wrong. It’s as bad as how some of us are taught that the Civil War was about State’s rights. It’s like people didn’t even bother to read the declarations of secession. Southern states felt oppressed with the notion that there was a movement of anti-slavery. Having lost the Civil War, they won the narrative of state rights and the overreach of the federal government to block their right to oppress other people. CRT would question all of that retelling of history. Critics of CRT say, this is telling of history would be anti-white. Sound familiar?
In many ways I take the push back that CRT is anti-white as an omission that history is being taught in a favorable and comforting way. Teaching this history may bump up against that individualistic desire for recognition of certain people over others. It may also free us from the shackles of white supremacy and give us a chance to create something equitable for all.
