After my previous post about the Civil War, my dad sent me this article from the Washington Post by E.J. Dionne Jr. He argues that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War, which I still don’t agree with, but that’s not really the point. The article rings with “those who don’t understand the past are doomed to repeat it” sentiment. In my opinion, most people who love that phrase don’t really understand history.
The likelihood that any Western society will once again enslave African Americans in the near or distant future is pretty much nonexistent. That’s not what “doomed to repeat it” means. And that’s why it’s so important to understand more about history than just what we think of it today. When Texas decided they were going to change the textbooks, one of the things they wanted was for kids to study Jefferson Davis’ inaugural speech in addition to Lincoln’s. Everybody had a cow about that. “Oh, my goodness, we can’t have our children learning about him. He was evil. We must pound it into their heads that he was The Bad Guy. That’s all they need to know.” Okay, if we want to teach our children that Jefferson Davis was The Bad Guy, fine. But my whole point is that it’s also important (I think more important) for them to understand why so many people believed he was The Good Guy.
Let’s take another example. Hitler is almost universally acknowledged to be evil, and if I had kids I would certainly want them to grow up understanding that Hitler was evil. But I would also want them to understand how and why Hitler was able to rise to power and do all the evil things he did while most of the German population looked the other way. It’s not very likely that another evil dictator will send millions of Jews to die in concentration camps. But a country being won over by a charismatic politician who promises to get them out of an economic depression? That could happen. That’s what “doomed to repeat it” means.
I also don’t think it’s fair to vilify all Confederate slave owners for being racist. Most people in the 1860’s were racist by today’s standards, no matter where they lived or what they thought about slavery. I think we need to encourage students of history to try to see things the way the people at the time would have seen them. Slavery was a huge part of the southern economy. If your whole livelihood was based on something like that, you’d be pretty inclined to keep it going, even if you maybe knew in your heart of hearts that it was morally wrong.
Some people think high school history focuses too much on facts and dates. I think it focuses too much on good and bad, particularly when it comes to American history. The British get the same kind of unfair vilification when the Revolutionary War is being studied. Maybe if we could get our heads out of our American history bubble and simultaneously study what was going on in Europe at the time, our students would grow up with a better understanding of why things happened the way they did, instead of just learning that taxes are bad. Just something to think about the next time the Tea Party starts whining for lower taxes.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Why Christmas Won
First, I promise that this is not going to be another post in which I rant about The Message Board. I just need to mention it briefly.
Recently there have been several threads centered around the question of Why Some People Get So Upset When You Say “Happy Holidays” Instead Of “Merry Christmas.” There were the standard arguments in favor of “Happy Holidays.” Then somebody pointed out that saying “Happy Holidays” in an attempt to be inclusive of other religions’ holidays is actually sort of stupid since Hanukkah, for example, is actually a minor Jewish holiday and it’s sort of un-PC to assume it’s a big deal simply because it falls around the same time of year as the big Christian holiday. Somebody else responded, saying that Christmas should actually be a minor Christian holiday compared to Easter, which is true. And that got me thinking: how and why did Christmas become the holiday that we go all out to celebrate?
The history of Christmas is a fascinating thing. As most of us know, Christmas was assigned a day at the end of December because Those In Power were trying to convert pagans (and others) who had major holidays or feasts around that time, and it was a lot easier to convert people if they could keep on doing what they’d always done, just with a different meaning attached. I believe, although I’m not certain, that Easter was assigned a day in the spring for similar reasons. So maybe the winter celebrations that Christmas replaced were a bigger deal than the spring ones and so Christmas became a bigger deal than Easter in the minds of the new converts. It also seems possible (and this is purely a guess) that it had something to do with the agrarian calendar. In the winter, the harvest was done and you had a lot more free time to hang out inside making merry, whereas in the spring you had to be out plowing or planting or whatever and you only had time for a quick holiday.
But I’m not sure Christmas really was that much of a bigger deal than Easter until the Renaissance at the very earliest, and it didn’t really take off until after the American Revolution. Christmas as we know it today was invented by Americans, the descendants of Puritans, who didn’t think that getting plastered and wreaking havoc was an acceptable way to spend your holiday. So they made it all about kids, family, presents, and Santa Claus. Then there is the fact that suddenly Christmas was sandwiched right in between Thanksgiving (an American holiday that hadn’t existed in Medieval Europe) and New Year’s (which, until at least the sixteenth century, had been observed in the spring, not in January). Easter, on the other hand, has no other important holidays in close proximity.
I think the real reason Christmas won, though, is simply that Christmas became secular and Easter didn’t. This was probably sort of always the case. I believe Easter was the one day when Medieval Catholics had to take communion or go to confession (or maybe both). Easter was a church service and Christmas was a party. You see, nothing really ever changes.
And then, of course, there is the commercialization of Christmas, but I think that by the time Christmas became heavily commercialized it had already won. Commercialization was the prize, not the cause. Easter is commercialized (and to some extent, secularized) as well, but not nearly to the same extent. You don’t usually hear people fretting about how they’re going to pay off their Easter bills.
So maybe Easter should be the bigger holiday, and maybe it is to some Christians, but in the wider world, Christmas has won. It won a long time ago and it is going to retain the title of Biggest Holiday on the Planet for the foreseeable future. I believe Christmas may become less commercialized as the perfect middle class lifestyle becomes more unattainable, and more secular as Christianity declines in popularity, but Christmas is here to stay, and so, unfortunately, is the debate about what we should say to wish others well.
Recently there have been several threads centered around the question of Why Some People Get So Upset When You Say “Happy Holidays” Instead Of “Merry Christmas.” There were the standard arguments in favor of “Happy Holidays.” Then somebody pointed out that saying “Happy Holidays” in an attempt to be inclusive of other religions’ holidays is actually sort of stupid since Hanukkah, for example, is actually a minor Jewish holiday and it’s sort of un-PC to assume it’s a big deal simply because it falls around the same time of year as the big Christian holiday. Somebody else responded, saying that Christmas should actually be a minor Christian holiday compared to Easter, which is true. And that got me thinking: how and why did Christmas become the holiday that we go all out to celebrate?
The history of Christmas is a fascinating thing. As most of us know, Christmas was assigned a day at the end of December because Those In Power were trying to convert pagans (and others) who had major holidays or feasts around that time, and it was a lot easier to convert people if they could keep on doing what they’d always done, just with a different meaning attached. I believe, although I’m not certain, that Easter was assigned a day in the spring for similar reasons. So maybe the winter celebrations that Christmas replaced were a bigger deal than the spring ones and so Christmas became a bigger deal than Easter in the minds of the new converts. It also seems possible (and this is purely a guess) that it had something to do with the agrarian calendar. In the winter, the harvest was done and you had a lot more free time to hang out inside making merry, whereas in the spring you had to be out plowing or planting or whatever and you only had time for a quick holiday.
But I’m not sure Christmas really was that much of a bigger deal than Easter until the Renaissance at the very earliest, and it didn’t really take off until after the American Revolution. Christmas as we know it today was invented by Americans, the descendants of Puritans, who didn’t think that getting plastered and wreaking havoc was an acceptable way to spend your holiday. So they made it all about kids, family, presents, and Santa Claus. Then there is the fact that suddenly Christmas was sandwiched right in between Thanksgiving (an American holiday that hadn’t existed in Medieval Europe) and New Year’s (which, until at least the sixteenth century, had been observed in the spring, not in January). Easter, on the other hand, has no other important holidays in close proximity.
I think the real reason Christmas won, though, is simply that Christmas became secular and Easter didn’t. This was probably sort of always the case. I believe Easter was the one day when Medieval Catholics had to take communion or go to confession (or maybe both). Easter was a church service and Christmas was a party. You see, nothing really ever changes.
And then, of course, there is the commercialization of Christmas, but I think that by the time Christmas became heavily commercialized it had already won. Commercialization was the prize, not the cause. Easter is commercialized (and to some extent, secularized) as well, but not nearly to the same extent. You don’t usually hear people fretting about how they’re going to pay off their Easter bills.
So maybe Easter should be the bigger holiday, and maybe it is to some Christians, but in the wider world, Christmas has won. It won a long time ago and it is going to retain the title of Biggest Holiday on the Planet for the foreseeable future. I believe Christmas may become less commercialized as the perfect middle class lifestyle becomes more unattainable, and more secular as Christianity declines in popularity, but Christmas is here to stay, and so, unfortunately, is the debate about what we should say to wish others well.
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