Passionate Pontifications on Historical Accuracy

The evaluation of history is often distorted in ways that have fundamental impacts on our future.  We choose what we want to remember, and we only seek to catch the highlight and the meaning of what it is we are trying to understand. Often time’s historical truths can be altered or lost due to the reports of less accurate but more believable and cunning authors. I will attempt to show how the authorship of educatory volumes can be hurtful to our truth, and its affects on our education system. This will be done by showing how a key object in historical writing has been morphed, perverted, and sometimes even lost; Passion.

Passion is the drive for anything to be done properly. With passion, we can drive ourselves to do something that may not be appealing, but endure the process because we know it can benefit something on a larger scale. This passion is lost in our historical educatory system in many public schools, leading to an incomplete or inaccurate account of many historical citations.

For the longest time we have known humanity to be the creation of man by God, as stated in the book of Genesis. Others insist possibly other ways, less spiritually inclined, however another notion is that we have evolved. In many cases we now have generations of people who are buying into the belief that perhaps we evolved from closely related apes. These primate cousins of ours are similar in some physical aspects, and have earned a place as our ancestors in many scientific history books.

This is an important example to focus on, because history is more than just understanding why our flag is the color and design it is, more than discovering where we as a country started, and far more significant than learning about the famous heroes who created it. We need to know about the famous heroes who created us, too. It is important for one another to have an understanding of who their ancestors were, where their family came from, and the struggles they undertook. It creates a sense of pride than can ultimately gear the future generations an incentive to lead them into prosperity. For example, the early Messmer’s moved to America in the mid 1840’s-1850’s from Alsace-Lorraine Territory between France and Germany. They were of German heritage, and was threatened at gunpoint to join the army of the Kaiser. He refused and fled with my family to Rochester, New York where we remained in the area dwelling upon the farmlands and the lively rolling hill country of upstate New York. I was born there myself, and witnesses that nearly one hundred and fifty years later, when my ancestors left their Vineyards in Europe, we had settled along the Wine Trails of New York where much of what my German family grew up with in Europe.

I find this significant, because my family came from so far and wide of the same heritages and cultures in Slovakia and Germany that when they all settled in an area so similar to what they grew up with in Europe, I too can have a little taste of what life may have been like for them, the feeling of that community. Family history means so much, it helps us define who we are, our principles, our opinions, our character, and our persona as an entirety. It is a truly magnificent thing, our history. It ought to be given a more consideration by today’s society. For me, it has created a passionate love to learn more about why things are the way they are. I have even found myself doing and saying things so similar to family I never even knew, but because I learned of them I picked up on their persona, their attitude, their ethics, and sometimes even a little bit of their character.

Other examples show that people like Generals were brave, courageous, honorable, and wealthy. This is how our cinemas and litterateurs portray them. Unfortunately, this is not so in many cases. As early as American history can be traced back, reading journals and diaries, one can find that many of the heroes of our country made great contributions, but at less serious measures and others gave more to the cause, but were given less merit. One prevalent example in Benjamin Franklin. While he is revered as a scientist, and a great one indeed he may be, he was less of a contributor to the actual alliance between France and the Colonial America that many believe. While womanizing and philandering with local parties and getting drunk, Congress had awaited two years for a Navy to arrive, but to no avail. Upon the arrival of John Adams to France, he discovered the adventures of Franklin, and quickly went to work with a less culturally tolerant manner in getting support. He approached the Prince, against Franklin’s advice, and made a list of demands. Adams told the Prince that he was “Ordered by Congress” to comply or be in breach of their treaty, and will be treated as such. It was a bold move, one that could have cost us the war. They were approved, yet credit was given to the gluttonous Franklin. David McCullough, a revered and deeply educated man in Revolutionary War studies had access to nearly every public and private letter, journal, or document otherwise from John Adams, and wrote an exciting volume that redefines how John Adams is viewed in our history.

Instances like this are things that many would not know, but that’s because often in our society, public historical education does not take a passionate approach to history. Passion for history is the drive that causes sparks in new experiments in recreating historical truths. These experiments are key in making history become as accurate as possible, make them enjoyable, and they also amount to an interesting, very entertaining conclusion.

For one example, the customs of black powder shooting along the East Coast has prompted what we know today as reenacting. Reenacting is the process of recreating history by going through the motions of historical events, battles, and memorable occasions that are considered significant. Revolutionary War reenacting has sprouted up, along with Civil War, French and Indian War, and even Texas Revolution and the Cattle Drives as we move farther west. These prompt many historians and enthusiasts to create a persona, to create their own little ‘character’ in history by learning what people of the day and age would do and conform to such traditions, customs, and lifestyles. One such organization is the American Mountain Men, who require you to do many primitive, single-man events and go through trials that many mountain men, fur trappers, and tinkers would have gone through.

These sorts of passions create a yearning for truth, to recreate the aura and the persona of a time when humanity could arguably have been at its greatest. However, when we simply go through the motions of a question and matching it to one of four names in multiple choice by picking the most prominent achievement and matching it to that person. This does not mean that it creates a ‘wrong’ view on a person in history, but that it is a biased, inaccurate depiction of people who we often, as a society, revere.

Several examples include many loved and controversial historical figures. George Washington, for example, was the General of the Continental Army. Were he ever captured, he would be treated well and be given many privileges are a prisoner of war by England. However, had he signed the Declaration of Independence, he would essentially be signing away his life and would be on a list of men to be hanged upon capture. He openly expressed his fear of such a fate, and refused to sign in defense of his own life. Another example, Robert E. Lee, Confederate Civil War General freed nearly two hundred of his fathers’ slaves whenever he inherited his estate. His progenitor for fighting for the Confederacy was to serve his State, and to be of service to Virginia. He was not, as many believed him to be, a slave owner or racist.

These examples do not wish to tarnish the names of our brave founders and men who laid the groundwork for excellent reforms in history, nor do they serve the purpose to create a less aggressive version of a truly aggressive character. It merely serves the purpose of bringing upon our shoulders a call to a more responsible study of the things we teach, learn, and digest

History is in most cases written by the victor any scenario. Often times the truth is altered to make the victor seem better, more glorious, or righteous. Victory is something that comes with privileges, and often it is the more profound account of stories, and there are often times more journals, letters, and periodicals from winners. History defines how we will interpret our future, and when this sort of distortion occurs, we can see that our future generations will lose their ability to learn.

What this leads back to is passion. Passion is the yearning, ongoing love for something that has a deep meaning for you, and it ought to have a personal connection to each person. For most, that connection can be found in lineage. Passion of history can be rediscovered by a simple analysis of wanting to know who you are, and what your family has become. When a person takes it upon themselves to find something of this degree a deep, meaningful search, then they enter the beginning of what we call Passion for Truth, the need for knowledge and the history behind something.

According to Dave Crabtree from the McKenzie Center, our history is directly in unison with our future. He reminds us of the saying that he who controls the past can control the future. One example is Winston Smith in George Orwell’s book, 1984. His job is to burn newspaper articles with the truth about what has been going on, and filtering them for only what they want the people to see. By this, Big Brother can syphon what they want the people to be educated about. Whilst this is an exaggerated example, and it is additionally fictional, it shows what the power of history, control, and passion can do. This is both good and bad.

One might ask how we have come so far. How have we abandoned our earlier forefathers who fought to never abandon us? In order to answer this, and find our solution to restoring passion, we must take two approaches. We must examine how exactly we have fallen from this issue, and how to restore passion. With this, the little help of logic, an a simple syllogism and we can find our answer to get us back on track.

Let us analyze what Walter E. Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, has to say. The following is an excerpt from his website.

“The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that only 1 in 4 high-school seniors scored at least "proficient" in knowledge of U.S. citizenship. Civics and history were American students' worst subjects. Professor Damon said that for the past 10 years, his Stanford University research team has interviewed broad cross sections of American youths about U.S. citizenship. Here are some typical responses: "We just had (American citizenship) the other day in history. I forget what it was." Another said, "Being American is not really special. ... I don't find being an American citizen very important." Another said, "I don't want to belong to any country. It just feels like you are obligated to this country. I don't like the whole thing of citizen. ... It's like, citizen, no citizen; it doesn't make sense to me. It's, like, to be a good citizen -- I don't know, I don't want to be a citizen. ... It's stupid to me."”

This here is an example of the loss of passion for history in our own country. The students don’t understand, they don’t see where this fits into their lives and why this is important. Here is where I will piece together the importance of passion from throughout. In many places I have stemmed from the topic to show you different tangents on how different things affect our view on history, or role as a person in the community, state, nation, family, and to ourselves.

Examine how I took notice to how my family came to America, and how I had a growing appreciation for how they lived, what sort of work they enjoyed, what type of atmosphere, community, region, and all those things. The European Messmer’s wanted to being in a Vineyard and Orchard rich country, like in upstate New York. From there, I learned of their lives in Germany and France from my father and grandfather, and then examined how closely related they tried to continue their lives in as much similarity as they could upon immigration to America. Progressing in life, I attempted to grasp a more intimate appreciation for my ancestors by seeing how my family lived during the 18^th century and what life was like. It created a fun, entertaining, rich hobby while also educating me in such a way that is not available in the classroom. It is not available online, in a textbook, or in our common lives. You have to get into it, want to learn about it. You have to have a passion for it.

Reenacting helped me live in their shoes, and understand some of the interesting things about just one time period. It creates a growing appreciation for how life was, and what history actually IS. History isn’t gone. I don’t think it is right to say history is gone forever. History is the study of what has happened. That doesn’t mean it cannot be re-appreciated in a current mode of reliving such an experience. It doesn’t mean history must recur or repeat itself in an anti-pragmatic or anti-progressive manner to society, but we can appreciate it in the present in more than just examination or reading of texts. We can participate in it. It is incredible, and it is thrilling.

History is a subject that can be most interesting given the chance, and given an opportunity one can discover a treasure of knowledge explaining who you are and where you come from. It creates a sense of Pride. When Pride and Passion meet, the indestructible search for truth is created, and it becomes unstoppable, inevitable, and incredible.