Stan Katz: Get Right With History
[Stan Katz directs the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.]
My historian friend Morty Horwitz of the Harvard Law School faculty is fond of saying that those who abuse history by using it selectively to prove a point, are "looking for their friends in history." This sort of instrumental use of history is common, especially when it is by nations to falsify their pasts. This is why so many countries try to control the interpretation of history in school textbooks in an attempt to keep school children from learning about the misdeeds of earlier generations. An even more egregious state abuse of history occurs when nations manipulate history texts and teaching in order to promote desired values, ordinarily by portraying as heroes those who stand for the desired national values.
I was trained professionally as an historian, and although I have not formally taught history for a number of years, I cannot escape my commitment to what I understand to be the proper use of history. The conscious abuse of history offends me deeply, which is why I was so engaged by the controversy over the adoption of national standards for the teaching of American history in the early 1990s. One of the principal objections of conservatives at that time to the proposed new standards was that they were insufficiently attentive to the historical role of the "Founding Fathers." Interpreting the role of the "heroes" of the early republic has long been a political touchstone in the politics of history in this country.
Both liberals and conservatives want to claim the allegiance of the founders in order to provide historical justification for their causes. But a trained historian should know that it is not so obvious just where Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams would come down on current questions (such as the war in Afghanistan, the Obama health plan, the TARP). But that does not stop both sides from claiming the authorization of history for their policy preferences....
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My historian friend Morty Horwitz of the Harvard Law School faculty is fond of saying that those who abuse history by using it selectively to prove a point, are "looking for their friends in history." This sort of instrumental use of history is common, especially when it is by nations to falsify their pasts. This is why so many countries try to control the interpretation of history in school textbooks in an attempt to keep school children from learning about the misdeeds of earlier generations. An even more egregious state abuse of history occurs when nations manipulate history texts and teaching in order to promote desired values, ordinarily by portraying as heroes those who stand for the desired national values.
I was trained professionally as an historian, and although I have not formally taught history for a number of years, I cannot escape my commitment to what I understand to be the proper use of history. The conscious abuse of history offends me deeply, which is why I was so engaged by the controversy over the adoption of national standards for the teaching of American history in the early 1990s. One of the principal objections of conservatives at that time to the proposed new standards was that they were insufficiently attentive to the historical role of the "Founding Fathers." Interpreting the role of the "heroes" of the early republic has long been a political touchstone in the politics of history in this country.
Both liberals and conservatives want to claim the allegiance of the founders in order to provide historical justification for their causes. But a trained historian should know that it is not so obvious just where Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams would come down on current questions (such as the war in Afghanistan, the Obama health plan, the TARP). But that does not stop both sides from claiming the authorization of history for their policy preferences....