Washington versus Marx

When liberals decided to tear down the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville Virginia, conservatives wondered where it would end.  Would anyone who had anything to do with slavery also be subjected to historical revision?  It did not take long to find out.

The slippery slope they feared turned out to be remarkably slick.  They had speculated about whether national icons such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be excised from the panoply of American heroes.  The answer was Yes!  Within, what seemed like hours, Christopher Columbus and Abraham Lincoln likewise joined the ranks of the dispossessed.

Columbus, of course, was blamed for every atrocity ever committed against Native Americans.  Not a word, however, was spoken against those once called Indians because they were regarded as innocent victims.  That the Aztecs slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Mesoamericans, while the Lakota virtually wiped out the Mandan, was passed over in silence.

As for Lincoln, he was insufficiently pure on race relations.  Despite freeing the slaves, he had the temerity to believe blacks were inferior.  The question was consequently who would be virtuous enough to satisfy the champions of political correctness?

Some suggested we needed to look to Jesus and the Virgin Mary.  Yet this would never do.  Erecting public statues to them would violate the separation of church and state.  So would monuments dedicated to Mohammed or Moses.

So what about a largely unacknowledged liberal hero?  Should likenesses of Karl Marx be set on pedestals once reserved for Stonewall Jackson?  Should a plaque praising his colleague Friedrich Engels be placed in the Alexandria church that considered one commemorating its former parishioner George Washington too offensive?

I doubt this will happen once opposition researchers dig into Marx’s actual legacy.  People will discover that although Marx’s family had originally been Jewish, he was a virulent anti-Semite.  He also had a lower opinion of black intellects than did Lincoln.

What then of other political leaders?  We can immediately rule out most conservatives.  Leftists will point out that they are mean-spirited and lacking in compassion.  This removes Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush from the realm of possibles.  And forget about Richard Nixon.

So what about liberals and progressives?  Sorry!  Franklin Roosevelt cheated on his wife.  So did John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton.  Consistent feminists should therefore find them unacceptable.  As for Harry Truman, he did not have a college degree and, what is worse, once flirted with the KKK.

Does this mean we will be forced to celebrate the likes of Susan B. Anthony?  Many women may not object, but was she such a decisive figure in our shared past that she merits top billing?

So how about Martin Luther King?  Oh, I forgot, he also cheated on his wife.  When then about Booker T. Washington?  Too bad he is often regarded an Uncle Tom.  Meanwhile W.E.B. DuBois took himself out of the running when he became an ardent Stalinist.

This is getting to be ridiculous.  Where are the perfect people?  Where are the ones, who are so beyond reproach, as to be worthy of commemoration?  A colleague of mine believes he found one.  He wore a Che Guevara t-shirt to school on the assumption that he was an uncontaminated hero.  I guess the thousands Che murdered do not warrant sympathy.

The point is that historical figures—if they are human—are invariably flawed.  If we require the airbrushed pulchritude of a Playboy centerfold, we will be looking a long time for someone better than Washington.  For goodness sake, in addition to establishing the foundation for our democracy, he liberated his slaves in his will.

The trouble is that many political activists know next to nothing about history.  Indeed, they remind me of a majority of college students.  I recall one who, after I discussed Jack Kennedy, informed me about that other Kennedy president, namely John Kennedy.

History is complicated.  Those who populated it were not saints.  Nevertheless, we do not honor outstanding figures because they were.  Rather, we commemorate their accomplishments.  They are symbolic of the deeds to which we would like our children to aspire.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University