03/10: The Messiness of History
Category: American History and Politics
Posted by: an okie gardener
Iraq is taking longer and is more complicated than many Americans thought it would. The "War on Terror" has had its victories (removing the Taliban) and its setbacks (public revelation of the financial investigations). We perhaps are beginning to see the enemy clearly: changing our language from "War on Terror" to "War against Islamic Fascism." But this change in language and perception has been halting and contested. On any given day, things seem like a mess.
Here's a bit of historical perspective: things are always in a mess. Joseph Ellis, in his Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, is describing John Adams' retirement struggle to come to terms with his legacy and the public perception thereof. Popular imagination has fastened on an inspired Jefferson and the Declaration, and the providentially ordained march to American Freedom. Adams, the day-in-day-out fighter for Independency is being forgotten, he fears.
As Adams remembered it, on the other hand, "all the great critical questions about men and measures from 1774 to 1778" were desperately contested and highly problematic occasions, usually "decided by the vote of a single state, and that vote was often decided by a single individual." Nothing was clear, inevitable, or even comprehensible to the soldiers in the field at Saratoga or the statesmen in the corridors at Philadelphia: "It was patched and piebald policy then, as it is now, ever was, and ever will be, world without end." The real drama of the American Revolution, which was perfectly in accord with Adams's memory as well as with the turbulent conditions of his own soul, was its inherent messiness. This meant recovering the exciting but terrifying sense that all the major players had at the time--namely, that they were making it up as they went along, improvising on the edge of catastrophe.
In the midst of every great endeavor, things usually look like they are a mess and that disaster is near. Only in retrospect, once the goal is accomplished, and historical reflection shapes a narrative, can the road to victory (or defeat) be seen clearly.
Here's a bit of historical perspective: things are always in a mess. Joseph Ellis, in his Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, is describing John Adams' retirement struggle to come to terms with his legacy and the public perception thereof. Popular imagination has fastened on an inspired Jefferson and the Declaration, and the providentially ordained march to American Freedom. Adams, the day-in-day-out fighter for Independency is being forgotten, he fears.
As Adams remembered it, on the other hand, "all the great critical questions about men and measures from 1774 to 1778" were desperately contested and highly problematic occasions, usually "decided by the vote of a single state, and that vote was often decided by a single individual." Nothing was clear, inevitable, or even comprehensible to the soldiers in the field at Saratoga or the statesmen in the corridors at Philadelphia: "It was patched and piebald policy then, as it is now, ever was, and ever will be, world without end." The real drama of the American Revolution, which was perfectly in accord with Adams's memory as well as with the turbulent conditions of his own soul, was its inherent messiness. This meant recovering the exciting but terrifying sense that all the major players had at the time--namely, that they were making it up as they went along, improvising on the edge of catastrophe.
In the midst of every great endeavor, things usually look like they are a mess and that disaster is near. Only in retrospect, once the goal is accomplished, and historical reflection shapes a narrative, can the road to victory (or defeat) be seen clearly.
A Waco Farmer wrote:
And thanks for the perspective on the retrospective template we tend to impose on victory (or defeat).
Do the best you can boys.