Awareness is not Guilt
Conservatives are working against their own interests.
Partisanship once again trumps ideological integrity. Conservatives beware!
Teaching about the “sins of the fathers,” which is called history, doesn’t make children feel guilty in ways that impair their lives. It makes them more savvy citizens and possibly a bit more conservative in their thinking.
Russians should not learn about Stalin; Germans should not learn about Hitler; and Americans should not be taught about settler treatment of native Americans?
History at its best sharpens awareness of what people are capable of doing. A good conservative should encourage this tendency. For in reporting human activity from the past, we offer each present generation with a sober reminder that an extreme liberal view of human “goodness” may have serious unintended consequences.
It won’t result in guilt ridden children. At best, and at worst, it makes us more cautious about change. We see what has happened. We acknowledge that it is people like ourselves that have committed these transgressions. We become more resilient—better able to guard against the extremism of our very human dreams.
Teaching about race in America doesn’t taint white children. Perhaps, and for good reason, it makes black children a bit more wary, but these are warnings that for years have been heeded to good advantage in Afro-American communities.
If any group should want to go “light” on teaching the “sins of the fathers,” it should be liberals. Too great a pessimism about human possibility leads to missing many of the opportunities of future happiness.
Some of it might have something to do with not having an ability to see the difference between what is an individual and what is a group. I know it might sound strange if said out loud. I come across it all the time. If someone learns that I commute on a bike, that might trigger any number of grievances with a bicyclist who was unsafe in traffic, or ran a stop sign, cars line up behind them, etc. The same thing happens if people learn I’m a vegan. Many people will air their grievances about vegans they’ve known who may have told them to go vegan, vegans who talk about being vegan, or whatever. I haven’t been elected to represent any of these, but here I am, held accountable in some twisted way. Another group I don't represent is my ancestors. A problem with talking about the past is that the past is still in the present. The Confederacy lives. The war of Yankee aggression isn’t over. Some of us can’t talk about the past because, let's face it, it’s here in the present.