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Charles Blow

Woke American Exceptionalism Is Still American Exceptionalism

July 23, 2020
by Peter Feinman
American Exceptionalism (“A Union in the Interest of Humanity – Civilization Freedom and Peace for all Time.” ca. 1898, Donaldson Litho Co.; Library of Congress)

Woke American exceptionalism is still American exceptionalism. This realization occurred to me last week when I was watching a Woke presentation online and the term flashed in my mind. It wasn’t exactly a “eureka” or OMG moment as the light bulb clicked on. But it was a coming together of thoughts that brought order to chaos and helped me make sense of what has been transpiring in the culture wars especially recently.

Woke American exceptionalism is a derivative of standard American exceptionalism. America is still inherently different from all other countries but from a different perspective. It retains the Christian, Protestant basis. But it expresses not simply an “America First” value but an “America Alone.” In other words, it pronouncements often occur as if the rest of human history hadn’t occurred and that the only humanity that matters is the one here because we are exceptional.

Below are the examples that led me to this realization.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The American Revolution looms large in traditional American exceptionalism. We were God’s New Israel fighting Pharaoh for freedom. We were led by people of Providential inspiration who brought us to victory. We were born and constituted by sacred documents.

Not quite with Woke American exceptionalism. If anything it was the reverse which happened. The people who led the so-called Revolution and the documents they created are to be condemned as the products of a racist, sexist, imperialist people. The country they created far from being an example for the world completely failed to meet Woke standards.

So where does the United States in 1787 rate on the Woke scale of judgement?

How many multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries were there in the world in 1787?

Of those countries, how many declared their basis on the principle of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” or something similar even if it was honored in the breach?

Of those countries, how many had never occupied the land of another people?

Was what was exceptional about the United States in 1787 was that it existed in a world of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious  countries of no slavery and freedom for all that included no conquered land and were in compliance with Woke standards?

Perhaps instead of judging the United States of 1787 based on Woke values today, it also would be appropriate to examine the United States in comparison to where the rest of the world rates on the Woke scale. Instead of simply condemning the United States for failing to live up to the vision expressed in 1776 and 1787, how many multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries even had such a vision then in the first place that they could fail to observe?

TOPPLING STATUES OF SLAVE-OWNERS

In the last few weeks, the toppling of the statues of slave-owners has accelerated. Founding Fathers who also owned people have been particularly targeted. In a previous blog, I wrote about the competing views of two New York Times op-ed writers (To Topple or Not to Topple Statues: The Battle between “Come Let Us Reason Together” versus “Abso-fricking-lutely!”). One, Bret Stephens, called for determining whether the person in question had helped advance the country towards the goal of creating a more perfect union. The other, Charles Blow, drew a line in sand: if you own people, then you should be toppled.

At the very end, after I had written the blog, a thought occurred to me. I added this ending before I posted it:

P.S. The damnatio memoriae (or “condemnation of the memory”) was tried in ancient Egypt on Queen Hatshepsut and King Akhnaton. Will we now have to erase the names of Pharaohs who had slave labor including Nubians and demolish their buildings or is that up to Egypt? What should we teach about these “abhorrent and depraved” people like Tut?

It was this comment that started me towards Woke American Exceptionalism a week later, to thinking beyond America. How many Pharaohs, Caesars, kings, and emperors didn’t own people? If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are to be toppled, what does that mean for the non-American slave-owners? What does it mean for the tourist sites of many countries once tourism begins again? What does it mean for the holdings of museums? Are all slave-owners from all places from all times to be toppled or just the white ones?

MOUNT RUSHMORE

The event that put the pieces together in my mind was a program “Whose Hero? New Perspectives on Monuments in Public Landscapes” by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience on June 24 and 26. I was only able to watch part of the initial program and it was a few weeks before I could see the taped version of it. The specific presentation in question was by Sally Roesch Wagner, the Executive Director, Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation (whom I know). She is from South Dakota. Her topic was mostly about Mount Rushmore. It has been in the news lately and will be the subject of a future blog.

Much of Sally’s presentation was information about Mount Rushmore, its design, its purpose. Then she strayed into not history or politics but to psychology. I will not repeat or summarize what she had to say about the heterosexual white male except to note her enjoyment in denigrating them for these expressions of power like Mount Rushmore. It was at that moment when I had my moment of clarity.

What I thought of was Abu Simbel.

Ramses II at Abu Simbel (Wikepedia)

You are looking at four giant-sized statues of a male. Unlike Mount Rushmore, the four personages are the same person, Ramses II, Pharaoh of the Exodus. He is a slave-owner who needs to be toppled by Woke standards. The Founding Fathers identified with the Israelites “who were slaves in Egypt” and sought to escape the yoke of Pharaoh as they did of King George III. It was while listening to Sally about Mount Rushmore that I thought of Ramses at Abu Simbel. Then I thought of the other Egyptians male rulers who had built giant statues to themselves. Then I thought about rulers of other lands like Mesopotamia. Kings (and Queens) build things. They build cities, temples, forts, palaces, irrigation systems, roads, and victory monuments and statues in their own honor.

We used to build things in America. From the Erie Canal to the Apollo Moon Landing, we were a society that built things. Only lately, meaning in the 20th century, did we start building edifices for each and every President called Presidential Libraries. In human history, it is hardly unusual for rulers to shout their praises to the heavens. Typically rulers commemorate themselves. In any event, listening to Sally talk about Mount Rushmore led to think about Abu Simbel and then to all the ways rulers have for millennia throughout the world build in their own honor.  Part of what is unusual about Mount Rushmore is that none of the people on the mount commissioned the work. Mount Rushmore is part of a larger story of the human experience. But then again, Woke American Exceptionalism isn’t interested in what people elsewhere have done, only what evil Americans have done.

SAVAGES

Now that I was aware of Woke American Exceptionalism, I was prepared for it. I then watched an education program by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). In that program, the presenter spoke about the use of the word “savages” to describe American Indians. He cited both primary sources and textbooks.

His references to “savages” immediately caused me to look beyond white Americans. Once again, Egypt was way ahead of us on describing people as subhumans who live like animals.

Lo, the miserable Asiatic,
He is wretched because of the place he’s in:
Short of water, bare of wood,
Its paths are many and painful because of mountains
He does not dwell in one place,
Food propels his legs,
He fights since the time of Horus,
Not conquering nor being conquered,
He does not announce the day of combat,
Like a thief who darts about a group.
(The Instruction to Merikare)

Just so you know I am not picking on the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians voiced similar views.

The Martu who know no grain
The Martu who know no house or town
The boors of the mountains…
Dresses in sheepskins,
Lives in a tent at the mercy of wind and rain
Does not offer sacrifice
He digs up truffles in steppe but does not know how to bend his knee
He eats raw meat. In life he has no house, in death he lies lot buried in a grave.
(The Marriage or Myth of Martu)

The uncivilized “other” has been around for a long time. Typically the “other” is portrayed in unflattering terms.

Here is an example from a World War I recruiting poster. Without the words, would it have occurred to you that Germans were the savage other?

The Hun versus Lady Liberty (Recruiting Poster https://en.wikipedia.org)

 

One of the lessons I was reminded of from Woke American Exceptionalism is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Science fictions fans are aware that First Contact and Close Encounters of the First, Second, and Third Kind can be fraught with danger (Columbus Day: Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Sooner or later, people with disproportionate power over another people tend to use it….and justify it on the basis that the foe aren’t real people as we are.

Finally, let’s not forget Christianity and Woke American Exceptionalism. Once upon a time, indigenous people throughout the world lived in peace and harmony with each other and nature. Then white people arrived and the Original Sin occurred. Now those people need to repent and restore the purity which once existed. It’s one of our oldest stories.

To Topple or Not to Topple Statues: The Battle between “Come Let Us Reason Together” versus “Abso-fricking-lutely!”

July 8, 2020
by Peter Feinman
To Topple or Not to Topple, That Is the Question (Alex Waltner – Swedish Nomad)

To topple or not to topple, that is the question. Statues have become the latest battleground in America’s Third Civil War. At this point, it is impossible to determine which statue will be our Fort Sumter. It is reasonable to assume that just as one could not predict that it would the George Floyd murder as the straw the broke the camel’s back, one cannot know which attack on a statue will be the trigger for violence.

In the meantime, last month, Bret Stephens and Charles Blow, columnists for The New York Times, offered quite contrary views on the question of “to topple or not to topple.”

BRET STEPHENS

In his column “After the Statues Fall,” (June 27, 2020, print), Stephens posits four familiar words as a template for answering the topple question: A MORE PERFECT UNION.

Stephens suggests for any given individual, the question should be asked whether that person contributed to the effort to create a more perfect union in the United States. If the answer is “no,” and he includes all Confederate-related figures here, then the person fails the test. The statues should come down and the buildings and military installations should be renamed. Stephens mentions some other examples of non-Confederates who don’t deserve a public building and non-Confederates who do deserve honors on net because of what they contributed to making a more perfect union.

Then he turns the big two: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These two slaveholders who were instrumental to the creation of the United States. He doesn’t mention it, but the latter provided the words or ideals upon which we declared our independence and the former made it possible for that declaration not to be stillborn or a dorm-room manifesto. Eliminate them and there is no country. Stephens writes:

If their fault lay in being creatures of their time, their greatness was in the ability to look past it. An unbroken moral thread connects the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. An unbroken political thread connects the first president to the 16th to the 44th. It is impossible to imagine any union, much less the possibility of a more perfect one, without them.

Stephens contrasts thinking critically about the past for the sake of learning from it with behaving destructively toward the past with the aim of erasing it. He concludes in favor of debate on whether to topple or not to topple:

An intelligent society should be able to make intelligent distinctions, starting with the one between those who made our union more perfect and those who made it less.

By coincidence such an intelligent discussion was held a few days later. The American Historical Association (AHA) held an online presentation with David W. Blight and Annette Gordon-Reed entitled “Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape” moderated by AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman, on Thursday, July 2. Whether or not they had read this column I don’t know. If not, then the discussion was even more fascinating. They expressed many of the same concepts that Stephens did. They used the term “criteria” instead for the judging of people on an individual basis with Confederates not passing muster. They even thought several hundred people listening to the online event would volunteer for a national commission.

There you see the problem. Stephens’s template for the evaluation of people works well in an academic setting. It is great for high school or college debates. It could work at some academic conferences. However, the evaluation process is bound to be subjective. There would be legitimate differences of opinions even if everyone agreed on the template. Obviously, it ignores the emotional component. Stephens proposes a solution for an intelligent society in a “come let us reason together” setting. That has nothing to do with where America is right now nor is there any political leader proposing a “come let us reason together” approach. This scenario is great on paper but is not possible in the real world as it exists now.

CHARLES BLOW

By coincidence, the next day, Charles Blow offered a significantly different perspective full of emotion. The title is:

Yes, Even George Washington: Slavery was a cruel institution that can’t be excused by its era (June 28, 2020, online).

In case there was any doubt, the opening line is:

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: enslavers were amoral monsters.

The very idea that one group of people believed that they had the right to own another human being is abhorrent and depraved. The fact that their control was enforced by violence was barbaric.

Blow’s template is a very direct one: if you owned people you were “abhorrent and depraved.” Period. There is no other evaluation needed. No netting of the good the people-owner might have done elsewhere. If you own people, then case closed.

There is no room for doubt. No uncertainty. And no exception.

Some people who are opposed to taking down monuments ask, “If we start, where will we stop?” It might begin with Confederate generals, but all slave owners could easily become targets. Even George Washington himself.

To that I say, “abso-fricking-lutely!”

Blow presents an all-or-nothing evaluation with removal as the one option.

I say that we need to reconsider public monuments in public spaces. No person’s honorifics can erase the horror he or she has inflicted on others.

Slave owners should not be honored with monuments in public spaces. We have museums for that, which also provide better context. This is not an erasure of history, but rather a better appreciation of the horrible truth of it.

Blow’s analysis is intensely emotional for him unlike the Stephens column. It also is easy to apply.

But Blow leaves many unanswered questions. If these people like George Washington are so horrific for what they did that they do not deserve public monuments in public spaces, what about the other ways in which such people are publicly honored. What about

The state of Washington

The city of Washington

The mountain of Washington

The university of Washington

The bridge of Washington

The parks of Washington

The dollar bill of Washington

The neighborhoods of Washington.

Dismantling the Washington Monument is challenge enough, but how do you get demolish half of Mount Rushmore?

And let’s not forget that without Washington there would be no United States of America?

Blow doesn’t address these issues. His end game remains undefined. He feels good about toppling the monuments and statues to George Washington but leaves all the other public expressions of him unmentioned.

In my blog Schuyler Owned People: Should Schuylerville Change Its Name? June 18, 2020, a lifetime ago), I raised a similar issue with the Mayor of Albany’s decision to remove the statue of Philip Schuyler. What about all the other public Schuyler examples from a state-owned house, federal owned house, municipality named after him, county named after him, and his role in American history at Saratoga?  As a mayor, her jurisdiction is limited. I did note that one councilmen wanted the removed of all the people-owner names of streets and parks which in Albany means Washington Park. Blow had the option of going where the Mayor could not. As a columnist, he could have advocated for the full cleansing of Washington from the public arena. The logical extension of Blow’s argument means consign everything Washington to a museum, rename it, or demolish it.

WHAT DOES BLOW WANT?

Considered these toppling examples.

The toppling of the statue to Saddam Hussein signified the end of his rule.

The toppling of the statue of Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, signified the end of the Soviet Union.

The toppling of the statue of King George III signified the declaration of independence from British rule, a declaration after a long war which proved successful.

Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the toppling of the statue of George Washington, father of the country, signifies that the topplers are calling for the end of the United States, the end of a country based on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that he won for us and he then held us together as a country.

Is that what Blow wants? While I don’t doubt that among the woke there are people desirous of exactly such an endgame. They reject not only the symbols of the founding of the country but the founding itself. Blow does not appear to one of them. His call to relocate statues from public spaces to museums (presumably private ones with no public funding), suggests he is not advocating for the overthrow of the United States. But his call for the removal not toppling of statues and monuments of people-owners is simply a feel-good baby step that ignores the larger issues. He has an obligation to explain to the American public what his end game is. He has an obligation to explain to We the People where he would draw the line and why on the issue of the public display of the name of Washington among others. He has an obligation to explain his end game because if he doesn’t, others will do it for him.

P.S. The damnatio memoriae (or “condemnation of the memory”) was tried in ancient Egypt on Queen Hatshepsut and King Akhnaton. Will we now have to erase the names of Pharaohs who had slave labor including Nubians and demolish their buildings or is that up to Egypt? What should we teach about these “abhorrent and depraved” people like Tut?

 

America’s Third Civil War: Kava-Noes versus Kava-Yeses

October 9, 2018
by Peter Feinman
America's Third Civil War: The Battle Is Engaged (Photo by Getty)

America has had three civil wars. The first one is over, the second one is still being fought, the third one is accelerating. What should be done?

America’s First Civil War: The American Revolution

The American Revolution was not simply American colonials versus the British military. There were plenty of Loyalists here. John Adams famously divided the American population into thirds including the “Go away and leave me alone” group. More likely the majority just wanted to be left alone on their farm and were only dragged into the conflict because of neighbors or occupying armies. Nonetheless, it was a war which split families and communities.

The resolution was comparatively simple. The losing side tended to leave. In New York, where I live, the upstate Loyalists tended to migrate further upstate until they were in Canada. In Westchester where I live in New York, Loyalist lands were confiscated, most conspicuously those of Philipsburg Manor along the Hudson. Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783, marked the departure of British troops and Loyalists from New York City. That departure was celebrated annually in the city especially by the Irish immigrants in the 19th century who loved saying goodbye to the British. The holiday ceased to be celebrated in World War I when the British became our allies. Recently the Lower Manhattan Historical Association (LMHA, I am on the Board), revived the celebration and successfully petitioned the New York City Council to rename a street by Bowling Green as “Evacuation Plaza.”

I am not as familiar with what happen to Loyalists in the South. There do not seem to be many statues by subsequent generations of Southerners honoring these fighting ancestors.

Given the popularity of princesses Diana, Kate, and Meghan, I think it is safe to say that the war with England-Great Britain-the United Kingdom has ended peacefully with no lingering hard feelings.

America’s Second Civil War: The War of Northern Aggression

The situation is not so pacific with America’s second civil war. That war continues to this very day. The violence is almost negligible but not non-existent. The bloodiest of all American wars has been redefined. A generation after the cessation of battleground confrontations, the war became the Lost Cause. In that guise it has developed an identity of its own as alternate facts can become gospel over time. The cause was aided by the release of America’s greatest movie based on percentage of the population reached and inflation-adjusted revenues. Gone with the Wind created the definitive image of America’s second civil war for generations to come just as The Ten Commandments did for the Exodus. While Charlton Heston portrayed a real figure in history and Clark Gable did not, Rhett Butler has become as real as Ben Hur.

There is no end in sight for ending America’s second civil war. The time has come to accept the truth expressed by Abraham Lincoln prior to the outbreak of violence: a house divided cannot stand.  The Sesquicentennial has come and gone and still the hostility lingers. The resolution to this enduring division cannot replicate the resolution to the first civil war: the losing side cannot sail off into the sunset separate from the lands of the winning side.

However, there is another way to separate the two comparatively geographically distinct political entities – CONFEDEXIT. The time has come to call an end to the experiment of uniting 13 colonies into one country. The time has come to recognize that except for rare moments like the American Revolution and the Second World War, the Union and the Confederacy have not been united. Despite the Exodus, Israel eventually divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. The time has come for the United States of America to follow that example and that of Czechoslovakia, Pakistan, the USSR, and Yugoslavia and divide into its constituent parts.

I proposed that We the People declare July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to be the target date for CONFEDEXIT.  Let that day mark the official end to the American experiment and the formal recognition that we are a house divided and cannot stand.

The starting point for the Confederacy should be the Republican congressional districts in the original states of the Confederacy excluding any based on Cuban-American citizens. These districts form the natural basis for reviving the Confederacy. We must recognize that there were pockets of Federalists in the South in the second civil war. There were people who made the reverse decision Robert E. Lee made and who were loyal to the United States. In Virginia, they even broke away to form a new state. Starting with the Republican congressional districts within the Confederacy enables Unionist American citizens in the South outside those districts to remain part of the United States once the Confederate districts separate from it.

The Confederacy has the advantage of starting off with an already written constitution. Slavery has not been abolished. Women and 18 year-olds cannot vote. There is no income tax. There is no two-term limit on the president. Confederates now will have the opportunity to add the amendments they want and delete or revise the amendments they do not want. They should be able to hit the ground running with a fully-functional government by July 4, 2026.

The negotiations will not be easy. There is a lot to discuss. But despite all the obstacles, it should be possible for a clean break. The Union is just as willing to say good riddance to the southerners as the South is to Rise Again. And with a president who mocks and demeans Southerners as less worthy than northern elitists, the incentive to separate should be even stronger. With the world’s greatest negotiator at the helm, I am confident that CONFEDEXIT is doable by July 4, 2026, and the end of the second civil war finally will be at hand.

America’s Third Civil War: Kava-Noes versus Kava-Yeses

The third civil is different from the previous two.

It may be said to have begun in the 1960s. At that time, baby boomer males could be drafted into a war they did not want to fight and baby boomer females could have babies they did not want to have.

It may be said to have begun on August 17, 1992, when Pat Buchanan delivered his “Culture War” speech to the Republican National Convention.

It may be said to have begun in 2008 with Sarah Palin’s rally cry “to take back the country.”

Regardless of the preliminaries, history may well record that with the contentious and close vote on October 6, 2018, of 50-48 between Kava-Yeses and Kava-Noes the battle was fully engaged. There is no turning back now. When Charles Blow writes an op-ed in the New York Times that “Liberals, This Is War,” he fails to recognize that for conservatives it has been war for decades and appointing a fifth Republican legislator to the Supreme Court is a long overdue victory.

As with America’s first civil war, America’s third civil war will be intensely divisive at the local level. People who have known each other for years as best friends for life suddenly will morph into combatants. The family Thanksgiving meal will become a battleground. While it will be illegal for Kava-Noes and Kava-Yeses to marry, there is always the possibility that some of the guests will be from opposite sides of the divide. Any social engagement will run the risk of degenerating into a brawl. Hosts and hostesses will be obligated to do due diligence to ensure a peaceful event. College admission officers will need to scrutinize applicants carefully to maintain the purity of the campus. God forbid people from different sides should be assigned as roommates!  In short, people will constantly have to be on guard to make sure they know when it is safe to speak.

CONFEDEXIT will help end the third civil war but it is no solution. The proponents of the Kava-Noes and Kava-Yeses exist in every electoral district. A mass exodus as with the Loyalists in the first civil war is not possible. A geographic split within the United States is not possible even after CONFEDEXIT removes many Confederate Kava-Noes from the United States. In short there is no solution. Over time, people will vote with their feet to move to an area where they feel safe. That relocation will take time. In the meantime, the situation will remain tense everywhere.

Fortunately we have a president who feasts on divisiveness. There will be no “come let us reason together” in this administration. Far from it. Instead he will stoke the flames of hatred and rejoice in the dividing of America. Never have We the People had a president who is so antagonistic to the very idea of We the People. Never have We the People had a president who is so willing, eager, and ready to campaign on behalf of hatred. Never have We the People had a president who is so antagonistic to the very goal of e pluribus unum, a motto that has been abandoned by both national political parties and mocked by our president. But there should not be any surprise that our president promotes the division of the country. What else would you expect from Putin’s poodle?