Chatterbox has been part of The Herald since our first edition in 2002; ergo, a few of my old columns do make me uncomfortable now.
I’ve evolved, but the Herald is history, and such history is necessary. Luckily for me, everyone understands evolution – the evolution of humanity, knowledge, character, beliefs and much more. Imagine if everyone just stagnated, unable to alter a belief, set a new precedent, fix a mistake, or update an opinion.
America, as a whole, has evolved too. Our nation’s history reflects experiment, enlightenment, adjustment and renewal. Our people and government continuously struggle and reconcile. We’ve changed our stand on many issues into something better throughout our history and evolution; that must continue ad infinitum. What we live with on this parabola is the resulting mélange of trial and error, failure and success. Results vary, but we are a work in progress.
Strictly because it was spoken aloud, the promise of liberty, justice and equality for all was and is believed and still expected as promised. That was serendipitous for Americans and millions of people around the world. We can’t un-speak those words; ergo, we can’t retract the promise. Yet, too many of us still fight against its fulfillment and disagree on which way is the way up for America.
We the people, and much of the legislation we fought for, resulted in or evolved into great things, planned and unplanned. Neither can be forgotten, discarded, or hidden nor should they be. Certainly, just like my old columns, some of that discloses the foibles, outdated opinions, and even ignorance of us either as individuals or a nation. Sometimes, retractions and replacements on large scales create a squabble but, whether a failure or a success, we try – and we should.
Today, some people advocate just burying our mistakes. However, if we ban our history because it’s uncomfortable, we remain ignorant and risk going backwards, possibly to relive those lessons’ horrors or hardships merely to learn what we already knew. Hard won experience should never be forgotten or hidden. Our mistakes and victories are history lessons hard won – and lost, imperative to be remembered and used to enhance the future.
Time turns all experience and information into enlightened perspective. Only those who are defiant, misled or in denial don’t benefit from knowing the truth. They believe they lose ground in the America we are assumed to be or hope to become, that they can do better in an America with an edited history that fits some personal agenda.
No matter how undermined our national metamorphosis has been and probably will continue to be, our pursuance of a true democracy must remain constant. Without that, we become vulnerable while spinning our wheels in the mud. In our evolution, to enhance our ability to avoid mistakes already made by people across the room or across the ocean, we must have access to all true history – the good, the bad and the unedited. Without such familiarity, progress isn’t possible. We can’t change history by hiding it; this is especially important to remember as many schools are now embroiled in choosing library material. We won’t benefit by closing the book on yesterday. We don’t look back to ridicule or blame; we look back to learn, renew and cultivate our humanity.
The history of the world, including America’s, isn’t pretty for the most part. Humans have always managed some inhumanity to other humans, whether creating caste systems, practicing slavery, limiting or denying rights to individuals due to color, gender, wealth, health, intellect, nationality, religion, mental conditions, sexual orientation or any of a thousand other specifics. That’s the corruption that usually accompanies the upper hand. Unfortunately, humans will usually opt for that upper hand if we think we can gain it (chimpanzee troupes proved it’s all about survival of the fittest).
Our only hope as humans is to try to practice all the values we need to create a planetary environment, both natural and social, to survive as a global society. We cannot do that without the frames of reference created by what has already been learned and we can’t learn it if we burn it. We look to history to learn from our mistakes and that history, bad and good, uncomfortable to horrific, is our warning, our framework, and our To Do and Not To Do list.
We build today on yesterday. Anyone reading today’s Herald started the journey by learning the alphabet.
Every day is brought to us by every yesterday – inherent value contained within.
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