In political science lectures many decades ago, one of the myriad facts we students absorbed was that authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century had a tendency to rewrite history along the lines of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell‘s dystopian novel Nineteen Eight-Four.
Whilst it may be argued that all nation states include total fabrications and distortions in their national fairy stories (e.g. the fictional King Arthur in English/British history. Ed.), some are more accomplished than others in their incorporation of lies and events that never occurred, some are more prone to this practice than others; and the United States is a past master of telling itself fibs. Some of the US of A’s biggest lies were examined in a three part documentary series by historian Lucy Worsley in 2019.
Indeed, one might say that the American national story is dominated more by the lies it contains than by the ugly truths of the course of American history if it chooses to omit, such as the genocide and dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants and the cruelty and exploitation inherent in chattel slavery and the plantation system.
Having spoken extensively above of American lies, it’s time to move to Washington, DC and the presently blinged-up man cave otherwise known as the Oval Office, currently occupied by the country’s Liar-in-Chief, the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a personal mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.).
The Donald has taken to his Truth Social* social media echo chamber earlier this week railing that museums and universities were not telling ‘proper’ US history and were too “WOKE” [sic]. He wrote the following.
As regards one of Tangerine Insurrectionist’s targets, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, this was on the receiving end of his ire for having the temerity, much to Trump’s wounded pride, of mentioning his two impeachments in his first term of (subsequently removed. Ed.) from its exhibit on The Limits of Presidential Power.
What Trump’s social media post merely indicates he wants bully US institutions into doing in order to pander to his own exceedingly vain, distorted, white, racist, privileged world view. This line of action has a name: historical revisionism, something to which the now defunct Soviet Union was prone during its existence from 1922–1991 (e.g. prominent but out-of-favour individuals being deliberately edited out of photographs and the remainder of the official record).
Wikipedia defines the phenomenon as follows:
Historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespan, or phenomenon by introducing contrary evidence or reinterpreting the motivations of the people involved. Revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation as they come to light. The process of historical revision is a common, necessary, and usually uncontroversial process which develops and refines the historical record to make it more complete and accurate.
One form of historical revisionism involves denying the moral significance or accuracy of the historical record. This type of historical revisionism is called historical negationism, and is contentious as it often includes denying the veracity of genuine documents, or deliberately manipulating statistical data to reach predetermined conclusions. The destruction or alteration of cultural heritage sites is also considered a form of illegitimate historical revisionism when it serves to deny the cultural or historical claims of ethnic groups.
Trump’s social media post shows all the hallmarks of historical revisionism, but at the same time, he seems determined to make America safe again for ignorant, racist, insecure, selfish and entitled old white men like himself.
Note in particular the word again. Trump is harking after an imagined lost past. As for museums and the future, The Donald doesn’t realise that museums serve to collect, preserve, interpret, and display objects of cultural, historical, or scientific significance. Their primary functions include safeguarding heritage for future generations and facilitating education. If the future is involved, the role of museums and the like should be educating people about the mistakes of history, not airbrushing or erasing them.
* = No irony was intended in the naming of the platform. Ed.
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