Ditching SOTW4

[Bluegoat]

On the ancient horrors vs. modern horrors, I wonder if part of it is the "us" factor?

 

We recently covered the Trail of Tears in SOTW3. This hit them harder than many previous atrocities -- perhaps because "we" (the US) were the ones who carried it out & perhaps because they can actually picture the geography, people, & situation a lot more than some of the others we've read about in the last several years.

 

Also, there seem to be more 'innocents' undergoing trials vs. war-related-deaths in the later SOTW books. My kids don't have as much empathy for the French soldiers who froze to death in Russia because of Napoleon's choices as they do for the Choctaws due to the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

 

I think there is probably some truth to that, but that may acctually be a positive thing.

 

It is pretty easy to deal with people who you don't identify with being persecuted, or persecuting others.

 

But the fact is I think that we all have that capacity within us as individuals, and as groups.  We are not so different, not so immune from error after all.  Maybe the principles we hold dear are not so clearly correct or beyond critisism, maybe we also have to be conciously aware of the assumptions that behind our thinking. 

 

One of the greatest lessons which comes from the study of history is that the things we believe - and that includes all the good progressive ones too, may in fact be blind spots, a result of narrow thinking.  That we are all guilty as peoples of terrible things.  That what seems obviously good and true may be limited or wrongheaded.  That there is more than one, and more than two or three, ways to think about things, and that there are always trade-offs for what seem to be benefits.

 

Ii can see that it would be in a way traumatic for kids to realize these things, but I also think it is really important.  People need to be able to look at their own country and political views and the evening news both with an eye to self-critisism and justice, but also with a long perspective about seeing things simply in terms of the "good" and the "bad" people.