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Professor Irwin Corey
A group of highly-qualified historical scholars placed themselves out front last week, inviting the entire nation into their classroom. In proposing their “Look Back Before You Act” strategy for dealing intelligently with the current problems facing our nation internally and internationally, their stated goal is to inform a largely-uninformed public by presenting them with a timeline of past history, complete with cause-and-effect relationships. A few “average citizens” and available politicians, interviewed by the mainstream press after the scholarly presentation, all believed that it “made sense” to use previous historical events to help predict the outcomes of future acts. The best quote was attributed to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX):
“The things the historians were saying seemed complicated at first, but now it makes sense to me. I just wished they'd told us about this trick before."
Based upon this evidence, it is obvious that we are a nation formed predominately of idiots. Most of us graduated from high school and learned the history of various periods through different methods, as heard from a series of altering voices. There is no doubt that some it stuck. And what about the influence at home? The reality is that most of us were raised at the crest of some sort of religious undercurrent, the mythology cum “colorized history” that helped to create our individual ethical foundations. Some of us are compelled to study secular history through adulthood without prompt, understanding the value of such knowledge as a key factor in personal decision-making. If these university professors see it as their duty to remind the rest of us of that value, then what does that say about the intelligence of the average voter or, in the case of Senator Cornyn, our elected representatives? It’s unofficially official now: mostly stupid; some dangerously so.
The idea of the timeline itself is an old shoe fried up like a corndog. It appears impossible to include most of the nuance attached to any moment of historical significance in something as linear as a timeline. For instance, where does the relationship between the Mexican War and the American Civil War connect? The Mexican War exposed a young officer corps to actual combat situations and helped to later supply the Confederate States with a battle-hardened senior staff. Would the southern states risk secession without such military leadership at hand? It seems doubtful, but one can’t imagine seeing that kind of leap taken in a timeline.
The entire concept behind “Look Back Before You Act,” designed to cater to the moron in us all, works against an intelligent application of history. Rather, presented as a fast food, drive-thru version of history, complete with pictures of hot stovetops and sharp objects, it represents oversimplification as a cure. The fact is that history, when done well, informs geologically, in layers that waver laterally and compress with time. There is no single history – each event is a confluence of many streams, each contributing its own levels of minerals and material to the mix and helping to determine the character of the entire body. This idea of a visual aid is born from underestimation and low expectations, perhaps warranted in our case. It also creates a dangerous precedent.
Who decides the content of the timeline? Is it possible to have alternate timelines that contradict one another? Could the timeline be used in an effort to swing public opinion towards an otherwise unacceptable solution? The whole of it rings like a political maneuver; its final intent still unclear. A wise man would check the wheels and smell the driver’s breath before jumping on this bandwagon for, if it tells us anything, history tells us never to take such all-encompassing notions at face value.
