Nobody’s Spinning In Their Grave
“What struck me as I listened to Obama’s speech was that he, too, presented the Founders with just as much historical anachronism and just as much malapropism as his Tea Party critics. Here was a black man citing the Founders, many of whom would have had a hard time believing that he could, as a black man, be president. And yet he cited them as though they were multicultural egalitarians. Though the Founders did not on the whole support class equality, gender equality, sexual freedom, or even racial equality, Obama used their supposed principles as a justification to create a multicultural society of opportunity.”
- David Sehat, American Professor of Historical and Cultural History at Georgia State University
“If the Founding Fathers saw the state of America today, they’d be spinning in their graves.”
How many times have you heard variants of that expression? It’s become something of a boring cliche in American politics. The Founding Fathers, signers of the Declaration, framers of the Constitution, and leaders in the Revolutionary War, are considered so infinite in their wisdom that their rotting corpses must be brought forth as a holy seal to preface every political argument. Certainly, I have great respect for Franklin, Paine, Washington, Adams, Rush, and Jefferson, among others, for forging a Republic on the principles of the Enlightenment, but their expression of these ideals was hardly perfect. Lest we forget that many of our Founders were committed slave-owners, and desired to expand the American territory at the expense of Native American livelihoods. It is wise to use the past as a guide in journeying through the future, but the idea that we can uproot these figures from their time and have them make exact observations about our current political situation is a bit of a stretch. To say the least.
We also get this line of thought in the famous Christian phrase, “Would would Jesus do?” The question, really, isn’t “What would Jesus do?” but “What did Jesus do?” The only things we can empirically say about Jesus, historically speaking, is that he was baptized by John the Baptist and crucified by Romans. Beyond that, we can speculate on the nature of the historical Jesus, but nothing can be said for certain. The ahistorical Christ figure in the Gospels, on the other hand, is an exaggerated and contradictory figure, very much affected by the agendas of those who wrote about him. The literal and the liberal are both very selective about which Christ they like promote.
Fundamentalists tend to ignore the parts about Christ which demand lives without property or violence. Instead opting for a messiah who endorses crusades in the Middle East and wants to bar immigrants from the border, or as Bill Maher called him, “Supply-Side Jesus.” Liberals try to present Christ as a progressive socialist, who would promote gay marriage and allow for birth control in high school. Though Christ, as best as I can gather, was not a progressive socialist, but an authoritarian anarchist. His demands that people love him more than their families, never look lustfully at strangers, and live with no thought for the morrow because the end was near, could surely have come out of the mouth of many a cult leader.
The real Christ is understandably too radical for many Christians to handle. Indeed, on his search for spiritual meaning, Leo Tolstoy once remarked of Orthodox Christian theologians he met that,
“I was repelled by the fact that these people’s lives were like my own, the only difference — that such a life did not correspond to the principles they expounded in their teachings. I clearly felt that they deceived themselves and that they, like myself, found no other meaning in life than to live while life lasts, taking all one’s hands can seize. I saw this because if they had had a meaning which destroyed the fear of loss, suffering, and death, they would not have feared these things. But they, these believers of our circle, just like myself, living in sufficiency and superfluity, tried to increase or preserve them, feared privations, suffering, and death, and just like myself and all of us unbelievers, lived to satisfy their desires, and lived just as badly, if not worse, than the unbelievers,” (50–51).
You could argue that I’m taking the idea of “turning in one’s grave” too literally, but there’s a larger point to be made. We see historical figures less as people, like us, and more as props to used on the stage and discarded before the second act. They all too often become handy quotes on coffee mugs or snarky memes on Facebook. Some arise to the status of gods while others fall to the stigma of demons. It is difficult, if not impossible, to capture a whole person’s philosophy in a book, a film, a song, or an essay. When we say, “I know that X would feel in such and such a manner if they saw Y”, we are assuming a degree of knowledge about someone that even some historians in the field wouldn’t claim. Reflect on that.
Time can do a lot to change a person. Imagine how different our perspectives of many historical figures would be if they had died at different points in their lives. Death is both a butcher and a preserver of reputations. We all know that quote from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, “You either die the hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This is often true, but so is the reverse. Had St. Paul died well before his conversion, he’d be remembered as a cruel murderer of Christians. Had Malcolm X died in prison, he’d be remembered as petty criminal. Who could have predicted Charlton Heston becoming a Republican or Eldridge Cleaver becoming a Mormon? How would Kennedy have led in Vietnam? How would Lincoln have led Reconstruction? If any of these folks had lived a bit longer or died a bit sooner, our perspectives of them might be turned on their heads. So we might not so easily be able to proclaim that this or that person would say this comment or that comment had they lived another ten years, but we can go further than that.
Imagine, if you will, if historical figures were permitted to live far beyond their lifespan. For many in the past, the world we live in is science-fiction, and for those further back, it is pure fairytale. Just think of the past visions of the future that were at least considered plausible enough to convince the audience. Take Kubrick and Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. We had colonies on the Moon and could make a human voyage towards Jupiter. In the 1920’s, it was believed that there would never again be a World War, with the Kellogg-Briand Pact as the next Magna Carta. In the 1950’s, fears of nuclear annihilation were potent in politics as well as pop culture, from The Day The Earth Stood Still to Godzilla. In the 1970’s, anxieties about overpopulation and running out of food or space to breed were embodied in Soylent Green. In the 1990’s, phobias about the “super-predators” led to mandatory minimums and the over-sentencing of the black and Latino populations. How would a person be affected by seeing these various projections of the future disproved or affirmed? Would they maintain consistent positions throughout or be swayed by the times? Who can say?
Our worldviews are shaped just as much by our knowledge as they are by our ignorance. Think of all the knowledge that the human brain can accumulate in 75 or so years. Then think about how much knowledge the brain could accumulate were it to live for centuries, or even a millennia. Also think about how it’s become progressively easier to diffuse information with newspapers, public libraries, radio, television, and the Internet. How would a Socrates or a Confucius react had he evolved with the times to our present age, having witnessed the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the invention of the i-Phone?
None of this is to say, of course, that we shouldn’t learn from history, or even use ideas from the past to inspire new projects for the future. Indeed, simply because we don’t know exactly what this figure would do or say in this or that situation, doesn’t mean we can’t say anything. Gandhi is a fine icon for nonviolence and Mandela an expert at self-determination. I think it’s possible to promote or discourage the lives of certain persons in principle, while having enough humility and respect to recognize we can’t commandeer the dead as we would a ship. No one is immune from misusing history. The Right misuses Martin Luther King, the Left misuses Che Guevara, and everyone misuses Christ. In a way, there will always be some small contradictions. Dwight Eisenhower gave a powerful farewell address on the military industrial complex, and has since been quoted by many left-wing peace activists. However, Eisenhower also engaged in some of the very same realpolitik that these activists despise, most notably, approving the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran. Does this smear on his record make his speech any less moving or accurate? I’m not sure, but I suppose all things must be measured on the scales of Anubis.
The extent to which a particular person’s views be used in an argument may all be a matter of balancing out how well their acts support your proposals, though even those with whom you disagree can make good points. I guess we can know a figure well enough to allow for misinterpretation, but never so completely as to deny differing interpretations.
I can’t say I best know the answers on how to use or not use historical persons in our day to day conversations. All I will say is to be skeptical of those who claim with absolute certainty that this or that figure would support or refuse this or that action. Investigate the matter for yourself, and you’ll find that these persons you read about in dusty history textbooks or hear about in news soundbites are just as complex and contradictory as you and I.
Bibliography
Tolstoy, Leo. Trans. Aylmer Maude. A Confession. Oxford University Press: London, 1921. Dover: New York, 2005. 50, 51. Print.
Originally published at sansuthecat.blogspot.com on February 26, 2016.
