Like I Was Saying…
I wrote copy today.
That’s what I did. Thankfully Jake liked it.
Like I’ve said, I can identify a problem, but have a hard time creating a problem to fix.
I need to create more creative problems for me to fix.
Something interesting I heard today.
Apparently the state of Virginia is reevaluating how it teaches history and some other subjects. The state of Virginia does this every seven years.
Well, needless to say, education has become the trenches in today’s culture war.
You have one side that wants history taught one way and the other side taught another way. The best way to characterize it is one side wants it woke, the other doesn’t.
Here’s what’s odd.
I didn’t grow up with this problem or I wasn’t aware of this problem.
I was pretty much aware that the human history was always a brutal and violent affair.
Let’s take the American Revolution. I got the basic gist of it early on. Americans colonized the America, because they didn’t like or were forced out of England.
At some point, the Americans the Americans got tired of England’s shenanigans and went to war. The Americans won and hence we were no longer subjects of the British crown.
Now, by fifth grade, I’d gotten some more info on the American Revolution.
And then I read a book called My Brother Sam is Dead.
The story is told by this kid - I forget his name - somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Now here was the kicker. The author, wasn’t necessarily kind to the Americans or the British. His take, as I understood it was that war is hell and effected more of people that didn’t fight than did.
Somewhere in my brain something clicked, there has right be more to any historical event.
Hence, I developed a healthy skepticism of history.
I also feel that my teachers back then, laid it out in such a way where they were giving us facts, but not making any judgement of those facts.
Like I knew Washington had slaves, but those were the times.
It’s like when I found out, Lincoln pretty much circumnavigated the Constitution during the Civil War.
Again, Lincoln did what he had to do. He was a war time president.
Humans, no matter how noble, are imperfect beings. They lived within the context of their times.
It’s like I don’t get the big brouhaha against Dr. Fauci, a very complicated man. He was working within a global pandemic. I would’ve done the same thing. Now there’s a question if he knew what he was doing wasn’t effective, but again, he had to do something.
I once dug into the history of the Popes.
Turns out, we’ve had some bad ones that have sat in Saint Peter’s chair.
The thing is we’ve always maintained as a Church that you could have a bad pope, but the faith remains perfect.
I think that’s why I’m somewhat okay with American History on some level.