Teaching history at high noon
Leckey, Thomas
Roach went beyond this mediatorial role, however, in raising important moral questions about Operation Desert Storm that had for different reasons been left largely undeveloped in the previous...
...On the eve of a season of chest-pounding in America, Roach urged, in the season of ashes, a little breast-beating...
...In the wider world, President George Bush justifies war by accusing Saddam Hussein of being another Hitler--anoth- er genocidal murderer...
...As Congress debated the Gulf war resolutions in January, viewers were treated to a barrage of historical analogies: references to Hitler (198), Churchill (46), and Neville Chamberlain (45) were all outnum- bered by Vietnam (413), our most vivid historical memory...
...Similarly, future historians may note the ironic juxtaposition of this year's Hollywood blockbuster, Dances with Wolves, and our involve- ment in the Persian Gulf war...
...Roach could have quoted in this context the caution of one Arab commentator on the "MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour," who brought a discussion to an abrupt halt by pointing out to the other [American] panelists that there is no word for "collateral damage" in Arabic and no such concept in Islamic or Arabic cul- ture...
...Using history to teach morality is usually a dubious exercise...
...of war...
...To the extent that presidents and producers popularize history, we are indebted...
...For both good and bad reasons, the United States has always resisted the Machiavellian argument that governments should divorce morality from politics...
...For example, in 1952 when Americans flocked to see Gary Cooper give his Academy Award-winning performance in High Noon, they thought it a traditional Western, one where a lone courageous sheriff dispensed justice from a gun barrel despite the objections of cowardly "appeasers...
...By college, impracticality replaces tedium as the chief disin- centive...
...For even the combination of precise targeting mechanisms and disciplined observance of the principle of discrimination, which still permitted the loss of civilian life and the destruction of Iraq's economic infrastructure and its cultural treasures, could be seen, in that country and in other Islamic nations, as deliberate massacre...
...Perhaps the most difficult hurdle for history teachers is the readiness of students, aping Hollywood, the television networks, and politicians, to substitute facile moral judgments for the objec- tive detachment that undergirds the study of history...
...On a deeper level, students who grow up laboring under the impression that real human problems can be solved using textbook generalities are not likely to listen patiently to the moral ambiguities real history presents...
...Since we all seek moral equanimity, we are vulnerable to these tricks...
...Roach went beyond this mediatorial role, however, in raising important moral questions about Operation Desert Storm that had for different reasons been left largely undeveloped in the previous episcopal statements...
...To the extent that they burden students of history with simplistic moral con- clusions, they make our task more difficult...
...High school students say that it's got too many dates, too many superfluous names, and entirely too much talk of tariffs (I happen to agree with them on the latter...
...He insisted on the church's tra- ditional teaching on the limits of the violence that can be tolerated in war, citing the complementary principles of discrimination (the limitation of deliberate targeting to combatants) and pro- portionality (the close scrutiny of strategies to test their suitability to attain the liberation of Kuwait without the accompanying [perhaps deliberate] destruction of Iraq...
...Of course, everybody likes to have a little history on hand, either to argue a point effectively, or to follow the conversation of some history buff, or perhaps to read George Will...
...Our political culture is not Bismarckian, but one where moral and religious conscience 5 April 1991:223...
...In the more recent film, Kevin Costner's camera dramatizes American genocide against native peoples...
...There are few jobs directly related to the discipline, and the monetary rewards are fewer still...
...Obviously, then, at least some knowledge of history is helpful if we are to follow the narrative of our policymakers and make a democratic assessment of their debates...
...The problem, however, is that history, especially modern history, often ends in moral ambiguity rather than certainty...
...Much later, social his- torians suggested that American viewers might have sensed a subliminal cold-war parable in Cooper's travails...
...Are we guilty, as Costner suggests, or righteous, as Bush proclaims...
...Politicians "moralize" history to mobilize large numbers of voters around THOMAS LECKEY teaches history at St...
...In the face of President Bush's bow to the calculus of military necessity, Roach raised up the civilized standard of moral and political limits to the scale TEACHING HISTORY AT HIGH NOON LETTING THE LESSONS EMERGE istory has never been easy to teach, and thanks to George Bush, Saddam Hussein, and Adolph Hitler, it is made even more difficult...
...If we're guilty in the first instance, are we being too quick to judge in the second...
...All of this hand-wringing raises interesting questions for those, like myself, who teach history...
...Anselm "s Abbey School in Washington, D.C...
...THOMAS LECKEY magnetic themes, and TV does it to hook viewers quickly before remote control preempts the program...
Vol. 118 • April 1991 • No. 7
