"Culture wars" usually erupt in election years, fueled by politicians trying to make up for the lack of ideas and alternatives.
Left-wing activists engage in tearing down monuments -from General Lee to Columbus-, replacing flags and defunding the police. Right-wing activists wrap in Confederate flags, march with torches chanting against those who want to "replace us".
Who can win "culture wars"?
Did racism, fascism, and communism disappear after defeat in the battleground and sanction in the public speech? Does "political correctness" change minds?
Did racism and segregation ended with the Civil War? Affirmative Action? Electing the first black President?
The answers are self-evident, but let's go a step further:
What are we supposed to do with the losers in cultural wars? What are they? Where do they go? How do they live the rest of their lives?
"A house divided cannot stand" means that winners are supposed to exterminate losers? Exile them? Take away their First Amendment Rights?
Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Paul Kagame led their countries out of civil and cultural wars to long and peaceful processes of reconciliation and integration. The United States, South Africa, India, and Rwanda lost millions of lives in those wars and came out stronger thanks to this approach.
Facing an uphill battle for reelection, President Trump focuses his campaign on engaging in culture wars, assuming that this was what helped him win in 2016 -a curious concession to his most ardent critics on the Far Left and his own party-.
The country, meanwhile, has much more important things to care for. It looks at an epic economic downturn, a raging pandemic, and an overwhelmed healthcare system.
If Trump wins reelection, he will face a much more divided country than the one he found. If he loses, bitterness and division will remain for a long time as an obstacle for his successors.
The 40 percent of independent voters and the critical swing states will vote based on the future, not the past.
The past cannot be changed nor forgotten. It must be studied with respect and an open mind to learn from it lessons that can only be applied to the future. Those lessons will be different for different people, times, and circumstances. That's why museums and monuments must stand in place no matter what the opinion of the day is. Sometimes as a reminder of heroism, others as Holocaust or September 11 memorials, to remember atrocities. Heroes for some will be always villains for others. Napoleon and Cesar. TR and FDR. Churchill and Cromwell.
Some monuments will always have opposite meanings for different groups. There is no way to escape this contradiction. It's up to civility to accept "freedom for the thought we hate" - and move on. Certainly, the military that fought for an abhorrent cause -like Generals Lee or Rommel- can be at once seen as heroes or villains. Removing their existing monuments will not change that perception. It might more likely intensify the sentiment on each side of the argument and invite revenge and reciprocation, not change and coming together.
Monuments to controversial historical figures or concepts will always be exposed to public protests and rallies against whatever they represent that is at the time unacceptable for some. There is always the recourse of legislative action to remove them. That is very different from symbolic lynching or mob-driven takedowns.
Adding new monuments is an entirely different thing. There, contemporary citizens can come to a democratic vote that will not close the argument either but will at least feel fair. Once the monument is up, posterity should just leave it that way and make all the arguments and demonstrations against it without defacing it or removing it, or destroying it.
It might sound inadequate, but it's better than the alternative of "quicksands history" that revisionists propose.
Should Egyptians bring down the pyramids in revenge for Pharos' slave-owning tyranny? Should Romans destroy Caligula's and Nero's statues?
There is no final conclusion for history. Historians are not judges. Retroactive justice is no justice at all and expressly outlawed in most judicial systems by statutes of limitations and the concept of double jeopardy.
Some monuments will always have opposite meanings for different groups. There is no way to escape this contradiction. It's up to civility to accept "freedom for the thought we hate" - and move on. Certainly, the military that fought for an abhorrent cause -like Generals Lee or Rommel- can be at once seen as heroes or villains. Removing their existing monuments will not change that perception. It might more likely intensify the sentiment on each side of the argument and invite revenge and reciprocation, not change and coming together.
Monuments to controversial historical figures or concepts will always be exposed to public protests and rallies against whatever they represent that is at the time unacceptable for some. There is always the recourse of legislative action to remove them. That is very different from symbolic lynching or mob-driven takedowns.
Adding new monuments is an entirely different thing. There, contemporary citizens can come to a democratic vote that will not close the argument either but will at least feel fair. Once the monument is up, posterity should just leave it that way and make all the arguments and demonstrations against it without defacing it or removing it, or destroying it.
It might sound inadequate, but it's better than the alternative of "quicksands history" that revisionists propose.
Should Egyptians bring down the pyramids in revenge for Pharos' slave-owning tyranny? Should Romans destroy Caligula's and Nero's statues?
There is no final conclusion for history. Historians are not judges. Retroactive justice is no justice at all and expressly outlawed in most judicial systems by statutes of limitations and the concept of double jeopardy.
Perhaps the US can learn from Rwanda, the scene of a horrific genocidal war.
The "losers" were judged by their contemporaries in their villages and sent to formal justice only when crimes were proven. As in most civil wars, the "war crimes" involved killing among neighbors and relatives for ethnic reasons.
The "losers" were judged by their contemporaries in their villages and sent to formal justice only when crimes were proven. As in most civil wars, the "war crimes" involved killing among neighbors and relatives for ethnic reasons.
Asking for ethnic origin was banned. There will be no Hutus and Tutsis, but Rwandan. And Never Again Rwanda keeps reminding coming generations about the dangers of engaging in "culture wars".
In less than one or at most four years Donald Trump will be an ex-president, as all the 44 before him and those who will come after.
Culture wars are a losers' sport.
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