The main problem with lawyers and judges is that they truly believe that the law exists in a vacuum.  Their talk is consumed with legal reasoning and principles.  They tout precedents and logic as the cornerstones of their work.  Mundane issues like indoor plumbing, pollen counts, or rain delays have no bearing on that.  No, the law exists in the rarified air of intellectual discourse — or so legal thinkers believe.  Other concerns are really just below them, they think.  They can’t be bothered with good grammar, literary references, or other relevant influences.  The only time they really seem to talk about history is when some conservative legal beagle wants to go on about the Founding Father’s intent and the primacy of that in interpreting the law.  Occasionally, it occurs to a judge that history might be relevant, but that’s so rare.  Even then, though, the history is often a tool used to justify a judge’s weak reasoning.  They aren’t historians and their history is bad.  The result is bad law that will make poor history.

 

Just so, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently abused history to reach the simplistic and dull conclusion that the inclusion of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is not a violation of the principle of separation of church and state.  An atheist in California sued on behalf of plaintiffs who objected to their children having to recite this part of the pledge at school.  After months of consideration, the court issued a voluminous opinion that was long on empty words and short on historical reference.

 

The court held that the pledge did not promote a belief in God or religion because it served to unite citizens through a recitation celebrating the ideals on which the country was founded.  As such, it had a patriotic rather than religious purpose.  The problem with this conclusion is that it lacks understanding of the history of the development of the pledge.  Our founders did not write it.  They never would have.  They were not nationalists.  That didn’t develop until after the Civil War decided the state’s rights issue with blood.  Andrew Jackson may have been a budding nationalist, but Thomas Jefferson was not.  So pledging allegiance to the U.S. rather than the State of South Carolina or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would have been anathema to them.  It was a full century after the Constitution was adopted before the pledge was even written.  The country was not founded on the ideal of nationalism, so any pledge celebrating that diverges from our first principles.  Thus, the history gives the lie to the court’s contention.

 

Further, the first draft of the pledge did not contain the words “under God.”  That wasn’t added until the 1950’s — as a reaction to the threat of godless communism from the U.S.S.R.  For the first sixty years of its recitation, no one needed to reference God as part of their patriotism.  That changed with the Cold War.  Then, patriotism and religiosity became intertwined.  Prior to that patriotism was secular.  There was a division between civic activities and faith.  Although the court correctly notes that the founders did reference a creator in the Declaration of Independence, it conveniently ignores the fact that they omitted any such reference from the Constitution, the framework for our political organization.  So, if the court relies on the founder’s intent, it should have to reject the pledge in its entirety — and especially any reference to God.  That was okay for justifying breaking with England but had no place for them in constructing a new national (anti-federalist influenced) framework.

 

Ironically, in its decision, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ argument because it said it failed to consider the context and history of the pledge.  Of course, what the court means is the legislative history of adding “under God” to the pledge — not the rest of the history.  This is a carefully tailored, selective reading that justifies the court’s stand.  Through this, the court can maintain that Congress’ purpose in amending the pledge was not to require any allegiance to God or religion.  In doing so, it relies on the preamble to the legislation for support.  Congress said that wasn’t the purpose, so it must be true.  The judges recognized that such a contention had to be real and not a sham, but then offered no reasoning for concluding that it wasn’t just empty words.  Rather, they took Congress’ word for it.  Of course, to be able to claim that is to ignore the history of why the amendment was made.  From their pulpits, preachers of that time denounced the “godless atheism” of the communists and political leaders made grandiose statements about the superiority of American culture thanks to the hand of God working on the nation’s behalf.  Anti-communism was most certainly not secular in those years.  The court ignores that inconvenient truth.

 

Finally, the court decides that its final out is that students are not required to say the pledge anyway.  They can just opt not to participate at all.  Thus, it isn’t a violation of their rights to have “under God” in the pledge.  If students object, they don’t have to say it.  But, what the court is doing there is requiring religious patriotism.  You have to make the religious affirmation or you must refrain from the patriotic activity entirely.  It makes no room for secular patriotism, and in doing so, the court misses the intentional addition of the First Amendment to the Constitution.  There was a time in this country when the states did have official religions, but the founders purposely rejected that when building a federal government.  They omitted God, a Creator, even Providence from the Constitution because they had learned from the mistakes of murderous Puritans and intolerant Anglicans.  In short, they learned from history.  Too bad the court missed that lesson.

 

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One of the amendments proposed by the Texas School Board of Education to the social studies curriculum used in the public schools in that state requires that teachers spend time lecturing about the conservative resurgence of the 1980’s and 1990’s in America.  Well, most teachers don’t cover that because a) it’s not history yet and b) they run out of time to do those years in depth.  You’re lucky if your teacher gets to touch on Ronald Reagan much at all.  Hell, you’re lucky if your teacher goes much in detail into Vietnam.  Most of my students know nothing about that, and when I brought up Three Mile Island one semester, no one had even heard of it.  So, you’re not even talking 1980’s and 1990’s here.  It’s hard to fit it all in one semester.

 

What I think they should require is that teachers spend time lecturing about the conservative resurgence of the 1960’s and 1970’s.  In particular, a couple of Texans would be important to talk about (and I do — but my textbook does not).  They are Paige Patterson and Judge Paul Pressler.  These two gentlemen got together and hatched a plan to take over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) because of their concerns that the denomination was growing too moderate (not liberal, just moderate).  They brought in like-minded peers and slowly implemented their scheme to take over the top positions and then dictate principles to those below.  They changed the official platform of the SBC to fit their conservative agenda.  Not only did their work cause a significant shift in the SBC, but the involvement of conservative Baptist political activists meant that they affected politics as well.  The rise of the political power of the religious right in the 1970’s meant significant changes in our country (including leading to Reagan’s election in 1980).  Southern Baptists — as one of the largest religious segments of our society — have been essential to this change, and Texans were at the forefront of that development.  The conservatives on the Texas School Board pushing the connection between Christianity and government in our country are heirs of Patterson and Pressler’s work.

 

Here’s the twist:  Patterson (after serving as President of the SBC) eventually became President of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (thereby controlling the training of future Southern Baptist ministers) — he had  previously served as President of the Southeastern Seminary as well.  During his time at Southwestern, he dismissed one of the faculty members — Dr. Sheri Klouda — because she is female and Patterson’s reading of the Bible is that women should not be in positions of authority over men (apparently not even male students).  Klouda sued the school for discrimination based on her sex.  Ironically, the judge hearing the case dismissed it, because the Constitutional ban on government intrusion into religious matters meant that the courts had no jurisdiction over matters at the seminary.  That’s right, Patterson’s ass was saved by the separation of church and state.  I doubt the School Board is pressing for that story’s inclusion in their amendments.

 

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Remember these names:  David Barton and Rev. Peter Marshall.  You should know these men because it is in good part due to their efforts that the Texas public school curriculum will soon, among other things, minimize the role of Thomas Jefferson as a contributor to the ideology of the American Revolution and the development of the U.S. Constitution.  You see, they are the “experts” that the Texas School Board relied on to alter the recommendations of the scholars and historians involved in drafting the original proposed curriculum.  The drafters celebrated Jefferson, but the Board voted to remove that information and talk about Moses as an inspiration instead.  Vocal board member Dr. Don McLeroy (a dentist) believes that the notion that our founders wanted to separate church and state is a myth propagated by secular liberals.  McLeroy rejects the work of professional historians and scholars and, instead, relies on that of Barton and Marshall to substantiate his claims.

 

Barton is a self-educated, self-published author on the Christian foundations of our country.  Barton does not have a degree in history or theology, but he founded an organization (WallBuilders) to promote his work.  He sells his books in church bookstores and online rather than through traditional public (read: secular) booksellers.  Again, his books are not published by any noted press.  Marshall, on the other hand, is the son of a former Senate chaplain who has an ivy league education.  Marshall has theology — but not history — degrees from Yale and Princeton.  He also has written books on the U.S.’s purpose as a Christian nation and God’s plan for America.  Despite his notable education, Marshall’s works are not published by any important press either.  Instead, his books are printed by a specialty Christian publisher.  His works are similarly marketed to church people rather than the general reading public.

 

Because of the influence of these authors and the power of the conservatives relying on them who dominate the School Board, the Texas curriculum is being revised to accentuate the alleged Christian foundations of our country.  It is not true that none of our founding fathers were religious men or that none of them believed in God.  It is true that they referenced a Creator, talked about God, and opened sessions with prayers.  It is also true that John Adams was a Unitarian who did not believe in God as a trinity.  Thus, Jesus to him was an important prophet, but not God himself.  Thomas Jefferson shared this view of the son of God — and, incidentally, it is from one of his letters that we get the phrase “separation of church and state.”  George Washington was a member of the Anglican Church, but he refused to take communion.  Thomas Paine, who wrote Common Sense, the pro-independence pamphlet that influenced many American revolutionaries, also wrote a book called The Age of Reason, in which he rejected all organized religions and referred to them as means for enslaving mankind.  In other words, our founders held a mixture of various religious beliefs.  It is disingenuous to claim that our founders were not influenced by Christianity.  However, it is also incorrect to claim that they intended to establish a country where the Christian religion was intertwined with the political structure.  Nothing proves this more clearly than the fact that they never passed any resolutions or laws establishing an official national church or churches.  Those who claim that our country was designed to be a Christian nation conflate (some of) the founders’ personal feelings with their political work.

 

If Barton and Marshall have indeed done extensive research and have educated themselves well, as they claim, they know better than the things they advocate.  And they certainly must know better than to try to minimize Jefferson in the story of the country’s ideological beginnings or to exaggerate the role of religion in the framework our founders established for our nation.  Because of the influence they’ve had in shaping Texas’ — and therefore the nation’s — social studies curriculum, it is important to identify these men and to remove them from the anonymity of history.  We should know who our historiographers are and their agenda.

 

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I recently read an op-ed piece by Andrew B. Lewis for the Los Angeles Times (”The Sit-ins That Changed America,” 1/31/10).  Lewis began the piece:

 

“The ‘Sixties’ were born on February 1, 1960, 50 years ago last week, when four African-American college students staged the first sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C.”

 

Lewis went on to explain how the sit-ins sparked by the Greensboro example revitalized the civil rights movement, which had floundered after failed attempts to integrate southern schools after the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the successful but foregone Montgomery bus boycott.  Lewis also went on to talk about how the students involved in these sit-ins formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to preserve their independence from the NAACP and the resulting rise of significant young leaders like John Lewis, Julian Bond, Bob Moses, Stokely Carmichael, and Marion Barry.  The success of the civil rights movement thereafter was largely the result of the aggressive egalitarian pattern set by these student protesters, Lewis noted.  Because of these, our country was permanently and significantly changed.

 

Only, there were sit-ins in Oklahoma City starting in August 1958 that pre-dated the events in North Carolina.  The NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City desegregated literally hundreds of restaurants and public spaces between 1958 and 1964.  Their primary shepherd in this was Clara Luper, an activist with the NAACP.  Interestingly, in Oklahoma, it’s the women who most often are the rebels fomenting change.  Luper never got national credit for her leadership like Bond and Carmichael, et al, and the Oklahoma City sit-ins didn’t spark a chain of similar events around the American south.  One has to wonder why.  How is it that Greensboro has become a symbol in our memories but Oklahoma City has been lost to our national consciousness?  I teach my students from a textbook that marks the beginning of the sit-in movement in North Carolina, and we in Oklahoma know better.  We know that it came here first (or, rather, second if you count the Virginia library sit-in from the 1930’s).  We also know that the rest of the country didn’t notice.  I bet most other Americans didn’t even know there was segregation in Oklahoma.  They probably also didn’t know that it was a couple of court cases from Oklahoma that desegregated public universities in the United States.  Our state was a pivotal part of the civil rights movement in the twentieth century, only the rest of the country didn’t pay any attention to it.

 

So, the question is:  if a civil rights protest happens in Oklahoma and no one else notices it, did it really happen?

 

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One hundred and sixty years before the Boy Kelsey first stepped ashore in Canadian territory, Franciscan priest Marcos de Niza led a group north from Mexico to explore New Mexico.  At first, he traveled with Coronado’s party.  Later, he and his aide Estebanico set off on their own with their assorted Indian retinue.  As they moved deeper inland, they met many Native Americans, who entertained them and provided them shelter along the way.  These natives were fascinated with the white man enrobed in his Franciscan uniform of a grey gown and sandals — so different from their brown faces, cotton wraps, and short boots.  Fray Marcos tarried to minister to the Indians, but sent Estebanico on ahead to explore.  He was to send word back, if he were to find a great discovery.  Estebanico, with his greyhounds at his side, set off with an even smaller team of Indian companions.

 

Some time later, an Indian runner returned to Fray Marcos with a cross in hand.  It was a sign from Estebanico that he had made a great find!  The priest hurried to catch up to his aide.  Before he could do so, however, word came that Estebanico had been killed by hostile Indians — Zunis who reacted swiftly and fiercely when the Spanish representative informed them that conquerors were coming.  His brothers, Estebanico reportedly told them, were powerful and innumerable, and they were taking possession of the land.  The Zunis killed him before he could return to his many brothers and divulge the location of their pueblos.  Wisely, Fray Marcos turned back when given the news.  He planned to return again later with more reinforcements.

 

Estebanico was certainly not the first explorer to be denied possession of the New World.  In Roanoke, Virginia and the southern Mississippi Valley, English and French newcomers were also killed by Indians who did not welcome the threats and intrusions.  What makes Estebanico so unique was the fact that he was one of the first explorers to come to North America representing the Spanish crown — to claim the land for God and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella — and he was a black man from Africa.

 

(Well, they anglicized John Cabot’s name and hispanicized Christopher Columbus’ too.)

 

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How to torture an American:  force them to conceive of a history of the United States wherein we are not the greatest military force on earth, we are aggressive bullies and thieves, and others are more wily and sophisticated than we are.  Now, make them tell that story.  Actually, I don’t think it can be done.  Even the most leftist American historian I’ve ever read is a patriotic apologist.  C’est le nationalisme.  Le nationalisme est un bourbier.

 

This is a natural habit well cultivated by a tendency never to ask others for their opinion.  My professional training reinforced the inclination.  None of my masters ever asked me to read any American history written by a non-American.  What’s more, none of them even asked me to read histories of other North Americans.  It is in this way that I was trained to keep my thinking parochial and my attitude dismissive.  Now, I struggle to teach myself the history of Nueva España and Nouvelle-France in order to broaden my take on American history.  It’s damn hard to do so, by the way.  It’s pretty much the ignorant leading the stupid.

 

Happily, I stumbled onto a history of the French in North America (subtly entitled The French in North America), which is largely a history of Canada.  What a difference your perspective makes!  The author is English but he was trained in Canada and France.  Free from many of our prejudices and assumptions, he makes daring statements.  The most surprisingly nuanced is that the greatest military force in North America in the seventeenth century was the Iroquois Confederacy.  Upon reflection, I think it’s largely true.  The group dominated the northeastern part of the U.S. at that time and being a combination of six nations, it was significant in numbers — giving it a numerical advantage over its foes.  It certainly outnumbered the European settlers in the colonies.  I have yet to discover an American textbook that in anyway acknowledges the superiority of any Indian nation or body.  I guess the Canadians and French don’t feel threatened by acknowledging this truth.

 

Also, during the course of his story, the author — W. J. Eccles — recounts a number of incidents of aggression on the part of English colonists against the Canadians.  I was completely unfamiliar with these.  No one had ever instructed me before that New Englanders raided Acadia and Newfoundland for spoils.  These were apparently unprovoked and the sole purpose was to steal from the French.  So noble.  Did I mention that these New Englanders settled the territory before the Puritans?  I guess that’s how Squanto knew already knew English and could teach them how to plant corn so they wouldn’t starve to death.  Anyway, so much for our founders coming to our shores in search of religious liberty.  Damn the inconvenience of truth.  Pillaging pirates, not prayerful Puritans — these were our English forefathers in the northeast.

 

Well, we can always console ourselves with the myth of social Darwinism:  Anglos conquered the continent — driving out the French, Spanish, and Native Americans — because it was their manifest destiny as the greater culture/force (chosen by God).  Through various military endeavors, we eventually bested the Indians and took their land.  Those pathetic Frenchies weren’t up to the task.  But, wait!  Eccles says:  early on, the French realized that they were grossly outnumbered and militarily inferior to the Indians in North America.  The French government determined that it did not wish to commit the necessary money and troops to fully develop Canada.  The returns would not be that great, and it was more interested in besting the English in Europe.  As such, they came up with an Indian policy that was essentially to trade with the Indians and depend on them for protection and assistance.  In short, they opted to be the subservient in order to make money off of the fur trade.  They decided that was all they really wanted with North America anyway.  Genius.  Then, they figured out that they could use their settlements in America as a thorn in the flesh of the English.  They — along with their Indian allies, to whom they gave guns in return for valued furs — could mount enough of a military threat to force the English to commit troops to protect their colonies.  This would siphon off soldiers from the battlefields of Europe, giving the French the advantage they preferred there.  Further, the French realized that with proper encouragement, they could sit back and let the rebel colonies do the dirty work for them.  If the English were busy fighting their colonists, the French would again have the advantage in Europe, as the English would be fighting two fronts.  (Unfortunately, in the end, they did have to send in the navy to save us because alone the American military was not up to the task and colonists were too cheap to pay for the necessities of war.)  Shortly thereafter, Napoleon would prove the wisdom of this policy and lead the French empire to dominance.  As painful as it is to accept, to the French, the Americas were but a pawn.  We may have been undertaking a noble experiment, but they were playing at a larger game.

 

So, here is a bit of American history from a completely different perspective — one in which we are not the grand heroes and enlightened victors.  In this history, we are cheap, greedy, aggressive, and militarily inferior to both the French and <gasp> the Indians.  I dare you to tell that story to your children.  Oh, the horror!  Don’t worry.  It would never make it past the Texas School Board.

 

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Historians are judges — of what is good or evil, of what is noble or undesirable, of what is human nature or aberrant.  In trying to make sense of past events, we judge them — and the people involved in them — in order to understand them.  Thus, we ask questions like:  were slave owners in the American colonies cruel sadists or did they know not what they were truly doing?  Did they unconsciously build a system that robbed others of their very selves by enslaving them or did they set out to intentionally establish a culture of cruelty towards blacks?  These are moral questions as much as they are intellectual ones.  When we ask them, we are trying to understand the thinking of our ancestors, but we are also making value judgments about their behaviors.  We cannot escape doing so.  It is part of being human.  Social scientist might find this duty objectionable and pretend they can remove it from our practice, but that is foolish nonsense.  We are not history automatons and the value of history is tied to its role in creating and supporting our ethical beliefs.  We are moral beings studying other moral beings;  it would be the height of ridiculousness to pretend to remove morality from that study.

 

When we write about noble characters who commit great deeds we tend not to struggle with the morality of our judgments as much.  We generally accept that people do good and desirable things, so when we write about this, we tend not to question from where this goodness originates.  It may be uncommon to be a great patriot, but it isn’t a psychological aberration.  When we write about perpetrators of great evils, however, we confront just such qualities.  What kind of a man was Adolf Hitler that he could do the things he did?  Underlying that question is moral repulsion at his behavior.  Thus, in writing about him and the other Nazis, historians struggle with how best to judge these men.  Some attack them as evil, psychologically disturbed persons.  Others, try to come up with a rationalization that makes their motives seem reasonable and, therefore, comprehensible.  In her analysis of Adolf Eichmann’s participation in the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, Hannah Arendt proposed that his case illustrated the “banality of evil.”  Eichmann’s actions were not the result of a great prejudice or psychosis.  Eichmann was just a regular guy who went along with the herd.  The great evil of the Holocaust here was its inanity or lack of conscious maliciousness.  In other words, it’s not personal, it’s just business.  The ideological extension of that contention is that there is nothing special about evilness and you should not engrandize evil historical figures by characterizing them as exceptional (even in a negative way).  Thus, you rob them of their infamy by treating them as regular human beings rather than powerful individuals.  Perhaps this is our revenge on them.

 

Last summer, an old man consumed with disease and hatred endeavored to commit a mass murder at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.  A white supremacist with a violent animosity toward Jews, he plotted to kill visitors at the museum — a futile act of rage against the society from which he had become marginalized.  He was thwarted in his aim by a guard who wounded him when returning gunfire.  Our hero, Stephen Johns, died in the line of duty, preventing a potentially great slaughter.  Our villain, James von Brunn, has been declining in jail since that time, dying of his diseases while awaiting trial.  Clearly, von Brunn was no Eichmann (or at least Arendt’s Eichmann).  His action was intentional and vile.  It was abnormal, and it seems impossible to dismiss it as banal.  What to do then with this character?  How do we judge him?  And, if we do so, do we reward him for his evil act by giving him an acknowledged place in history?  On the day that he died, the museum put out a statement remembering Johns instead and pointing to the continued need for efforts to eradicate prejudice and hatred in human society.  It was a rather ahistorical tack for a place of remembering.  It was, undoubtedly, an intentional refusal to acknowledge von Brunn and his significance or connection to the museum.   For a place dedicated to keeping the memory of the Shoah alive, as to prevent its reoccurrence, it was an antithetical act, and perhaps not even a proper one.  To reject the historical perspective in order to punish one man seems a high price to pay.

 

In the end, von Brunn’s passing held little significance anyway.  The story didn’t even make the front page of the papers.  It was a small item on even a slow news day.  Perhaps the real justice in this story is the banality of von Brunn’s death.  He was not a victim of the death penalty — earning the martyr’s status that would give him longevity among certain circles.  It wasn’t a gruesome death etched in the memory of a watching public that would give it notoriety either.  No, he died of ill health unrelated to his actions at the museum;  it was the way he would have died if he had never plotted murder or raised his gun.  Thousands annually die the same way.  It was unremarkable, and that is the way history will record it.

 

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Imagine this:  roughly 10,000 people have nothing better to do on Christmas Day than to venture out to watch a re-enactment of George Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River in 1776.  This is an annual event, drawing hardy souls who brave the cold to watch wannabe Continentals fight fake Redcoats for lovely Trenton, New Jersey.  Forget the birth of Christ.  It’s the birth of a nation (apologies to D.W. Griffith).  The big concession to convenience today is that the re-enactment takes place in the afternoon, although Washington et al crossed in the night.

 

The recent Great Recession has cut deeply.  This year, the state park that houses the re-enactment event was closed for the day due to budget cuts,and now history also became a victim of the fiscal conflagration burning through our economic resources.  Private supporters stepped in to keep the tradition alive, and the show was to go on!

 

Alas, the Friends were no match for Mother Nature.  Strong winds and high waters made the crossing impossible this year.  Instead, there was a ceremony on land followed by a ritual crossing of the local bridge.  It might lack the same danger, nobility, and discomfort of the first crossing, but Washington the Re-enactor found it as solemn and significant, according to his comments to the local paper.  He led his men proudly.  Perhaps in solitude, he wept.

 

I have to admit here that I love history in a way that others often don’t share.  No one else I know enjoys spending hours holed up in the library scrolling through old microfilm of hard to read newsprint or digging through antique shops for old books, records, and bric-a-brac.  But, I am at a loss to explain why 10,000 souls would want to stand out in the cold on the biggest holiday of the year to watch people act out a historical event from well over two hundred and fifty years ago.  Even less can I comprehend why someone would apply and take an exam to portray Washington or any other gentleman at the event.  The devotion of citizens to public history is a mystery to me.  Theirs is not a love of truth or narrative or philosophy.  Instead, they have an emotional connection to the persons involved in the event and a patriotic love of country that causes them to revere such moments.

 

So, the Christmas season for them is a time to mark a special civic remembrance on the day of a Christian one.  For them, the civic and the religious mingle and compound the day’s significance.  Or, maybe they co-mingle and the participants consider their religion and patriotism of the same belief.  In any case, it is these moments where history and current events mix that remind me that I am not like my compatriots and that fascinates me about them.  I can’t imagine paying homage to George Washington and Jesus with shared traditions on the same day.  Or for such different persons, honoring the same night.

 

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I understand that the works of Ayn Rand are gaining popularity again.  Aficianados of the free market system are boisterously promoting its virtues and bandying about the bugaboo of imminently threatening socialism.  Their fervor and simple absolutes breed interest, and the curious turn to Rand for inspiring depictions of ideal capitalism.  Her work makes the capitalist heroic and virtuous.  He is noble and principled, and who would not aspire to such?  Rand’s capitalism is not about greedy fat cats sucking the blood of the proletariat.  Her vision appeals to our highest instincts and caters to our vanity.  Of course, it is also fiction.  Yes, the best expositions of free market ideology are made up tales.

 

History tells us a very different story.  Boosterish proponents of free market ideology may point to the overarching narrative of the American century to promote their theory, but, as they say, the devil is in the details.  Our best shot at a truly free market economy in the United States was in the late nineteenth century.  It was brief and chaotic.  Many literally died in the violent exchanges between workers and hired hands brought in by company owners to crush strikes and rebellions.  These disputes were often settled with guns, fists, torches, and other weapons.  Railroad transportation was often stalled by strikes and other means of disruption.  Boycotts and walk offs frequently meant that consumers could not access the goods and services they wanted or needed.  Order was upset by the violence and disputes;  in some cases, property and towns were actually destroyed due to arson and riots.  Urban life was not safe in the way we understand it today.  Further, there were no employee protections, assuring that they would not have to work in unsafe conditions, be shorted in their pay, or lose their jobs if injured at work.  Workers who were injured on their jobs were not entitled to medical treatments at their employers’ expenses and they were often fired after the fact for being unable to fulfill their duties while incapacitated.  Maimings and serious injuries were common then.  Factory workers were often permanently injured or disabled at work.  They then had no means to support themselves and no social security benefits to fall back on.  The average male factory worker made about $400.00 a year in the late nineteenth century.  Budget estimates by social workers of the time indicated that it took at least $600.00 a year for a family of four to get by — and that’s without medical care or savings.  Accordingly, families were forced to put everyone to work in order to get by.  Children got jobs instead of schooling because their wages were necessary to their familial unit.  For families, for employees and employers, and for local communities, this period was one of violent upheaval and want.  This is not the picture of heroism or virtuous achievement.  It was class war — workers vs. owners — pure and simple.

 

This is the difference between history and fiction and why our historiography is so important to value.  Boosters rely on appealing fiction, but what people need to make realistic choices is knowledge of what really happened in our past.  Free market capitalism sounds great in theory, but our actual experience of it was not so fine or beneficial.  When making choices about what we want for our society today, we must bear that in mind.  Nothing’s as good as its ideal.

 

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I have a photograph of my brother and myself hand-in-hand off to our first day of kindergarten.  We look so innocent.  I have a bow in my hair and little sandals that match my feminine dress on my feet.  My brother looks buttoned up and spit-shined.  My mother groomed and pressed us and memorialized the grand moment when we would venture out into the world — our first foray into public life.  Little did we know at the time, in our excitement over reading hours, recess, and playgrounds, that we were being sent off to be socialized in the American way.  We did not know that we were being groomed into little capitalists.  I wonder if my parents knew it.  They probably didn’t think about it.  Does anyone?

 

It’s not like you can do much to avoid it anyway.  What with the truancy laws, your only option is to teach them at home, and who has the time and resources to home school, really?  In most families, both parents work — and have to do so — and home schooling is a luxury in which they cannot indulge.  Also, it’s likely that a number of them aren’t much interested in spending their days at home teaching their children anyway.  So, they cart them off to schools — public and private — where they are molded into fans of the free market.  That isn’t, of course, why you send them off to school — anymore than to teach them to be little pro-American automatons or knee-jerk patriots.  But, it comes with the package.

 

Of course, the indoctrination is subtle.  Children don’t stand at attention, saluting the flag with pledges like “All hail Capitalism” or “The Future is the Free Market.”  Far from it.  In fact, most students can’t tell you the difference between capitalism, socialism, or communism.  Rather, “capitalism” is normative and familiar to them through unconscious exposure, and the message vaguely reinforces that, suggesting that other systems are anti-Christian or anti-American.  Children don’t know what socialism or communism really is, but they sense that it’s dark and ominous — something to be feared and avoided.  They know it’s bad from the way their books and teachers speak about it and infer from their economics classes — where they learn about playing the stock market from local businessmen volunteers, courtesy of the Rotary Club or other civic organizations — that the free market is what makes us great.  It is the uncritical and unquestioned presentation of our economic system that serves to indoctrinate.  To question that is to be an outsider or a deviant.  Again, by refusing to suggest there are workable alternatives, educators direct you to embrace capitalism (as the only available/desirable option).

 

So, students go to their elementary schools as innocents and emerge as believers — if the schools do their jobs correctly.  And, these institutions of learning are then political tools for the powers that be.  The brick and mortar buildings that should serve as temples of learning become free market sanctuaries.  And, the sweet encouraging woman who taught you to write your letters and work fractions was really a political propagandizer, in whose hands you were impressionable putty that didn’t stand a chance.  In time, when you had become a good capitalist — who may or may not be able to read, identify the number of justices on the Supreme Court, or understand the principles of basic algebra — they gave you a diploma and set you free.  Your time at the free market seminary was done.

 

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