European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 14, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Sunday. July 14, 199 1 the stars and Stripe George will Rivage 13 commentary Congress is about to rename Montana a Custer Battlefield As Little Bighorn Battlefield with appropriate acknowledgement of the indians who fought there. This Small suitable act1 of moral reparation is but one skirmish in a Multi front Battle about the presentation of americans past and hence the shape of its future. The Battle rages around the Issue is How to give various participants in americans drama their due without damaging the rat Ion a animating premise. In new York and California the two most ethnically Complex states and elsewhere school curricula Are being revised and sometimes improved. A valid aim is to show that baking bread not just making Laws has mattered to the nation a that history should not neglect the Anonymous. But the Din now drowning civil conversation and common sense is the whine of axes being ground by groups trying to turn the teaching of history into political preaching. A fortunately Arthur Schlesinger jr., distinguished historian and dissenting participant in new Yorkus curriculum revision has written the Dis uniting of America a trenchant dissection of today so therapeutic such history is not a Craft it is a weapon. History in the hands of ethnic partisans is not an exercise of intellectual disinterestedness but an instrument of group cohesion and political agendas. America originally aspired to be a transforming nation severing roots and dissolving ancient manners and mentalities. But today there is a contrary vision an America of prickly groups irritably asserting their inviolable identities. Instead of a nation of individuals exercising free choices it is to be a nation of indelible group identities. Schlesinger acknowledges that there has been much a exculpatory history written to vindicate existing arrangements by affirming the Virtues of those who did the arranging. But truth is not better served by a compensatory history that preaches the Virtues of the oppressed by exaggerating their achievements. This was once called the a a there a always an irishman at the Bottom of it doing the real work approach to history. Today new York children Are taught that the . Constitution was decisively shaped by the political thinking of the Iroquois. Such fictions Are supposed to nurture minorities a self esteem a which is assumed on the basis of scant evidence to be a prerequisite for not the result of students Progress. Today says Schlesinger Black americans who have suffered generations of a psychological and cultural evisceration a understandably seek a an affirmative definition of their but what they get from some fraudulent a a historians Are absurd and poisonous David Broderic history More of Bane than cure racists last sane it blends of cultural myths and biological determinism of a sort once favored by White supremacists. Some Black teachers proclaim Black racial superiority based on a a High level of Melanin a a chemical associated with skin pigmentation. A Black professor involved in new Yorkus curriculum revision professes to believe that europeans formed by living in caves Are cold materialistic aggressive a Nice people a whereas africans shaped by Sunshine and Melanin Are warm humanistic a Sun Africa says another afro centrist gave Western civilization its philosophy Aristotle allegedly cribbed his Medicine science and Art Beethoven was an a afro european. Schlesinger tartly replies a the West needs no lectures on the Superior virtue of those a Sun people who sustained slavery until Western imperialism abolished it a and he adds a if some Leagle of the Kun flux klan wanted to devise an educational curriculum for the specific purpose of handicapping and disabling Black americans he would not be Likely to come up with anything More diabolically effective than afroccntrism.�?�. The preposterous premise of feel Good history is that inspiration necessarily and Only comes from studying people of ones own ethnicity. Do american children of greek and italian descent Benefit More than others from studying ancient Greece and Rome but As one Black historian rightly says a Black american and the grandson of polish immigrants have More in common than the former has with a nigerian or the latter with a resident of Warsaw. This is because american nationality has always Buceti Creed Al rather than racial or ancestral. The cult of ethnicity produces what Schlesinger Calls a culture of self pity and victimization. There is a a contagion of inflammable sensitivities that makes the Bonds of National identity Brittle. It is instructive that this perhaps the most serious counter revolution Ever mounted against the american revolution comes from the left. The stakes Are High because As Schlesinger says a history is to the nation As memory is to the c the Washington pos Bush stands outside growing . Doubts Richard Wirthlin lacks the same a a insider status in George Bush a White House he once enjoyed As former president Reagan a pollster. His client in the 1988 gop presidential primaries was sen. Bob Dole r-kan., a and that a not something Bush finds easy to forgive or forget. So when Wirthlin said at breakfast the other morning that Bush a is in a much stronger position today than Ronald Reagan was in the summer of 1983,�?� the reporters at the table sat up and took notice. Reagan went on in 1984 to carry everything but Minnesota and the District of Columbia. So if Bush is stronger than Reagan was is months before election Day it does not augur Well for the democrats. But Wirthlin also pointed to a Paradox in the polling numbers. The same voters who give the president an awesome 75 percent approval rating also indicate in creasing pessimism about the prospects and direction of the country. The percentage of people saying the United states is a seriously off on the wrong track has risen every month since january Wirthlin said. This is pretty remarkable considering that the country has just celebrated a fourth of july Holiday that renewed All the feelings of Pride and patriotism engendered by the persian Gulf War. But its not the first time in the Bush years that we be encountered this anomaly. In late 1989 and Early 1990, the fall of the Berlin Wall the peaceful liberation of Eastern Europe and the end of the 45-year cold War All failed to lift the National mood. This suggests two things to me a first that americans Are not going to regain their characteristic Confidence unless and until they see the country tackling the things that really concern them Here it Home. A second that in some fundamental Way they have accepted and Are prepared to live with the Prospect that Bush is not the president who will do that. As usual the voters have it figured. Out correctly. There Are serious Ana substantial reasons to believe that the nation is slipping. The Council on competitiveness re ported last week that the United states alone among the seven great Industrial nations of the world suffered an actual decline in its real Standard of living last year. While that was caused by the Onset of the recession the Long term trend also justifies concern. Between 1972 and 1990, the real Stan Dard of living of americans grew barely More than half As fast As that of citizens of the other six countries. Another key piece of evidence came in a report issued earlier this month by the department of labors commission on achieving necessary skills. Lynn Martin the Secretary of labor and William e. Brock the former Secretary of labor who headed the commission could not have been More Blunt in what they said a More than half our Young people today leave school without the knowledge or foundation required to find and hold a Good Job.Martin and Brock and the folks on the competitiveness Council Are Good and Earnest people. They Hope that sounding the alarm about lagging investment re search and education will sir people in communities across America to act. But their voice is tiny compared to that of the president. And Bush is preoccupied with the International Side of his Job trotting from Canada to London working on Security for the kurd and Unity for the yugoslavs and pining for an arms control Summit with Mikhail Gorbachev. All this is important and last summer in the persian Gulf crisis Bush demonstrated to the nation and the world How useful his deep personal involvement in foreign policy can be. But As Wirthlin commented at breakfast there a no threat on the International horizon which concerns people nearly so much As their sense that this country a our country a is slowly but steadily sliding backward and leaving our children with a bleaker future than our parents left to us. Bush gets deserved credit for doing what he does Well. The question is whether the democrats in 1992 will offer someone who plausibly could Lead on these other issues. C the Washington Post
