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Wilfred McClay on Historical Memory — Transcript

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0:02[music]
0:08>> Hello. Welcome to the First Things
0:11Editors Desk Podcast. I'm Rusty Reno,
0:14editor of First Things magazine.
0:16And this week I'm joined by Bill McClay
0:21who delivered the 2021 Erasmus lecture
0:25at the Union League Club here in New
0:27York at the end of October. And we
0:29published his lecture, The Claims of
0:32Memory, in our January issue of First
0:36Things magazine. No,
0:38was it the January issue, Bill?
0:39>> Yes.
0:40>> Yes, it was.
0:41>> January.
0:42>> And so I'm just so delighted to have
0:44Bill McClay here with me to talk about
0:48memory, history, and identity. Welcome,
0:52Bill.
0:53>> Rusty, I'm delighted to be here. It's
0:56always great to do anything with First
0:58Things.
0:59>> All right. Well, very kind of you.
1:01So, memory, memory, it's uh
1:03it was a meditation.
1:05Your piece is a meditation on, I think
1:08as you describe it, memory as the glue.
1:11Yes, that's the metaphor you use. The
1:14glue that holds things together
1:19in our personal lives, but also in our
1:22social lives.
1:23>> Yeah.
1:25Yeah, that's right.
1:26>> So, in your piece you use Alzheimer's as
1:31a an image of
1:35the consequences of loss of memory and
1:38and
1:39I mean, I think all of our listeners can
1:42understand the way in which Alzheimer's
1:44is such a threat to
1:46identity, a feared disease cuz it seems
1:49to cut us off from our very selves.
1:52>> Yes, and uh
1:54it this one of the things that I I tried
1:57to get at in the essay is that
2:00um
2:02in some ways that this is true even when
2:05memories are not always
2:07100% accurate.
2:10Um you can have a vivid
2:13but somewhat erratic memory. You know,
2:17this is why I quote Touchstone, you
2:18know, as it is an ill-favored thing but
2:21mine own. Uh
2:22only this is your own memory.
2:25Um
2:26it is still serving that purpose of the
2:28glue that holds things together. And to
2:33uh you know, I think often of people who
2:35tell me they get into arguments with
2:37their 78-year-old mother about this or
2:40that uh political issue, uh you know,
2:44same-sex marriage or whatever. And and I
2:47always think, why on earth are you
2:49trying to alter the architecture
2:53of someone's mind at that age? For It
2:56has to be for something fundamental like
2:59belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
3:01That I can go with. But but but uh over
3:05over changing your views about the
3:07origins of the Cold War or something
3:09like that.
3:11At a certain point, you you know, the
3:13the the construction of reality that
3:16someone
3:18has organized their life around
3:20is a delicate thing. You don't want to
3:22fool with it unnecessarily.
3:25Um
3:26so uh
3:28I think correcting memories uh
3:32often
3:33I think when you get with older parents
3:36um you know, that's not really that's
3:38not really very important. Um
3:40>> There's a parallel here cuz you draw the
3:42analogy to society
3:45that um you have this marvelous quote
3:48from Santayana, any tradition is better
3:52than any reconstruction.
3:55So, I guess what a flawed memory or a
3:59a kind of rich memory, even if it's
4:02riddled with self
4:04delusion, is preferable to having to
4:08reconstruct everything sort of late in
4:10life.
4:11>> Well, this this Yeah, this is this is
4:14this this is in some way um the the the
4:18claim I'm making, although it I'm you
4:22know, I'm a historian and I had the
4:24historiographical training that
4:25everybody else who goes through graduate
4:28education in a reputable university
4:31is is at least supposed to get. Um and
4:35um uh and I do have respect for the way
4:39in which certain
4:40illusions about the past that take hold
4:45need to be debunked. I I You you and I
4:48could could talk about a whole lot of
4:50delusions about the past that that hold
4:53us back.
4:53>> a favorite? Uh
4:56Do you have a favorite? I mean, we we've
4:59quarreled in the past over I think
5:00nation of immigrants is a
5:03>> Uh
5:03>> is an illusion in the sense that
5:06actually the vast majority of Americans
5:08are native born. They're not immigrants.
5:11>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, that that's that's a
5:13biggie. That's a mythic uh statement.
5:16>> there's a kind of way though that the
5:18myth is of course
5:20a true myth. It's a place America is a
5:23place people have come to, so to speak.
5:25>> Yes.
5:26>> Rather than emerged out of.
5:28>> And and there is a sense that among many
5:30of us that in some ways it it it is a
5:33place that offers to us uh a
5:38um
5:39an ability to to sort of make our own
5:43way, to choose the path that we're going
5:44to to
5:46to not be bound by the conditions
5:49into which we were born more than any
5:51other society,
5:54uh, you know,
5:55past or present.
5:57Um,
5:58and and that's part of our glory and
5:59that's part of our
6:01dilemma at the moment that cuz people
6:03have in a way
6:05the ability to choose things that they
6:07really
6:08shouldn't choose without
6:10the sort of moral guardrails that
6:12prevailed
6:13uh, during times in the past.
6:16Um,
6:17>> So, you So, your sense is that
6:20whether it's whether it's,
6:22uh, the revolutionary generation to make
6:25a
6:26a new order, you know, uh, of for the
6:29ages, um, or it's the immigrant who
6:32picks up and leaves, you know, Poland
6:35and or Ireland or Germany in the 19th
6:38century, but they both participate in
6:40the same kind of
6:41forging of a new future. I never thought
6:43of it that way, but I I think that's a
6:45very persuasive connection.
6:47>> Uh,
6:48you know, I I I wrote this book, um,
6:50called Land of Hope, which is an attempt
6:53to sort of counter the the
6:56>> [laughter]
6:57>> sort of relentless disparaging of
6:58America that you see in textbooks. And,
7:02uh, and that was part of what I was
7:03trying to convey is that that for those
7:06of us who are already here and for those
7:08of us who are drawn here for various
7:11reasons.
7:13It does have that sense that part of the
7:16national identity is its open-endedness,
7:19its openness to, um,
7:23uh, enterprise, to transformation, to
7:25change, to trying something new.
7:29Um,
7:29and not just be the the stonemason that
7:32your father was or the whatever. Um,
7:36and that can involve
7:38immigration, um,
7:40and I think immigration properly
7:42understood, is something that has always
7:45um tended to renew our sense of
7:48ourselves um
7:50in a way that uh that that you know the
7:53the thing they sort of
7:55Brahmin uh population of Boston in the
7:58late 19th century, for example, uh
8:00didn't didn't fully
8:02adequately grasp um
8:05I I wouldn't read them out of the
8:06picture by any means uh but but they
8:09they don't have the whole story. There
8:11is something uh in uh you know, Henry
8:14Adams has this wonderful description of
8:17snowball fights that would occur in the
8:20Boston Common and on one side would be,
8:24you know, the the the the well-born
8:26native types like himself and then on
8:29the other side there were these guys who
8:31who were obviously Irish.
8:33Uh
8:34uh with with although he doesn't exactly
8:36say that, but it's very clear that
8:37that's and the Irish guys, of course,
8:39they put rocks inside the snowballs.
8:41They They play tough. They They don't
8:43play by the rules.
8:46But um
8:47that that sort of sense of uh
8:50that clash, that that's that's part of
8:53both sides of that are part of our
8:54culture. It's not just the the the uh
8:58the Irish the energy of the Irish
9:00immigrants, it's also the you know,
9:02everything that Henry Adams and his clan
9:05brought to the table.
9:07Um
9:08But you know, on on all this, I think,
9:10does need to be in some way
9:13appropriated as part of our national
9:16memory. Um
9:18uh And And I think there's a real danger
9:21uh
9:22of thinking that we're going to
9:25uh gather these things by osmosis, that
9:28somehow it's just going to come to us. I
9:31mean, the the unbelievable ignorance of
9:34young people about fundamental features
9:37of our our history. I think just
9:40unfathomable to those who don't come
9:42into contact with it as I do. Oh, I have
9:45to tell you as since I've come to
9:46Hillsdale College, I
9:48I'm I'm getting spoiled uh
9:50by uh
9:51the fact students they do know
9:54the years of the Civil War took place.
9:56They do know uh
9:58uh
9:59thing something about who was who we
10:02opposed in the Second World War. Uh
10:05But a lot of lot of young people simply
10:07don't know and they don't care to know.
10:09Nobody's ever asked them to know.
10:12So, I it it
10:13this I think is part of
10:16the the memory that we have to
10:18cultivate. Uh
10:20not the memory that just comes to us
10:23in the course of living. Uh
10:26individual subjective
10:28experience of memory. It's something
10:30that if we're going to remain
10:32um
10:33a nation
10:35um
10:36uh that a country, if you like, if you
10:39prefer, um that has a sense of itself um
10:44as being bound together in some way by a
10:46past that we share, by a present that we
10:50we share, and a future that hopefully
10:52hopefully we share. Um
10:54And the consequences of not sharing
10:56those things will be dire uh
10:59for all of us. Um
11:02we need to have a better sense of of of
11:04of memory
11:05of of our identity as it's embodied in
11:09this remembered past. And here I think
11:12the historians
11:14don't help a lot because
11:16um
11:17we've done a great job of disaggregating
11:21the past into
11:23sort of problems and debunkings
11:26that uh that allow us to write great
11:29books and seminar papers and make make
11:32all sorts of progress in our academic
11:34careers, but but we don't sit back and
11:37think about what is this doing to our
11:40nation's our national sense of
11:42ourselves. What is left after all has
11:46been debunked, all has been
11:47deconstructed?
11:49And you know, you one of the other
11:51things I get into in the lecture is
11:54there are those who um
11:56are interested in the deconstruction of
11:58memory as of
12:00memory as an academic field.
12:03And those people um
12:06are they don't make any bones about the
12:07fact they're trying to
12:10uh
12:10their ultimate goal their end game is
12:13the construction of new narratives, new
12:16memories, uh new ways to to sort of
12:20configure the soul of the country so
12:22that it will
12:24uh work better. There will be
12:26diversity, equity, and inclusion at
12:28every level uh and in every way. Um
12:33and uh
12:34uh I I I think that's in addition to
12:36being
12:38a rather totalitarian
12:40uh way of doing things, one that's not
12:42likely to succeed either.
12:45We
12:46Well, I mean, as I guess the way I
12:47thought about it, the gravamen of your
12:50lecture is that
12:52we are imperiled
12:54by a collective Alzheimer's or the
12:57threat of a collective a kind of
12:59self-imposed
13:01um wiping away of memory.
13:04Yes.
13:06I agree with that.
13:07>> American
13:09There's an American as you say, it's the
13:11immigrant. There's a part of our native
13:13um
13:14uh
13:15personality
13:17of kind of starting anew.
13:19But I mean, I I I
13:21you you you point that Lincoln, the
13:23young Abraham Lincoln
13:25uh was anxious about what would happen
13:28to the country after the revolution was
13:30no longer in the living memory.
13:33>> Yes.
13:34>> The the founding generation passes to
13:36their reward,
13:38who will carry forward
13:41the project, which of course you have to
13:43actually know what the project is to
13:45carry it forward.
13:46>> Yes.
13:47>> [laughter]
13:47>> Yes.
13:49So, it is a kind of
13:51perennial
13:53uh American anxiety, and then we
13:57we sift the past and renew it.
14:00Um and there've been different there've
14:03been different permutations on the
14:05American story, wouldn't you say?
14:07>> Yes, absolutely. And you know, it's it's
14:09it's it it I wouldn't say it's exactly
14:13cyclical in character, but there's a
14:15cyclical quality built into it. Uh you
14:18know, one of my favorite sayings
14:21in this regard, you know, Marcus Lee
14:23Hansen, who is a name you probably never
14:25heard, your listeners probably never
14:26heard. He was one of the at one time the
14:29dean of American historians of
14:31immigration.
14:33And he has a saying, um
14:36what the father wishes to forget, the
14:39son wishes to remember.
14:42And this is really talking about the the
14:44three generations, you know, the
14:46immigrant generation, uh then the
14:48generation of the father, the second
14:50generation, and the generation of the
14:52son, the third generation.
14:54And it's a pattern you see again and
14:57again in in immigration that the third
15:00generation
15:01uh wants to know what the grandfather
15:04knew, and wants to sort of leap over the
15:07father's experience of of working like
15:10mad to assimilate, to get ahead, to get
15:13established, to take advantage of all
15:16the opportunities the country has to
15:17offer.
15:18And then his his his his son, who wants
15:22to recover the very things the father
15:25wished to forget. So, um I think this
15:30this is part of what you're talking
15:32about, the part of the way that that
15:34that that in this almost cyclical form.
15:37>> Um because we're we're a very modern
15:39nation and there's a kind of Cartesian
15:43impulse to wipe the slate clean, you
15:46know, like at the beginning of the
15:48meditations, Descartes urges us to knock
15:51down the inherited uh house of knowledge
15:53and build a new. A very good impulse, uh
15:57but we oscillate between that and and
16:01whether it's a 4th of July or or other
16:04celebrations where we cherish the past
16:06or from knocking it down, we kind of
16:08build it up in our collective um our
16:11collective memories.
16:13>> Uh we're a romantic nation, too. We're a
16:16Cartesian nation and a romantic nation.
16:18>> Yeah, but it's not
16:20with
16:21cuz you quote
16:22as you say you mentioned that with John
16:24Gillis, this notion of constructing new
16:26memories and the disaggregation that
16:29we've been through or in the midst of
16:31gosh, not even been through. We're in
16:32the thick of a period it seems of
16:35tremendous iconoclasm
16:38and tearing down and self-willed
16:42forgetfulness.
16:43Uh but your point about the cycle of
16:48the generations, maybe that's an a word
16:50of encouragement.
16:51>> [laughter]
16:52>> I I think it is. I think it is. I think
16:54it it's And you know, here's something
16:57interesting. You I'm a little older than
16:59you, but we're we're
17:01you may have a similar memory to me that
17:03when I was in school, you know, in in
17:07elementary, middle school,
17:09and we said the pledge of allegiance
17:11always and of course the smart kids, you
17:14know, the
17:15the ones who read the New Republic and
17:17thing and I actually had friends who did
17:19Uh
17:20when it was worth reading and
17:24you know it was it was the the smart
17:26opinion was this is a waste of time
17:28because when you try to indoctrinate
17:32young people they're just going to rebel
17:35and reject it.
17:36So that that the
17:38the attempt to inculcate by wrote
17:42is is a is a mistaken
17:45proposition. I imagine catechists
17:49in churches suffered from this this kind
17:52of perception too. That we can't you
17:53know it won't work if we shove it down
17:55their throats. Let's
17:57bring you know guitars into the room and
17:59bongo drums and then then that way it'll
18:01work. Um
18:03Well now we have the boomers who have
18:07grown up and taken charge
18:10and and they've they've turned into
18:12these these little Maoists who think
18:14that by changing the the the furniture
18:20the architecture around them
18:23eliminating
18:24all references to
18:27things in the past that that might be
18:30discreditable or problematic and that
18:32favorite word
18:34of the day. You could do a whole
18:36disquisition on the use of the word
18:38problematic.
18:40>> Even worse problematize.
18:42>> And problematize. Yeah well that's that
18:44actually is a way more defensible usage
18:48that you know now when when someone
18:50tells you for some reason it's always a
18:51woman that your opinions on this subject
18:54are problematic.
18:56That's her way of saying they're morally
18:58unacceptable.
18:59>> [laughter]
19:00>> But but but you don't want to use that
19:02language of moral anything.
19:05So you call it problematic.
19:08Anyway I've I've lost my train of
19:10thought just getting off on the
19:11problematic.
19:12>> [laughter]
19:15>> Well, I mean, in in in essence that we
19:17can we can program
19:20uh people's minds to be to be virtuous,
19:23to uh
19:25and appropriately guilty where guilt is
19:27required. Um
19:30uh and uh or and and not exposed
19:34to the negative influences that produce
19:37racism or justify racism or justify
19:41sexism or justify etc. etc. etc. Um you
19:45can program the public environment in
19:48such a way that the complexity of memory
19:51is it is completely eliminated. I I have
19:54a an example. I I I may have mentioned
19:57this at the lecture. I can't remember
20:00whether I did or not. My memory fails
20:02me.
20:04I remember going with my wife to the
20:06opera in Rome.
20:08And the the um
20:10it and and there's it's it's this very
20:12nice theater.
20:14Uh uh was constructed, I believe, in the
20:16'30s, 1930s. And way above the the stage
20:21is a very small but legible medallion
20:25that has the name of Mussolini on it.
20:28Um
20:29and I was just astonished to see it.
20:32Uh we because it Mussolini there may
20:35there are parts of Italy where Mussolini
20:37is venerated, but not Rome. Uh and I it
20:41it it struck me as a a blow for
20:44civilization
20:45that it had never occurred to people to
20:48take it down.
20:50Um they were they were going to leave
20:52that. And I now I don't know whether the
20:53current woke barati
20:55um
20:56uh
20:57have have changed their minds about
20:59that. But I I was very happy
21:03strangely happy to see Mussolini's name
21:07preserved. Um and there were other
21:09there's some architectural sections of
21:12Rome that are um openly uh you know,
21:16acknowledge that Mussolini's provenance.
21:18Uh
21:19um
21:20Now, I don't want to make too big a deal
21:21of that except to say that that um
21:25that that this is my reaction at the
21:28tearing down of monuments to Confederate
21:30generals
21:31which is I have no particular stake in
21:33that. Um
21:35uh in in keeping them.
21:38But it did seem to me a rather wanton
21:41and mindless act that that might well
21:45have been
21:47more damaging to the very cause that
21:50sought to advance than
21:52um
21:53than might seem at first glance that you
21:55know, it it's I think it's good to have
21:57reminders
21:58of
22:00uh our fallibility, of our
22:02of our in our complexity, the complexity
22:05of our history, the complexity
22:07of the fact that good people
22:10uh I'm afraid I'm going to sound like
22:11Trump here, but that good people can be
22:14attracted to bad causes. Um and uh
22:18um we are we are all sinners, some of us
22:21more so than others. But um
22:24and we all have propensity to get caught
22:26up
22:27in the wrong kinds of things for various
22:29reasons. And I don't think that's a
22:31reason to go around
22:33um
22:34uh
22:35desecrating every monument uh in the
22:38sight, especially rather beautiful ones,
22:40and and leaving nothing
22:42of comparable value in their place.
22:45>> Well, I wouldn't say just not nothing of
22:47comparable value, but nothing at all.
22:49>> Yeah, nothing at all.
22:50>> I think that
22:51you know,
22:53there's no question that
22:55the Lee statue in Richmond was erected
22:58to
23:00cast the aura of nobility over the
23:02segregationist
23:04policies of that city in the late 19th
23:07century.
23:08And but taking it down, I there'll never
23:10be anything in its place.
23:12Uh instead of a Starbucks. So we have
23:16our public sphere is
23:18is denuded and in its place uh we get
23:21commerce and entertainment. Uh
23:23>> It's
23:24it's interesting that people who who are
23:27uh opposed to originalism when it comes
23:29to
23:30uh constitutional interpretation are
23:33absolutely wedded to originalism when it
23:35comes to the construction of monuments
23:37that that um that that that and I'm the
23:41other way around. I think the meaning of
23:42a monument is is partly the way it's
23:45received in the years after it's
23:48erected.
23:49>> Well, that's a very good point. Uh
23:51in Baltimore they removed a Roger Taney
23:55statue uh in Mount Vernon Square Mount
23:59um where
24:00You got to And you know, I doubt that 1%
24:03of the residents of Baltimore even know
24:05who Roger Taney was.
24:07Um
24:08You know, and it was put there by a a
24:10wealthy uh businessman who was it was an
24:13act of patronage to the sculptor who had
24:16produced a a uh an earlier version of it
24:19that's in front of the Maryland State
24:20House. So yeah, history's a kind of
24:23funny business. It's very complicated.
24:25>> [laughter]
24:26>> And it's well, and and may I just add
24:28Taney um
24:29was
24:31uh
24:31except for
24:33for Dred Scott which was a
24:36um terrible
24:38misjudgment um and an effort on his part
24:41to have the courts settle something that
24:44they could not settle and settle it the
24:47wrong way. Um
24:49uh but he was otherwise uh I I think you
24:52most fair-minded uh people who studied
24:55him think he have rather admirable
24:58jurist in other respects and he did not
25:02desert the union. He did not join the
25:05Confederate cause. He He continued on at
25:08the Supreme Court. I mean people don't
25:10seem to uh give give him any credit for
25:13that.
25:14Uh
25:15Uh you know, I I think
25:18you know, the
25:19I think there should always be
25:21a um
25:22can I say a a dark mark
25:25against his name, but um
25:28uh uh
25:30that doesn't mean he should be erased.
25:32>> [snorts]
25:32>> I think they've done the same thing by
25:34the way at the Maryland State Capitol in
25:36Annapolis. There's a beautiful statue of
25:38him right by the right by Maryland
25:41Avenue
25:42at the Maryland State Capitol. I think
25:44that's gone now.
25:45>> It's the same statue.
25:46>> Yeah.
25:47>> It was a replica that was put in
25:49Baltimore.
25:49>> Yeah, I believe it is the same statue.
25:50>> Yeah, William Walters was a patron of
25:53the sculptor and I just I can't when
25:55they throw him a
25:57a fat commission
25:59help him pay his debts or something like
26:00that.
26:01>> Yeah.
26:02Is this the Walters at the Walters Art
26:04Gallery?
26:04>> Yes. Yeah,
26:06you know, a banker and
26:08>> Yeah.
26:09>> I want to end here with this
26:12you really have this wonderful quote
26:15from George Steiner um
26:20about
26:22it's a funny way in which the as you say
26:25the KGB and the serious writer this is
26:27what Steiner they agree that
26:31that
26:32that these moments
26:34of novels and so on you could say the
26:37historical memory is the powerhouse of
26:40human affairs.
26:42Nothing more charged with the detonators
26:44of dreams and action than the word
26:49particularly the word known by heart.
26:53And
26:55I mean I that's kind of a coda, it seems
26:57to me, for your meditation.
27:00That
27:01um
27:02what we hold in our hearts as a memory
27:06of who we are as a people
27:08is a
27:10is really an extraordinarily powerful
27:12thing.
27:14>> Yes. Yes, and and and I think by um
27:19um
27:21you know, just just bring it to more
27:22banal level, but I think related, it you
27:25know, that the and it's something
27:26Steiner emphasizes.
27:28By eliminating memorization,
27:31uh you know, what we disparage as rote
27:33learning,
27:35uh from our education,
27:38we've we've uh impoverished our
27:40memories. Uh we've we've we've left um
27:44the the the our our safety deposit boxes
27:48empty
27:49um of the things that we could draw on
27:52uh in in difficult times. The things
27:55that could can remind us of of who we
27:59are. Uh they they
28:01Now, I think for for those of us who you
28:04you you know, you who are churchgoing
28:06people, um there are hymns, there are
28:09liturgical um forms that that that can
28:15serve that sort of steadying function.
28:18And we we do
28:20memorize them. We we we take them in
28:23into our minds, into our hearts
28:25in that way. If only through just
28:27repetition day after day after day,
28:29Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, we we
28:32they become a part of us, but they
28:34um And that's something nobody can take
28:36away. That that's one of the things I
28:38liked about Steiner's
28:40uh emphasis is when you memorize
28:42something, as imperfect as memory is,
28:47um
28:48you know, I'm I'm I stumble around with
28:50the Nicene Creed because I've gone to
28:53different churches, different
28:54denominations in my life that that
28:57render it a little bit differently and
28:59uh
29:00uh so I I I a lot of times I'll I'll
29:02I'll say the wrong thing. But
29:04uh
29:06I'm so glad I have it in my memory even
29:08if imperfectly so.
29:10Uh
29:10>> I think part of the tenacity
29:13of tradition is in memory.
29:16I mean, the one part of the liturgy that
29:19refuses to be updated is the Lord's
29:22Prayer.
29:23>> Yes. Isn't that great? I love that. It's
29:27>> You know, you get the thee and thou.
29:30Uh
29:31you know, in the Lord's Prayer because
29:33it's the one part of the liturgy that is
29:36the most deeply encoded into the hearts
29:39of believers through constant
29:42repetition.
29:43And so what you know, when I was at in
29:46elementary school, we were at forced to
29:48memorize the Gettysburg Address. Four
29:50score and seven years ago our
29:52forefathers brought upon this continent
29:54a new nation conceived in liberty and
29:56dedicated to the proposition that all
29:57men are equal. Um
29:59what did I mean, that was uh
30:02that was I guess you could say that was
30:04part of our of our civic liturgy.
30:07>> Civic catechisis, yes. Yeah.
30:09>> Yeah. Was there what did was there
30:11anything else that you were That's the
30:13only thing I can remember from
30:15>> Well, I mean, you know, in the Pledge of
30:16Allegiance of course and
30:18>> Pledge of Allegiance, yes.
30:20>> I I think
30:21um
30:23you know, I'm
30:25I'm old enough I was in school when
30:28when Kennedy uh Kennedy gave his
30:30inaugural address and that was uh
30:32uh very striking. I I think we were
30:36uh asked to memorize uh parts of that.
30:40>> And then of course the King dream
30:41speech. I have a
30:42>> Yes. Yes. Yes.
30:44>> That's another
30:45if you will, touchstone, I think of our
30:48>> be. You know, it would be so much better
30:50if people did memorize it instead of
30:51having the sort of vague
30:53sense and always thinking instead of
30:55calling it up out of their memory, they
30:57can go to a read it see a YouTube video
31:00of it. So, they don't have to remember
31:02>> from the mountains of
31:04>> Yeah.
31:05>> of New Hampshire to the mole hill
31:08>> ring. It's
31:10Yeah. I I I I also wanted to say
31:13something and I'm I'm I I I don't know
31:15whether he'd be listening, but I owe uh
31:18Stu Halpern, who you know, uh who's a
31:20dean at Yeshiva
31:22uh Yeshiva University.
31:24He um
31:26strongly recommended that I um
31:29that I read the the the book, which I
31:31had actually read before, Zakhor. Um
31:34which is a study is a classic study by a
31:38guy named Yerushalmi
31:40of um Jewish
31:43memory and historiography and the
31:45tension between the two.
31:47And I did I inserted a couple paragraphs
31:50about that because it's said so well
31:54something that I
31:56very much wanted to say in this
31:58this essay uh in this lecture was
32:00>> Well, yeah, cuz it's your point about
32:02how the
32:04academic historian
32:05is uh
32:07I mean, the academic historian historian
32:09sort of takes things apart in order to
32:11see them in their
32:13to see them, if you will, clearly in
32:15their particularity. But, historical
32:18memory of a people is synthetic. It's a
32:21putting together of things, not a taking
32:24apart. And they work they're kind of at
32:26they do go at odds with each other,
32:28although I'm with you. I think that
32:30there's a value in
32:33the modern historiographical method.
32:35>> Yes, as long as we recognize it for what
32:37it is in the same way that modern
32:39science
32:40um
32:41it
32:42uh has to
32:44prescind methodologically
32:47uh from things that scientists
32:50there are still some who do uh affirm
32:53ontologically, metaphysically.
32:55Um
32:56It it it
32:57Yerushalmi's point is that
32:59um Jewish historiography
33:02uh requires that uh it's it it's
33:06practitioners
33:07um set aside the one thing that is
33:11absolutely central to Jewish identity,
33:13that is uh the the the story of God's
33:17choo- choosing of the Jews, um
33:20the the chosen status of the Jews, the
33:23divine mission. Um
33:27and what have you got when you
33:28>> [laughter]
33:29>> when you absolutely bracket that um
33:32as something well, we're not going to
33:33talk about that. Um it it it's something
33:37I think every, you know, every person
33:39who studies the the sort of philosophy,
33:41sociology, whatever religion
33:44confronts, but um
33:47I think they rarely get
33:49a a an affirmation of memory, of the
33:51memory side of it. That uh
33:54and and I I quote quote it. Let me see
33:56if I can find the
33:58quote quickly of uh what I what
34:01uh
34:03Yes, he says
34:06Historiography, this is Yerushalmi,
34:08is but one expression of the awareness
34:10that history is meaningful and of the
34:12need to remember, and neither meaning
34:14nor memory ultimately depend upon it. Um
34:18in other words, you know,
34:20they
34:21uh all the generations after Abraham up
34:24to the 19th century,
34:26um there was no need for anything beyond
34:30the authority of tradition uh
34:33of the passing on
34:37of text and of oral learning and
34:41oral wisdom
34:44that that with the advent of modern
34:46historiography he says the coherence of
34:49the Jewish tradition has been broken
34:51down.
34:54The tradition
34:55meaning and memory that was erected upon
34:58the belief that divine providence is not
35:00only an ultimate but an active causal
35:02factor in Jewish history. That this must
35:05be denied. So I I think that this is a
35:08one case for all of us.
35:14Even those of us who don't have
35:16the quite the splendid intensity of the
35:19Jewish
35:21consciousness
35:22and experience.
35:25>> Well, I think
35:26you know
35:28your your book land of
35:31you know, the one volume for listeners
35:33one volume
35:34history of America. It seems to me that
35:38you do a wonderful job of stitching
35:42together what what
35:46this historiographical
35:49if you will
35:50objectivity with a kind of warm
35:54conviction that our country really does
35:57hold out a promise of freedom and
36:00opportunity.
36:02>> Yes.
36:03>> And that
36:03>> Well, thank you. That's that was my
36:05objective and you couldn't have said
36:06anything nicer.
36:08Uh
36:09it it it is
36:10I
36:11what I always say in this regard to is
36:13that to leave out you know, people say,
36:15"What do you think about American
36:17exceptionalism?"
36:18And you know, it's always said with this
36:20sort of now I've got you
36:23because
36:24you know, you're going to have to say
36:26you don't completely buy it and I don't
36:28you know I don't completely buy it in
36:31some respects.
36:33But uh
36:34I actually don't like the term
36:35exceptional. I
36:36>> You know I don't like it either.
36:38>> Yeah.
36:39But
36:40>> I would say it's a very odd would have
36:43to be you'd have to be very
36:44ideologically
36:46blinkered not to recognize that United
36:50States of America is a quite an
36:51extraordinary place.
36:53>> Yes. Yes.
36:55>> The rest of you travel around the world
36:56and
36:57I mean whether
36:58>> No and this is an obsession of my
37:01>> Yes or hate us they do recognize that
37:04we're we're quite the phenomenon and
37:07>> Well and this is an obsession of the
37:09profession of my colleagues is to stamp
37:13out
37:14American exceptionalism they
37:16as if it was this noxious weed you know
37:18that that
37:19or a virus.
37:21>> [laughter]
37:22>> But uh
37:23my contention is that you cannot give an
37:26accurate
37:27um
37:28portrait of what this country is without
37:32um recognizing the fact that this is
37:34part of our spirit.
37:36And spirit um
37:39is as much what a nation is maybe more
37:42than what it what a nation is in its
37:43material aspects.
37:46Um and I I I say that not
37:49specifically as a Christian but uh
37:51being a Christian doesn't hurt.
37:54Um but there is a there is a there is a
37:56spirit there is an ethos and it's it's
37:59not
38:00this is my source of my hope at this
38:02rather depressing time. Um depressing
38:06not only
38:08um in obvious ways but the in the
38:10American people's somewhat supine
38:13reaction to what's being inflicted on
38:15them.
38:16Uh but I don't want to get off our topic
38:18and uh but it's the reason I'm hopeful
38:20so I do think there are these
38:23um
38:24elements in our memory and our makeup
38:26that we will draw upon.
38:29Just as you can
38:31you can push a man
38:34only so far.
38:36Be the nicest, sweetest, gentlest, most
38:39soy boy kind of individual, but you push
38:41him hard enough
38:43and you'll get to the man
38:45to the the aggressive male reaction.
38:48It's there. It it is there to be drawn
38:51upon in his
38:52in his spirit, probably in his hormones,
38:54too.
38:55>> [laughter]
38:56>> Well, on that hopeful note, and I do
38:59share with you that
39:01conviction that
39:03uh for all the efforts of eraser,
39:06uh the American memory is is really
39:08quite strong and we uh
39:11we will return to our um
39:15our our identity as a people and come
39:18out of on a crazy time that we're in
39:20now.
39:22Well,
39:23thanks Bill for joining me and uh let me
39:26just tell our listeners that Land of
39:29Hope is actually a better way
39:31>> [laughter]
39:32>> than the 1619 Project. So, thanks for
39:35that wonderful Erasmus lecture and um
39:38and thanks for your work as an
39:39historian.
39:40>> Well, thank you for the honor and and I
39:42I must say to your listeners that there
39:44are I look at the list of Erasmus
39:48lecturers in the past and I thought to
39:51myself doing when I said, you know,
39:52you've got no business in with this
39:54group. You know what I mean? Ratzinger
39:56and uh you know, uh
39:58Robert Wilken and so on, you know, but
40:00um
40:02now I'm there, you know, they'll they'll
40:03have to live with me.
40:06>> [snorts]
40:06>> All right, thanks a lot.
40:08>> Thank you.
40:09>> All right, bye-bye.
40:10>> Bye.

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