The History Blog

Paul Krugman, the Nobel economist, raised the issue of whether our national government has become unworkable. I’ve had those thoughts as well. Increasingly it seems as if the introduction of constant media, with explosive repeating “news” commentators, and the ability of marginal groups to organize through the internet threaten the survival of civil government. Any political leader faces a thousand lashes from all quarters for even the most benign proposal. As a result, it appears as if our national government is increasingly frozen, with representatives attempting to mollify all points of view and satisfying none. Is democracy, or at least one like this, ultimately unworkable? (MM)

      Historians tend to avoid the type of questions our philosopher colleagues deal with routinely.  The deaths of Senator Edward Kennedy and former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara nevertheless lead us into thorny issues of morality and politics.  Both men struggled to overcome public failings, and each, damaged, sought to rededicate his efforts to public service.

     Kennedy, as everyone knows, dealt with Mary Jo Kopechne’s death at Chappaquiddick in 1969, and in the 1990s, he embraced a new sobriety after the acquital of nephew William Kennedy Smith on rape charges.  McNamara acknowledged  doubts about his role as Secretary of Defense during the Kenney and Johnson years, and his responsibility for continuing a war with Vietnam.  Both of these men demonstrated real courage in facing their own failures, speaking candidly about their mistakes.  But is that enough?  Do Americans tend to forgive their leaders when they falter? 

     Reading the emails and blog comments on Kennedy and McNamara suggests that for a substantial minority, it is difficult to disregard critical lapses.  Following McNamara’s death on July 6th, New York Times readers responding to the obituary typically had little positive to say about the former Secretary of Defense.  McNamara was a “man who knew he was damned” according to one writer; “wicked and evil” asserted another.  The vituperation flowed on and on.  When asked about McNamara’s legacy, one student at Western argued that McNamara’s mistakes in Vietnam outweighed any efforts he made after the war.  And McNamara does leave us with troublesome questions.  Although he left the Johnson administration long before the war’s conclusion in 1973, he did not speak publicly about his disagreements with American policies.  When he wrote In Retrospect, published in 1996, many Vietnam era veterans condemned his long silence during the conflict.  McNamara worked diligently through the last decades of his life to explore the nature of our foreign policy failures, but for many, that was not enough.  Had he and others in the Johnson administration who questioned America’s escalation of the war shared their doubts openly, perhaps the United States would have disengaged earlier.   Even if dissent had been futile, some argue, McNamara had a moral obligation to oppose the war once he understood it to be fruitless. 

     Critics of Kennedy raise a different set of moral objections, citing the Senator’s personal flaws rather than  his role as a policymaker. Although Kennedy plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after Kopechne’s death, this admission of guilt does not assuage his detractors. In the Boston Globe on Sunday, a day after Senator Kennedy was laid to rest, a cartoon ran with a Kopechne reference. Even in death, Kennedy did not escape those eager to detail his failures.

So what is a historian, or any of us, for that matter, to make of the failures of our leaders? Many psychologists writing about blame and forgiveness note the role of anger in our feelings of betrayal by leaders or by those close to us. It is evident that many Americans who lived through the Vietnam War still feel anger about the inability of national leaders to bring the war to a satisfactory conclusion, and about their own inability to effect the result. Those who continue to cite Kopechne’s tragic death link Kennedy to what they see as declining national morality and the growing privileges of the wealthy. That, too, leads to a powerless sense of anger. Would forgiveness matter, to individuals or to our larger society? Or is there a larger issue of morality involved, so that forgiveness seems to sanction ethical lapses?

I don’t have an answer for this, unfortunately, although my Western colleague Joshua Rosenthal has been doing some great work on reconciliation commissions in Latin America and elsewhere. The idea that Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda might come together in reconciliation after that country’s horrific genocide must make us wonder about our own American limitations. Are we still the inheritors of the type of wrath outlined by Connecticut’s Jonathan Edwards in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, clear about the damnation of those not saved, like us? It does at times seem as if anger and violence play an increasingly powerful role in our culture. Are we past any type of nuanced understanding of human action? Or does it merely seem so in the cacophony of pundits, broadcasters, birthers, and instant analysis? (MM)

The current New Yorker features a fascinating examination of a Texas death penalty case by reporter David Grann. Convicted on the basis of faulty forensic evidence, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for the deaths of his three daughters Now forensic experts are convinced that the fire which caused the children’s deaths in 1991 resulted from an accident, not the act of arson that the Texas courts claimed during Willingham’s trial. Willingham, who was poor, could not afford the lawyers or investigators who might have challenged the state’s flawed case earlier.

There are two particularly troubling aspects to this case. The first, of course, is the strong possibility that an innocent man was executed. The flaws in the Texas legal system are equally disturbing. Willingham lacked the means to mount an effective defense, and the legal machinery in the state provided no meaningful assistance to stop the momentum of execution. The case also brings to light the willingness of police and prosecutors to rely on faulty witnesses, jailhouse snitches, and disreputable “experts” on science. If we all know that our legal system is not about justice, this case brings that into painful view yet again. (MM)

(Read the New Yorker article, “Trial by Fire” by David Grann, at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all)

Chronicle of Higher Education
August 31, 2009
Professors Embrace Online Courses Despite Qualms About Quality
Click here for this article. –Burt Peretti

I had made some plans about what my initial posts would be for this blog but a few events of today turned my head in a different direction. I attended a ceremony for incoming students and their families today; doing my best to look professorial in my academic regalia. Since this is really the only costume I ever wear and I usually only wear it once a year, a try to enjoy the moment. But there is something about being covered in an extra 23 square yards of mystery fabric, tightly packed into folding chairs, under hot lights or the May sun of graduation that makes it hard for me to match my mood to the celebratory nature of the occasion in question. I usually bring a book but reading it during the ceremony is as bad as a student texting during class so I rarely get much reading done.

During today’s event one speaker cited a statistic that only 10% of what you learn in college happens in the classroom, the other 90% taking place elsewhere I guess. I was talking to a colleague about this later and we agreed that we had some serious misgivings with the statistic, which he had heard various times at other events. Why is that exactly?

We could run through some numbers. If most students take something close to a 5 course 15 credit hour load, than the 15 hours in class represent about 9% of the 168 hours in a week. If we can assume that students sleep 7 hours a night (just a guess) than the class time represents about 13% of their 119 waking hours. In this perspective the statistic makes some sense. Perhaps the speaker was referring to the jobs our students work or the time they spend taking care of their families, but I don’t think so. I suspect that they were referring to the other aspects of the college experience – student government, involvement in fraternities or sororities, being “leaders”, clubs, sports, etc – and saying that is where the real learning takes place.

This is an argument that seems to have a lot of currency, that college is about a career or contacts but not about classes. In response I want to make two points. The first is that there is another statistic, or suggestions, that academic classes should have about 3 hours of work for every hour spent in class. Though not many courses meet this standard – and even when they do it is not clear that all students live up to the obligation – if the formula holds then 15 credit hours means 45 hours of work. That means a grand total of 60 hours on your classes; tough to argue that is only 10%. The second is that, for some of us, the most meaningful learning that occurs outside the classroom comes in conversations with friends. Here the assumption is that students spend time talking about the ideas in play in their classes. There are ideas out there: ideas about politics, and art, and sex, and sexuality, and ethnicity, and truth, and reality that should set your brain on fire. College is a good place to grapple with them. Somewhere in one of your courses is an idea, a sonnet, a scientific theory, a painting, a proof, a case study, or just a story that will change somebody’s world. The trick is, it might not be your class or the idea might not change your life. Only constant conversation with other students about these ideas and stories will expose you to the full range of what is going on at school. Here those few hours spent focusing on the ideas of your courses can be a catalyst for changes that will take up much more of your time, or someone elses time. For me, this is where the other 90% comes in. Trite perhaps but I mean it. Next time, why professors should spend less time complaining.

Joshua M. Rosenthal

     The Hudson Valley in New York, a short trip from Danbury, offers historical travelers a number of excellent day tours.  Kykuit, the home built by millionaire John D. Rockefeller in the early twentieth century, allows for a close look at four generations of Rockefeller contributions to business, politics, and art.

     The Kykuit tours begin at the Visitor Center at the Philipsburg Manor on Route 9 in Sleepy Hollow, New York.  Tickets do seem somewhat pricey; you will pay between $23 and $40 for adults, depending on the type of tour you choose.  For historians, those interested in historic houses, architecture, or art, it’s worth it.  Kykuit is a fascinating glimpse into a unique family with a love of art that made this property unique.  For tickets, go to http://www.hudsonvalley.org/content/view/51/109/.  We picked the “Classic Tour” of two and a half hours.  We worried a bit that the younger members of our crew might get bored, but no one did.  The tour moves quickly enough that even our non-historians remained interested and engaged.  (This is probably not a trip for younger children, however.)

     After a bus ride up to the mansion, you will start as the entrance of the mansion.  The house itself is not imposing, although the grounds are beautiful.  The tour takes you through the ground floor, into the garden, and then down to the remarkable basement level.  On the way down the stairs, you’ll notice that on the walls are a number of small, yes, Picassos.  Nelson Rockefeller used the basement as an art museum, and it includes a remarkable collection of Picasso tapestries.  The tour finally ends in the Coach House, which includes a number of classic cars.

     Visitors to Kykuit can also take advantage of the mansion’s proximity to other great houses.  If you can, check out Sunnyside, home of author Washington Irving, or Lyndhurst, the grand house built by nineteenth century entrepreneur Jay Gould.  Both will provide a view of other periods of our history.  Sunnyside dates to 1835, and Lyndhurst, the late nineteenth century.  The three houses do give us a better sense of the movers and shakers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and provide a terrific day trip for time travelers.

     If you go, you will have a number of food options.  Each mansion has a food venue (for Kykuit, the Visitor Center has a small café), but better opportunities exist.  A dining guide for the area can be found on the Historic Hudson Valley site at http://www.hudsonvalley.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=160.  Two options are particularly notable.  The first, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, has both a café and a restaurant, but unless you’re up for spending big bucks, try the café.  The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture runs a number of programs on food and farming, including great offerings for children.  Check them out at http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/.   After our trip to Kykuit, we went to Pleasantville, New York, a quick drive, and checked out the recommended Pony Express.  If the place looks a bit funky, the food is terrific; hot dogs with grilled Vidalia onions, great burgers, peaky-toe crab, and lobster rolls are all affordable.  You can sit outside as well.  (The menu and directions are at  http://www.ponyexpresstogo.com/Menu.php.)  The area around Pony Express is worth a look for shops and the wonderful Jacob Burns Film Center.

     The Time Traveler’s next stop:  the Franklin Roosevelt home, museum, and library in Hyde Park, New York.

     Everyone I know is preparing for the start of a new school year, or so it seems.  I just returned from my third “take the kid to college” trip.  My friend Paul is prepping his kindergarten classroom, meeting new students and parents who are just a bit worried about a big transition.  Among our historians on this blog, there are other kinds of new-school experiences.  One person has a new first grader, and another a new high school student; another historian parent took a son to college for the first time this past weekend. At Western, new students arrive on Friday.  And for all of us, no matter how many times one faces a new school year, there’s always a slight edge of anxiety, just a bit of trepidation about the new and the unexpected. 

     Education at any level, from kindergarten to college, is about change.  We all hope that new ideas will improve us, by making us smarter or wiser.  New skills, from learning to read to learning calculus, will help us navigate through problems, enjoy our lives, and make work easier.  The idea that education is about change does seem to disturb some, however.  We keep reading about efforts to ensure that history curricula celebrate the appropriate Founding Fathers, for example, or challenges to reading selections which might introduce new cultures.  Today’s pre-college education still seems too oriented toward measurable achievements rather than the thrill of learning or the joys of discovery.  Is that, I sometimes wonder, because testing and measuring are less subject to the vagaries which accompany intellectual exploration? Have we become somewhat cautious about the new idea, the new technology, the new music, the new art?  Education at its best should open our minds to the possibilities implicit in what is different, unique, and unknown.  In other words, it should provoke some anxiety, and much wonder and curiosity.         

     So here’s hoping that all of the students going off to new schools, and all the teachers, profs, and parents experiencing that newness with them, feel the pleasures of the new path.  As Walt Whitman wrote, here’s hoping that we all learn “to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.”  (MM)
         

Today’s news that the national budget deficit will be $9 trillion over the next ten years made many of us gasp. That seems like an amazing amount of money, particularly in light of the average American wage, which the Social Security Administration pegged at around $40,000 in 2007. But perhaps it isn’t so large after all. Economist Paul Krugman put it into perspective on his New York Times blog at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/how-big-is-9-trillion/.
Historians deal with large numbers with some frequency, and when we start to look at the twentieth century, some figures are shocking. We all know that around twelve million men, women, and children died in the Holocaust of World War II, but total war casuality estimates range in the seventy million range, for six years of conflict. The Battle of the Somme of World War I caused up to 1.5 million deaths and injuries, another extraordinary human toll. It’s hard for us human to comprehend the meaning of such vast numbers. Perhaps it helps to remember that in Connecticut, we number around 3.5 million folks (as of July 2008, anyway); New York City has 8.3 in the five boroughs. You can see a million dots at http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir2/lots_of_dots/million_dots.html. Just keep scrolling to the right! Or, my favorite, we can consider ice cream cones. If you ate one ice cream cone every hour, how many years would it take to eat a million of them?
Rather than count, I’m off to try that as a real project…. obviously, I’ll still be eating long after the deficit crisis is passed.  (MM)