THE WAR AGAINST THE PAST

The destruction of our history is well along, says this scholarly polemic.

Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, Britain, and author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century, points out that nowadays paintings created in the 18th or 19th century have a good chance of being linked to colonialism or the slave trade. America’s Founding Fathers knew that our Constitution would fail to pass if it forbade slavery, so they allowed it. No longer seen as an unedifying if essential political compromise in an otherwise iconic document, the author says, in the eyes of activists this converts the Constitution to a foul monument to racism. America’s National Archives has attached a cautionary note to the original Declaration of Independence warning that the views expressed were “outdated, biased, offensive” because its author, Thomas Jefferson, included unflattering remarks on Native Americans. Furedi expresses outrage at this “grievance archeology” that he says is obsessed with uncovering historical injustices, atoning for them, and repackaging them according to the values of present-day identity politics. Emphasizing British activism, he turns up a small industry devoted to portraying Shakespeare as an advocate of racism, misogyny, and homophobia, and Churchill, an ardent imperialist, as a war criminal. Less familiar with the United States, Furedi maintains that our “attack” on history flourishes in the arts, academia, and universities but only hints that it has never caught on with the general public and is now in retreat as powerful institutions such as the Supreme Court and state legislatures go after diversity and remove “indoctrination” from school classrooms.

A furious attack on the extremes of political correctness.