this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Anyone offended by history needs to reflect on their priorities and identity.
I'm not offended that white people claimed this land at the point of a sword, and even worse, in the embrace of a smallpox blanket. Horrified, yes, but not offended. I'm not offended that the backbone of the economy for a hundred years was built on the backs of stolen people on stolen land.
I'm not offended by history.
What I am offended by is the present. I'm offended that people who have been oppressed and started out life with less than nothing have been told by the privileged elite to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like the rest of us did". That's fucking vile. I'm offended that we keep trying to whitewash confederate slave owning generals, instead of teaching who they really were, and what they really killed for, and ordered other people to die for. Be offended about what we are doing now, and use history as the reason why we should change it.
It's incredibly jarring to have the burden of knowledge while others revel in their own ignorance. As a minority and a former Marine, I am deeply ashamed and disappointed in my fellow Americans.
It's hard to really blame them, public education in the U.S. has been a nightmare for decades now. How can people be expected to learn from history if they're not even being taught to read?
I do not think the problem is education, but a fundamental trait about human nature. Education, as an institution, can only lay the groundwork; it cannot instill the intrinsic desire to learn and grow. That fire must be kindled from within, yet so many treat learning as a phase of life rather than a lifelong pursuit.
There is a deep and persistent resistance to intellectual evolution in society. A cultural thread that regards curiosity with suspicion and introspection with discomfort. Too often, people conflate questioning with opposition, and the invitation to examine one's beliefs is perceived as an attack rather than an opportunity. This isn’t a failure of education; it’s a failure of cultural conditioning, perhaps even a failure of human instinct.
Nietzsche wrote: "You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist." Yet, instead of seeking out and embracing fluidity, many anchor themselves to certainty, mistaking stagnation for stability. They prefer to defend what they are rather than work toward what they could be. This anti-intellectual obstinacy isn't uniquely American or modern; it's something that's been with us from the start. I do not think we cannot educate our way out of the problems we keep making for ourselves; it's going to have to be either revolution, or evolution.