Judging from a historical distance

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/02/2024 (573 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tom Brodbeck is right. (Knowing about Manitoba’s history vital before making decisions arising from it, Feb. 8)

We do need to know our history before we condemn the thinking and actions of individuals society at one time chose to honour. The latest inquisition may be about the contributions of Col. Garnet Wolseley, but similar scrutiny of people once revered, like Cecil Rhodes, Bishop Grandin, and John A. Macdonald is the new norm. The people an earlier era have chosen as noteworthy are having their character and decisions examined, not by the standards of the era in which they lived, but by what we consider appropriate today.

Unfortunately, this view of Wolseley, and others in the crosshairs of “presentists” — people who judge others solely based on the views in vogue today — ignores the fact Wolseley’s decisions were not based on today’s reality, but yesterday’s.

Voices arguing for the elimination of commemorative statues or community recognition of people who were once recognized by our ancestors as having contributed something of value to the community (as it existed then) seem far too certain of their own rectitude. The difficulty is that cultural mores, beliefs, knowledge and practices change. They are not static. What people in a given society believed as little as 100 years ago may seem archaic or barbaric today.

The views held by Wolseley, or Rhodes, may be seen as racist or colonialist if we judge them by today’s sensibilities and understandings, but they don’t seem particularly out of step with the political, religious or societal views of the era. Slavery was an accepted practice in many nations at that time and some religious orders were burning people at the stake for heresy.

It seems likely that many of those being commemorated, including Wolseley or Rhodes, had the tacit support of friends, colleagues and those within the political and social establishment. The vilification of someone’s thinking or actions at a given time is not logical or fair without considering the full scope of the factors that influenced their thinking.

How far are we prepared to go to exercise our sense of outrage?

Nellie McClung, a genuine titan in the battle for womens’ rights was also, at one time, a supporter of the eugenics movement. Should we judge McClung just as harshly on her beliefs as Wolseley or Bishop Grandin’s thinking of more than 100 years ago?

When the discussion began about whether McClung should be honoured at the Manitoba legislature, a Winnipeg human rights lawyer noted that she supported eugenics. McClung is quoted as saying it was wrong to bring children suffering with “handicaps” into the world. The worldwide interest in sterilization culminated in the adoption of the principles of eugenics a decade later in Nazi Germany. Alberta was one of two Canadian provinces and 32 U.S. states that passed laws supporting sterilization. Alberta’s 1928 Sexual Sterilization Act was supported by McClung.

Is McClung’s support for the sterilization of the “feeble-minded,” a view she held 100 years ago, enough to justify tearing down her statue and besmirching her reputation?

The person voted the greatest Canadian in a 2004 CBC show, Tommy Douglas, supported the eugenics movement. His master of arts thesis, written in 1933, was titled “The Problems of the Subnormal Family.” One of his recommendations was the sterilization of “mental defectives and those incurably diseased.”

We know that Douglas and McClung were so much more than these two failed, and in retrospect, socially repugnant views. They believed what people around them believed. They were both supporters, at least in an intellectual way, of the eugenics movement that swept the world in the early part of the 20th century, ending with the Nazi enforcement of such a policy a decade later.

We know that McClung and Douglas worked their entire lives to improve the lives of people in other respects, but they held beliefs that are incompatible with our current, and therefore, we seem to believe, inherently and unalterably correct worldview.

Are we to take down their statues because of their apparently errant thinking? Are we to forgive them for believing what many around them took for an obvious truth, that such laws would be beneficial to society?

If this is the road we want to travel, we need to abandon the notion of community recognition, because few peoples’ lives and thinking over a lifetime can stand up to the kind of scrutiny to which we are now subjecting our historical figures.

Canadians such as John A. Macdonald, Pierre Trudeau and McClung were known as important and respected figures in history until they came face to face with people who judge them with such vitriol from a distance of many decades. Suddenly the contributions of these men and women are being narrowed to the perceived sin of not believing what we now believe.

How long before “presentists,” who seem willing to casually dismiss a lifetime of work in a slogan, attach an epitaph to our more recent public mentors’ names and begin to attack their place in history because of their perceived short-comings? How long before Trudeau becomes nothing more than a tyrant because of his use of the War Measures Act or McClung a fascist because she is associated with supporting the eugenics movement?

Every society leaves scars based on mistaken beliefs that are widely held. Before we tear down the statues and rename the streets and schools, we need to remember that our own thinking and values will continue to evolve and change.

Some of our thinking today will be judged a century from now and those views may make us look as foolish as many historical figures now being maligned.

If you don’t believe that is true, it is worth considering Everett Klippert’s story.

In 1965, Klippert, a mechanic, admitted to having sex with men. He was convicted and sent to prison in 1967 and labeled a “dangerous sex offender.” A conviction which was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Is it likely other Canadians of that generation believed, as the Supreme Court justices did, that being gay should be considered a crime? To some extent, we are all captives of our time. Most of us have held opinions and beliefs, including Supreme Court justices, that we would disavow today because the world and our views have changed.

Judging those once deemed worthy of our attention from such a distance seems unfair.

Perhaps we should remember that history is likely to make fools of us all.

Jerry Storie is a former MLA and former dean of education at Brandon University.