Most of my time on the job is spent editing letters and columns, reading proofs, writing, and combing through submissions. I’ll admit I don’t always answer my correspondence in a timely manner (and there are some people I just don’t answer at all because I don’t have the patience for them, especially when they have a history of hostility and refuse to be civil), but there are some people I always look forward to hearing from.

One of those is a gentleman from White Hall I frequently disagree with, but we often find a lot to agree on, and I almost dare say we have become friends of a sort. We often discuss history, human nature and other topics, and maintain civility at all times.

In the current atmosphere, that’s saying a lot. Oftentimes, you can’t even post a simple selfie on social media without inspiring hyperpartisan rancor, or answer an email from a reader without ticking them off, no matter how polite and civil you are. And post a picture with or of a cat? God forbid!!!

A couple of weeks ago my White Hall friend wrote in respect to my mention of Manifest Destiny and other ills perpetrated in the past with the imprimatur of our nation’s government, noting he’d recently read “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.

“In it, he starts off with excoriating the early European explorers for decimating indigenous populations by introducing diseases they had no immunity for, as well as much outright killing. He eventually gets around to the American Indians and their fate. What he doesn’t do is propose any manner in which the exploration and settling of the American West might have been done differently, again just excoriates the people who did the exploring and settling (and the government which supported it).

“I have had this discussion with so many people who, like me, have an interest in history. When discussing this era and the actions taken (Manifest Destiny), I always ask, ‘How could the displacement of the American Indian have been done in a way that would have been satisfying to you today?’”

Between the added workload of the Fourth of July holiday and a throat infection that dragged me down, it took me a week to answer him, though I wasn’t quite sure how to, and told him so, considering that we can’t really go back in time to do things differently. At most, it would be a purely academic exercise that would resolve nothing because we no longer think as those people did.

He clarified in his response, though: “I just get a bit aggravated sometimes with people who, from the comfort of their modern existence will sit and judge the people who lived in those harsh, harsh times and persevered and endured hardships we cannot even fathom to settle the very land that now gives us our life of ease.”

Now, that I get.

Judging the past is always problematic, especially considering that people, movements and nations evolve. The Democratic Party of today is not that of Andrew Jackson or Bill Clinton (though it’s certainly not the communist party redux being portrayed), nor is today’s GOP that of Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan (both are likely spinning in their graves over MAGA, which is about as close to real conservative principles as utopian socialism). Many of the beliefs that were prominent in the 18th and 19th centuries are no longer so prominent (thankfully), having been displaced because of science, civil society and human development. The 18th and early 19th centuries were indeed marked by the frontier spirit needed to carve out an existence in a world new to those settlers.

That still doesn’t make what they did right (especially if they were really following the red words in the Bible), even at the time they were done, which is why those things should not be overlooked in a study of the history of the United States or anywhere else (the imperialism implicit in Manifest Destiny was not confined to the United States). Those atrocities happened, and can’t be swept under the rug, even if a plurality or majority of people at the time agreed with or at least tolerated them (murder and slavery are wrong, period).

It’s not just the good things in our past that made us what we are, but the bad things as well; we are the sum of it all, and to study only the good (or the defanged bad) gives an incomplete picture. To truly understand who we are, we need to study history, warts and all, in hopes that we won’t repeat the sins of the past like slavery and removal and slaughter of indigenous peoples.

The distant past is one thing, the more recent past (20th century) something else entirely when it comes to judging the past. With voices calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment (women’s right to vote) and efforts to curb the rights of people of color and those in the LGBTQ+ community, it should be no wonder that many are worried now. How can we forget the travails of the Little Rock Nine, the Lovings, and so many others who fought hard to secure the rights so many of us take for granted? How can we forget the hatred, threats and violence people like John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. suffered? We shouldn’t, nor should we believe that all of that is behind us now, as there are distinct white nationalist movements dedicated to bringing back a past no one should want.

We can’t go back and fix those things in our past that we should be ashamed of (popular lore and Doctor Who, among others, advise strongly against meddling with the past [Doctor Who might mess about with small things, but the Time Lords usually say no to events considered fixed points, though sometimes …], as it could cause disastrous effects in the future). We can, though, study them fully and use them as a lesson in what not to do.

It’s not so much judging the past as it is learning from it.

As I noted in the column that set off my friend from White Hall, “[F]rom mistakes, you learn. Or you should, anyway. Those who learn and aim to do better become better people, and so do nations that accept, make amends and try to do better than before.”

While many from the past would be and are sometimes roundly criticized for their viewpoints (like Thomas Jefferson and slavery), times were different then, and there was not yet a critical mass of differing viewpoints to turn the tide (it takes time for better angels to prevail, unfortunately). The world has changed, mostly for the better, since then.

Historian Gerda Lerner perhaps said it best: “We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.”

We can neither excuse nor fully condemn someone in the past for what they did at the time, but we can surely use it as a lesson for the present. Not being willing to do so doesn’t serve anyone well.