Crisis of Commemoration Part 3: Collision of Past, Present, and Future

See part 1 here and part 2 here.

American character has not significantly changed since the 1830s and de Tocqueville’s travels. As we look to the future we sometimes inadvertently leave things and people behind to our later regret.

The fundamental purpose of commemoration is to remember. There is a purpose to memory – we’re supposed to honor our past and our heroes and learn from their deeds and their character.

De Tocqueville noted that we are a forward looking people; we are always advancing, improving. These are among the qualities of our people that make this a great country admired throughout the world.

A united country: The determination of the battleground decided the issue of Confederate independence. The compassion and mutual respect of these veterans was fundamentally important in re-uniting the sections after the horror of the war. Now we are engaged in another great war, a long-running war that is now ramping up. A united country only can stand against an old civilizational enemy now resurgent. Our heroes and our hallowed grounds are more important now than ever before.

But we should also be learning, and remembering. We are all made greater by our heroes and the great things that they did. If they and their sacrifices are forgotten we have learned nothing.

By what logic can it be appropriate for a casino to be sited on the battleground of Gettysburg? What other than political correctness, ignorance, and a failure of national will can be behind our allowing the construction a mosque on the Ground Zero site where adherents of Islam, slaves of Allah, committed atrocities and the mass murder of Americans – all in the name of Allah and Islam?

What does it say about us that we would forever forge a link between a casino with the site of the great battle (so far) of American history or link our American innocents with their killers at Ground Zero? What it says is that since the heroes of Gettysburg and the avengers of Pearl Harbor we have lost a great deal – we must get it back.

This is the foundation of our great history – we cannot advance if we erase our past as a “sacrifice” to “progress.” How can our civilization survive if the great heroes of the past are tossed aside for a construction project, or for a casino, or for some politically correct trope that tolerance for intolerance must be the order of the day? The greatest error to be seen in these often contentious debates about the mosque and the casino is that some in a vocal minority, and some in positions of high honor and responsibility do not appear to believe that this civilization is worthy of saving.

We are a forward moving people, we are not obsessed with the past. It is only ten years since 9/11. Since that time we have forgotten that Ground Zero is the epicenter of American life. We forgot how important our American innocents are, forgot the heroes of Flight 93 and their bravery – we pretended that 9/11 was not about Islam at all, but about “hijacking radical extremists who did not understand their Islamic doctrine of peace.” In the years since we have challenged the jihadists in their understanding of their own ideology and held to the absurd position that we know more than they do about Islam – no longer. We wanted Islam to be something that it is not, a “religion of peace.”

Prior to September 11, 2001 most Americans knew nothing about Islam, its doctrine, its history, and the actions of its adherents around the world – this is no longer true. Ours is the first society in history to have a comprehensive and still growing understanding of Islam, what we do or don’t do with this knowledge will determine the fate of the world.

September 11th was a staggering shock for the United States and signaled a complete shift in how the world works or doesn’t. The mosque controversy at Ground Zero is important in the extreme because it reminds us of these things, things that we never should have forgotten.

Since the general acceptance of multiculturalism in our culture within the last several decades, a concept that assumes an equivalence in morality, ethics, and quality across cultures and societies that is not supported by any evidence the idea of “offending” one group with criticism, or even the suggestion that one group or idea is better than another have become anathema in the United States. The ridiculous suggestion is even made by some of the more less-informed that awareness of Islam and Sharia law is a symptom of bigotry and intolerance. The supporters of the mosque stake out the high moral ground with ignorance, political correctness and fantasies of how they wish Islam to be rather than what it is. Moral and ethical inversions are the mainstream in our adrift culture.

Hand in hand with multiculturalism is the rise of moral and ethical relativism. This is the failure (and often now the inability) to discriminate between right and wrong, good and evil. Such dichotomies are considered by adherents of this intellectually empty belief system to be outmoded and obsolete and merely the tools of intolerance, discrimination, and social and economic disparity. The advance then of an oppositional and intolerant ideology into our land of freedom and tolerance, even after repeated atrocities against us by adherents of that ideology (following it to the letter), is understandable.

Many Americans are no longer able to tell the good from the bad. This then makes our heroes and their surety all the more important. Their example of bravery, sacrifice, and honor will always stand as testimony to the core nature of American character while some of us today go far astray.

Though common sense and history both definitively show that not all groups or ideas are equal and that some are better than others we are now bizarrely reluctant to oppose an ideology whose purpose is our destruction. Multiculturalism then is national suicide.

A monument to the ideology of the killers of 9/11 is not only inappropriate and disrespectful to the victims and their families and our national sensibilities it also sends a message of national weakness to those who continue to desire to strike us our death blow. Tolerance for such ideologies is self-destructive.

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. (Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies)

Our heroes, once acknowledged and commemorated, should linger with us in perpetuity.

The copse of trees at Gettysburg. This is the climax point of the battle, Pickett’s Charge, July 3, 1863. The bronze book in front of the copse is symbolic of indefinite, endless remembrance. Can we forget our heroes of Gettysburg or our innocent fellow Americans of 9/11, Fort Hood, and so many other places? Our heroes and our murdered innocents are meant to linger with us forever – this is one of the lessons of the silent, brooding, impressive monuments on our Civil War battlegrounds. (Image source.)

The challenges that every generation face make the soldiers of Gettysburg and the victims of 9/11 all the more important to our country, and vulnerable. Challenges never end, but our rare and special heroes do if we don’t keep them close – commemoration and emulation of them are the foundations of our future. Our difficulty in appreciating them and learning their lessons signals a significant cultural crisis.

The construction of a casino on the battleground of Gettysburg will dishonor the site and sully the hallowed memory of the men who fought there. The construction of a monument to the ideology behind 9/11 on the site of Ground Zero is a symbolic act of conquest and national submission. If we permit our national sites of bravery, sacrifice, and of violation be confused with the economic, moral, and ethical challenges and failures of today our timeless history will be muddled and lost and our future deconstructed.

There can be no mosque on the site of Ground Zero where adherents of Islam committed mass murder against innocent Americans because of Islam.

We have an obligation to remember and to commemorate so that the continuity of our society is built upon solid ground and truth and not wisps of confusion, and myth. If we fail the admirable example of our heroes and our righteous anger at the cruel losses we have suffered will pass away forever from our memory and we will be the worse for it all.