One of America's most influential historians and thinkers passed on today. I'll let The New York Times do the explaining first, though, which is where you should start before reading any further.
I still remember coming into first intellectual contact with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. as an undergraduate at Brown grappling with identity politics, multiculturalism, and the notion of "political correctness" during the height of the so-called "Culture Wars" of the early 1990's on American college campuses. My university, with its liberal reputation and crunchy disposition, was one of the main battlezones.
These ongoing debates were mostly sources of fun for me, and were more thought-provoking than bloody or painful. I only winced when the "true believers" apparently on my side of the debate – I was pretty active on campus as a peer counselor and in minority issues – sometimes displayed as little critical thinking skills as the supposed buffoons on the "other side."
I remember this most vividly when Martin Bernal, author of the then-controversial book Black Athena, was coming to campus. At a meeting of some minority campus activists, a group of pretty intelligent and socially conscious people, as I made the announcement, one particularly thoughtless guy in the group just wanted me to make it simple for him, "Just tell me whether to bring eggs or flowers."
He was only half-joking, and when I explained that the book and his talk had to do with historically neglected connections between Greek and African cultures, connections that had been pretty actively erased in the Eurocentric and often overtly racist scholarship that informed the way we understood ancient Greece, he seemed happy. When I mentioned that the author was an old white dude, he seemed genuinely kind of confused.
Ah, identity politics.
When Schlesinger himself weighed in on the issue in person, after the publishing of his book – The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society – in which he attacked the doctrine of "multiculturalism" not for its intents but its methods, he was set up almost like an arch-conservative demagogue, which he most certainly was not. But when you have to pigeonhole someone into either the slots of "on our side" or "establishment conservative", there isn't much room to maneuver.
I decided to go buy the book myself, which I read before the talk. It was my first education in watching people talk past each other on such a grand scale. Well, to be honest, I saw lots of 20-somethings who thought they knew a lot talking to a learned man in his elder years being very patient with us.
I also saw that many people were attacking him for what they feared he represented, not for his very reasonable arguments. And I think in retrospect, the superficial, T-shirts and African pendant mode of "multiculturalism" we were in is now somewhat quaint, outdated, and...kind of embarrassing. As we move into an America that is becoming "post-race" – or at least trying to get over the follies and pitfalls of identity politics – the clarity of his points about the nature of what we were dividing ourselves over seems all the more crystal. I now firmly believe that many Americans are more similar than we are different, as opposed to the opposite being the case. His book was the first time it dawned on me that my own sacred cows might actually be worth slaying.
Anyway – his accomplishments were far greater than simply getting one crunchy undergraduate to think, to use the powerful intellect that I like to think I'm developing. So to that, I am really grateful.
Here's an excerpt from The Washington Post that I'll leave you with:
Being a liberal, Schlesinger once observed, means regarding man as "neither brute nor angel." Whether discussing the Kennedys, Vietnam or the power of the presidency, Schlesinger sought moderation, the middle course. He blamed the Vietnam War on the moral extremism of the right and left and worried that the executive branch had become "imperial," calling for a "strong presidency within the Constitution." He saw American history itself as a continuing "cycle" between liberal and conservative power.
In 1998, Schlesinger opposed Republican-led attempts to have President Clinton removed from office, and he later criticized President George W. Bush for his doctrine of "preventive war," saying "I think the whole notion of America as the world's judge, jury and executioner is a tragically mistaken notion."
America will miss his wisdom, even as it continues to benefit – mostly unknowingly – from his lifetime of contributions.
