Gratitude For History
I recently saw a historian proudly proclaim this on Twitter. How appropriate so close to Thanksgiving!
Of course, the prevailing attitude among folks who append “Ph.D.” to their names is that we mustn’t be grateful for what history - especially Texas history - has bequeathed us. We should be ashamed, they say, and we should atone for the misdeeds of times gone by.
I vehemently disagree with the ingrates. I am thankful for the complex tapestry of Texas history.
I’m thankful for the villains because they helped make heroes of ordinary men.
I’m grateful for cultures that clashed on Texas soil because they melded and gave us the gift of what we know as our unique Texas culture.
I’m obliged to those who survived the trauma of those clashes so that we could eventually live together in this place where people who look nothing alike can all regard themselves confidently as Texans.
I appreciate the stigma of slavery as a wart on our historical hide. That we once embraced it as a valid economic system allows us to examine the singular epoch in history when men moved on from that ancient and accepted, but abhorrent, way of living.
I’m indebted to the men whose hands built the Alamo and to the men whose long rifles defended it. Without the former, the latter would have had nothing to defend. Without the latter, the Texas ethos would be lacking a distinctive element. We needed both to become Us.
I’m grateful for lore of the Line in the Sand. Whether it happened or not, what it means is real to Texans and the rest of the world.
I owe a debt of gratitude to all who saw Texas as a place to make a new start. Good men, great men, and bad men. Some of each type came in the nineteenth century. Mine came in the 1940s. My grandfather wasn’t a great man. Most would argue he wasn’t a particularly good man. But he was a man who saw Texas as the place to start anew after his first wife died. I thank God that he did.
Finally, I’m grateful for the ingrates who provide a constant source of entertainment and vexation to me. Without the past they find so problematic, what would universities employ them to do? Without the morally bankrupt men of the past, to whom would they feel superior?
The opposite of gratitude is resentment. One builds; the other can only destroy. I choose gratitude.
