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As a holdover from my yeshivish upbringing, I basically watch no TV or movies. (Not principle, but never developed the habit.) So if the question is "have you seen...?", the answer is, "no."
But: this question is really relevant to answer another one I was asked On Here, so.... https://twitter.com/baronaharon/status/1344727799723155458
But: this question is really relevant to answer another one I was asked On Here, so.... https://twitter.com/baronaharon/status/1344727799723155458
About nuclear weapons, the Smithsonian, and our grandparents' moves to the suburbs, a thread:
For the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Smithsonian Air & Space planned an exhibit. The exhibit would look honestly at the history of the decision to use atomic weapons, and their aftermath. (2/n)
If you've heard the public narrative around this, you probably know that the bombing hastened the end of the war. That it saved 1,000,000 American servicemembers' lives. The targets were legitimate military targets. And that decision to use bomb was gravely weighed. (3/n)
Yeah, none of that is entirely true, and some of it is entirely not true. (4/n)
Nagasaki was bombed basically by accident/happenstance. (5/n)
There were many motivations for deploying nuclear weapons, but saving 1,000,000 servicemembers' lives was not an argument offered at the time--that was a post-facto justification invented later. And some of the motivations were not so highminded. (6/n)
There was a great desire among those who had spent billions of dollars making the bombs to prove they worked, and expenditures had not been in vain. Groves, who directed Manhattan Project, talked about spending rest of his life testifying before Congress if it didn't work. (7/n)
And later (long after the 1995 planned exhibit, but relevant to broader discussion), @GordinMichael in Five Days in August would show that The Bomb at the time wasn't The Bomb--it was just another weapon to be dropped on Japan, at a time we were dropping a lot of them. (8/n)
Truman didn't engage in any special soul-searching about the bomb--and why would he have, when the firebombing of Tokyo by non-nuclear means killed many more people than atomic bombs did? Atomic bomb, Gordin says, only became The Bomb later. (9/n)
(Side note: once got into a Shabbos-table set-to with a much-older man about whether firebombing had higher death toll than atomic bomb. He had been alive then; I was much younger and female [albeit a Ph.D. student on the topic.] I shut up, as one does. I was right.) (10/n)
Anyhow, Smithsonian planned exhibit for 1995. Tried to be honest. Catalog explored the historical evidence that debunked some of the popularized justifications. Discussed impact of bomb on Japanese. Tried to put the events of August 1945 in historical context. (11/n)
In 1994, Newt Gingrich led a GOP takeover of the House for the first time in decades. Gingrich pioneered a much more combative style, accusing Democrats of being sick traitors who hated America. (He recommended using those terms--you can easily find the memo online.) (12/n)
The proposed 50th anniversary exhibit around the Enola Gay in Air & Space became an easy, obvious target. They're attacking the greatest generation. They hate the troops, they hate America. Pointy-headed academics brainwashing our children. The whole bit. (13/n)
The exhibit was cancelled. A much smaller exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary was mounted instead (although I believe the catalog of the planned exhibit was ultimately published.) You can read all about it in the thorough but boring book, An Exhibit Denied. (14/n)
"Why do you need to tell those stories? Why make our grandparents look bad? Why do you need to take away our cherished stories of our past by looking at what, you know, the historical evidence says? Aren't you undermining our kids' commitment to their heritage?" (15/n)
You begin to see why I find this episode relevant to the pushback I've gotten about why try to understand the history of American Jews (or Americans more broadly) and race. Why can't we just move forward? Why try to get a better handle on the past? (16/n)
Why explore things if they might make our grandparents look bad? (17/n)
Part of the answer is because I'm an historian by training, and this is what we do. Part is after 20+ years in education, I don't believe we end up in a better place by telling untruths to our kids, intentionally or not. That's not how inspiration comes. That ends badly. (18/n)
I love this poem that a friend and former congregant shared with me:
"Telling lies to the young is wrong...
The young know what we mean. The young are people."
(slightly different translation: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lies-69/ ) (19/n)
"Telling lies to the young is wrong...
The young know what we mean. The young are people."
(slightly different translation: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lies-69/ ) (19/n)
I think far more inspiration and buy-in ultimately comes from the honest confronting, the honest reckoning, the honest wrestling with the complexities and challenges of our past. (20/n)
I know that people disagree. They worry that admitting to hard questions we can't always satisfyingly answer deters kids. That we should project certainty about theology even if we aren't sure, and tell moving stories about the past even if edges have to be sanded down. (21/n)
This was certainly the approach of the world in which I grew up. It was the reason for the mythologized stories about the shtetl, and the banning of books for admitting that gedolim read secular literature in their youth. (22/n)
But this is a sliding scale, not a binary, and there are those in the MO world as well who think we should employ this pedagogy, or employ more of it than we do. That we should tilt more toward inculcating reverence or certainty than admitting complexity. (23/n)
There is a case to be made on both sides. This is not a simple question. It's also a matter of a spectrum, too, not just a here or there. Different educational approaches work for different kids in different places at different times. (24/n)
I stand on the side of trying to understand the historical evidence, feeling that kids (adults, the community) can handle the truth, and, most importantly, thinking that if kids are going to encounter that truth later, our not engaging them around it is counterproductive. (25/n)
There is a case to be made for teaching our kids only a usable past, that the only truth is that which makes our kids better ovdei Hashem. I came from a world in which historical truth has no value independent of that. In which forthright biographies are not a desideratum. (26/n)
We can disagree about how we best arrive at our desired goals. It's worth paying attention to which kids we are talking to, though. I never claim that my approach is right for everyone--I do claim it's the only tenable approach for kids going to secular college. (27/n)
You can still disagree, of course. Machloket l'shem shamayim sofa l'hitkayem--the machloket will go on, because the issues matter and the stakes are high. (It'd be nice if that could manage not to come along with charges of Noef Moavi Rotzeach Tzorer Toe'vah.) (28/28, fin.)
