On Star Wars and History Part 1

I'm going to try something new. My other posts have mostly been about presenting and interacting with facts and, while I've been researching many interesting topics over the past year, none have quite invigorated me to post (that being said, if you have not heard of Ambrosius Aurelianus, I would strongly recommend looking him up). As such, I'm going to try something new where I use a bit of modern media to help show how we as a culture look at history. Also, all pictures come from creative commons.

I recently saw the newly released, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," and a single line has been rolling around in my head. It's simple, it's towards the end, and it's meant to be a revelation.

Spoiler Alert!!!

You have been warned.

Read no further, ye who wish to learn this knowledge on your own.

Because creative commons doesn't have a spoiler banner...

It is a time of (fast forwarding)...

 

In what should be the last act of the movie, protagonist Rey and Vader-wannabe Kylo Ren are set to have a climactic duel. They stare each other down, both believing that they can turn the other to their cause.

"I know who your parents are," Ren shouts in a paraphrased fashion, "and I know that you do too." Rey gasps, tears come to her eyes. "You've always known, haven't you, deep down inside." Rey nods. "Say it!"

"They're nobody," she gasps. Ren nods.

"Just pitiful scavengers." 

That's right, Rey's parents are nobody. Not Han Solo, not Dancer #3, but nobody. They don't even get a mention in the credits. For all intents and purposes, they don't exist. Rey could have popped out of the ether, for all of the difference that would make.

What a disappointing revelation.

Even the emoji doesn't like it.

The problem is that it gives the wrong message. Rey should be able to stand on her own two feet. It shouldn't matter who her biological (more on that in a second too much of a tangent, so please see part 2) parents are, because she is awesome without them. She can be a someone or a no one, and it's her choice. Instead, the message is that the act of being a no one is something that must be escaped. Her strength comes not from choosing her own circumstances, but in escaping from them. Anything after that--joining Ren or leaving him--is merely the way that she achieves her goal.

So, what does this scenario have to do with history? Well, when I flip through a history book I find that it is filled with names. Some, like King Henry VIII and Cleopatra, were born great. Others, like John D. Rockefeller and Neil Armstrong, achieved greatness. Still more, like Elizabeth II and--I would argue, due to his reforms--Diocletian, have greatness thrust upon them. But, if history is the story of humanity, then the lesson is clear: either die great, or you might never have lived at all.

This moral, of course, is absolute trash. For one, it follows a very specific world view that prioritizes the power of the individual over the many--Rome would not have fallen with stronger emperors, rather than a myriad of societal problems--and for another, regardless of their impact, people lived. 

From reading history, a pattern emerges of good times and bad. Sometimes, life is good here because we are making it bad over there--a la the Belgian Congo or other forms of slavery--while other times it is bad overall in one area but relatively good in another--such as the century of plague in Europe that didn't have quite the same impact in America--and, quite frankly, I'm amazed that there hasn't been more study of the affect on Asia. 

Kind of like a heartbeat, except then overlayed by millions of other heartbeats until the whole thing just looks like one gigantic line.

Yet, despite everything, a complete recorded genocide is relatively rare. Attempted ones do crop up from time to time--the Holocaust is a prime example, but colonization and expansion tended to have similar effects on a smaller scale--but for the most part, the nameless lived. The ancestors of every single living person survived at least long enough to reproduce, and many went on for many more years.

For me, the hope of history is not that people were able to pull themselves into greatness but that despite the bad times, we as a species still managed to survive and find new ways to thrive. True, we as a species might be predisposed to look for the negative (Source 1, Source 2, Source 3) but if we can just embrace the fact that it's OK to be nobody, that nobodies still make a difference even if they don't get in history books, and that the rise and fall of nations and states have less to do with who is in charge and more with how life is being lived, I think (to bring this piece full circle and quite operational) we'll all find a bit more of the strength that Rey actually has, rather than the quality the movie wants us to see.

Why So Varied?

I'm going to start with a little story, about a teacher that I once worked with. We were tasked with planning out an entire year's worth of Middle School Social Studies curriculum. Sounds like fun, right?

Well...mostly...

My partner and I ended up having a little bit of a disagreement. This individual wanted to focus on Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome--with a little mention of India and China--while I wanted a broader view of history. I wanted to explore. I wanted...a varied view of history.

The obvious question is, why? Why do I want to take a varied view of history? Because, quite frankly, I think that it is important for my students.

But why? A critique might ask. Your compatriot was simply saying that you should focus on the basic road of Western Civilization, which is what the entire American civilization is based on.

If the topic's not part of our individual heritage, why should you care?

Because, I would counter, while American civilization is based on Western Civilization (meaning the philosophies and histories of the cultures of Europe, slowly moving further west from Mesopotamia as time goes by), that's no longer the case.

Let's look at some (be still, my heart) data.

The US currently had a population of 323,127,513 as of July 1st, 2016 (source). Let's simplify that to 323,000,000--because fewer non-zero digits make for happier numbers.

When the English first colonized the new world, the majority of the population in those colonies were from the UK. Other areas of what would become the US were filled with the Spanish, the French--at points, the Russians--and lots and lots of native Americans who would soon learn about the wonders of small-pox. Nothing makes people want to abandon settled cities like plague, and there's no plague like one you've probably never encountered. Anyway, of the people in the colonies, they had much bigger problems than education. Like finding food.

Go figure, most people prioritize food over knowledge.

So, let's skip ahead to the founding of the Republic, where our makeup is...still surprisingly homogeneous among the free population. Largely white, largely Western European, and largely protestant (side note: it just struck me as a little odd that the very west-west-west European power that started what would be the US happened to be the one west-west-west European power that is not Catholic. In terms of populations, that was not exactly likely). However, now that food is such a small problem that it can be exported without causing a major riot, education is seen as important. And, what do the thinkers of the time choose to read about? Well...everything, really.

Both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, of course, have plenty of references to Enlightenment thought. From the whole, "Life, liberty, and property," (sorry, "Pursuit of Happiness" for the edited version) to the belief in, "inalienable rights," Western thought is well represented. However, there's also references to Musselmen, a little bit of India, a little bit of China, all of these far cultures are seen as interesting to the early thinkers. However, what was taught in the schools? Well, to call it a mixed bag would be an understatement (source source). In some places education as we would recognize it was widely available. Other places had only apprenticeships, while still others had little more than private tutors for the wealthy. The subjects taught tended to be associated with the fashions of Europe, which revolved around the classics. In other words, not the sort of subject American children would be learning today.

Why did they learn these things?

Well, US education today is largely based around the idea of public education being a public good, with the ultimate goal of education to benefit society as a whole. Back then, education was more seen as a private good--with the ultimate goal being the benefit of the individual. As such, the cost/benefit for choosing what to teach students used a different metric. Also affecting these decision was that the skills students would need as adults were very different from today. For example, as computers weren't in existence yet, it would be illogical to teach the students how to keyboard. Likewise, because calculators are so common today--and calculator facsimiles making what would have long ago been daily calculations unnecessary--it is becoming harder and harder to justify forcing students to do all calculations quickly. Simple addition and multiplication problems, yes; calculated algebra and geometry, probably not.

Since the American Revolutionary War, both the demographics of the country and the skills that students will need to know have changed. Using the 2015 demographics (source), we can note some interesting demographic changes along racial lines. First, the percentage of the population that identifies as white has increased from 72.4% to 77.1%.

"Huzzah!" A traditionalist would say, "evidence that we should continue to focus on history as we always have."

"Good try, my fine friend," I counter, "but did you know that in the early part of the 20th century, Irish people weren't considered to be white?"

"So what?" Replies the traditionalist.

"Well, look again at the data, and see what I mean." The percentage of white-alone, non-Hispanic has decreased from 63.7% to 61.6%, while the percentage of white-alone, Hispanic has increased from 16.3% to 17.6%.

The definition of white as a racial group has increased to include Hispanics. And it's growing.

There is currently a discussion going on in the US, and it mostly appears across generational lines. It asks this question: are Asians white? (source) I'm not currently at that point yet--although I have no problem with the idea, I'm still just getting used to it--but the fact remains that the definition of what makes someone write is growing. In many ways it's losing its traditional definition, relating to heritage and genetic. Instead, it seems to have more to do with both position in American society and skin color as a whole. Which does beg the question: will African Americans ever become, "white"?

Sadly, that's not a question I'm going to explore now.

Instead, I'm more interested in what this expanding definition has to do with teaching Social Studies. As I said at the start, I'm more interested in teaching from a varied perspective of history, rather than the more traditional, Western-centric view (But India...you might say. Uh, British colonialism, I'm going to reply). The factors and histories that are now affecting the development of US society--I would argue--are expanding with the definition of what it means to be white. As such, I don't see teaching the histories of places such as China--or, if we're far enough along in world history--the nations of the Americas--which can lead to a great discussion of what makes a nation, a state, and a nation-state. In doing so, I don't see myself as teaching my students things that they will never need to know. Rather, I see myself as giving my students the information to understand where they come from, where they currently stand in the world, and what they can do to affect the future.

And if we don't empower students by giving their whole selves a place in the school, then what kind of a message are we telling them about their place in society?