Grappling with the Gray #113: Who controls the present controls the past?

It’s been said that history is written by the winners.
Today, however, history is more likely to be written by ideologues.

This is the issue that drives the discussion when 🟦 Jeff Ikler, S. Scott Mason, and • Sue Tinnish, PhD join the ethics panel to Grapple with the Gray.

Here is our topic:

On one extreme, self-styled patriots seek to whitewash the human elements of heroic figures by censoring faults and flaws.  On the other extreme, historical revisionists cast heroes as villains and villains as heroes.  Instructors also have to contend with the severely limited time they have to teach the highlights of history to students who struggle to appreciate its relevance to their lives.

One popular biography of Ulysses S. Grant provides depth and texture to a little-studied president.  But the work glosses over Grant’s drinking problem and his culpability for the Whiskey Ring scandal rather than confronting these head on.

Then there’s the 1619 Project, which makes the spurious claim that the United States was founded primarily to perpetuate the institution of slavery.  Trumpeted by the New York Times, it was scorchingly repudiated by an expose in the Atlantic, which questioned whether the architects of the project were merely incompetent or willfully misrepresentative.  And yet it is still taught in many schools.

Granted that history is not fully knowable and subject to multifarious interpretations, what steps can and should we take to provide the most comprehensive and balanced accounts possible to preserve the integrity of our collective past?  And how does our willingness to rewrite the past affect other aspects of our lives?

Meet this week’s panel:

Jeff Ikler is a certified executive career coach. He is director of Quetico Executive Career and Personal Leadership Coaching and co-host of the podcast Getting Unstuck – Educators Leading Change

Scott Mason, aka the Myth Slayer, is a speaker, podcast host, and coach working with executives and entrepreneurs to Magnetize & Monetize Professional Freedom by Dislodging Toxic Myths to Ignite the Charisma Within.

Sue Tinnish is an executive coach, employing a unique blend of soft skills and technical knowledge, as well as a Peer Leaders Group Chair with Vistage Worldwide, Inc.

#ethics 

#education 

#culture 

#accountabililty 

#leadership