{"id":1014,"date":"2026-07-02T13:12:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1014"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:12:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:12:04","slug":"american-history-as-rorschach-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1014","title":{"rendered":"American History as Rorschach Test"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In May, the Florida Department of Education announced an alternative to the Advanced Placement history course that it described in a press release as \u201cfree from ideological bias or indoctrination.\u201d For years, Governor Ron DeSantis has fought the College Board, the group that administers the AP test, over how its standardized tests portray many things, including race and gender but also the motivations of the Founding Fathers. DeSantis\u2019s efforts align with Donald Trump\u2019s. The president has long criticized the Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning \u201c1619 Project,\u201d and signed an executive order in 2020 that created the 1776 Commission to promote \u201cpatriotic education\u201d and \u201cthe miracle of American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more What Would Mark Twain Think of America at 250?<\/a><\/p>\n

For its new curriculum, Florida recommends one textbook, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story<\/em>, by Wilfred McClay, a professor of history at Hillsdale College who has suggested that he dipped into high-school-textbook writing partly to counteract the influence of the enormously popular Howard Zinn\u2019s A People\u2019s History of the United States<\/em>, which more takes the approach of letting teenagers in on their country\u2019s dark secrets. McClay\u2019s approach is, to use a neutral word, brighter<\/em>. He mentions slavery plenty but does not get into gritty details, and most of the story is told from the perspective of American political leaders, who tend to be white men. The leaders, for the most part, are flawed but have good intentions.<\/p>\n

American patriotism is not just trending downward; it\u2019s plummeting, especially lately. A recent Gallup poll was titled \u201cAmerican Pride Slips to New Lows.\u201d McClay partly blames history class, which he thinks isn\u2019t teaching students a \u201clove of country.\u201d This week on Radio Atlantic<\/em>, I talk with McClay about whether to background or foreground the sins of your country, and what you gain and lose from either approach.<\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hanna Rosin: <\/strong>Happy 250th birthday, America. On this momentous occasion, I\u2019ve been thinking about how a country should be remembered, which is a fraught question right now in politics, in high-school curricula, and possibly at your barbecue. I definitely have at least one relative who will be draping himself in an American flag all day, and another who will skip the holiday entirely.<\/p>\n

Every nation has good and bad moments, so what do you foreground? And what do you lose, if anything, if you emphasize one over the other?<\/p>\n

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[Sheep noises<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Aw, that sheep is really hairy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Earlier this week, I went down to the National Mall in D.C. to go to the Great American State Fair\u2014a place that was literally advertising itself as showcasing \u201cthe very best of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rosin: <\/strong>All right, where is Florida?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>I checked out the Florida exhibit at the fair. There are exhibits for all the states, and online, many people said Florida was a standout. I saw a plastic manatee floating in its virtual habitat.<\/p>\n

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Rosin: <\/strong>Look at this moss. Pretty cool.<\/p>\n

Man: <\/strong>Hello.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Hello. Hello, manatee.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>And while I was there, I asked people about one of the Founding Fathers who is a kind of Rorschach test for this idea: Do you foreground or background the bad parts?<\/p>\n

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Rosin: <\/strong>\u200aIf I say the name Thomas Jefferson, what comes to your mind?<\/p>\n

Chloe: <\/strong>Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

Michael: <\/strong>Independence. America.<\/p>\n

Chloe: <\/strong>What about you, Mom?<\/p>\n

Lisa: <\/strong>That\u2019s what I was gonna say.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Most of the people we talked to had similar answers: Monticello. Founding Father. One guy told us that Jefferson had a dumbwaiter, which I didn\u2019t know. And then usually, there was another kind of answer.<\/p>\n

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Chloe: <\/strong>\u200aThe second\u2014this is bad\u2014slavery, because I know he was a big slave owner, and the controversies between his child that he had with the slave. I know that.<\/p>\n

Lisa: <\/strong>But then how far we\u2019ve come as a country to hopefully make advances in\u2014<\/p>\n

Chloe: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n

Lisa: <\/strong>\u2014equality, perhaps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rosin: <\/strong>Yeah. I\u2019m choosing him because he obviously leads people in lots of different places, so it\u2019s interesting to listen to how people\u2014<\/p>\n

Chloe: <\/strong>I think, well, first of all, we need to be proud of our American history, but there is also things that we need to know, that that wasn\u2019t right. And obviously, slavery was a terrible thing, and that was horrible. I think it\u2019s also important to highlight what was wrong with how he behaved and slavery, and how that was a norm, and how it shouldn\u2019t have been a norm.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Rosin: <\/strong>\u200aHi. Can we ask you all a quick question, which is: If I say Thomas Jefferson, does anything come to mind for you?<\/p>\n

Warren: <\/strong>Sally Hemings.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Say more.<\/p>\n

Warren: <\/strong>Yeah. Founding Father, but sometimes they get their hands a little dirty and did things they weren\u2019t supposed to. And as much as people wanna whitewash it, that\u2019s part of the history too. And it\u2019s kind of a stain on his legacy as well, so\u2014<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Carol: <\/strong>\u200aEven though George Washington had slaves, he treated them very, very good. Thomas Jefferson had slaves, but he treated them very, very good. He was not a bad slave owner. Everybody had slaves back then. That was the norm.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>I\u2019m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fights over history are especially intense in schools, because whoever wins over the future wins the past. The state of Florida\u2014of manatee fame\u2014recently introduced a conservative-leaning alternative to the Advanced Placement history course for high-school students. A pilot program will roll out later this fall.<\/p>\n

The Florida Advanced Courses and Test\u2014or FACT, for short\u2014is heavy on American exceptionalism, light on slave narratives. It\u2019s an approach to history that President Trump had in mind when he signed an executive order to promote patriotic education.<\/p>\n

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President Trump: <\/strong>It will encourage our educators to teach our children the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>The only textbook that the Florida FACT curriculum suggests to use is called Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story<\/em>. We\u2019re not going to talk about the Florida curriculum specifically, but we are gonna use the textbook to talk about how history should be taught\u2014with its author, Wilfred McClay, who is a history professor at Hillsdale College, a private Christian school.<\/p>\n

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Rosin: <\/strong>Do you go by Bill, by the way? I heard people call you Bill.<\/p>\n

Wilfred McClay: <\/strong>I do generally go by Bill, yeah. And I\u2019d be happy if you did.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>(Laughs<\/em>.) Okay, okay. That works.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Bill says he wanted Land of Hope<\/em> to put more of an emphasis on the Founders, on ratification debates, the Constitution, and to be, in his words, more enjoyable to read. And he wanted it to be a counterweight to other textbooks that he thought had an ideological slant.<\/p>\n

Shortly after publishing Land of Hope<\/em> in 2019, Bill says he had dinner with a lawyer who had wanted to meet with him.<\/p>\n

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McClay: <\/strong>We had a long conversation. We closed the place down, and we probably talked for five hours about the very kinds of things you and I are talking about. And he came up with this formulation that really stuck in my mind. He said, I believe that if you teach young people that they live under a bad regime, it damages their souls.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I have to admit to you, I\u2019ve never thought of it in that way. That seemed\u2014it was more dramatic, more metaphysical than anything I would have said up to that point. But I realize it is important that studying American history for an American is not the same, I think, as almost any other subject, because you\u2019re teaching them about what it means to be a citizen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>I agree with Bill that it\u2019s important to help young people be civically engaged. From there, though, it comes down to the details. When you\u2019re teaching history, what\u2019s the right line? How much bad? How much good? How much violence? How many soaring speeches? What is the right way to inspire but still inform?<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>\u200aI think that it\u2019s justifiable to have the earliest exposures to American history be not fabulistic, not phony, not fairy tales, but grounded in affection for the country as one of the sources of your being. And then as you get older, then to introduce complexity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such that you may come to the point where, I can\u2019t really be friends with this country when I know all of these things about it<\/em>. That\u2019s, I think, a legitimate outcome of education. \u200aYou can\u2019t control that. You shouldn\u2019t try to control it. But the earliest stages do seem to me to matter a lot.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of friends in the profession who write critically about early America and the Founders and Framers. And I say in a nice way\u2014I\u2019m not challenging them, but I say\u2014\u201cDo you ever worry about the effect on young people that it has to see everything debunked?\u201d They will say always the same thing, and it is, That\u2019s not my job<\/em>. But somebody has to teach that somewhere along the line. So I don\u2019t think we can be indifferent to the effects of a, let\u2019s say, a \u201c1619 Project\u201d\u2013kind of approach to American history, which I strongly objected to at the time it came out and still do object to.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Okay, so you\u2019ve gotten quickly to the heart of the matter, which is that you think too much criticism is corrosive. I mean, it sounds like what you\u2019re saying\u2014<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Too much criticism at the wrong time in the wrong way\u2014<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> \u2014is corrosive?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. Can be corrosive. Okay. I want all those qualifiers in there.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yes. Can be corrosive.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Okay.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> I mean, I know that your work can be caricatured. There\u2019s a fierce debate right now about how to teach history. So we\u2019ll just lay out\u2014<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> All my life. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>There are some sources that have a pretty explicitly Christian-nationalist telling of history, like the [PragerU] materials. That is not who you align yourself with, right?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> No. I\u2019ve done some things with Prager, but I don\u2019t align myself with that view at all. I think I would want to talk about it for a while, because I think they\u2019re not completely wrong, but I don\u2019t think America was founded as a Christian nation. I will dispute that fervently.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> And at the other end would be Howard Zinn, A People\u2019s History of the United States<\/em>, which is widely read among teenagers and does have a certain appeal. It\u2019s like, We\u2019re letting you in on secrets about America<\/em>.<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>It\u2019s history from the bottom up, labor history, history of rebellion. So that\u2019s what you\u2019re arguing against, that kind of influence.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Yeah, but not entirely. I wanna give Howard Zinn credit for one very big thing that he did extremely well, and that is to present history as a story. He\u2019s really very good at telling stories. I think they\u2019re not the right stories. They\u2019re not told in a nuanced, fair-minded way, but they\u2019re very compelling. And I think young people want to read Zinn.<\/p>\n

But I think Zinn did something\u2014and the historians all hate him. The most negative reviews of Howard Zinn were written by Michael Kazin, the longtime editor of Dissent<\/em> magazine. And they recognized, and they wanted historians to acknowledge, that he was a bad historian. Five million copies of the People\u2019s History<\/em> later, I don\u2019t know that the message has really gotten through. But as history, it\u2019s not good. As history as story, it\u2019s very good.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> So let\u2019s put in our minds\u2014let\u2019s put before us an American high-school student. And so the aim is to get that student to be interested and to have some affection with all the qualifications that you named. And the question is how to do that. So let\u2019s get deeper into an example to see what this looks like in its specifics. Thomas Jefferson is a good Rorschach test.<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>Oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>You point out, as many historians do, that Jefferson\u2019s slaveowning calls into question the legitimacy of his most resonant words, that all men are created equal. Why did you make the choice to point that out about him in your history?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, and I do it early on because he\u2019s so connected to the roots of what\u2019s distinctive about American civilization, about American political systems. I think it\u2019s a crime of omission not to bring up how complicated he is in this way. He owned slaves, but he wrote against slavery. He even wanted to have, as you probably know\u2014in the original draft of the Declaration [of Independence], he fulminates against the king for being responsible for this institution, which George III can\u2019t be blamed for that. And you don\u2019t have to get into that depth in, say, the fifth grade, which is when most students in most states first encounter U.S. history.<\/p>\n

But I think you have to acknowledge that slaveholding was a common practice among particularly the Virginians, but not just them. Benjamin Franklin had slaves. He eventually changed his mind dramatically on the subject and became a proponent of abolition, but\u2014and that\u2019s a great story too.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> So back to Jefferson, because I think it\u2019s a good template to understand this in the details, because what we\u2019re talking about is: How much of this detail do you include on each side? So you do mention the imperfections of Jefferson. You do not, however, mention Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who bore his children.<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>No.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>And who is a\u2014it\u2019s a story that\u2019s captured the imagination. I think we can agree it\u2019s\u2014<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Oh sure.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> So why not? Why not?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m one of the people who is not convinced that he was, in fact, the father. And we could have a little debate about that, but maybe leave it at that for now, that there\u2019s an indication that there\u2019s\u2014and I can\u2019t even remember all the details\u2014but there\u2019s a chromosome coming from a male Jefferson. But that\u2019s as close to\u2014the evidence that he was the father ends up being circumstantial, not really deriving from the DNA, and I\u2019m not persuaded by it.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t take it as a given. I\u2019m not out there beating the drum for an alternative view, but that\u2019s one reason I don\u2019t mention it, is that\u2019s something I\u2019m not entirely convinced of.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Although there is DNA tests showing at least her youngest son to be part of the Jefferson line.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Oh, yeah. No, I think that\u2019s right, but not necessarily Thomas Jefferson. Again, that\u2019s a separate issue that we could spend 45 minutes or more on, but if it\u2019s questionable, then I think the argument for not including it is pretty clear.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Well, my question is not specifically about Sally Hemings. I\u2019m sure you\u2019re familiar with the work of Annette Gordon-Reed.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> And what she attempts to do is bring to actual life the reality, rather than just say, He was a slave owner; he was ambivalent about it<\/em>, or, He did contradictory things<\/em>, which is addressing the issue entirely from his point of view. She tries to bring to life the reality of what that word\u2014enslaved<\/em>\u2014means.<\/p>\n

And so my question is: Do you not do that because you think it\u2019s too negative, or would cause someone to be less patriotic, that it would turn them away from their country? Because there\u2019s almost\u2014<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>No. I\u2014<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>\u2014in your books, say, what is definitively missing is any accounting of violence. There\u2019s no mention of lynchings. There\u2019s no mention of the deepest, darkest kind of negativity.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think that\u2019s actually true, but on the Jefferson question, I think\u2014and we\u2019re just gonna have to maybe agree to disagree a little bit about this\u2014but I think that one of the difficulties in writing a book like this is that you have to constantly make judgments about what to leave in and what to leave out. And there\u2019s many, many things, may not matter much to you, but that I would have liked to have said more about.<\/p>\n

But think about writing an op-ed. You can write an effective op-ed. It should be 500 to 700 words long. If you wrote everything you knew about the subject and laid out all the arguments for the position you were taking about, let\u2019s say, birthright citizenship and why the Supreme Court was right in what it decided, it would be 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 words long.<\/p>\n

Read more Is \u2018Universal Basic Capital\u2019 the Solution to AI Job Loss?<\/a><\/p>\n

You have to rule things out. And one of the things I noticed in looking at the newest textbooks is that there\u2019s been a tendency toward inclusiveness run mad, so that people, often in response to political considerations, I assume, they include much, much detail that, while not untrue, hinders the process of reading.<\/p>\n

Above all else, we have a generation in high school, fifth grade\u2014whatever\u2014college that doesn\u2019t read, and those are the people I was thinking of. And so I try again and again to uncomplicate as much as possible things that I could delve into with great complexity.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> But it seems like you\u2019re making an assumption about what a high schooler would find interesting or readable. It seems to me equally possible that a high schooler getting into the ins and outs of Jefferson\u2019s actually deepest flaws or what did or didn\u2019t happen with Sally Hemings would be eminently readable, more than, say, the debates between John William Fletcher and Jefferson. Like, that\u2019s what you\u2019re<\/em> interested in, but why make the assumption that an average high schooler would be more interested in that?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, look\u2014I could have whole sections of the book that are, like, sort of Page Six<\/em> of early America. And they might be very interesting, but that\u2019s the author\u2019s job, is to guess what his readers are most interested in. That\u2019s my job to make that judgment. And whether I\u2019ve been successful or not, that\u2019s for you to judge, and anybody else who reads the book.<\/p>\n

But believe me, and anyone who\u2019s written\u2014David Kennedy, who\u2019s written a very widely used textbook, and I talked about this once, said, The hardest thing is knowing what to throw out<\/em>. And sometimes that will depend on\u2014for example, I had someone ask me, Why don\u2019t you have anything about the Tulsa Race Massacre?<\/em> Well, I\u2019m married to a Tulsan, and I\u2019ve been knowing about the Tulsa Race Riot\u2014as they called it for a long time, and now it\u2019s the Race Massacre\u2014for a long time.<\/p>\n

But it fits into the context of urban riots all over the country at the time, so I didn\u2019t\u2014before it became highlighted as a national issue, there wasn\u2019t really a reason to give special attention to it. I might now. In fact, we\u2019re doing a second edition, and that\u2019s one decision, one of about 500 decisions, I have to make about what to include, in keeping with the fact this is something that people are now interested in that they would not have been interested in at the time, 2019, when I wrote the first edition.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about this with the mindset of a teenage high schooler now. So when you were taught history in high school, there wasn\u2019t the internet; there wasn\u2019t Wikipedia. And so people didn\u2019t have infinite sources of information where they could look up things for themselves.<\/p>\n

So you have, for example, a photo of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Tribe. You say in the caption he \u201cwas compelled to surrender a way of life.\u201d And I was thinking, there\u2019s nothing inaccurate about that, but if you just Wikipedia Chief Joseph<\/em>, you see that it was an unbelievable violent campaign, that he was specifically extremely heroic in the speech that he gave, that it was very memorable.<\/p>\n

And I did wonder whether a high schooler, looking up that Wikipedia, would think, Oh, this book is whitewashing the truth<\/em>. And that\u2019s why Howard Zinn has sold 5 million copies, because teenagers sort of like to be in on something. They don\u2019t want the whitewashed version which uses words like compelled to surrender a way of life<\/em>, which feels very euphemistic.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> I actually disagree with you about that. I think that the symbolism\u2014well, look, I can\u2019t judge whether kids would be more interested in one thing or another. I make the judgment I make. But I think it\u2019s much more important to point out that a way of life is at stake, and not just a defeat in the field of battle. So I\u2019m very happy with that. It\u2019s in a caption, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s just a caption, but I thought to myself\u2014it\u2019s this question I had about: Violence is difficult to stomach. It\u2019s difficult for everyone. And I think it\u2019s a legitimate question to wonder: How much true darkness and violence do you want to talk to a teenager about?<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s a cost to doing too little. It just feels out of touch, euphemistic, whitewashing, and there\u2019s obviously a cost to doing too much. So as I was reading your book, I was just thinking about that question and what a high schooler would find true and palatable and informative about America. And so that caption just stood out to me, as did the one about, for example, Harriet Tubman, where you talked about her experience as a slave, but there\u2019s nothing in the book which says what anyone\u2019s experience as a slave is.<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>\u200aThat\u2019s not true. That\u2019s just not true. I have a whole chapter about the old South that goes into considerable detail about that. It talks more about the experiences of enslavement than it does about the experiences of the master class.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>But did you think about this question of violence? Did you think that is not helpful in this case?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> I had no process of thinking, How much should I depict the violence of this?<\/em> I had to think about this quite a bit with, for example, the Nat Turner Rebellion, which was just really awful, but I toned it down somewhat for various reasons. I wanted to emphasize it enough that students would understand that it was this kind of event, and the stories that were told about it, that led to the clamping down on slavery that occurs in Virginia and elsewhere in the wake of that one particular slave rebellion.<\/p>\n

But this one was particularly bloody, and so I had to include some description of what happened. But I did it for the reason of making clear why there would be this reaction. And not just for the sake of depicting violence.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>After the break, we discuss: Can you be a good citizen of a country that does bad things?<\/p>\n

[Break<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> When my youngest son was in middle school, I took him to the lynching museum in Alabama, and I wrestled with that decision. The lynching museum is very clear about what lynching was, what the history of it was. And there\u2019s a legitimate question: At what age would you take a child to the lynching museum?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Yeah, I don\u2019t think we disagree about that at all. I took my kids when I lived in Chattanooga. There\u2019s a bridge that\u2019s been converted into a pedestrian bridge across the Tennessee River, and there\u2019s a spot where lynchings occurred, a significant number. I don\u2019t remember now, but I think 18 to 20, something like that.<\/p>\n

And I made a point of taking my kids there and saying, Look\u2014there\u2019s all these happy people crossing the bridge, eating their snow cones, and all this, but this was a place where these horrendous deeds took place<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But in introducing that in the wrong way, you could give them an impression that that\u2019s all that America is about, that underneath it all, it\u2019s really just a country based on violence and the survival of the stronger over the weaker, and so on and so forth, and I certainly didn\u2019t wanna do that. I don\u2019t think you would wanna do that either.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Well, so there is a question\u2014a couple of things. There is a question about whether that kind of truth is in fact inspiring. I\u2019ve heard the argument that when you present a truth, Oh, this is a country sort of with flawed leaders, but they\u2019re all well intentioned, and they\u2019re debating, and they\u2019re marching towards greatness<\/em>, that creates a passive young citizen.<\/p>\n

Whereas if you teach a young person No, this is not\u2014we\u2019re not talking about minor flaws. I\u2019m going to highlight these flaws. We\u2019re talking about primarily a flawed country, not a little bit flawed, and you can change it<\/em>, there\u2019s an argument that that\u2019s actually inspiring and causes young people to be more engaged, to not be passive, and to fight for things that are important to them. So I think it can go either way.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, there\u2019s a point that, and the late Gordon Wood was here a couple months ago, and something like this kind of colloquy was going on. And he asked\u2014I was interviewing him\u2014that\u2019s the way we set up his visit. And I was tempted, but it wasn\u2019t my role to do so, but to ask the question, and then he said the words in my mind, and the words were, Compared to what? Compared to what?<\/em> And when you say\u2014<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> You mean the country is highly flawed compared to what?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Compared to what? And of course, the interlocutor didn\u2019t really have an answer to that. He didn\u2019t mean to\u2014he didn\u2019t do it in a mean way, meaning to shut down discussion. But you always have to think about\u2014<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> But why is that an important question? Every country has its sins, and you can love your country just as you love your family with its sins and own them completely and fight for it to be better.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m understanding you. I mean, if you\u2019re talking about exposing your children to the history of lynching, the fact that lynching occurred, and it really wasn\u2019t until the Republican Party in the 1920s got on their high horse about it. And of course, the South was still solidly Democratic. But to do that at the exclusion of other things is the reverse form of, whatever the reverse of sanitization is, is lacking balance.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Although, it seems to me just as much a legitimate question to ask how to be a good citizen of a bad country. That\u2019s actually the theme of an essay that Masha Gessen, who writes often about Russia and its many ills, has asked. Is it okay to teach a child who feels this way, You can still be a good citizen of a bad country or a country that does bad things<\/em>?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s pretty hopeless. I think you can write articles in The New Yorker<\/em> about this; they\u2019re to be read by people of education and a certain age. I think teaching of children is just gonna be hopelessly confusing.<\/p>\n

Now, there are extreme situations. Growing up in Germany in the \u201930s or in the Soviet Union or Soviet-controlled regimes, as I think Masha Gessen did, those are extreme situations. But I think it\u2019s in a clearly extreme situation, the notion that your duty as a citizen lies in obedience to, in unquestioning obedience to the dictates of your government.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very bad thing to be teaching them. You have to give them a version of a kind of what\u2019s called \u201cthe talk,\u201d about how to make your way with integrity in a system that is being administered by people who are petty, sinful, selfish, malicious commissars, and to not to kind of flame out in a blaze of righteous glory, but also not to submit.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s an important moral conversation. I don\u2019t think it really applies to what we ought to be teaching young people and incorporating in the Advanced Placement history exam in this country.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> But many people think about the current administration in exactly the words that you just described. And so could you say to a child, in a situation of that family, You owe your allegiance to the idea of America<\/em>?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t. I mean, I think that\u2019s kind of\u2014again, that\u2019s a very empty abstraction, I think. And look, I knew people\u2014I know people; I knew people\u2014I know people who felt the same way about Obama\u2019s presidency. They\u2019re very different people, not the same people. And part of citizenship\u2014this may come to a real fundamental difference between us\u2014but I think part of citizenship is learning to live with results that you don\u2019t like, you maybe even abhor. But your abhorrence of the outcomes of particular elections doesn\u2019t justify your saying, Well, the hell with that. I\u2019m no longer in the authority of that<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is why January 6, in case you\u2019re thinking of going there, was such an abomination. But there\u2019s a concept that I think is lost today, and I often refer people back to Richard Hofstadter, the great American historian at Columbia\u2014<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Richard<\/strong> Hofstadter:<\/strong> Honored guests, ladies and gentlemen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

McClay:<\/strong> \u2014in 1968, when \u201cThe Bust\u201d occurred.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Hofstadter:<\/strong> The very possibility of civilized human discourse rests upon the willingness of people to consider that they may be mistaken.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

McClay:<\/strong> So he gave this wonderful speech, which I think is still applicable today, which he says that democracy demands certain kinds of virtues, and one of them is the recognition of a loyal opposition.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Hofstadter:<\/strong> The possibility of modern democracy rests upon the willingness of governments to accept the existence of a loyal opposition, organized to reverse some of their policies and to replace them in office.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Just the last couple of things. I read the book, and there\u2019s hardly any women in it, hardly any mention of suffrage. And I did think: I\u2019m trying to imagine, say, a young, Black high-school student in Los Angeles or a Native American student, and what incentive does that person have to be inspired towards patriotism by a book that really focuses on the accomplishment of political leaders who are mostly white men?<\/p>\n

So as opposed to, say, inspiring American leaders of all kinds, like a real explanation of the character of Harriet Tubman or of Chief Joseph or Americans struggled against real hardships. Like, reading this book, young high-school students who could really empathize, see themselves in it, which is important to high-school students in a real, visceral way.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, I think I can point to my experiences in\u2014I\u2019ve lectured about the book in urban settings in New York and Chicago and elsewhere. And I think a lot of Black students are drawn very much to what I\u2019ve written. But I take exception to this notion that I only talk about white men.<\/p>\n

And I give a lot of attention to Frederick Douglass. And Frederick Douglass is a fantastic role model for\u2014he was the quintessential loyal opposition. And his relationship with Lincoln, which I would have loved to have talked about more, but you just can\u2019t do it all. But somebody who was born into slavery, and his various autobiographical accounts, the way in which, for example, learning to read is so important in his development. And I emphasize this about Richard Wright, too, and others. And I could go on and on, but his emergence as a great orator. And Martin Luther King, I give a lot of attention to him. Of course, everybody does.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> But why so few women? I can barely remember a woman, like a suffragette or anybody who changed the course of history.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Well, I try not to think in terms of fulfilling certain kinds of quotas. But I do look at people that are exemplary in various ways. And I\u2014look, I do talk about Eleanor Roosevelt; I talk about Jane Addams. There was no intent on my part to exclude women, but I also wasn\u2019t going to include women just because they were women.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Mm. All right, it\u2019s the 250th birthday coming up really soon. If you could tell a young American high-school student, Here\u2019s what you should do on July 4<\/em>, what would that be?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Oh, gosh. I\u2019d say it\u2019s a free country. (Laughs<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Do whatever you want?<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. You touched earlier on something we should have talked a lot about, is that: How do you teach love of country? And that\u2019s a tough one. I mean, the whole religious tradition that you and I both are parts of different ends of, you know, You shall love the Lord God with all your heart and your mind<\/em>, and so on and so forth. How do you teach that? How do you teach these things? How do you teach\u2014you really don\u2019t. I mean, to pound love into people in the way you pound multiplication tables into them, it just can\u2019t be done.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m a journalist, and I\u2019m afraid that my way is through truth. There is no love without truth. That is obviously why I do the job I do. So for me, the more truth, the better. But I know that\u2019s not everyone\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> No, I like that. I also like that there\u2019s no truth without love. That\u2019s true also in its own way. But I\u2019m not a journalist.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> I really appreciate this conversation. I feel like we got somewhere.<\/p>\n

McClay: <\/strong>I hope so.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Bill, Professor McClay, thank you so much for joining me.<\/p>\n

McClay:<\/strong> Thank you, Hanna.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>This episode of Radio Atlantic<\/em> was produced by Jinae West. It was edited by Kevin Townsend. Sam Fentress fact-checked. Rob Smierciak engineered and provided original music. We also had music from Breakmaster Cylinder. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic<\/em> audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.<\/p>\n

Listeners, if you enjoy the show, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic<\/em> journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic<\/em> at TheAtlantic.com\/Listener.<\/p>\n

Read more A Supreme Court Decision That Might Actually Improve Politics<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m Hanna Rosin. Thank you for listening. And happy Fourth.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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