Crenellated Flotsam

I don’t remember much from the history classes I took in school, which were only those I needed to get a degree in another field, but I don’t think that has anything to do with my point.

Every day, from every side, I hear people in America talking about our Founding Fathers, a group of people with whom I’m admittedly ignorant. Yeah, I know some of their names, but I don’t know very much else about them.

Anyway, to make some point, partisans usually call on one or more of these Fathers to reinforce their position. Whether it’s arguing for small government or nationwide health care, these historical people are brought up to prove whatever’s being argued.

Like I said, I can’t claim to understand if the viewpoint of the long dead person is true or not, but I don’t think it matters one way or the other. Not only does it seem that to every Founding Father there’s an equal but opposite Founding Father, but I’m not convinced what someone said 250 years ago even makes a lot of sense any more.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think those guys did a great thing in setting up this country. Our constitution is a remarkable document and not just because it’s almost completely silent when it comes to policy. It’s a great frame for running a country, and I think it’s done a pretty good job of holding up.

What concerns me is this idea that what Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, or whoever believed in 1770 is what they would think today. I’m thinking these people, as much as anyone, would be as influenced as much by their environment as they would be by any internal tendencies.

I didn’t take many psychology or sociology classes, either, but I have a hunch that we’re shaped as much by where and how we’re brought up as we are by anything. Kids learn from their parents, and either carry those same things on or rebel against them and take the other side. We all grow through adolescence and the self-obsessed twenties, and some of us stop along the way and others continue to grow throughout our lives and find their positions changing.

My point is, not everyone is static and I’m not even sure that we can say with any certainty that how anyone turned out was ever fixed. A kid raised in Portland in the 1960s might have an entirely different set of political or cultural beliefs had she been raised in Salinas or Houston.

The people who grew up in New York in 1827, I’m thinking, might not even recognize themselves in the mirror if, instead, they were raised even ten or fifty years later. I just think where and how we develop is a huge factor in determining who we are.

If that’s true, a contemporary George Washington might not believe what the one from history did. If we permit people to change, if we brought him back to life, there’s every reason to believe he might even change his mind about whatever it is he’s most known for thinking.

I guess this is all just to say that I have no idea what lesson I’m supposed to take from arguments based on these old guys.