Closely related to my concerns about unintentional misuse of words is, of course, the intentional misuse of words. Dana Milbank of WaPo notes historian and General Ty Seidule’s (US Army – ret.) views on the subject of deliberate misuse and the glorification of one of the most infamous examples from American history:
[Seidule] told me [Milbank] of the disgust he felt when he saw a photo of an insurrectionist in the Capitol on Jan. 6 carrying the Confederate battle flag — “the Flag of Treason,” he calls it — past a portrait of Charles Sumner, the abolitionist senator nearly caned to death by Preston Brooks, a proslavery congressman from South Carolina. Seidule wanted to suit up in his old uniform and fight the Capitol terrorists. “The people who did that need to be in orange jumpsuits and shackles,” he said.
In his book, Seidule writes of the importance of words in defeating the Lost Cause lies. It wasn’t “Union” against “Confederate,” he argues. It was the “U.S. Army fighting … against a rebel force that would not accept the results of a democratic election and chose armed rebellion.” Confederate generals didn’t fight with “honor”; they abrogated “an oath sworn to God to defend the United States” and “killed more U.S. Army soldiers than any other enemy, ever.” It wasn’t “the War Between the States,” as Lost Cause mythology would have it; the Civil War was, properly, “The War of the Rebellion.” They weren’t “plantations” as glorified by Margaret Mitchell, but “enslaved labor farms.” Writes Seidule: “Accurate language can help us destroy the lies of the Lost Cause.”
So, too, can accurate language destroy the lies now being floated to justify Jan. 6.
As it happens, I’ve always been a little wary of sentimentalization, of romanticization, but I think only now do I fully realize that this is how to pull a cover over the dark features of whatever event is being romanticized. This romanticization, this lying, about the Civil War has been extremely destructive to the United States ever since 1865. Its foul brood has brought about unjustified resentments that has led to terrible crimes against black communities.
And that damage should be taken as a salutary lesson by everyone today. The WaPo article is entirely about Republican attempts to redefine the January 6th insurrection. As these fourth- and fifth-raters continue to cling to power, the work of the select panel is supremely important, for it must diagnose what went wrong for these rebellious American citizens who reacted like five-year olds to the failure of the former President to be re-elected. The most basic feature of democratic systems, the peaceful and productive transfer of power, came under attack.
Is this the result of poor civics education? The work of national adversaries determined to undermine the governmental system of the arsenal of democracy? Resentment over swift societal change (gay marriage, transgender rights)? These are just some of the potential answers to the questions the select panel must answer.
And, meanwhile, we must pay more respect to the power of language. From misusing ‘deserves’ to mischaracterizing the most miserable war the United States has ever experienced, the lack of respect for its power may be one of the most underestimated mistakes Americans have made over the centuries.
