Commentary: Through The Past Darkly

The other night as I watched Anna and the King on TV, I remembered that the movie had received horrible reviews in 1999, the year of its release. I wondered about that, because I was enjoying the film. Certainly, it was no masterpiece, but it wasn't worthy of the scathing reviews I remembered. After the film ended, I went online and looked-up Roger Ebert's original review, since I usually agree with him.

Anna and the King was based on the diaries of Anna Leonowens who, in the mid 19th century, took a job as teacher for the many children of King Mongkut of Siam. Mostly these diaries are famous for producing the pretty horrid Rogers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. This retelling, with Jodie Foster as Anna, was a non-musical that attempted to tell the story in a more realistic fashion.

Ebert had objected to the film because he thought it glorified a king who was actually a tyrant. Oddly, that wasn't the movie I saw. I saw a king who pretty much tried to be a fair and just ruler, even if he was prone to the occasional outburst of anger. Certainly, many of his actions would be unacceptable in a 21st century democracy, but the world was a much different place a century-and-a-half ago, especially in the corner of Asia that we now call Thailand. Remember, even the government of England in the 19th century was no bastion of democratic values.

What Ebert had done was to impose the 21st century values of political correctness on Siam circa 1860. This serves no realistic purpose, of course, but it may be somewhat inescapable. When we look at the past, we nearly always do so through the lens of the present, which is what we know. The problem is, hardly any historical figure, no matter how noble, can stand-up to the real or imagined values of the present.

When we look at, say, Thomas Jefferson through 21st century eyes, it's impossible for us to understand how this otherwise noble gentleman could possibly have owned slaves, because we don't live in his era. Our society has evolved since the times of Jefferson, and from our more enlightened state, we can't see how people could have committed horrendous acts which were once commonplace.

This is important for us to remember, for one day our present will be a past that will be looked upon with, supposedly, more enlightened eyes. Of one thing you can be certain, 2003 will look much different to the class of 2020 than it looks to us today. Much will be rewritten to support new political agendas. Much will also be forgotten. Those of my age have already seen this process happen in our own time.

Take the 1960s, arguably one of the most important eras in the history of our nation. Kids who are now in high school tell me that they are taught that the Vietnam era war protesters and those who fought for the legalization of marijuana may have had noble intentions, but were wrong for breaking the law. This, of course, supports the political agenda of socializing our children to turn them into good, clean, law abiding and tax paying citizens.

But this ignores an important political fact of the era. The antiwar and pro-pot movements of the 60s were mainly led by student radicals who had taken to heart the words of Henry David Thoreau, who had written on "civil disobedience," which is the doctrine of the duty of the citizenry to disobey unjust laws. History has praised Thoreau for having the courage to go to jail rather than pay a poll tax that was intended to fund America's war in Mexico, thereby practicing what he preached.

The radicals of the 60s brought Thoreau's ideas into the 20th century. If the prohibition of marijuana and hashish was unreasonable, they reasoned, then the citizenry had a duty to break the ban. Likewise, if the war in Indochina was unjust, then young men of draft age had a duty to refuse military service.

School board sanctioned textbooks have conveniently omitted this aspect of our recent history in favor of a view that paints war protesters and the "free pot" crowd as a group of common criminals, proving the notion that our view of the past is tainted by the agendas of the present.

Which brings us to the year 2003, and how our actions today might be seen in 2020.

President Bush has guaranteed himself a substantial place in the history of our nation. The war against terrorism, the Patriot Act, and the war on Iraq will be long remembered. By 2020, will we be more enlightened and look at the erosions of our freedoms and the adoption of a "shoot first" foreign policy with horror, much like we look back at the McCarthy era today? Or will a political agenda prevail that will cause us to see Mr. Bush as a defender of liberties that will, by then, only exist in a tired old document called the Constitution?

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