While I love historical films, books and experiences, historical reenactments of wars have always bothered me. I know that many reenactors see it as “honoring the dead”, but I don’t really think play acting an actually horrifying battle from a script, laying “dead” still for a few minutes (hours?), and then going home is honoring anyone. My brother is a soldier and I find it horrifying that someone in 100 years might recreate the violence that he has been a part of. I think it trivializes history and makes it almost seem fictional…like a play. I appreciated Little’s statement, “Why bother reenacting a 250-year old war, when Americans in 2009 can just go to Iraq or Afghanistan to see a bloody war for the empire up close?” It seems morbid to me.
In particular, Civil War reenactment is hard for me to stomach. When I was 15, I spent a summer traveling through the deep south and was shocked at the presence of so many confederate flags, “Land of Dixie” bumper stickers and Civil War memorabilia. As a born and raised Yankee, I was offended that people in America could still celebrate such a deplorable “side” of war. When I posed the question to my friend who had grown up in Mississippi, she shrugged and said “We aren’t celebrating being slave owners or fighting to protect slavery. It is simply part of our past and is still a part of our identity. It’s not about racism, it’s about being proud to be from the South and that’s what the Confederate flag represents.” I still struggle to understand that perspective. Dressing up in a Confederate uniform and reciting lines about “The War of Northern Aggression” seems to celebrate a culture that was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of American lives to protect that “curious institution.”
I am so glad that we had to read two perspectives on Wikipedia. After reading Messer-Kruse’s piece, I felt vindicated by my refusal to accept Wikipedia as a source from my students. I made plans to have them read this article at the beginning of every year to prove the fallibility of the cite. I have learned to approach many secondary sources with caution (as in school textbooks) and was appalled to learn that Wikipedia rejects evidence cited from primary sources, instead holding that, “Wikipedia is not ‘truth,’ Wikipedia is ‘verifiability’ of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that.” (Messer-Kruse) WHAT? That lemming philosophy does not sit well with me.
However, my opinion of Wikipedia softened after reading Famiglietti. Although I can not accept Wikipedia as a cited source in research projects, I do understand that the editing process in Wikipedia is quite stringent and reliable(ish). I generally tell students to use Wikipedia as a jumping off point. Get some background knowledge from the website and then do some additional research to verify. A good historian must make good use of many secondary AND primary sources.
I think the thing I was most taken aback by in the Wikipedia articles was that very idea of that Wikipedia echoes “verifiability of reliable sources” and rejects primary sources. I was outraged since historians know that primary sources are the most important resource available for historical interpretation. By choosing to forgo new scholarship/interpretation/inquiry and instead echo the most popular narrative, even if it is flawed, Wikipedia becomes a repository for the most agreed-upon narrative. I think in this way Wikipedia could itself become a relic of historical viewpoints to interpret. Of course its constant editing prevents that, ensuring that the content rides some kind of line between most “verifiable” and the actual cutting-edge scholarship.
It is frustrating isn’t it? We research not to reiterate the mistakes of the past, but to find new, interesting, and MORE accurate information.