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Anyone offended by history needs to reflect on their priorities and identity.
I'm not offended that white people claimed this land at the point of a sword, and even worse, in the embrace of a smallpox blanket. Horrified, yes, but not offended. I'm not offended that the backbone of the economy for a hundred years was built on the backs of stolen people on stolen land.
I'm not offended by history.
What I am offended by is the present. I'm offended that people who have been oppressed and started out life with less than nothing have been told by the privileged elite to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like the rest of us did". That's fucking vile. I'm offended that we keep trying to whitewash confederate slave owning generals, instead of teaching who they really were, and what they really killed for, and ordered other people to die for. Be offended about what we are doing now, and use history as the reason why we should change it.
It's incredibly jarring to have the burden of knowledge while others revel in their own ignorance. As a minority and a former Marine, I am deeply ashamed and disappointed in my fellow Americans.
It's hard to really blame them, public education in the U.S. has been a nightmare for decades now. How can people be expected to learn from history if they're not even being taught to read?
I do not think the problem is education, but a fundamental trait about human nature. Education, as an institution, can only lay the groundwork; it cannot instill the intrinsic desire to learn and grow. That fire must be kindled from within, yet so many treat learning as a phase of life rather than a lifelong pursuit.
There is a deep and persistent resistance to intellectual evolution in society. A cultural thread that regards curiosity with suspicion and introspection with discomfort. Too often, people conflate questioning with opposition, and the invitation to examine one's beliefs is perceived as an attack rather than an opportunity. This isn’t a failure of education; it’s a failure of cultural conditioning, perhaps even a failure of human instinct.
Nietzsche wrote: "You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist." Yet, instead of seeking out and embracing fluidity, many anchor themselves to certainty, mistaking stagnation for stability. They prefer to defend what they are rather than work toward what they could be. This anti-intellectual obstinacy isn't uniquely American or modern; it's something that's been with us from the start. I do not think we cannot educate our way out of the problems we keep making for ourselves; it's going to have to be either revolution, or evolution.
Its still frustrating though. Doubly so when you consider what American history actually is. Yes, we were started by colonizers and slavers. We also fought a war to throw off the British crown, fought a war to defeat those slavers and eventually brought abolition. And when they weaseled their way out of Reconstruction, we took to the streets. We marched to give women the right to vote and work, and to give queers the right to marry and bodily autonomy. And now, as a fascist traitor tries to undo all of that, we are called upon to uphold the tradition of our forefathers. To sweat, bleed, cry and die, until we live up to that pledge of liberty and justice for all.
Right? Reading about European history, and that shit goes back to year 0 or further. Read American history, and it starts in the late 1400s... And that ought to tell you something real important right there.
I get the point your making, but American history goes back much further once you count the Natives; which admittedly my last comment also fucks up with
The thing that offends me about history is how we humans never learn a damn thing from it.