You know the adage that history is written by the winners. Well, it’s re-written by the losers. Solzhenitsyn points out in one of his books on the Gulag that the Soviets removed from their history ¾ of what really happened. Like the embarrassing mutinies. Those uprising became myths within 15 or even 10 years. “No wonder some say that there was no Christ, no Buddha, no Mohammed. Then you’re dealing in thousands of years” (Gulag 3, 228). But today I think the history is being re-written by what historically is the lowest rung on the intellectual ladder – fiction writers.
Did anyone think in Henry the V that Shakespeare was giving them history? Or Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was reportage from the 1930’s? Or even in our TV era, that there really was a Lone Ranger who ran around the West masked and with an Indian named Tonto?
For several years I’ve been hearing numerous pundits opine three things about Gen Xers: 1) How bored they were with history in high school. 2) How they didn’t learn anything there. And 3) how much they have learned from watching hours of the History Channel. I was concerned that the upcoming generations would only know history via the History Channel which should be required to have a disclaimer like horoscopes used to have in newspapers: This is for entertainment only.
However, my fears were somewhat alleviated around 2008 when The History Channel switched to airing (and erring) scripted reality series. They are the folks behind such trenchant shows as American Pickers, Pawn Stars, Forged in Fire, Swamp People, and Mountain Men. I limit the list to these because I used to take my daytime naps to them till the station quit airing them. They are all the same melodramatic, solipsistic, and inartistic show. But then in 2013 came “Vikings”.[i]
Who knew that the Vikings wore eye makeup like Kiss? Shaved parts of their heads like yesterday’s rappers, today’s LGBTQs, and tough guys do? Who knew that real Vikings had women warriors and rulers like the make-believe Amazons? Who knew that 20 centuries before LGBTQ was popularized it was accepted as normal?
I wasn’t alone in noticing these things. Although Netflix’s took away the ability for viewers to post comments, you can still find places for them on the Internet. There are purported scholars reviewing “Vikings” based on their expertise. Vikings did use eye makeup and tattoos on the face for a fear factor. They did have styled hair-dos, and while they did have shield-maidens they had nowhere near the power, prestige, or the ruling roles portrayed so prominently in the series. I suppose such gaffs could be classed with six-shooters having 10 shots or criminals waiting to rack a shotgun shell into the chamber till they get inside the bank. But none of the reviews I read mentioned the next gaff, and it’s this gaff that made me love the show.
Who knew the much-feared Vikings were Pro-Life? A mother will not allow the infant’s father to kill the child even though she knows the child will never walk. The high priest will not allow a pregnant woman to sacrifice herself to be a servant in the afterlife for her dead mistress. Why? Because the unborn child can’t express its willingness. Yup, that’s how the pregnant priestess refers to him. Too bad ELCA, Methodist, Presbyterian, Et. al. pastors can’t do that today. They speak of tissue, a group of cells, protoplasm. They will call the unborn child anything but what he or she really is.
We can’t control who writes history, but we can control where we get history from. With that in mind I give you 3 giant’s on whose shoulders you may wish to stand. First, from a sainted St. Louis professor we read, Christianity has a ‘two storied’ view of history. A heavenly one where earthly history is really made. “It has often been noted that the Bible really has no vocable corresponding to our ‘history,’ which, as a discipline divorced from theology, is a child of the Enlightenment (Ezekiel, I, Hummel, 514-5). Second, from Chesterton. He says aside from “the religious interpretation of history” there is no other interpretation (In Defense of Sanity, 281). Finally, I commend to you both Augustine and the 20th century author Charles Norris Cochrane. Augustine attacked the theory of cycles in history as “‘those argumentations whereby the infidel seeks to undermine our simple faith, dragging us from the straight road and compelling us to walk with him on the wheel; arguments which if reason could not refute, faith could afford to laugh at.'” “To the Christians, of course, nothing could be more abhorrent than the theory of cycles” (Christianity and Classical Culture, 483).
[i] WARNING: Netflix’s initially said it was MA for gore, violence, and language. I can’t remember what episode or even season it was but more or less out of the blue nudity and sex were evidenced. I found that odd. Be forewarned.
