Bret Stephens / 1619

[Azrael]

Long essay here.

Opinion | The 1619 Chronicles

I emailed her to ask if she could point to any instances before this controversy in which she had acknowledged that her claims about 1619 as “our true founding” had been merely metaphorical. Her answer was that the idea of treating the 1619 date metaphorically should have been so obvious that it went without saying.

Might have left it at that. But of course does not.

At least he doesn't invoke the National Association of Scholars.

 

[Vombatus]

I don’t understand this “all or nothing” type of thinking.

Why can’t we all acknowledge that it was a part of what got us to where we are today, and part of what makes us “us”?

 

[Azrael]

I think there are legitimate questions of historical scholarship with the original 1619 Project - as Stephens points out. And history is in many ways more malleable than any of us would like.

But the whole thing was so quickly politicized it was hard to distinguish error from agitprop. Or constructive criticism from counter-propaganda.

And the ways the Times chooses to edit pieces online after the fact is problematic.

 

[Alma]

Long essay here.

Opinion | The 1619 Chronicles

I emailed her to ask if she could point to any instances before this controversy in which she had acknowledged that her claims about 1619 as “our true founding” had been merely metaphorical. Her answer was that the idea of treating the 1619 date metaphorically should have been so obvious that it went without saying.

Might have left it at that. But of course does not.

At least he doesn't invoke the National Association of Scholars.

What did you think of the essay?

 

[Azrael]

What did you think of the essay?

I think it's a fair summary. And I think he lands it fairly, by saying that some of the attacks on the piece are legitimate, but that others are not.

I'd have liked some more introspection or elaboration as to how the 1619 Project became a hobbyhorse of the aggrieved right.

 

[Songbird]

2 and the foul for Brett ...

She then challenged me to find any instance in which the project stated that “using 1776 as our country’s birth date is wrong,” that it “should not be taught to schoolchildren,” and that the only one “that should be taught” was 1619. “Good luck unearthing any of us arguing that,” she added.

Here is an excerpt from the introductory essay to the project by The New York Times Magazine’s editor, Jake Silverstein, as it appeared in print in August 2019 (italics added):

“1619. It is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth. What if, however, we were to tell you that this fact, which is taught in our schools and unanimously celebrated every Fourth of July, is wrong, and that the country’s true birth date, the moment that its defining contradictions first came into the world, was in late August of 1619?”​

Now compare it to the version of the same text as it now appears online:

“1619 is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth. What if, however, we were to tell you that the moment that the country’s defining contradictions first came into the world was in late August of 1619?”​

 

[Alma]

I think it's a fair summary. And I think he lands it fairly, by saying that some of the attacks on the piece are legitimate, but that others are not.

I'd have liked some more introspection or elaboration as to how the 1619 Project became a hobbyhorse of the aggrieved right.

It's more critical of the lead editor than Hannah-Jones. And, based on reading that, it seems right.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Of all the in-house people to criticize the project, was using the whitest man in America really the right choice? It's just not a good look.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Of all the in-house people to criticize the project, was using the whitest man in America really the right choice? It's just not a good look.

This is exactly the problem with where they were coming from in the first place, I think.

Both journalism and scholarship, when done right, are concerned with getting to the truth. It shouldn't matter if he's a he, she, white, black or a martian.

I'm not discounting the whole 1619 project, but it seems pretty clear that it began with a construct and then the people working on it seemed determined to make the history they were presenting fit their predetermined construct.

I'm not just talking about this essay. There was a history professor, an expert on slavery in America, who they went to to fact check and then ignored her pushback on some of the things they had written, including that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery in America, which she says isn't true.

If this is about accuracy, truth, etc. (whether you want to call what they did history or journalism), it wouldn't matter one whit if the person who wrote that is male, female, white, black, etc. All that would matter ix whether he has a legit criticism.

Unless the idea is to push a construct and shout down anyone who questions it. ... which is where a lot of people who liked the project have taken it, and that hurts the project itself. Which answers @Azrael's earlier question about how this became a hobbyhorse for the "aggrieved right." Maybe it's worth questioning if the project itself was a hobbyhorse of sorts -- more concerned with the narrative than trying to find a more honest context around the basic idea -- and that brought out the narrative-makers who didn't like what they created.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

You or just about anyone else would have been a better choice to make those points than Bret Stephens.

 

[Azrael]

This is exactly the problem with where they were coming from in the first place, I think.

Both journalism and scholarship, when done right, are concerned with getting to the truth. It shouldn't matter if he's a he, she, white, black or a martian.

I'm not discounting the whole 1619 project, but it seems pretty clear that it began with a construct and then the people working on it seemed determined to make the history they were presenting fit their predetermined construct.

I'm not just talking about this essay. There was a history professor, an expert on slavery in America, who they went to to fact check and then ignored her pushback on some of the things they had written, including that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery in America, which she says isn't true.

If this is about accuracy, truth, etc. (whether you want to call what they did history or journalism), it wouldn't matter one whit if the person who wrote that is male, female, white, black, etc. All that would matter ix whether he has a legit criticism.

Unless the idea is to push a construct and shout down anyone who questions it. ... which is where a lot of people who liked the project have taken it, and that hurts the project itself. Which answers @Azrael's earlier question about how this became a hobbyhorse for the "aggrieved right." Maybe it's worth questioning if the project itself was a hobbyhorse of sorts -- more concerned with the narrative than trying to find a more honest context around the basic idea -- and that brought out the narrative-makers who didn't like what they created.

I should have been clearer.

By "aggrieved right" I mean the usual suspects who condemned the 1619 Project without ever reading it, and who wouldn't have known what was debatable in it even if they had.

I don't disagree the 1619 Project has a point of view. How well it supports that point of view is arguable.

Lots of people are still angry with Howard Zinn.

 

[Azrael]

It's more critical of the lead editor than Hannah-Jones. And, based on reading that, it seems right.

Her lead essay has been the thing most often - and most aggressively - challenged in critiques of the whole project.

The entire mess really illustrates why big newspaper projects need better fact-checking.

 

[Alma]

You or just about anyone else would have been a better choice to make those points than Bret Stephens.

Are you under the impression the NYT appointed him to do it? I’m not.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

They certainly didn't tell him not to or spike his column. So that's tacit approval to me.

 

[Alma]

They certainly didn't tell him not to or spike his column. So that's tacit approval to me.

Right. But when you suggest Bret Stephens is the wrong person to write this, I wondered if you thought if someone else - not Bret - should have.

Do you agree with the premise of his argument?

 

[Regan MacNeil]

I honestly don't care that much. I haven't read the project or Stephens' rebuttal. I have only so much bandwidth in my life and this has not been a part of it.

I was just commenting on the optics of having their whiter-than-white Republican columnist rebut a project on slavery.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

But to further answer your question, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with any of their op-ed people tackling this. If the NYT wanted this rebuttal, they could have farmed it out.

 

[Azrael]

Historians argue with historians about history, as Stephens points out here:

In a pair of lengthy editor’s notes, Silverstein has defended much of the scholarship in the project by citing another slate of historians to back him up. That’s one way of justifying the final product.

Yes. Yes it is.

 

[LanceyHoward]

I think there are legitimate questions of historical scholarship with the original 1619 Project - as Stephens points out. And history is in many ways more malleable than any of us would like.

But the whole thing was so quickly politicized it was hard to distinguish error from agitprop. Or constructive criticism from counter-propaganda.

And the ways the Times chooses to edit pieces online after the fact is problematic.

I have not read the 1619 project but suspect that the writers overemphasized the contributions of the people their subjects, in this case blacks. Historians often do this, as do feature writers in newspapers.

What makes the 1619 Project unusual is that it tends to overstate the contribution of blacks in American history. And this has not happened very much.

There has been a lot of history written that trys to justify the Civil War. The people condemning the 1619 project seem to have no qualms about Jefferson Davis being more highly regarded in American history than the Radical Republicans.

 

[Dog8Cats]

The 1619 Project is a thesis in search of evidence, not the other way around.

I confess I haven't read the 1619 Project ... I think I have a pretty good grasp of the wrongs done to minorities in the U.S. If what I gathered glancing at Stephens' critique is true - some scholars refuting the content, resistance to a 360-degree examination of the history of the topic - my suspicions about the the genesis of the project seem confirmed.
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