The Fault in Our Heroes

In the age of the Internet, once-glorified idols fall. In an era of the 24-hour news cycle, formerly upheld individuals are summoned from their hallowed depths of revered obscurity and examined by social analysts, pundits and those random guys in the comment section of Yahoo News. Sometimes these individuals make it out of the fire; many times they do not.

Now, a recent Daily Princetonian op-ed has highlighted the way in which a particularly revered figure on Princeton’s campus is flawed beyond reasonable doubt. Woodrow Wilson’s discriminatory and often blatant segregationist views are evidenced by various quotes and policies that the former Princeton and U.S. president long supported. In response, several have contested that all humans are flawed and therefore, we cannot reasonably condemn those figures who we deem to be flawed by modern standards. If we went along with this method of thinking, they argue, there would be no one left to revere. I beg to differ.

One of the first problems with this notion is that we must indubitably revere anyone at all. There are very few figures now about whom everyone agrees. Despite this, there are several individuals whose disturbing hobbies, misdeeds and beliefs we would soon like to forget. When people bring up George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, how many people do you know actively remember that both were slaveholders? That Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps? The list goes on and on, as it should; there is no denying that indeed every figure of which we can think is flawed in one way or another (and if we can’t think of their flaws, don’t worry, they’ll soon come out).

While some are able to recognize that no individual is worthy of unquestionable praise, this way of thinking is abnormal. Many of us in the United States have been trained to think in certain dichotomies. If we are lucky, we are able to break free of these polarizations and understand people and circumstances in a nuanced way. This is not to say that the misdeeds of individuals should be neutralized away, but rather that we dismount those figures that the vast majority still cannot look at from a leveled perspective.

The question here is not whether we should condemn these individuals, but how.

When we allow certain figures to remain unchallenged in their problematic beliefs and actions — even if it is with the benefit of retrospect — we are essentially warranting them. In failing to properly acknowledge their faults, we are indirectly accepting these faults as parts of our present culture. It may be argued that no one is allowing these figures to remain unchallenged deliberately.

It may have been easier to accept ignorance as an excuse in the past, when information was less accessible. However, according to the International Telecommunication Union, 3.2 billion people will have access to the Internet by the end of 2015, including 85% of the developed world. This gateway allows access to information that would have been difficult to obtain fifty years ago. For many of us, there is no longer an acceptable excuse.

Yet, most of us appear indifferent about the negative aspects of some of the world’s most revered figures. I admit that many times I find it more convenient, for example, to forget that Gandhi may have held negative sentiments against South Africans. I would rather remember him solely for his Indian independence movement. However, when we do this, are we truly learning from history? We are not perfect beings and it is likely we never will be, but where better can we look for answers to a greater future than from what we can denounce from the past?

Holding every last one of our heroes accountable for their misdeeds is not a very fun task, but it is one we must aim toward if we want to further learn from history. Each of us is flawed, and for this reason we can begin the complicated road toward teaching and understanding history in ways that do not make heroes out of people, but makes people out of people — all of us flawed for different reasons, whose offenses are as impactful as our virtues.

Imani Thornton is a sophomore from Matteson, Ill. She can be reached at it4@princeton.edu.