David McElroy

There are basically two competing narratives about Christopher Columbus. As we observe another Columbus Day — along with the annual arguments over him — I’d like to suggest a third way of looking at the man.

When I was a kid, Columbus was a hero. He was a brave explorer who discovered America while looking for a shorter trade route to India. His discovery led to people from European countries braving terrible danger to come to the New World and start the colonies that would eventually form the United States and give us the country we have today.

Today, the view is entirely different. Columbus was a greedy, murdering villain who is responsible for the destruction of the peaceful Native American societies that existed before he showed up. The natives were universally peace-loving and kind people who had their way of life destroyed by Columbus. If it hadn’t been for Columbus, the natives would have continued living in peace and harmony while the Europeans fought among themselves elsewhere.

Neither view is especially honest or nuanced. I’d like to suggest a third possibility.

Columbus was just another in a very long line of men of every race who have gone off in search of fame and fortune. There was nothing especially great about him or especially evil about him. Human beings have a long history of killing each other — in sometimes cruel ways — especially when they meet groups or tribes of others who are weaker than they are in some way. Look at history and see how every group of people has played the role of oppressor and the role of villain at some point.

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I’m sick of smug and condescending politicians. Maybe even more than that, I’m sick of their naive and arrogant followers. I’m sick of grown men and women shrieking at each other and calling each other names.

I’m sick of people waving a Red flag or a Blue flag and pretending that they’re anything more than two sides of the same failed and broken system. I’m sick of watching people on a sinking Titanic fight each other for control of the dead bridge of the ship.

So for my own mental health, I’m going to completely boycott the entire sick mess for at least 90 days.

For the next three months, I’m not going to read any news about current politics. I’m not going to listen to any discussions of the subject. I’m going to avoid the inane shouting matches on Facebook by people who think they’re engaging in thoughtful political debate. And I’m certainly not going to write a word about it.

If you think it’s a good idea, you’re invited to join me. I’m sure we can find plenty else to talk about. There’s the future of the world. There’s my future and your future. There’s love and need and anger and a million emotions. There’s philosophy and religion. There’s art and beauty. In other words, there’s real life — which doesn’t include partisan bickering.

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What you believe about this picture is determined by what you’ve been told about Adolph Hitler. There are very few people left alive today who can personally tell you their experiences with him, so why are you so sure that you know enough about him to have an opinion about the man?

Almost everybody today knows that Hitler was a monster. That’s what I believe. That’s almost certainly what you believe. We’ve seen all the pictures from concentration camp victims and we’ve heard his hateful rhetoric about Jews. We’ve been told that he was responsible for millions and millions of deaths. So that’s what we believe.

But why did the Germans in the picture above adore the man? Why did they see him as their hero, not as a monster? The difference is that their narrative was very different from the one we’ve been given. Because they believed a different story, they saw him as a hero.

What is a narrative? It’s just a story. When you think about what you believe — about anything — you probably tend to assume that you’ve carefully looked at all the facts and come to a rational decision. The truth, though, is that you know a tiny fraction of the facts regarding anything, even things very close to you.

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