Last Thursday, three Winston Churchill scholars gathered together in Trout Auditorium to discuss the legacy of the famous Prime Minister. These panelists included Dr. Larry Arnn (Churchill’s official biographer), Dr. Sean McMeekin (an apparent supporter of Churchill), and Dr. Madhusree Mukerjee (an apparent Churchill detractor), who all debated their personal insights into Churchill’s character on one of the tensest Zoom calls I’ve ever seen. However, while Dr. Arnn and Dr. Madhusree landed verbal punches on one another to the amusement of the crowd, Dr. McMeekin stumbled upon an amazing insight.

“Hey guys,” he managed to interject between the vicious beatdown. “Churchill died 57 years ago.” The crowd went silent as the entire point of the event became null. After all, who wants to talk about dead people? This revelation left the expert mute out of shock. What was their life’s work worth if it was about dead people?

There were several highlights of the event before the revelatory reveal, such as:

• Dr. Arn showing off his 365-day calendar of Churchill’s “greatest hits”
• Dr. Mukerjee quoting from her book, citing a CD of “Ghamdi’s Best” – 1932
• Dr. McMeekin displaying the length of his book by displaying a picture of him using it as an anchor and nearly sinking a rented fishing boat

It was an interesting event full of bickering, but nevertheless, it ended on a surprising note as Churchill’s death appeared to rock the panelists to their core. 

That reminds me, with their guiding stars constantly dying, what was the use of historians and biographers anyway? Who needs an expert to the past when we could just look it up ourselves? Those Google and Wikipedia sources are credible enough. History can’t change, but we continually make better observations on everything based on our current cultural values. The Confederates were always bad, but Lincoln was a tyrant who didn’t want equality either. The Union army didn’t fight for abolition, no matter what the Emancipation Proclamation says. The Founding Fathers may have created our nation, but they were flawed too; Jefferson and Washington were climate-change deniers who should absolutely have had their statues torn down. 

Just because we see history for its flaws and wrinkles doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from it. After all, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. And those who do know history are doomed to watch as others repeat it!