The other day, while I was preparing my two-year-old son old for his afternoon nap, my three-year-old daughter looked up at me and asked what I had been working on earlier in the day. That day had been one of my workdays, a day in which I have a sitter come to watch my kids for three hours while I work in my home office.
Looking at my daughter, I gave her a sly smile and asked: “Holland, did you know mama is a doctor?”
These days we are constantly bombarded with the phrase: “Fake News! Fake News!” In the midst of it all, I cannot help but think of Michel Foucault. It seems others have thought of him too—but for strikingly different reasons. Some have pointed out that like the postmodernist school of thought, which Foucault was a part of, the concept of truth is malleable for President Trump. These commentators argue that Trump’s disregard for factual information and his inclination to question the sincerity of settled knowledge, follows the postmodernist assertion that truth is not discovered, but created.[1] Yet, as I see it, anyone who claims that Trump and Foucault seamlessly align on some kind of ideological plane have missed the point of Foucault’s philosophy entirely.
“Why am I just now learning about the Haitian Revolution, especially in a modern European history course? Is it really that significant?” She was a young student. Although I cannot fully remember, I think she was a freshman. I stared back at her desperately trying to pretend that I was not frantically searching my brain for a clear answer. The problem was not a lack of answers; on the contrary, the problem was an overflow of ideas. It was my first semester working as a teaching assistant for a course on the history of modern Europe. At this stage, I still thought that as the instructor, I was supposed to know everything and anything at any given moment. In these early days, my discussion sections felt like twice-weekly pop quizzes.
Returning to the young student, I cleared my throat, broke my silence, and insecurely delivered what I prayed was a satisfactory answer. Gazing at her inquisitive eyes and feeling the other student’s predatory stares, I explained how the Haitian Revolution is significant to our understanding of the French Revolution.[1] I continued: “The Haitian Revolution reveals the inconsistencies within the French Revolution.” Gaining a little bit more confidence, I turned the question back to my class exclaiming, “The Haitian Revolution makes us ask, ‘was the French Revolution about liberty and equality, or was it about private property?” I finished: “It makes us question the nature of revolutionary movements.”
In May 1972, several people broke into the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) headquarters in Washington DC. The DNC housed its head office in the now infamous Watergate complex. During the break-in, the prowlers planted “bugs” and photographed documents. But, the wiretaps proved faulty. So, a month later, the burglars broke into the complex a second time. And, this time a security guard caught them in the act. The guard called the police and the burglars were arrested. Initially, the entire event seemed strange. Why, on earth, were these seemingly random burglars trying to monitor the DNC’s headquarters?[1]
My husband was away for an intense two-week business trip, so I was left to care for our two wonderful, but utterly demanding toddlers on my own. Needless to say, life has been hectic. In the midst of the craziness, I have been intending to write a piece on the Watergate Scandal and its implications for the Russia investigation that is entangling our current president. Yet, something tremendous has happened over the past week and its historical importance demands our attention. (I know, I know; I keep promising a Watergate post. I will get to it, I promise!) But, first, let’s discuss the 2017 release of the JFK records.