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Who Speaks for the Dead?
Mrs. Thatcher and President Reagan portrayed by puppets on the ITV satire “Spitting Image.”
When is it safe to speak for the dead? And exactly who gets to do it?
Patti Davis, who was never on the same page as her late father, Ronald Reagan, made a pronouncement the other day on how her father would have felt about Donald Trump. Ron, Jr. has done the same in the past and his eldest son, Michael, has chimed in, too.
Of the three, Michael is more politically aligned with his father. But even then, Ronald Reagan’s world basically ended in November of 1994 when he announced that Alzheimer’s had begun to ravish his mind. Saying he would be appalled at Trump’s crassness is one thing, of course, saying that he would endorse certain policy views is another.
The phenomena certainly isn’t confined to the Reagan family. You can’t hear from Alveda King without someone mentioning her famous uncle, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Like the Reagans, her lineage is the justification for the importance of her own views. And also like the Reagans, it’s better because they are contrarian in nature to the rest of the family. But no matter what pronouncements are made by either side, Dr. King himself knew nothing of the post-1968 world. Did he once accept an award from Planned Parenthood? Yes, he did. Did he know of the world created by Roe v Wade? No, he did not.
There are times when it seems obvious. Would anyone really disagree that Lady Thatcher or Sir Winston would be aghast at those who would hand Britain’s sovereignty to Brussels? But does anyone really have a right to invoke their name in that argument?
The dead should not be puppets to be manipulated into endorsing or opposing current policy questions. Honor them, admire them, but do not reinvent them.
Published in General
Well said!
Yes, agree.
Disingenuous channeling of the dead in support of media talking points is a sure way to fame and fortune. Can we categorically denounce Patti Davis (on this point) and not impugn Peter Robinson’s many assessments of Reagan and HW? One pursues their own agenda and the other seeks to honor the thinking and memory of his leaders.
And both tell us a lot about the person speaking.
@sisyphus I don’t think I’ve ever heard Peter Robinson assert certain past actions on Reagan’s part would imply endorsement or condemnation of current policy.
Ender Wiggin.
Ok, I confess. I had to look that one up.
“If Reagan were alive today, he’d roll over in his grave.”
I thought Thatcher was vocally opposed to the EU.
I think there’s a windmill over there that you can tilt against.
Some guys tilt at windmills – I just slouch against them.
Funnily enough Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, sits in the House of Commons and is a very vocal Remainer. His father was of course involved in setting up the EU.
However, one of Churchill’s granddaughters voted to leave. She doesn’t sit in the Commons so far fewer have heard about it.
Lady Thatcher has been invoked by both sides. One of her former civil servants, Charles Powell, argued she would have voted to remain. He is in a minority on that one. Her biographer, Charles Moore, is of the contrary opinion.
Very, very well said, and much overdue. The tendency of people to call up the dead to reinforce their viewpoint in current time grows increasingly tiresome. I have read several bios of Winston Churchill and numerous volumes of his own works, admire him greatly, but I also understand that he was a man of his time. By today’s standards he would not do well. I can say the same for Robert E Lee, or Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar. They were all men of their time who within the constaints of their lives performed incredible deeds. The whole thing reminds me of matching boxers or other athletes with athletes in the present world or any athlete who existed in a different time. Children speaking for their deceased parents are, perhaps, the worst. I loved and admired my father, but we were two very different people in so many ways. I could no more present his views on a subject than he could have given mine. We were products of different times and places.
There is always a fight over who gets to speak for the dead, and over who gets to forbid others from doing so. It helps to be well versed in the actual history, but it’s not the only thing that matters.
Not me. I don’t think my dad and I have ever disagreed on anything ever since I was able to choose my own bed time.
And this kind of things distract us from similar questions that are considerably more important, such as; who would win in a fight between Superman and Gandalf?
Superman, but it would go the full 15 rounds and end in a split decision.
True. A person of the past dropped into different circumstances (including a different time) would not necessarily say or do the same things that person did in his own time and circumstances. Heck, that person growing up under difference circumstances might not even be the same person we know from history.
Agree. People often say, ‘imagine what Mozart would have done with a synthesizer’. But if he was born today, he would probably say, “[redact] that noise, I wanna direct.”
Exactly my thought when I read the title.