Self-flagellating national history is as self-centered as triumphalist history

Evidence

It is no longer fashionable or acceptable for American historians to insist that the United States is the center of the world and the source of all that is good, from freedom to motherhood to apple pie. It is, however, perfectly acceptable to insist with the same self-centered arrogance that the United States is the source of all evil. Only we make mistakes or commit crimes, because—by unstated implication—only we make decisions or cause events. The rest of the world is passive and inert, and its fate is determined by what we do. In this sense, the currently fashionable self-flagellatory school of history is, at the very least, as arrogant and self-centered as the more traditional kind of self-serving history. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1820

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core inversion — that self-blame assumes the same agency and centrality as self-praise — is a genuine paradigm shift about how we should read critical national histories.
• XREF: connects to: Patriotism requires truth-telling about a nation’s flaws — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 211