Heritage
Part of the Working Ranch Cowboys Association’s mission statement is to “preserve the lifestyle of the working ranch cowboy.”
This idea of preservation of heritage seems to be more and more divisive with each passing day in our present culture. A high school in San Francisco recently made headlines for consideration of removing murals of Founding Father and President George Washington. The school’s name? George Washington High School.
The 20th Century English novelist George Orwell once said, “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
In the Old Testament, when the Israelites defeated a people, part of God’s command to them was to destroy their cultural relics (and often destroy the conquered people themselves). Orwell was often seen as a harbinger of futuristic dystopian ideas, but this quote about destroying a people by obliterating their history was no new idea.
While the intent in these public art memorial removal initiatives is to destroy our nation’s history is debatable, the result may not be.
It’s said that these statues represent oppression and racism, so they must be torn down. To be sure, the historical figures portrayed were not perfect. Our society and cultural norms have shifted during the course of our nation’s existence—in many ways for the better. But that does not preclude or eliminate these people as part of our history. By taking down these memorials, we are effectively ignoring a portion of the nation’s past. Ignoring and ignorance have the same root. When we are ignorant of our past, how can we move from it? Moreover, what about the incredibly positive attributes and causes some of these people championed? Polite and respectful debate is necessary for growth, but destruction and ignorance do not lead to deeper understanding—only anger.
Cowboy culture faces the same threats. If our history is ignored, covered up, or rewritten we’re doomed to lose our culture and thus the lifestyle we enjoy. The American Cowboy was made to thrive in part because of the freedoms conceptualized, fought for, and defended in the course of this nation’s history. If we love our cowboy way of life, we need to defend the historical accuracy, memorials, and respectful debates necessary to know who we are and where we came from.