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"We shall never see his like again."


The title of this week's post comes from Winston Churchill discussing Lawrence of Arabia, the person. TE Lawrence died in 1935, 4 years before World War II ravaged across Europe. Churchill was saying that he wished he had someone like Lawrence to help inspire and lead men into battle. The reverence for Lawrence was somewhat there (his sympathy for the Arabs was not well received), but it wasn't until Lawrence of Arabia came out in 1962 that his persona (and perhaps legend) became ingrained in society.

This week's post is about role-models.


Lawrence of Arabia for me was and still is to a degree, a role model. Leadership of people he did not know is one of the more daring of these characteristics that are inspiring to me. He was a good warrior both in peace and in war. A person who knew how to get what he wanted, and used those wants to help other people. These are noble traits.

As historians, we've noticed a large amount of statues that have been taken down because the people they are are not respectable people anymore. The question then becomes, can or should we still learn from such people?


The answer I believe is yes.

I think even if they might have done horrendous things, we can still learn from those people and not repeat what they did. Or maybe we could be optimistic and try to find the positive. Even though Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were commanders of a military that perhaps did not have such a noble cause, perhaps we can learn from them about courage and conviction for what you believe in. In that sense, a historian should be one to be the balancing act. They should be the one to say, "yes this person did this, but here is a lesson we can learn from them." In that sense, historians can be the greatest equalizers. Yes, no one is without flaw, but is no one without strength either?


Role models are people we look up to, are we to scrutinize them? We can, but then they lose that aura. Maybe it's time we change how we look up to people, but still find a way to respect them for who they were.


What do you think is a good way to look up to someone? Should we? How can we gain from the past if all we do is criticize it until it's nothing?

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