Why We Need McCullough Now
New York is drowning in people who think they know everything. We walk around like we invented the world, acting superior to anyone who came before us. It’s a dangerous mindset that leaves us blind to our own mistakes. The late historian David McCullough knew this trap better than anyone.
He passed away four years ago, but his warning still hits hard. In his book “The American Spirit,” he collected speeches that cut through our modern ego. He reminded us that the past wasn’t a joke to mock, but a hard road our ancestors walked. We owe them a debt we keep forgetting.
The Real Work of the Founders
McCullough didn’t just write dry facts; he told the stories of real people. He spoke to Congress about the White House, noting how much the city has changed. He told them, “These beautiful grounds did not exist” when the building first opened.
He painted a picture of a world that felt completely foreign to us. “It was a different setting, it was a different country, and it was a different time,” he said. He urged us to stop judging the founding generation with our modern eyes. “Let us not look down on anyone from the past for not having the benefit of what we know, or allow ourselves to feel superior,” he wrote.
The real lesson was about their struggle, not their glory. McCullough argued that we have to understand the fear and discomfort they faced every day. “We have to take into consideration, for example, all they had to contend with that we don’t even have to think about,” he noted. It wasn’t easy, and it required “hard, hard work.”
A Remedy for Self-Importance
Here in the city, we suffer from a massive dose of self-importance. We think our problems are unique and our solutions are genius. McCullough called history an “antidote to self-pity and self-importance.” He knew that too many people today are obsessed with themselves.
When we read about the real flesh-and-blood people of the past, they get bigger, not smaller. “The more we learn of that founding generation of Americans, and I mean the real flesh-and-blood human beings, not the myths, the larger they become,” he wrote. We need to humble ourselves by learning from their lives.
McCullough advised graduates to read for pleasure and “to learn from the lives of others.” He believed that the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. It’s a simple idea that our loud, boastful culture hates. We need to stop acting like we’re the smartest people in the room.
