Documentarian Rachel Boynton’s Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are) is the latest well-meaning attempt to get to the bottom of our great national disagreement over the meaning of the events of 1861–65. Watching it, I realized how completely done I am with the last decade of polite liberal discourse about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and slavery. I say this as a frequent participant: I am just not sure what all this talking has done.
“This is a film about storytelling,” the movie, which is now streaming on Peacock, begins—an observation that lost its punch long ago. OK! Put aside the fact that all history is, to varying degrees, “about storytelling”—how could it not be?—and grant the idea that the history of the Civil War has some particular claim to narrative indeterminacy. Now what the hell do we do when some people in our country want to tell a self-pitying, wrongheaded “story,” one that shows the deep lack of empathy in their hearts? One that displays the same racist lack of fellow feeling that their ancestors once used to justify separating parents from children? That’s what I want to know.
