Famed Historian Blasts ‘Narcissistic Chicken Little’ Attitudes About America

Famed historian and documentary film maker Ken Burns sat down with MS Now’s Jonathan Capehart to discuss the state of American democracy — with Burns chiding Americans for an apparent doom and gloom attitude over today’s politics.

A first look at the sit down between the pair aired Saturday on MS NOW’s The Weekend, as America celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

When Capehart asked Burns his “greatest hope” for the future, the historian naturally first looked to the past:

JONATHAN CAPEHART: What’s your greatest hope for America’s next 250 years?

KEN BURNS: It’s all there — I think, what you have to do is, we were way more divided during the revolution, way more divided during the Civil War, way more divided in the period after the Civil War, Reconstruction, way more divided during Vietnam.

So, I think we have to stop the kind of narcissistic chicken little, ‘Oh, this is the worst time ever,’ and actually realize that the responsibilities of citizenship that they handed to us require kind of muscular and active engagement, and maybe to also think of the future in the way they did about us, to say our job may mean restoration and repair right now, that’s that’s the job that lies ahead of us, and to heal the divisions.

I’ve said many times that I’ve spent the last 50 years making films about the US, but I also make films about us, that is to say, the lower case, two-letter, plural, pronoun, all of the intimacy of ‘us’ and ‘we’ and ‘our,’ and all of the majesty and complexity, and contradiction, and even controversy of the US.

It’s a beautiful thing, and if I have learned one thing, Jonathan, in all of that half century of work, there’s only us. There’s no them. Them is the construct of people who are not willing to put up with the messiness and the inclusion of a democratic process.

Watch above via YouTube.

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