Redaction

“But it’s an important part of history.”

This was the argument I heard from someone for spending a day visiting the Nixon Library in Southern California. From a certain perspective, that’s correct, but it’s also very limiting.

I was talking to another person, whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time, and his response was entirely about politics in his home country. Not wrong, but also very limiting.

Redaction and editing are something of an art, and something that I really appreciate at Dutch museums, is that some space is usually devoted to explaining why the particular items in a exhibit were chosen and the story the curator wanted to tell.

I don’t think a museum about Richard Nixon is particularly indicative of anything beyond his own political drama. There are so many other things in the general vicinity that tell so much more about the history, peoples, and cultures of Southern California: art museums, indigenous sites, ethnic neighborhoods, historic mission churches, natural beauty, to name a few off the top of my head.

But for some reason day to day politics bubble to the top and often win out over all other aspects of life — unless you’re strict about editorial choices. But maybe that’s just because it’s easy small talk. It’s kind of pretentious to talk about the last book I read, what I liked (and didn’t!) about the Vermeer exhibit, or how I want to start a worm compost this year.

The other extreme is equally unhealthy. I know Russians who profess, to this day, to be entirely uninterested in politics and only interested in big C Culture.

A healthy redaction covers a bit of everything, can explore contradictions and tensions, and feels like real life.