Pave Paradise [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 19, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“New ideas must use old buildings.” ~ Jane Jacobs

If I’ve learned anything about my nation in this past decade it’s that we need to have a serious conversation with our past. We’re stuck in an eddy. We can’t grow up or get healthy until we reconcile ourselves with our past. All of it, the good, the bad and the ugly. A nation is not so different than an individual: it’s impossible to get where you want to go until you learn the lessons from where you have been.

In this vein, the current administration fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of preservation of historical sites and of national parks.

Or maybe they don’t. In the mind that considers people and places expendable and exploitable, there can be no reverence for the past. In fact, if everything – everything – is seen as a resource to be exploited then it is necessary to eradicate history. It is an imperative if the intention to violate and diminish sacred places.

It is a theme apparent in the destruction of the east wing of the White House, the debacle of the reflecting pool, the paving over of the Rose Garden, the eradication of the cherry trees…Extend the theme out across the nation: the shrinking of national parks, slashing the budget of the national park service, censoring and removal historical exhibits, rolling back protections of federal and forest lands. Book bans. Scrubbing DEI.

Bear’s Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante…sacred places. Sacred documents: The Constitution is our history and just like the national monuments it, too, is daily being violated, reduced. Eliminated.

It is not the first time that we have run from our history. Do you know The Lost Cause Narrative? “…a false, revisionist historical myth created by post-Civil War white Southerners to reframe the American Civil War. It sought to recast the Confederate defeat not as a failed, treasonous defense of chattel slavery, but as a noble struggle for states’ rights and Southern honor.” If you’ve been paying attention to the approved curriculum in the state of Florida you’ll note that The Lost Cause Narrative is alive and kicking.

Joni Mitchell just popped into my mind. Pave paradise, put up a parking lot. You don’t realize what you got til it’s gone.

The American Dream is slipping away. It’s impossible to get where you want to go until you learn the lessons from where you have been – and learning begins by opening both eyes and looking at the path already taken.

“…it’s not the remembered past, it’s the forgotten past that enslaves us.” ~ C.S. Lewis

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRESERVATION