Politics & Power Quote by Larry McMurtry

McMurtry’s jab lands because it treats “historical ignorance” less like a personal failing and more like a civic habit, almost a built-in setting. The line “Backward is just not a natural direction” sounds like a description of posture or eyesight, which is the point: America’s relationship to the past is framed as physical discomfort, an instinctive recoil. He’s not accusing Americans of being unable to learn history; he’s accusing the culture of refusing to stand still long enough to need it.

As a writer who made his name dissecting the mythology of the West, McMurtry is especially tuned to the way Americans prefer narrative to record: we love origin stories, not origins. The subtext is that national identity here is powered by motion - expansion, reinvention, the next deal, the next frontier - so looking back threatens the whole brand. “Backward” isn’t just temporal; it’s moral and political. To look backward is to confront conquest, slavery, broken treaties, boom-and-bust capitalism, and the ways progress was subsidized by someone else’s loss. Easier to keep the camera facing forward and call it optimism.

The phrase “remains a national characteristic” adds a dry, almost anthropological chill. This isn’t a temporary lapse tied to one election cycle or one school curriculum fight; it’s recurring infrastructure. McMurtry’s intent is less to scold than to puncture a self-flattering story: a country that prides itself on pragmatism can’t be pragmatic about its own memory, because memory would demand accountability, not just ambition.