My view from the Temple of Sin. Earlier this month I visited the Museum of Natural History, a towering, 155-year-old palace of knowledge overlooking New York City’s Central Park, and saw they’d finally taken down the giant monument to President Teddy Roosevelt that used to guard the entrance. Flanked by an indigenous American and a black American in what was clearly a pitch for racial unity at the time of its construction, political zealots have since framed the statue, along with President Roosevelt himself — and all American history — as hopelessly racist. But the museum’s facelift, I learned some moments later wandering the halls, was just the beginning of this cherished institution’s subtle transformation. Today, from the American woodlands to the deep sea, almost no exhibit covering a subject younger than a few hundred years fails to mention, with at least some small, casual note, the corrosive impact of either human civilization on nature, or white people, specifically, on human civilization. While this radical frame’s dominance over American culture is nothing new, I was curious how and when it happened here, and found my answers in a 2018 DEI directive signed by museum leadership. “The American Museum of Natural History is a global institution in one of the most diverse cities in the world,” reads their manifesto. A standard summary of radical dogma follows, with “diversity” the focus, but right there from that opening I found myself distracted by another word:

“Global.”

What a strange concept, I thought, and then I wondered: is it true? Is it even possible?