I HAD been suffering from vertigo, so I don’t know what possessed me to climb the Wallace Monument. After all, it’s one of Scotland’s most “vertical” objects. Before I knew it, I’d been jollied halfway up the first flight of stairs, and the ground beneath me was pulsing, the stairs narrowing then widening to create a dizzying, kaleidoscopic effect. I clung to the walls as tourist kids from Japan and Australia squeezed past me.

I managed to walk up two flights before it all became too much and I ran through an adjoining door and slumped on the nearest bench.

I found myself on the second floor of the monument, in a room surrounded by granite-faced, staring men. I’d discovered the “Hall of Heroes”, a collection of busts paying tribute to the men of industry, war, science and letters who made Scotland a nation.

The Hall of Heroes is a curious exhibit in the 21st century. It’s, of course, all-male and almost completely Protestant, barring Robert the Bruce and Wallace, who preceded Martin Luther’s theses by several centuries. Most of the men represented in stone come from the 18th and 19th centuries, excepting George Buchanan and John Knox, a 16th-century duo who qualify because of their contributions to Calvinism.

The room was spinning, and the busts seemed to leer out. But despite the nausea, I couldn’t help laughing. I found its political incorrectness amusing, even charming, a reminder that Scotland actually has a long way to go before we can consider ourselves a “radical nation”. The Hall of Heroes, assembled in the late nineteenth century, testifies to a conservatism, militarism and backward-looking romanticism in Scottish culture. That culture still forms our “heritage industry”, the story about ourselves that we tell to tourists and school kids.

It was only after my visit to the Wallace Monument that I learned they’re going to add a “Scottish heroine” to the Hall of Heroes. Obviously, I can see the advantage of giving women a role in Scotland’s heritage industry, even if it a token one. But, really, I’m not sure that you can ever “fix” the Hall of Heroes.

You can’t make it representative of a modern-day Scotland, not without breaking the whole thing apart and starting again. First, you’d have to have an equal number of men and women, not just a token individual. Then, you’d need black people, suffragettes, gay people, Catholics, atheists, the labour movement.

We could tell that national story, but the road from the Hall of Heroes won’t take us to that point. The Hall of Heroes is about a Protestant, white, male, colonialist and capitalist nation in its pomp, congratulating itself on its role in Empire.

It’s weird that Victorian imperialists came to see William Wallace, Scotland’s guerilla warrior, as their predecessor. But they did, thanks above all to Walter Scott. The thinking runs like this: if Scotland had been swallowed into England in the 13th century, there would have been no coming together of equals to form the “British” Union in 1707. No British Union, no Empire. No Empire, no greatness. So, Wallace the Scottish hero becomes the root cause of the British Empire’s greatness.

The other Heroes, however, aren’t the warrior sort. The most sizeable group are noted simply for their religious role, either as general Protestant thinkers, or as founding players in the Scottish Free Church.

Indeed, there’s as many Free Church founders as inventors in this version of Scottish history. That’s a little curious, since 19th-century Scotland is spoilt for choice when it comes to mechanical genius. There’s a bust of Robert Burns and a poet or two, plus Sir Walter Scott, the historical novelist behind many of Britain’s national myths. Adam Smith, again, is an uncontroversial choice, although many of the greatest Enlightenment figures are missing, notably David Hume, who probably suffers from his (not entirely justified) reputation for atheism.

Of course, David Livingston is there. He’s noted in the exhibition for trying to “eliminate slavery” in Africa. What’s less noted is that his particular recipe for eliminating slavery – “Christianity, commerce and civilisation” – imposed a far greater slavery on the continent, and led almost directly to Belgium’s genocide in the Congo. Then there’s Thomas Carlyle, Romantic Tory satirist, opponent of democracy, and author of a book defending slavery. And who can forget Sir David Brewster, a distinguished Victorian scientist now largely remembered for his role in opposing Charles Darwin’s dangerous Theory of Evolution?

Try as you might, you can’t get from here to feminism. So, my advice is, don’t try.

The token gesture is patronising. Maybe we should instead see the Hall of Heroes for what it is: a reflection of 19th-century Scotland’s views about itself.

If you really want to introduce accuracy and balance, don’t give us a token woman. Instead, describe the men in the room accurately and with a rounded historical perspective. Don’t turn them into gods. Treat the phrase “Hall of Heroes” ironically, and teach kids to look critically on received wisdom, authority figures, and official national histories. That lesson is far more valuable.

I experienced the Hall of Heroes deliriously, which is probably just about the right state of mind. I look forward to a future Scotland that truly celebrates the accomplishments of women, minorities and the working class.

But our heroes and their heroes belong in different halls.