It’s always nice to learn that you are not living in a parallel universe after all. Or, if you are, that there are other wiser and more enlightened souls right there with you. I’m having that reaffirming experience quite a bit lately.
Most recently was this very morning when a friend sent me a link to an article by Tobias Stone: “History tells us what may happen next with Brexit & Trump.” It was written back in July and is worth reading in its entirety (https://medium.com/@theonlytoby/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-next-with-brexit-trump-a3fefd154714#.kdfluni6w) but it was just this single sentence that caught my eye: “My point is that this is a cycle. It happens again and again, but as most people only have a 50–100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s happening again.”
Just last night we had a discussion (well, not so much ‘a discussion’ and ‘an exchange’) in our very living room that touched on that very subject. I had lamented (maybe ‘bitched’) that the local paper got it wrong when they wrote earlier this week, “In early election results, it appeared that Southwest Washington voters supported Republican candidates in unusually high numbers, even in historically Democratic Pacific County.”
I pointed out (and have written to the editor) that, for its first 81 years, Pacific County was solidly Republican and that in 1932 the post-election headline in the Ilwaco Tribune said, “Pacific County Votes Democratic For First Time.” I thought (and still think) “historically” means more than just the recent history and I further thought it was worth talking about. Apparently I was pretty much wrong.
One of our Friday Night regulars took exception to my point. “Historically,” he said – and I am paraphrasing here “means in my lifetime.” There was some agreement with his point of view but mostly there was silence – no discussion at all on the subject. I was amazed. I know I’m a bit skewed in my interest in history but it simply never occurred to me that there might be an “in my lifetime” view of what the concept means. It was great to read Stone’s article and to get an articulate explanation as to the how and why of this (apparently prevalent) short-term view of history and, more importantly, what his view of the potential consequences might be.
Thanks to my FaceBook friend Melanie for sending me Tobias Stone’s article right at this particular time. I feel a little better now… but not much.
My response to the person who said, “History means in my lifetime” would have been; “Well, when I was in High School, we called that class ‘Current Events’ “. History is the background that set the stage for what is happening today. I suppose I was typical of most high-schoolers, in that I did not easily relate to things that happened decades or even centuries before I was born. I did not, at the time, see the value of learning who fought which war, who signed which treaty or why. It all seemed like memory work for a test, at which time I would spit out the answers to get a good grade. It took many years before I realized that those events of the past really were informative and relevant.
There are many lifetimes that overlap: the student has only a 16 or 18 year span of lifetime and recollections, the teacher perhaps 25 or 50 years of lifetime experience, and my grandmother had recollections going back to the late 1890’s. She is gone now, but she taught me much about past events: the great depression, the world wars, ways to cook and save in a frugal manner. These were things that I had not personally experienced, but she had, and I learned from them.
History is humanity…whether read from a book or handed down verbally generation to generation. Knowing where we came from and where our “ship” has been is important. It makes us see the bigger picture instead of just our own little space.
Thank you Sydney, for making me think this morning !
I’m having this head-snapping experience lately as well; my assumption that we share a common language in polite society—out the window—apparently phrases I regularly use to be gracious are “code” for neo-liberalist positions. Huh. Well, then…
Continuing to read and learn!