Some Very Profound Questions From A Friend, Regarding The History Of These Times-- What Is History, And Why Not Be Part Of It?

Some Very Profound Questions From A Friend, Regarding The History Of These Times--

What Is History, And Why Not Be Part Of It?

Question: 

"Lance Rosen, Someday, Trump and all his enablers and followers will be dead. Everybody who was alive during this era will also be dead. The only way to learn about this time will be in history books. I wonder how it will be reported? Of course, there will still be admirers like people who now still revere long-dead dictators. But will the events that are happening now be able to be described with no bias? Will people be able to read about this and think "How did this ever happen?" or will history be kind to him and his cult? I know it's been said that history books are written by the winners. I really can't imagine he will ever be looked upon as being a winner. Many followers of dictators changed their allegiance once the dictator was removed. I wonder what it will take for Trump's followers to be embarrassed by their support and deny that they ever supported him?"l

My Answer:

_____ _____ these are all good questions, your most important one in my view being "how did this happen?" But the question I would start with is "what is history?" We think we know what it is, but if we are honest, we'll find it is a nebulous concept in the mostly unexamined minds of those of us who live through it, which is too often both superficial and redundant. 

Unfortunately, many have accomodated to a concept of history which is a linear progression of time, punctuated by a series of sometimes related events, which are recorded as a chronology. Names, places, dates, events, and then an aftermath which are presented formulaically. And unfortunately the large majority of people see themselves as bystanders, spectators, observers, commentators, victims, opportunists, and survivors of these events which stand out as inflection points within the timeline of their own personal life spans, and possibly a few generations of ancestors thrown in for good measure. 

In other words, most people don't see themselves as participants in making history, or as history changers. They don't believe in causality, and instead think things just happen, for reasons good or bad, and only exist in the moment. They reject the idea that history is driven by a conflict of ideas, between contending forces which are dynamic, not linear. They believe fundamentally that history is for the historians, because they can't change anything, and can only try to do two things; watch, and hope that they and their families can survive. Or today's clever cultural victims of modernist nihilism might say, "all of those generations of people in the history books didn't look like me, don't "get me," oppressed many people just like me, so why should I study them?" 

I believe that real history is intensely personal, and if we in society have a healthy relationship to it, we should see ourselves, not only our leaders, (both those delegated with our consent or not) as the primary actors, and largely responsible for its outcomes. Which means that on any given day, week, month or year when we are affected by events which seem beyond our control, we could ask ourselves some fundamental questions. 

1) How can I, as an individual intervene at some level to impact the situation to insure the best outcome, for the common good, my family, my nation, other nations, for the future? And how can I give added meaning to the contributions of those who lived in the past who bequeathed to us those things which were good, which are worth preserving, improving upon, and paying forward? 

2) Do we, the citizenry even want to do these things, or think about it at all? If not, why not? Why do we not wake up in the midst of these historic events and say, "I want to make history today, or do something within my own limited circumstances to change it, even if only in a marginal but beneficial way?"

The answer to these questions is in the majority no, to all. In fact, we are conditioned by modern popular culture to believe that anyone thinking along those lines must be in a cult. That we should be resigned to the fact that we are merely observers of history, "thrown into" the world around us (Heidegger) and that history itself begins the day we are born, and ends the day we die. (Sartre, Camus, and the Existentialists) 

"Live for the moment. It is what it is. Shit happens. History is written by the victors. History is bunk. History is the rise and fall of whatever "ism" happens to assume power, and is cyclical. History is driven by evolution, devolution, dialectics, karma, climate change, alien life/UFO visitation, 'The Force,' and the old, tired, aggressively stupid standby expression, history repeats itself." Anything but seeing history as something which is sitting on our personal plates, today, waiting for our intervention. And of course, the biggest problem here is that those figures operating within the various ruling establishments see the world, history, and the future as theirs, and while we remain as prisoners of our present, they always play "the long game."

And really, to me, when thinking about how so-called history of these times is written, if it goes badly, it will be because the majority of people living today will not have seen themselves as participants in making it, or who reject personal responsibility for its outcome, because survival, success, and self interest are primary, rather than the process of advancing ourselves to the future. Likewise, we might reflect upon whether our actions in the present are enobling those from the past who gave of themselves to secure our betterment. Are we truly too little a people to let ourselves become something other than a viewing audience? 

Fascism and the horrific criminals of the Third Reich were described by historian and author Hannah Arendt with the term "the banality of evil." Why did she use the term "banality?" Because in covering the Eichmann trial, it struck her that when this man, sitting there in his bulletproof glass booth on trial in Israel, when stripped of his rank, uniform, trappings of high office, wealth, and surrounded by the witnesses who had kept the truth of his lies and evil alive for this very day, that he was in essence a true nothingman. A bureaucrat, a gopher, a functionary of a criminal regime which empowered dull, selfish, hateful and violent members of a tribalized society, who all deluded themselves that they were motivated by future history to take the actions they did. And that was the essence of their biggest lie. They did what they did because with the exception of one supremely evil leader, they acted as followers, chosen by fate, defined by their genetics, instruments of mythological deities and heroes, wedded to their symbols, and committed to a fabricated view of history which fed their hostile violent fantasy lives, in which they were for the duration of their pervrrse existence something other than a pathetic little clerk in a mass murder machine, trying to get by. They "went with the flow" of the River Styx, which poured out its contents into the pit of Hell. 

Most historians avoid the deeper subjective issues of psychology and the long waves of culture (though some like Wilhelm Reich did take the plunge with his work, "The Mass Psychology Of Fascism," however to the point of obsession with psycho-sexual pathology alone) which determine how people think, because in the academic world, there is instead a preoccupation with tenure, book contracts, avoiding accusations of plagiarizing, and trying to analyze over-analyzed events to prove they've made a "discovery." This has served to make much recently published history just another commodity in an already over-commercialized world. There are exceptions for sure, but so few historians have integrity enough to become actors in history themselves, (such as Heather Cox Richardson, Timothy Snyder, now Rachel Maddow and Ken Burns, Doris Kearns Goodwin, to name a few) that the profession itself suffers from lack of credibility. 

So, not to be cynical, but I have to ask in response to your questions; 'will there even be a history, and if so, will there be historians to write about it? If not, then what are we ourselves doing about it as we speak? Will we, like the Germans among others of history's tragic figures, "go with the flow?" Will our nation's epitaph be inscribed on our collective headstone, HERE LIES THE USA, DIED OF LITTLENESS"  

Thank you for your profound questions and thoughts, and for provoking me to set down some thoughts of my own which are now out there, for what it is worth. 

(Photo: a history timeline. Is this real history?)