TT #8 – HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PAST

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INTRODUCTION

Time for THursday THirteen #8, and I’m still having fun. Further, I’d like to thank everyone who’s posted comments over the weeks. Your input is always appreciated, whether with good comments or bad.
This week I’d like to take my somewhat off-beat mind on a journey through history. Like most things, I’ve got my ideas on it. Indeed, I’ve a few opinions on why history happens like it does. Let’s see if you agree.

COUNTDOWN

13. They say you have to know what happened in the past so as not to repeat the same mistakes again. This is quite true, but it leaves out something important. Namely, why things happen. This requires more than history. It requires us to look at the processses behind it.

12. The first thing to understand about history is that it is a terrible guide to what happened in the past. The first reason for this is that ‘history’ is old contemporary events, initially left as a record by those people who had the most power to have their ‘version’ stand the test of time. Hence, history is mainly the version of the victor.

11. The second important point about history is that it tells us more about the present than the past. By this I mean history is constantly re-written by modern historians who place today’s values on the past. Hence, history becomes a continually changing process, forever reinventing the past.

10. So, the first processes we have to understand about history is the process by which history is recorded and analysed. It is, basically, lies. Hence, to understand history, you have to read deeper than what the historian tells you.

9. In order to feel important, the historian delves deeper and deeper into specific events of history, so that we know everything about the characters involved (points 12 and 11 excepted), including the colour of their toothbrush. In many respects, this is pointless. First, their voluminous tomes put people off history. And second, it does not allow the overall patterns of history to become evident.

8. True historical analysis should be about such patterns – processes in history that seem to repeat. Now, this can be a dangerous affair. People like Marx identified such patterns, and it led to communism, totalitarianism, death. So, in searching for patterns, we must realise that it is only a theory, not a reality, and in all things, knowledge should be moderate.

7. One thing to understand about the past is that, contrary to what we think about our advancement, nothing changes except culture. Below culture, we’re all exactly the same. Now, you may say this isn’t true. For instance, we no longer believe in an ethereal, non-existant higher entity like God. No? Okay, what would happen if everybody had to pay off their debts? The world would go bust, ‘cos the money isn’t actually there. Rather we’re ruled by an ethereal, non-existant higher entity called Credit.

6. The con that we think different comes from the science revolution, beginning some 400 years ago – which is, itself, interesting. Prior to this, most of history was worked around the idea of the supernatural, i.e. religion. Science banished religion, but rather than being ‘rational’ today, we’ve simply see-sawed from one extreme to another. To realise this would be a marvellous understanding of the processes of history. It would tell us that we could now have the knowledge to find a true balance betwen these two mentalities.

5. The ‘culture’ of the past has often changed, and when it does, it is usually down to a book – think Bible, Newtons’s Principia, Marx’s Das Kapital. This book will echo the frustrations of the time, and a person, or a movement, will come along and change the way we view things. This is the moment the paradigm changes, and a new ‘culture’ of history will inevitably rise.

4. This new idea will fuel certain personalities, who will become fanatical about the new idea. By force, or theory, they will impose the idea on the people, but by the very nature of their psychology, the idea will be tinged with their own brand of fanaticism. Hence, at every turn of history, the new idea is radical, and as such, it will begin to build up frustrations in the populace – which is, of course, the process through which the new idea eventually rises, as shown above.

3. Does this out a general theory of advancement? I think it does. It tells us that historical change has frustrations built into the system, guaranteeing that every phase of history will end in revolution. Frustration seems to be the driving force of social and cultural evolution.

2. Frustrations begin to be noted by people at a specific point in the process. A new idea can lead to a new empire or philosophy. This gives people meaning and direction. As long as an impulse to further the idea is abroad, the people go along with it. But eventually the momentum ceases. Decisions become based on pragmatism, and mere problem-solving the only ideal. Basically, this period comes at the end of the system. Oh dear. Rather pragmatic nowadays, aren’t we?

1. Am I as bad as the historian, imposing my views on history like this? Yes! But does it make sense?

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

WINDOW ON DEATH

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WINDOW ON DEATH

He was walking, slowly, the weight of the world upon him. It was night, and the dark shrouded him like a veil of death.
He had to stop by the shop window. His legs could have carried him no further. He looked at the window, but not through. What was in there had no interest for him. Only what was happening in his mind. This was of another order. Stark. Vivid. Yet, at the same time surreal.
A picture formed in the window, and reflected back to him.

And a tear formed.

The door opened and she came out. She seemed so full of life, and so beautiful, her long blonde hair, her shapely figure, her sheer elegance, tinged with that mystical sexuality.
The tear ran down his cheek. She had been unfaithful, and always there was eventually a price. But …
He saw it as if a shadow floated and stood close to her. Momentarily, she looked in that direction, but as the gun materialized from the shadow, the shock hit home.
And seconds later, she lay dead, a pool of blood around her.
The image disappeared from the window, but the tears continued to flow.
How long he waited before he heard the door open, he didn’t know, but she seemed so full of life, and so beautiful …
He turned as he raised the gun …

© Anthony North, April 2008

SNAP IT

We do so love our cameras,
snapping that picture true,
wherever we are, it’s taken,
no matter what we do;
They decorate our albums,
our lives laid out thus,
everything about it,
reflected back at us;
But sometimes I wonder what madness,
as we stop and take,
‘cos while we’re playing photographer,
in the event,
we don’t partake

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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THE POWER OF CELEBRITY

I’m often scornful of celebrities. We seem to be infatuated by them, and the more our infatuation rises, the more extreme and bizarre their behaviour seems to become. It makes some people wonder if it will ever stop.
Of course, it all seems so pointless. But could it be that celebrities play a vital role in modern culture? I think they do – and it isn’t an enhancing role. Rather, it helps to tie us up in chains of consumerism.
On one level, celebrities are more ‘perfect’ than the average person. Of course, this isn’t true, but their beauty, etc, makes it appear so. And the upshot is, we spend, spend, spend to emulate them, not realizing that perfection is an unreachable goal.

But they also work on a psychological level.

They are open with their problems, the abuses they’ve suffered, and in this they appear to be repositories for our angst. Like cultural psychotherapists, our own problems are reflected back to us.
This power over the wallet and psyche fulfils another vital function of super capitalism. Whenever they do something you can guarantee the picture is all over the media. Indeed, there has been an explosion in media alongside the celebrity’s rise.
Big Biz likes this. For the bigger the media gets, the more ads Big Biz places. This is, infact, a control mechanism. For if Big Biz withdrew ads from any one media source, that source would be struggling to survive. Hence, the media doesn’t risk it, and only reports on news friendly to our consumer culture.
We seem to be informed a lot about celebrity, but not much else. This is why.

© Anthony North, April, 2008

DOES THE DEVIL HAVE A HALO?

The history of the paranormal has been plagued with the Devil and his cohorts of Demons. Offering a direct link between phenomena and culture, perhaps we need to understand just what the Devil is.
In one sense, he is the fallen angel, forever causing trouble, and in another he is a Jungian ‘archetype’ – the trickster, forever to be found in various cultural clothes throughout world mythology.

He is also the guy with whom we have a pact.

Sell your soul to the Devil and you get rewards – but don’t worry, it will come at a price, eventually. And in this sense, he is part of our psychology. Our urge to do wrong, knowing it is – well – wrong.
In a variation on the theme, the pact can lead to possession, where the Devil or one of his friends takes you over, and you are either influenced to do bad by this supernatural entity, or blatantly possessed, complete with red eyes and green vomit.

And here, too, we can attach a non-supernatural tag.

We can argue, rather than supernatural possession, the person is taken over by split-off elements of his own mind. But this continual fascination with such demonic influences is rarely discussed.
This is a problem with paranormal research. Researchers and enthusiasts often chastise the scientific community for their intransigence – they’re only interested in ‘how’, not ‘why’ – but this mentality exists in this community as well.

The Devil won’t go away.

And for a supposed supernatural ‘force’ to be continually experienced in the paranormal, it must have a reason for its existence. We can, of course, blame culture for this. After all, it is culture that maintains stories of the Devil. But we can go deeper still.
A peculiarity of our existence is the fact that we advance. This is the process of history itself, forever changing the focus of culture and society. If we didn’t do so, we would not have evolved our society in the way we have.

Why does social evolution occur?

I think the central element of change is that we are never happy with what we’ve got. Rather, any social system has in-built frustrations that give us an urge to change what we’ve got.
The things that make us frustrated are the things we label ‘bad’, or even ‘evil’. They represent existence at its worse. And in seeing such bad things around us, we can learn to act in the opposite, thus being good.

In this sense, we need to see bad around us in order to BE good.

Without this influence, there would be nothing but amorality. And in aiming to be good, we see the light that becomes the advancement of our humanity, our society, and ourselves.
In this sense, we require temptation and adversity. It is, in essence, the ‘fuel’ of our social change and advancement, working on both the individual person and society as a whole.
Thus, the Devil is outed for what he really is. He is the engine of change – an essential element of ourselves. And in this sense, he is also an influence above us – not of the supernatural, but of evolution itself.

© Anthony North, April 2008

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