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