Perpectives on history

I was just thinking about the Western notion of decades as distinct historical eras - the Roaring 20's, the Dirty Thirties, etc. I haven't seen that concept in literature before the thirties. There's the idea of the 'Gay Nineties', but were they saying that in 1895 or twenty years later? I'm not sure. Certain decades do seem to have brackets around them - like the economic crash of 1929 and the start of the second war at either end of what we call 'the Depression'. I can't decide whether this 'decade-consciousness' is a sign of the lack of historical perspective, or of acute historical awareness.

The Western world lacks perspective in relation to societies whose members can trace their lineage back for generations, or whose national boundaries and ethnic ties have existed for millennia, as in China or the Middle East. This is more obvious in the immigrant nations of North America. The idea that change is rampant, more radical and faster-paced than ever, is widespread. It is, however, based on a limited set of criteria, and on the awareness of technological change. The focus of analysts and commentators has been set to magnify the rapid movements of individual cells, and the larger historical beast made up of those cells has been forgotten. The same slow movements that are perceivable in history - the rise and fall of nations, the impact of geology and climate on human settlement, the slow development of consciousness - are still progressing. The laws that rule animal populations are at work on humanity (as per 'Straw Dogs', by John Gray which I will review here shortly), and affect our thinking, our evolution, and our emotional lives. These broader movements are not noticeable in analyses of per-capita car ownership, the length of the working day, the incidence of certain cancers in industrial cities, and the voting tendencies of university graduates... except by extreme inference. But that is generally the depth of focus we can expect. We do not like to think of ourselves in the historical perspective: it makes us feel too small. The insignificance of the individual as revealed by a historical, ecological or geological world-view is not welcome in hero-oriented Western thinking. Economic glory achieved through the endless repetition of meaningless tasks by frantic workers cannot be sustained if the workers accept that everything they do will be forgotten and destroyed. Glorification of the individual doesn't make much sense when one realizes that every hero from Jesus to Hitler will be forgotten, and that they only rose to prominence by embodying principles of human interaction that will exist as long as humanity does. The heroes with their glory and their horror, and the brilliant or corrupt paradigms they incarnated, will have no memory or meaning when cockroaches rule the planet. Even now, we remember the King of Qin in the country that bears his name, but do we really know him, or only his name? He completed the work that had been going on for generations - the unification of all the warring kingdoms of the region - and as such he, too, was merely the embodiment of a historical paradigm.

I digress.

There is also a certain historical self-consciousness that is evident in the naming of decades as historical epochs. It is the result of the constant self-referential analysis that is part of the 'news'. Everything is categorized as it happens, sometimes before, by specialists with acute historical self-awareness - but again, awareness based on a short-term view of history. This stems from the general over-intellectualization of the Western consciousness. Intellect is analysis, categorization, summation and dissection. Therefore everything that exists must be put into a category, the categories must be compared to one another, and then the comparisons must be analyzed, and the results of the analysis put into a category, and so on.
The idea that what we are now is so different from what we were ten or twenty years ago is freeing - or would be if it was true. Individuals change, and the faces on the t.v. news are replaced, but the institutions that employ individuals, and which are the motivating forces behind the faces on the news, do not change so rapidly. Westerners, our institutions, and humans in general, are just as self-centered, rapacious and violent as we were 20, 30, 50, or 500 years ago. The tools have changed, but the minds wielding them owe more to our primate past than an utopian future.
Political and economic struggles might be reflected by the length of skirts or hair, but they are not limited to such temporal factors. There has always changing trends in fashion, though they were once much slower (buttons were once the cutting-edge symbol of wealth and success, and a set of clothing was expected to last for years). But now the changing fashions are seen as exemplifying distinct historical periods and social attitudes. This despite the current melange of styles, fashions and attitudes. If a decade can be thought of as representing a certain attitude, then one can now dress in clothes representing that attitude. The decade and its fashions have come to represent a certain zeitgeist, instead of the ideas being rooted in their era. This is further proof that the ideas and attitudes we try to categorize by decade are not limited to that time, but are still active and alive.

People in all parts of the political spectrum try to weaken their opponents positions by relating them to a period of the past, preferably one with negative connotations; therefore, leftists refer to their adversaries as 'fascists', rightists refer to theirs as 'communists'. One hears accusations of 'hippy ideals' versus 'McCarthyism' in current commentary. The subtext is always that the ideas have already been dealt with, defeated, or forgotten, despite the obvious truth that every version of political and social function is still a viable choice, and every version has its supporters. Fascism, communism, totalitarianism, socialism, capitalism, democracy, anarchy and religious fanaticism: these are all part of our current reality, and possibly our future. They are, after all, mere names for the systems humans try to impose - always temporarily - on the free-flowing chaos of reality. Those who try to dismiss their opponents positions as belonging to the past are blind to the reality of who they are, and what each of us is: we are everything that has happened since our great-grandparents time, and everything that will happen for the next several generations, as well as all that exists for ourselves now. Our reality is the Industrial Revolution, which is still happening. Our reality is mass communications and the mass killing of modern warfare. Our reality is an increase in abstract knowledge and an increase in the pace of life - both of which are ongoing processes. Perhaps I mean to say that the broader view should be our reality. In practice, it seems that we are completely unaware of historical processes, and blind to any responsibility for future generations. In this way, we are again part of a process that has been changing us for decades.

But change is ongoing...

Redundancy in Nature

It's said that each person has their place, their task to accomplish, their thread in the great tapestry. That's not to say that everyone is needed, though. Creator does not require anything from Creation. We have free will: we can carry our task as far or as short of completion as we wish, and live or die by the consequences of our actions. Others will take up the necessary where we have left it, and the necessary will always be done. Nature is mother to necessity.

There are more dimensions to the pattern than we know; there is always a Plan B in the cosmic workings, and if Plan B should become action, then it will splice perfectly with Plan Epsilon, already in effect. That is the key to redundancy in nature: the complexity is such that it can only be understood if approached with humility, and the clear knowledge that one is a pixel on a screen, trying to understand the film being portrayed by the entire television. But in the case of nature, once the pixel dies, it will be replaced by another that does the job just as well.

All things change. Patterns shift like light refracted through a spinning jewel. The variations are infinite. You'll see how perfectly it functions once you acknowledge that you are not needed.

Another Eggers quote

Another quote from Dave Eggers on why to share, in his imitable style:

Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
© D. Eggers, Vintage Books February 2001
pg. 10

"We share things for obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers - one or all of the above constitutes the motivation behind everyone with a personal ad, a website, a magazine, a radio show. All good."