What Great Historians Can Teach Us About Life And How To Live
Lessons from the past may save us from the unprecedented speed of the present and future
Do you ever get the feeling our world is changing at an ever-shortening pace?
Technology might have something to do with it. Months ago, I watched a lander from India touch down on the Moon’s surface via my cellphone. It’s a staggering achievement in a brief period; not to mention seeing it in the palm of my own hand.
It’s a sign our tools and knowledge are becoming that much more powerful, building upon themselves in ways which we’re not exactly prepared. While our devices have antiviruses and safety protocols, our psyche has no parachute.
As we blast forward, it naturally takes our view from what lies behind us. And right now, some lessons from the past might due us good in our lightning-fast world of social media, online dating, and twenty-four-hour news cycles.
For many, the past is boring and archaic. But great historians have lessons to share for the modern age — many of which may be the parachute our soul needs in this time of rapid change.
Our first lesson begins with the original historian.
Herodotus, Social Media, And Our Current News Cycle
Herodotus is the ultimate wanderer and wonderer according to Edith Hamilton in her book The Greek Way. She explains he set forth to travel as far as humanly possible in his time (the fifth century BC). She calls him “the first sightseer in the world.”
Hamilton says the word “history” means investigation in Greek. And that’s what Herodotus did.
Upon his journey, he took note of everything he saw and the stories of people he encountered, leaving himself out. Inadvertently, he created what we’d later call “history.”
In Herodotus’ age, he had to work to investigate and write his history, seeing things for himself. But we’ve forgotten this. Social media and the various twenty-four-hour news factories crank out “content,” which they often don’t spend enough time researching.
Usually it’s just one news source quoting another news source repeatedly without checking the veracity of the story. Social media does even less. In our time, it’s still up to us to investigate like the first historian so long ago.
And talking about history, a historian from the modern age has a better way to view it.
Walter Benjamin And Dealing With The Past
Walter Benjamin was a famous literary critic and intellectual from Germany whose world was turned upside down during World War II. Not only was he Jewish, but a supporter of Communism. In other words, he was a prime candidate for extermination by the Nazis.
He fled from Germany to France and rebuilt his life, only for Hitler to follow him there. His final escape wasn’t successful. Benjamin struggling with a heart condition, hiked a mountain trail from France to Spain. But the Spanish closed their border. As the certainty of a concentration camp loomed on the horizon, Benjamin took his own life.
One of his last pieces was called On the Concept of History.
In it, he compared history to an angel. It helplessly watches chaos before it, as a series of calamities and bodies pile up. A strong wind silences its voice and presses its wings in the other direction, where it can’t see. This is past, present, and future.
Benjamin might say the past is unchangeable and the future is unknowable, so keep this in mind within the present. We have the gift of foresight when it comes to history, so we know the “calamities” ahead.
But just as the future is unknown to us, it was similarly unknown to previous generations too. So, we should keep this in mind as we analyze them because we’ll be analyzed in a similar fashion by our descendants with their foresight. Especially in an age of nonstop change.
While this is a bit dark, a married duo of historians has a more positive spin.
Humanity And History Aren’t Terrible: Ariel And Will Durant
“Behind the red façade of war and politics, misfortune and poverty, adultery and divorce, murder and suicide, were millions of orderly homes, devoted marriages, men and women kindly affectionate, troubled and happy with children.”
— The Lessons of History, Ariel and Will Durant
If you spend any time studying history, you might be persuaded to think humanity is awful. History is endless wars. If not this, then individuals or entire groups getting screwed over in some horrible way.
But you’d get the same view if you only watched the news and never left your home. In their book above the Durants say, “History as is usually written is quite different from history as usually lived. The historian records the exceptional because it is interesting.”
And they’d know. Will and Ariel spent fifty years writing the Pulitzer prize-winning history collection called The Story of Civilization. In all, Will Durant himself had over thirty books credited to him and traveled around the world — even personally witnessing the Russian Revolution.
And speaking of revolutions, Will says most in their youth excitedly work to stoke them (including himself). But in his final work Fallen Leaves, he says, “Successful revolutionists soon behave like the men they have overthrown…Hence history smiles at revolutions as understandable reactions but unprofitable and transient.”
The Durants in The Lessons of History also echo the needs for both the radicals and conservatives within a community; the gifts of each hold a society together. They go on to say:
“…The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it…It is good that the old should resist the young and that the young should prod the old. Out of this tension…comes a creative tensile strength…”
Furthermore, the vices we deride ourselves for pursuing today were once values of a different era. For instance, hunter-gatherers prized fats and sweets for survival. However, they were limited in supply. Now, they’re plentiful and our bodies still value them to our detriment in the modern day.
In fact, the entire idea of “history” is more than a warning device, it’s a beautiful learning tool. The Durants eloquently state:
“To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man’s follies and crimes…the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, philosophers and lovers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing.’’
Now, let’s see how all these lessons apply to our fast-moving world.
History As A Protective Parachute For Our Overwhelmed Minds
“No one man, however brilliant or well informed can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society. For these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.”
— The Lessons of History, Ariel And Will Durant
Technology is and will continue to change our world at an unprecedented pace. Obviously, the economic and societal changes will be massive. But what about our minds? Where do we mentally go in this whirlwind of change?
Well, some great historians can give us some ideas.
For the constant deluge in the twenty-four-hour news cycle: We’ll need Herodotus’ tool of investigation. In other words, it’ll be up to us to compare sources. We’ll have to do research ourselves to separate speculation, incorrect information, and hold our news sources to a higher standard.
For our difficulties in dealing with the past: Benjamin gives us the image of his angel. It reminds us the past is unchangeable, plus the future is unknowable. So, we should extend some courtesy to ancestors before us, as we’d want the same given to us by descendants. It doesn’t mean we excuse genocides. Just realize the common bad decisions were made by people without foresight, like us.
The Durants teach us history as written is different than it was lived: Most people went about their days living quiet lives — like us. A functioning society needs both conservatives and radicals. But the revolutionaries that want to tear everything down often become the tyrants they plan to replace. Finally, history isn’t dismal, it’s a beautiful learning tool if you know how to look at it.
-Originally posted on Medium 8/29/23