A speaking to the converted…

Our lives are shaped and dictated by the forces of the past,
yet not the historical past that we can study in libraries,
but our infinitely old personal past that remains hidden.

All we have is the present, but once that present become past, our present choices join the forces that shape our future.

The point is there ain't no point - Cormac McCarthy.

History matters to all of us in Australia and the rest of the world. Sadly, new despots in the US (Biden) and the EU (Marcon, Von der Leyen, Sholtz, Karamanlis) are ignoring history in their policies towards the Ancient Macedonian Kingdom and the Republic of Macedonia. They are conducting cultural genocide while pretending to be liberal democratic leaders informed by history. The best defense is to use historical records and to develop new research to counter their depraved strategies.

An interesting article. The discipline of history has changed since I studied it in my dim and distant youth. Some of this is for the better – there is more emphasis on the lives of ordinary people and less on the processions of kings and wars that bored me in my teens.

But mostly I think it is for the worse. Post-modernism has led to traditional historical methods emphasising balance, objectivity, and respect for the facts and primary sources being replaced by ideologically driven efforts to buttress a particular narrative of how we got to where we are. Both sides in the “history wars” were guilty of this.

It may be that perfect objectivity and balance were always unattainable objectives. But having largely abandoned them, historians are much less useful than they once were in helping us to understand the present by exploring the past.

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Dear Steven (the author),

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You wrote :

1. « We like to believe that we are the architects of our destinies, masters of our fate, and creators of our futures. »

You employ the first-person plural, “we”. I find that a little too presumptive, Steven. I think the first-person singular, “I”, would have been more appropriate.

I am inclined to think that my parents were the architects of my existence and that I was the prime contractor in the realisation of their project. But it doesn’t seem to have worked out quite as planned. Perhaps the concept was a little too ambitious, or maybe I failed to execute it according to specifications. Whatever the case – I am what I am.
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2. « To ignore history is to navigate blindly … let us not forsake the wisdom of the past ».

The further we look back, Steven, the more we encounter human ignorance and explanations based on belief, superstition, and mythology. Our present-day knowledge and understanding are greater than the knowledge and understanding of our predecessors – which could be why Thoreau cynically commented : “Never look back unless you are planning to go that way”.

History is what we know today of what our predecessors experienced in the past. It is today’s wisdom that counts, not any “wisdom of the past” that may or may not have existed.

Anyway, Steven, whichever way you look at it, the past has ended, we live in the present, and the future never comes.

So, “in the shadow of the past”, and the dawn of the present, let’s throw some light on the future !

What time is it ?

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