History and Now, and Beyond

In a universe of probabilities where mistakes can’t be undone, decision makers must do their best to get it right; give us their best guess based on best thinking based on the best information available to them in order to jigger the odds as much as possible in favor of a good outcome.

In a world of probabilities, enough goes wrong when they do. When they don’t, we are more likely to get calamitous, irreversible mistakes like the Spanish-American War, World War One (WWI), the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan and Iraq Invasions, …, …; or, atrocities like slavery and the mistreatment of indigenous peoples.

More than being examples of egregious aggression, the wars listed are examples of flawed decision making. Arguably, because the decision makers did not know or understand what was going on at the particular time. Whether or not by choice, they did not know or understand what was happening and why in the then-now.

To better focus the lens of history on now, we might ask ourselves:

Twenty-five, thirty years from now, what will history (books?) record as the most significant events of these current years? And, what will history say was the context in which these events occurred, i.e., their cause?

In the late nineteenth-century, the American people and leadership (and, indeed the colonial powers themselves) did not accept, perhaps even understand, that colonialism was ending, could not be continued. Likewise, the participants in WWI did not understand that the conflict was much about the inevitable end of monarchies and colonialism, the Industrial Age’s demand for raw materials and markets.

As late as the 1950s, the United States financed France’s efforts to regain her colonial empire. In the 1960s and 1970s, we fought a proxy war in Indochina in the interest of capitalism and the name of arrogance. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the Bush-Cheney Administration invaded Afghanistan and Iraq as if it were the nineteenth-century — saw war as a solution.

Misunderstood, or misinterpreted, intentionally or not, history can lead us astray. Interpreting history as ‘how it should be’ has led to calamitous, irreversible mistakes; has precluded progress. History tells us what we got right and what we got wrong; it is not a standard.

History is our rearview mirror, not our headlights. It can’t guide us forward when it is unlikely as now that the future will look like the past. History is a memory, not a crystal ball. At best, it tells us how things were—but it cannot answer the question, “How should it be?” Never could.

For all intents and purposes, history never truly repeats itself. It does provide valuable insights into our successes, our mistakes, and the reasons behind them. These insights help us better understand present events and their underlying causes (now). By incorporating this understanding — especially of current circumstances — into our thinking, we can make better decisions; decisions that improve our chances of success going forward.

For the first nearly three hundred thousand years of human existence, there was very little progress and no recorded history. Like the other animals, surviving consumed all our energies. Ten, eleven, – twelve thousand years ago, the climate stabilized, calendars were constructed, crops were planted, and civilization bloomed. Almost all of human progress occurred in this short period. It was only during this short period that each year could be expected to be much like the previous, that the past was a reliable predictor of the future. A stable climate allowed for the planning essential for all our progress during these few years. During this time, knowledge of the past was a tremendous asset.

Thanks to man caused climate change, this is no longer true — won’t be again for hundreds of years at best. Moreover, we are now fifty years into transitioning to the digital age — an era like none other before.

There is good reason to doubt that history will be of much help to us in this time of climate change, of magnitudinous transitioning; to think that understanding what is happening now is of utmost importance and that being able to see forward as far into the future as possible matters most if we are to survive as a species. There is good reason to think that the times call for new ways of thinking about politics, economics, education, …; perhaps, new ways of thinking about thinking itself.

Excepting those problems created by the troglodytic retrogrades Netanyahu, Putin, and their likes, most of today’s world-wide problems, e.g., massive migration, and increased disparity and inequality, are effects caused and/or exacerbated by climate change and transitioning to the digital age.

At best, transitioning to the digital age, dealing with the effects of climate change, arresting climate change will be difficult. Impossible if left to politicians who think of the 60s, 70s, and even further back as ‘how it should be’; if left to those who are incapable of even asking, “How should it be?”. The United States of America, indeed the world, is in desperate need of a younger generation of leaders who fully recognize the urgency of climate change, the challenges and responsibilities of transitioning into the digital age; who ask, “How should it be?”

History without context is meaningless. As throughout history, events occurring now are determined by context. Beyond our leaders and their advisors, we the people need to be able to discern and understand both what is happening and why so that we can select those leaders best able to steer our nation(s) forward in times such as these, and beyond.