SORRY, HERODOTUS; SORRY, THUCYDIDES — I’M RAINING ON YOUR PARADE

By Edwin Cooney

In response to my June 16th column entitled “MEMORY LANE—SWEET DECEPTION,” one of my readers, a personal friend, gave me a good-natured scolding.

In that column I asserted that the past was sweet but inevitably deceptive, primarily because the pain and puzzle of its challenges have been resolved. Here, in part, is what he wrote:

“The past -- history – or precedent are, in my view, far better teachers than the gamble of the present; so while this is a well written column, full of wisdom, I think you fail to give the past its due. And you, a wanna-be history teacher.”

“Having said that, of course our personal perceptions, our personalities and yes, I daresay, our selective memories all too often taint the accuracy of that which is gone by, but history is still our best teacher.”

Ah! But history, written as a mere narrative absent a personal perception, is a dull or, even worse, a dead document or lesson. Hence, in keeping with my personal reputation for tact, I must assert the following:

History may be informative, enlightening and even entertaining, but history is no teacher. I’ll go so far as to say that history even lacks personality. Furthermore, history is totally dependant upon individual recollection and interpretation. In fact, Herodotus (c. 484 to c. 425 BC), whom many consider to be the father of history, was countermanded by Thucydides (c. 460 to c. 400 BC) who asserted that history was the result of choices and ideas rather than the result of mandates from the Gods.

History itself is rich with interpretation whether examined by George Bancroft, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt or even by one Edwin Cooney of Alameda, California.

Perhaps a quick look at recent history will suffice.

The great lesson from World War II was “never appease a dictatorship.” The implication of that lesson was that if one challenged a dictatorship instead of giving into it, free men and women of good will could best avoid war. The result of that lesson was the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution and 58,000 dead Americans in that unnecessary Vietnamese conflict.

Twenty-eight years ago, the American people were presented another “history” lesson, that the American people had been victimized for the previous fifty years by big government and that “free enterprise” was the working American’s best friend. By September 2008, however, it became clear that unregulated free enterprise could be as dangerous as unchecked bureaucracy. Corporate America was abandoning John and Suzie Q. Citizen in America for cheap labor in Asia and Latin America. Meanwhile unregulated bankers urged working Americans to invest in moneymaking schemes based on making money rather than the sale of goods and services.

There are people who insist that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. However, that is not what philosopher and poet George Santayana (who authored the quote in 1905) wrote. What he really said was “those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

History isn’t the past, but our story or spin on the past. I insist that “history” as we conceptualize it, seldom if ever repeats itself. The sources and lessons of its story are as varied as its characters.

The history teacher ultimately offers the student that which is recorded rather than what is learned. Recorded history is a mishmash of contradictions. All too often, a professor, politician, or preacher asserts that history tells us this or that and then dramatically proceeds to make a case that is often a combination of fact and theory—usually socio/political. However, as the late Edward R. Murrow once observed, “What free men and women choose to do with what they learn is ultimately up to them.”

As I see it, there’s precious little difference between the teacher of history and the student of history. History, as a discipline, is as void or full of practicality, wisdom or morality as are its characters.

History is packed with fascinating events and personalities, but it is ultimately a blank page—devoid of good or evil but a carrier of both.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY