History's so strong
History's so strong
History's so strong*
The song pumping out of a black Honda sitting at the traffic light as I jogged by.
Funny how an idea follows you wherever you go.
I've been thinking a lot about history lately. Mostly because a friend, Hank from book club, posted a link about Bruce Springsteen's new album and the foreword he wrote (Springsteen, not Hank. Although I have no doubt Hank could have written an equally moving, if not better, foreword) for the book, Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression, by Washington Post photographer Michael Williamson and writer Dale Maharidge.Hank noted that the photographs in Someplace reminded him of Walker Evans' work. In my smart ass reply I said the work reminded me of Dorothea Lange's. Either way, the photos are reminiscent of the work by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers hired to document America during the Great Depression, a group that included Evans and Lange.
In "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Walter Benjamin lays the foundation for his historical materialism as an action against historicity and its assumptions of historical progress. In "Thesis XII," Benjamin writes, “Not man or men but the struggling, oppressed class itself is the depository of historical knowledge.” For Benjamin the lessons of history are to be taken and learned from the everyday activities of ordinary, working class people – "…the very detritus of history." An idea we see in the work of the FSA photographers, Springsteen, Willamson and Maharidge.
That these works align with Benjamin is not the astounding part, or perhaps it is? Each of the above mentioned artists and writers have documented the struggle of the working-class. But what has been learned? Some might argue that progress takes time, after all a century hasn't passed since the FSA's photography program and the publication of Someplace. Yet, the idea that we are going around in circles, just repeating ourselves cannot be overlooked.
Writer and philosopher, George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."**
It seems that remembering history is not the problem. But gleaning something new from it is. We are repeating history precisely because we have not learned what it is trying to teach us. The FSA photographs and the Williamson and Maharidge book are just one example of this cycle and they are not a new cycle in themselves. We must ask what moment in history are they repeating and so on?
The movie was okay, too long in my opinion and, although I agree with Hank's interpretation, the storyline did seem tired. Kyle thought the movie was cliché. At the end, when Coriolanus Snow, played by Donald Sutherland who looked remarkably like a cross between Santa Claus and The Wizard of Oz (I doubt this is a coincidence), ascended a set of stairs (I won't say more than that in case you haven't seen the movie). Kyle said, "Why don't they just paint 'Zeus' across his back?"
To his thinking the entire movie was another retelling of Greek mythology. Same story with a contemporary, sci-fi look. The gods above pulling the strings of the mortals below. The ultimate puppet masters. This also can be said about Hank's interpretation of the movie, the gods (Wall St, government, etc.) pulling the strings and manipulating the lives of the working-class.
How do we break the cycle?
Something very strong is at play here and it will no doubt require a strength of character that I doubt I possess in order to change the course of history. Does it start with the individual? Is it collective, or both? I think about Marx and his proletarian revolution. To me, he overlooked one thing about the proletariat, they actually wanted to be the bourgeoisie. They wanted what they did not have.
This wanting is fodder for exploitation. The everyman is the donkey with the carrot tied to the string. Constantly moving toward the carrot, but never arriving. When disaster strikes he vows never to be fooled again, but soon enough everyman is back chasing a carrot again. Is it the fault of the 'gods' for exploiting this, or the fault of the everyman for falling for the carrot? Both. In order to change history, we need to change our patterns. We can't, as Einstein is credited for saying, keep doing the same things and expecting different results.
Unfortunately, it's a bit like being in a gunfight, nobody wants to blink and both sides want to 'draw' at the right moment, before the other guy get's the drop.
The hunger games, indeed.
* Save the Population, Red Hot Chili Peppers
** Reason in Common Sense: Volume One of "The Life of Reason" Ch 12
