think think think...
Well, it may be that my annual Winter Gloom faded after the Solstice, as usual. But this week I've had my moments. I read through H G Wells' stuff recently. It was a more thorough run-through of Wells' science fiction than the snippets I've done in the past, and it isn't exactly the cheeriest of reading.
Interestingly enough, I also found out today that William Gibson's Blog is updating again. And what would be the first post I see, but a link to a biographical essay of his, which features Wells heavily. Again, not exactly the cheeriest of reading. But it was definitely interesting, and there's kind of an upturn at the end, when he decides that we're not necessarily "damned fools" like Wells once wrote. He never even tries to refute the "fools" part; with the cuban missile crisis, and a general overview of modern History-As-Happening he comes to dissilusionment with the idea of Civilization Ending events. We're not necessarily "damned", just a buncha' idiots. heh.
Modern History has also come up a few times in the last week. (Heh. I think that's what I'm going to miss most, moving out. The - now rare - times that my family's Dinner Table Discussions get really going. or breakfast-table, or what-have-you). I think I like Gibson's slant on History. History is always happening. It keeps happening. Unless we own a time machine, or can somehow be still living 1000+years hence, then everything happening Now affects the forseeable future we will live in - and a lot of what happens Now might still have ramafications in that world anyways. But it bears remembering that it (history) will keep happening.
I have to say that once the idea of history got into me thick skull, I never really liked the take that it's "Stuff that Happened Before" (sorry Jenn). That leads to artificial categories, "ages", and linear progressions that really fall apart when you pick at them. Yes, categories are useful, but they train you to think of the past in a way that I've never really felt comfortable with. Mebbe it's just me, but I've always thought of history as something that Now Is Built Of. Everything around you, the empty dishes on your desk. The pile of newspapers on the chair in the corner. That goofy plastic thingy you keep on top of your PC tower, or hanging from your cubicle wall... your favourite pen that's somewhere-around-here, that you can't quite put your finger on... they're all made of history. Seems pretty wacky, eh? This is how I know I'm a strange one. I mean, I find significance in rocks I picked up once that have no real defining traits I can point to except that I picked them up, and carried them around for a particular span of time. I have piles of them, I bet. They get lost, or thrown away from time to time, I suppose, but I find them important. And often I treat everything like that. Well, mebbe not everything, but you get the idea.
Or maybe not.
See, everything has a story. And that story never ends. even after that thing is dust that got pressed on a riverbed into silt overtop of a leaf that got trapped by the floods that came last spring, then dried up so that the silt is now cracked on the forest floor like the earth was flexing it's muscles and every now-and-again taking a deep breath.
jennemmer Has some rockin' pics of Drying Manitoba Gumbo, I think.
I do not, or they'd be what I'd show there.
So. Yeah. Everything's made out of history. And I don't mean to use this to make you think everything has a date-and-time catalogue you could create of events that happened to it, and courses of events changed by it. Not that you couldn't. Just that's not what I mean. Set the idea that "everything is made of history" aside for a second. Think of the most vibrantly exciting and interesting place you know. Wait - for specificity, let's make it a Modern place. Hasn't been around long. Now think of what makes up this place, what makes it be so vibrant, exciting, interesting...
That is history. that's what everything is made of. It all adds up. It all has Story. It all flows along together in Time and creates a feeling of History that you can feel on your tongue, roll around in your mouth a bit... and break your teeth on if you're not careful. And we're walking through that. Pushing it about. Being pushed. Often we're not watching, though, and miss it. Someone takes apart and modifies a cell phone. A homemade exposive device gets placed surrepticiously on a road somewhere. No one notices. It explodes, killing some soldiers. A few more people notice, but overall, they become statistics. This statistic becomes large enough to attract attention, however, or mebbe it wasn't just soldiers - there was a Cameraman and News Personality... suddenly you realise how much history was twisted into all the other modified cell-phones, radios, and other bombs that came before it.
That's a pretty grim example, but everything is like that. One has no clue what the significance is of most of what exists around them. But it does have significance. Even the boring bits of the wold are like that to me, like that chunk of ordinary dusty gravel I keep. Or that bit of broken natural glass. I'm nattering on, and likely making less and less sense by the character, but I really mean what I'm saying nonetheless. Mebbe I'm just borderline autistic or somethin', giving undue attention and significance to insignificant things.
I still think "Modern History" should be what is focused on in Highschools (for instance - FLQ? They have relevance with current events), not Dates and Names like King Louis the XVI (or was it XIV... dang). Not that those aren't important sometimes. But how can you see the significance of that history if you don't at the very least use it to look at something in the Now. Mebbe look at how the french colonial signeurial system muckered up the road-grids, and see some concrete examples of how holdovers from that system complicate Canadian Surveys. Or how the french monarchy helped shape the world of it's time, and what has come of that. What's the use, otherwise? That there was some guy? He's dead now, but he got important enough to have his name remembered? By Divine Right, so you're a sucka if you think it could happen to you?
How about comparing the British Raj with current Multinationals' economic practices (Similarities? Differences? I'm not quite sure, but I'm curious). Or even better, compare the Industrial Revolution in England with the more "recent" economic development in China, and throw a look at Post World War II Japan for good measure (HUGE differences, but they're the only cases of massive changes in how a specific economy and society fuctions that I could pull out of my butt at 12:00 at night). I know I am sadly undereducated when it comes to crap like that. But I respect anyone who isn't, anyone who can take things from a history Text and use them with regards to history Now.
Because that is where history Lives.
Interestingly enough, I also found out today that William Gibson's Blog is updating again. And what would be the first post I see, but a link to a biographical essay of his, which features Wells heavily. Again, not exactly the cheeriest of reading. But it was definitely interesting, and there's kind of an upturn at the end, when he decides that we're not necessarily "damned fools" like Wells once wrote. He never even tries to refute the "fools" part; with the cuban missile crisis, and a general overview of modern History-As-Happening he comes to dissilusionment with the idea of Civilization Ending events. We're not necessarily "damned", just a buncha' idiots. heh.
Modern History has also come up a few times in the last week. (Heh. I think that's what I'm going to miss most, moving out. The - now rare - times that my family's Dinner Table Discussions get really going. or breakfast-table, or what-have-you). I think I like Gibson's slant on History. History is always happening. It keeps happening. Unless we own a time machine, or can somehow be still living 1000+years hence, then everything happening Now affects the forseeable future we will live in - and a lot of what happens Now might still have ramafications in that world anyways. But it bears remembering that it (history) will keep happening.
I have to say that once the idea of history got into me thick skull, I never really liked the take that it's "Stuff that Happened Before" (sorry Jenn). That leads to artificial categories, "ages", and linear progressions that really fall apart when you pick at them. Yes, categories are useful, but they train you to think of the past in a way that I've never really felt comfortable with. Mebbe it's just me, but I've always thought of history as something that Now Is Built Of. Everything around you, the empty dishes on your desk. The pile of newspapers on the chair in the corner. That goofy plastic thingy you keep on top of your PC tower, or hanging from your cubicle wall... your favourite pen that's somewhere-around-here, that you can't quite put your finger on... they're all made of history. Seems pretty wacky, eh? This is how I know I'm a strange one. I mean, I find significance in rocks I picked up once that have no real defining traits I can point to except that I picked them up, and carried them around for a particular span of time. I have piles of them, I bet. They get lost, or thrown away from time to time, I suppose, but I find them important. And often I treat everything like that. Well, mebbe not everything, but you get the idea.
Or maybe not.
See, everything has a story. And that story never ends. even after that thing is dust that got pressed on a riverbed into silt overtop of a leaf that got trapped by the floods that came last spring, then dried up so that the silt is now cracked on the forest floor like the earth was flexing it's muscles and every now-and-again taking a deep breath.
jennemmer Has some rockin' pics of Drying Manitoba Gumbo, I think.
I do not, or they'd be what I'd show there.
So. Yeah. Everything's made out of history. And I don't mean to use this to make you think everything has a date-and-time catalogue you could create of events that happened to it, and courses of events changed by it. Not that you couldn't. Just that's not what I mean. Set the idea that "everything is made of history" aside for a second. Think of the most vibrantly exciting and interesting place you know. Wait - for specificity, let's make it a Modern place. Hasn't been around long. Now think of what makes up this place, what makes it be so vibrant, exciting, interesting...
That is history. that's what everything is made of. It all adds up. It all has Story. It all flows along together in Time and creates a feeling of History that you can feel on your tongue, roll around in your mouth a bit... and break your teeth on if you're not careful. And we're walking through that. Pushing it about. Being pushed. Often we're not watching, though, and miss it. Someone takes apart and modifies a cell phone. A homemade exposive device gets placed surrepticiously on a road somewhere. No one notices. It explodes, killing some soldiers. A few more people notice, but overall, they become statistics. This statistic becomes large enough to attract attention, however, or mebbe it wasn't just soldiers - there was a Cameraman and News Personality... suddenly you realise how much history was twisted into all the other modified cell-phones, radios, and other bombs that came before it.
That's a pretty grim example, but everything is like that. One has no clue what the significance is of most of what exists around them. But it does have significance. Even the boring bits of the wold are like that to me, like that chunk of ordinary dusty gravel I keep. Or that bit of broken natural glass. I'm nattering on, and likely making less and less sense by the character, but I really mean what I'm saying nonetheless. Mebbe I'm just borderline autistic or somethin', giving undue attention and significance to insignificant things.
I still think "Modern History" should be what is focused on in Highschools (for instance - FLQ? They have relevance with current events), not Dates and Names like King Louis the XVI (or was it XIV... dang). Not that those aren't important sometimes. But how can you see the significance of that history if you don't at the very least use it to look at something in the Now. Mebbe look at how the french colonial signeurial system muckered up the road-grids, and see some concrete examples of how holdovers from that system complicate Canadian Surveys. Or how the french monarchy helped shape the world of it's time, and what has come of that. What's the use, otherwise? That there was some guy? He's dead now, but he got important enough to have his name remembered? By Divine Right, so you're a sucka if you think it could happen to you?
How about comparing the British Raj with current Multinationals' economic practices (Similarities? Differences? I'm not quite sure, but I'm curious). Or even better, compare the Industrial Revolution in England with the more "recent" economic development in China, and throw a look at Post World War II Japan for good measure (HUGE differences, but they're the only cases of massive changes in how a specific economy and society fuctions that I could pull out of my butt at 12:00 at night). I know I am sadly undereducated when it comes to crap like that. But I respect anyone who isn't, anyone who can take things from a history Text and use them with regards to history Now.
Because that is where history Lives.