Freedom and Unity
“History then is the story of those things which have to be told because at one time they appeared to be impossible.” Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
Barak Obama may be a student of politics, but he has been unconvincing as a student of history. He seems out of his depth and only marginally aware of many essentially prominent forerunners and events that paved the way to this historic hour, whether for good or ill. Perhaps it’s his age, but his spin often seems contrived and slick. We all have a spin. But, of course, tele-prompters would never lie. Though he can be a charismatic speechmaker, one wonders a little uncomfortably how he would fair, one on one, with seasoned veterans of the past century like Gandhi, Churchill, Solzhenitsyn, or Martin Luther King, Jr, much less a Stalin. The President’s visionary youthfulness is refreshing and engaging, and we might wish him well, but only as long as we are not trading the currency of proven-life experience for political naiveté or media narcissism.
Obama seems a little too close to a reincarnation of the 60s activist. The 60s were both wonderfully idealistic and pathetically childish for those of us old enough to remember. We now have aging Congressional hippies in 3-piece, tie-dye making a last grasp for the grail of government redistribution of wealth, in order to right the injustices of Camelot gone wrong. This does not quite fill the dream of the audacity of hope - perhaps the audacity of a well-organized lobbying machine. The Summer of Love has gradually turned into the Winter of Our Discontent.
A profoundly original but unfortunately largely unknown German thinker from the last generation, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, defined history as our collective memory, and warned lovingly that we were in danger of losing it as a civilization. I doubt he coined the phrase, but among key intellectual contemporaries, his writing and teaching certainly gave weight to his may-day. True history has little to do with dead facts of the past, but is the engagement with the lessons and the spirit of those heroes and battles that carry us successfully into the present and future. “...the past is still ahead of us,” as Rosenstock-Hussey would say, that is, if we learn the proper lessons from it. As the philosopher George Santayana has often been quoted, “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” The Twentieth Century is a litany of repetitive memory loss, at the cost of millions upon millions of lives. The question is, “Have we learned anything from those mistakes?”
Without being unfair to Obama, who among our recent Presidents seemed to have a real grasp of the historic hour in which he found himself. Obama seems to have a profound sense of himself on the stage of world history, but that’s not the same as saying he understands the true significance and opportunity of the moment. Certainly the gravity and stress of world events can eat the lunch of most Presidents. Who among them consciously stood firm and perhaps even gained high-ground by their understanding and wisdom as addressed to the times they inherited and influenced? The greatest Presidents and world leaders are often those who steer through the greatest crisis. It is either with rash partisan prejudice or with cautious and humble reluctance that we identify great leaders. One can even respect leaders with personal or political weaknesses when they are transcended by courage and other outstanding leadership skills.
Learning from history through discernment and the recognition of those leaders, movements, and battles seems to make the greatest difference for the good of mankind and its future. It also means pinpointing and avoiding the mistakes of the past at all costs. This takes prophetic courage rather than partisan pledges. May President Obama dig deep and honestly from the examples of the past to provide transformative change that will lead us into our future.
The importance of history is in telling the story that will transfer the truths, values, and lessons to prepare us for the future without repeating the mistakes of the past.
